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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1143-h.zip b/1143-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d801f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/1143-h.zip diff --git a/1143-h/1143-h.htm b/1143-h/1143-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e69347 --- /dev/null +++ b/1143-h/1143-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7353 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Notes on Life and Letters</title> +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Notes on Life and Letters, by Joseph Conrad</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Notes on Life and Letters, by Joseph Conrad + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Notes on Life and Letters + + +Author: Joseph Conrad + +Release Date: March 25, 2005 [eBook #1143] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1921 J. M. Dent edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>NOTES ON LIFE & LETTERS</h1> +<p>Contents:</p> +<p>Author’s note</p> +<p>PART I—Letters</p> +<p>BOOKS—1905.<br /> +HENRY JAMES—AN APPRECIATION—1905<br /> +ALPHONSE DAUDET—1898<br /> +GUY DE MAUPASSANT—1904<br /> +ANATOLE FRANCE—1904<br /> +TURGENEV—1917<br /> +STEPHEN CRANE—A NOTE WITHOUT DATES—1919<br /> +TALES OF THE SEA—1898<br /> +AN OBSERVER IN MALAYA—1898<br /> +A HAPPY WANDERER—1910<br /> +THE LIFE BEYOND—1910<br /> +THE ASCENDING EFFORT—1910<br /> +THE CENSOR OF PLAYS—AN APPRECIATION—1907</p> +<p>PART II—Life</p> +<p>AUTOCRACY AND WAR—1905<br /> +THE CRIME OF PARTITION—1919<br /> +A NOTE ON THE POLISH PROBLEM—1916<br /> +POLAND REVISITED—1915<br /> +FIRST NEWS—1918<br /> +WELL DONE—1918<br /> +TRADITION—1918<br /> +CONFIDENCE—1919<br /> +FLIGHT—1917<br /> +SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LOSS OF THE <i>TITANIC</i>—1912<br /> +CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE ADMIRABLE INQUIRY INTO THE LOSS OF THE <i>TITANIC</i>—1912<br /> +PROTECTION OF OCEAN LINERS—1914<br /> +A FRIENDLY PLACE</p> +<h2>AUTHOR’S NOTE</h2> +<p>I don’t know whether I ought to offer an apology for this collection +which has more to do with life than with letters. Its appeal is +made to orderly minds. This, to be frank about it, is a process +of tidying up, which, from the nature of things, cannot be regarded +as premature. The fact is that I wanted to do it myself because +of a feeling that had nothing to do with the considerations of worthiness +or unworthiness of the small (but unbroken) pieces collected within +the covers of this volume. Of course it may be said that I might +have taken up a broom and used it without saying anything about it. +That, certainly, is one way of tidying up.</p> +<p>But it would have been too much to have expected me to treat all +this matter as removable rubbish. All those things had a place +in my life. Whether any of them deserve to have been picked up +and ranged on the shelf—this shelf—I cannot say, and, frankly, +I have not allowed my mind to dwell on the question. I was afraid +of thinking myself into a mood that would hurt my feelings; for those +pieces of writing, whatever may be the comment on their display, appertain +to the character of the man.</p> +<p>And so here they are, dusted, which was but a decent thing to do, +but in no way polished, extending from the year ’98 to the year +’20, a thin array (for such a stretch of time) of really innocent +attitudes: Conrad literary, Conrad political, Conrad reminiscent, Conrad +controversial. Well, yes! A one-man show—or is it +merely the show of one man?</p> +<p>The only thing that will not be found amongst those Figures and Things +that have passed away, will be Conrad <i>en pantoufles</i>. It +is a constitutional inability. <i>Schlafrock und pantoffeln</i>! +Not that! Never! . . . I don’t know whether I dare boast +like a certain South American general who used to say that no emergency +of war or peace had ever found him “with his boots off”; +but I may say that whenever the various periodicals mentioned in this +book called on me to come out and blow the trumpet of personal opinions +or strike the pensive lute that speaks of the past, I always tried to +pull on my boots first. I didn’t want to do it, God knows! +Their Editors, to whom I beg to offer my thanks here, made me perform +mainly by kindness but partly by bribery. Well, yes! Bribery? +What can you expect? I never pretended to be better than the people +in the next street, or even in the same street.</p> +<p>This volume (including these embarrassed introductory remarks) is +as near as I shall ever come to <i>dêshabillé</i> in public; +and perhaps it will do something to help towards a better vision of +the man, if it gives no more than a partial view of a piece of his back, +a little dusty (after the process of tidying up), a little bowed, and +receding from the world not because of weariness or misanthropy but +for other reasons that cannot be helped: because the leaves fall, the +water flows, the clock ticks with that horrid pitiless solemnity which +you must have observed in the ticking of the hall clock at home. +For reasons like that. Yes! It recedes. And this was +the chance to afford one more view of it—even to my own eyes.</p> +<p>The section within this volume called Letters explains itself, though +I do not pretend to say that it justifies its own existence. It +claims nothing in its defence except the right of speech which I believe +belongs to everybody outside a Trappist monastery. The part I +have ventured, for shortness’ sake, to call Life, may perhaps +justify itself by the emotional sincerity of the feelings to which the +various papers included under that head owe their origin. And +as they relate to events of which everyone has a date, they are in the +nature of sign-posts pointing out the direction my thoughts were compelled +to take at the various cross-roads. If anybody detects any sort +of consistency in the choice, this will be only proof positive that +wisdom had nothing to do with it. Whether right or wrong, instinct +alone is invariable; a fact which only adds a deeper shade to its inherent +mystery. The appearance of intellectuality these pieces may present +at first sight is merely the result of the arrangement of words. +The logic that may be found there is only the logic of the language. +But I need not labour the point. There will be plenty of people +sagacious enough to perceive the absence of all wisdom from these pages. +But I believe sufficiently in human sympathies to imagine that very +few will question their sincerity. Whatever delusions I may have +suffered from I have had no delusions as to the nature of the facts +commented on here. I may have misjudged their import: but that +is the sort of error for which one may expect a certain amount of toleration.</p> +<p>The only paper of this collection which has never been published +before is the Note on the Polish Problem. It was written at the +request of a friend to be shown privately, and its “Protectorate” +idea, sprung from a strong sense of the critical nature of the situation, +was shaped by the actual circumstances of the time. The time was +about a month before the entrance of Roumania into the war, and though, +honestly, I had seen already the shadow of coming events I could not +permit my misgivings to enter into and destroy the structure of my plan. +I still believe that there was some sense in it. It may certainly +be charged with the appearance of lack of faith and it lays itself open +to the throwing of many stones; but my object was practical and I had +to consider warily the preconceived notions of the people to whom it +was implicitly addressed, and also their unjustifiable hopes. +They were unjustifiable, but who was to tell them that? I mean +who was wise enough and convincing enough to show them the inanity of +their mental attitude? The whole atmosphere was poisoned with +visions that were not so much false as simply impossible. They +were also the result of vague and unconfessed fears, and that made their +strength. For myself, with a very definite dread in my heart, +I was careful not to allude to their character because I did not want +the Note to be thrown away unread. And then I had to remember +that the impossible has sometimes the trick of coming to pass to the +confusion of minds and often to the crushing of hearts.</p> +<p>Of the other papers I have nothing special to say. They are +what they are, and I am by now too hardened a sinner to feel ashamed +of insignificant indiscretions. And as to their appearance in +this form I claim that indulgence to which all sinners against themselves +are entitled.</p> +<p>J. C.<br /> +1920.</p> +<h2>PART I—LETTERS</h2> +<h3>BOOKS—1905.</h3> +<h4>I.</h4> +<p>“I have not read this author’s books, and if I have read +them I have forgotten what they were about.”</p> +<p>These words are reported as having been uttered in our midst not +a hundred years ago, publicly, from the seat of justice, by a civic +magistrate. The words of our municipal rulers have a solemnity +and importance far above the words of other mortals, because our municipal +rulers more than any other variety of our governors and masters represent +the average wisdom, temperament, sense and virtue of the community. +This generalisation, it ought to be promptly said in the interests of +eternal justice (and recent friendship), does not apply to the United +States of America. There, if one may believe the long and helpless +indignations of their daily and weekly Press, the majority of municipal +rulers appear to be thieves of a particularly irrepressible sort. +But this by the way. My concern is with a statement issuing from +the average temperament and the average wisdom of a great and wealthy +community, and uttered by a civic magistrate obviously without fear +and without reproach.</p> +<p>I confess I am pleased with his temper, which is that of prudence. +“I have not read the books,” he says, and immediately he +adds, “and if I have read them I have forgotten.” +This is excellent caution. And I like his style: it is unartificial +and bears the stamp of manly sincerity. As a reported piece of +prose this declaration is easy to read and not difficult to believe. +Many books have not been read; still more have been forgotten. +As a piece of civic oratory this declaration is strikingly effective. +Calculated to fall in with the bent of the popular mind, so familiar +with all forms of forgetfulness, it has also the power to stir up a +subtle emotion while it starts a train of thought—and what greater +force can be expected from human speech? But it is in naturalness +that this declaration is perfectly delightful, for there is nothing +more natural than for a grave City Father to forget what the books he +has read once—long ago—in his giddy youth maybe—were +about.</p> +<p>And the books in question are novels, or, at any rate, were written +as novels. I proceed thus cautiously (following my illustrious +example) because being without fear and desiring to remain as far as +possible without reproach, I confess at once that I have not read them.</p> +<p>I have not; and of the million persons or more who are said to have +read them, I never met one yet with the talent of lucid exposition sufficiently +developed to give me a connected account of what they are about. +But they are books, part and parcel of humanity, and as such, in their +ever increasing, jostling multitude, they are worthy of regard, admiration, +and compassion.</p> +<p>Especially of compassion. It has been said a long time ago +that books have their fate. They have, and it is very much like +the destiny of man. They share with us the great incertitude of +ignominy or glory—of severe justice and senseless persecution—of +calumny and misunderstanding—the shame of undeserved success. +Of all the inanimate objects, of all men’s creations, books are +the nearest to us, for they contain our very thought, our ambitions, +our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to truth, and our persistent +leaning towards error. But most of all they resemble us in their +precarious hold on life. A bridge constructed according to the +rules of the art of bridge-building is certain of a long, honourable +and useful career. But a book as good in its way as the bridge +may perish obscurely on the very day of its birth. The art of +their creators is not sufficient to give them more than a moment of +life. Of the books born from the restlessness, the inspiration, +and the vanity of human minds, those that the Muses would love best +lie more than all others under the menace of an early death. Sometimes +their defects will save them. Sometimes a book fair to see may—to +use a lofty expression—have no individual soul. Obviously +a book of that sort cannot die. It can only crumble into dust. +But the best of books drawing sustenance from the sympathy and memory +of men have lived on the brink of destruction, for men’s memories +are short, and their sympathy is, we must admit, a very fluctuating, +unprincipled emotion.</p> +<p>No secret of eternal life for our books can be found amongst the +formulas of art, any more than for our bodies in a prescribed combination +of drugs. This is not because some books are not worthy of enduring +life, but because the formulas of art are dependent on things variable, +unstable and untrustworthy; on human sympathies, on prejudices, on likes +and dislikes, on the sense of virtue and the sense of propriety, on +beliefs and theories that, indestructible in themselves, always change +their form—often in the lifetime of one fleeting generation.</p> +<h4>II.</h4> +<p>Of all books, novels, which the Muses should love, make a serious +claim on our compassion. The art of the novelist is simple. +At the same time it is the most elusive of all creative arts, the most +liable to be obscured by the scruples of its servants and votaries, +the one pre-eminently destined to bring trouble to the mind and the +heart of the artist. After all, the creation of a world is not +a small undertaking except perhaps to the divinely gifted. In +truth every novelist must begin by creating for himself a world, great +or little, in which he can honestly believe. This world cannot +be made otherwise than in his own image: it is fated to remain individual +and a little mysterious, and yet it must resemble something already +familiar to the experience, the thoughts and the sensations of his readers. +At the heart of fiction, even the least worthy of the name, some sort +of truth can be found—if only the truth of a childish theatrical +ardour in the game of life, as in the novels of Dumas the father. +But the fair truth of human delicacy can be found in Mr. Henry James’s +novels; and the comical, appalling truth of human rapacity let loose +amongst the spoils of existence lives in the monstrous world created +by Balzac. The pursuit of happiness by means lawful and unlawful, +through resignation or revolt, by the clever manipulation of conventions +or by solemn hanging on to the skirts of the latest scientific theory, +is the only theme that can be legitimately developed by the novelist +who is the chronicler of the adventures of mankind amongst the dangers +of the kingdom of the earth. And the kingdom of this earth itself, +the ground upon which his individualities stand, stumble, or die, must +enter into his scheme of faithful record. To encompass all this +in one harmonious conception is a great feat; and even to attempt it +deliberately with serious intention, not from the senseless prompting +of an ignorant heart, is an honourable ambition. For it requires +some courage to step in calmly where fools may be eager to rush. +As a distinguished and successful French novelist once observed of fiction, +“C’est un art <i>trop</i> difficile.”</p> +<p>It is natural that the novelist should doubt his ability to cope +with his task. He imagines it more gigantic than it is. +And yet literary creation being only one of the legitimate forms of +human activity has no value but on the condition of not excluding the +fullest recognition of all the more distinct forms of action. +This condition is sometimes forgotten by the man of letters, who often, +especially in his youth, is inclined to lay a claim of exclusive superiority +for his own amongst all the other tasks of the human mind. The +mass of verse and prose may glimmer here and there with the glow of +a divine spark, but in the sum of human effort it has no special importance. +There is no justificative formula for its existence any more than for +any other artistic achievement. With the rest of them it is destined +to be forgotten, without, perhaps, leaving the faintest trace. +Where a novelist has an advantage over the workers in other fields of +thought is in his privilege of freedom—the freedom of expression +and the freedom of confessing his innermost beliefs—which should +console him for the hard slavery of the pen.</p> +<h4>III.</h4> +<p>Liberty of imagination should be the most precious possession of +a novelist. To try voluntarily to discover the fettering dogmas +of some romantic, realistic, or naturalistic creed in the free work +of its own inspiration, is a trick worthy of human perverseness which, +after inventing an absurdity, endeavours to find for it a pedigree of +distinguished ancestors. It is a weakness of inferior minds when +it is not the cunning device of those who, uncertain of their talent, +would seek to add lustre to it by the authority of a school. Such, +for instance, are the high priests who have proclaimed Stendhal for +a prophet of Naturalism. But Stendhal himself would have accepted +no limitation of his freedom. Stendhal’s mind was of the +first order. His spirit above must be raging with a peculiarly +Stendhalesque scorn and indignation. For the truth is that more +than one kind of intellectual cowardice hides behind the literary formulas. +And Stendhal was pre-eminently courageous. He wrote his two great +novels, which so few people have read, in a spirit of fearless liberty.</p> +<p>It must not be supposed that I claim for the artist in fiction the +freedom of moral Nihilism. I would require from him many acts +of faith of which the first would be the cherishing of an undying hope; +and hope, it will not be contested, implies all the piety of effort +and renunciation. It is the God-sent form of trust in the magic +force and inspiration belonging to the life of this earth. We +are inclined to forget that the way of excellence is in the intellectual, +as distinguished from emotional, humility. What one feels so hopelessly +barren in declared pessimism is just its arrogance. It seems as +if the discovery made by many men at various times that there is much +evil in the world were a source of proud and unholy joy unto some of +the modern writers. That frame of mind is not the proper one in +which to approach seriously the art of fiction. It gives an author—goodness +only knows why—an elated sense of his own superiority. And +there is nothing more dangerous than such an elation to that absolute +loyalty towards his feelings and sensations an author should keep hold +of in his most exalted moments of creation.</p> +<p>To be hopeful in an artistic sense it is not necessary to think that +the world is good. It is enough to believe that there is no impossibility +of its being made so. If the flight of imaginative thought may +be allowed to rise superior to many moralities current amongst mankind, +a novelist who would think himself of a superior essence to other men +would miss the first condition of his calling. To have the gift +of words is no such great matter. A man furnished with a long-range +weapon does not become a hunter or a warrior by the mere possession +of a fire-arm; many other qualities of character and temperament are +necessary to make him either one or the other. Of him from whose +armoury of phrases one in a hundred thousand may perhaps hit the far-distant +and elusive mark of art I would ask that in his dealings with mankind +he should be capable of giving a tender recognition to their obscure +virtues. I would not have him impatient with their small failings +and scornful of their errors. I would not have him expect too +much gratitude from that humanity whose fate, as illustrated in individuals, +it is open to him to depict as ridiculous or terrible. I would +wish him to look with a large forgiveness at men’s ideas and prejudices, +which are by no means the outcome of malevolence, but depend on their +education, their social status, even their professions. The good +artist should expect no recognition of his toil and no admiration of +his genius, because his toil can with difficulty be appraised and his +genius cannot possibly mean anything to the illiterate who, even from +the dreadful wisdom of their evoked dead, have, so far, culled nothing +but inanities and platitudes. I would wish him to enlarge his +sympathies by patient and loving observation while he grows in mental +power. It is in the impartial practice of life, if anywhere, that +the promise of perfection for his art can be found, rather than in the +absurd formulas trying to prescribe this or that particular method of +technique or conception. Let him mature the strength of his imagination +amongst the things of this earth, which it is his business to cherish +and know, and refrain from calling down his inspiration ready-made from +some heaven of perfections of which he knows nothing. And I would +not grudge him the proud illusion that will come sometimes to a writer: +the illusion that his achievement has almost equalled the greatness +of his dream. For what else could give him the serenity and the +force to hug to his breast as a thing delightful and human, the virtue, +the rectitude and sagacity of his own City, declaring with simple eloquence +through the mouth of a Conscript Father: “I have not read this +author’s books, and if I have read them I have forgotten . . .”</p> +<h3>HENRY JAMES—AN APPRECIATION—1905</h3> +<p>The critical faculty hesitates before the magnitude of Mr. Henry +James’s work. His books stand on my shelves in a place whose +accessibility proclaims the habit of frequent communion. But not +all his books. There is no collected edition to date, such as +some of “our masters” have been provided with; no neat rows +of volumes in buckram or half calf, putting forth a hasty claim to completeness, +and conveying to my mind a hint of finality, of a surrender to fate +of that field in which all these victories have been won. Nothing +of the sort has been done for Mr. Henry James’s victories in England.</p> +<p>In a world such as ours, so painful with all sorts of wonders, one +would not exhaust oneself in barren marvelling over mere bindings, had +not the fact, or rather the absence of the material fact, prominent +in the case of other men whose writing counts, (for good or evil)—had +it not been, I say, expressive of a direct truth spiritual and intellectual; +an accident of—I suppose—the publishing business acquiring +a symbolic meaning from its negative nature. Because, emphatically, +in the body of Mr. Henry James’s work there is no suggestion of +finality, nowhere a hint of surrender, or even of probability of surrender, +to his own victorious achievement in that field where he is a master. +Happily, he will never be able to claim completeness; and, were he to +confess to it in a moment of self-ignorance, he would not be believed +by the very minds for whom such a confession naturally would be meant. +It is impossible to think of Mr. Henry James becoming “complete” +otherwise than by the brutality of our common fate whose finality is +meaningless—in the sense of its logic being of a material order, +the logic of a falling stone.</p> +<p>I do not know into what brand of ink Mr. Henry James dips his pen; +indeed, I heard that of late he had been dictating; but I know that +his mind is steeped in the waters flowing from the fountain of intellectual +youth. The thing—a privilege—a miracle—what +you will—is not quite hidden from the meanest of us who run as +we read. To those who have the grace to stay their feet it is +manifest. After some twenty years of attentive acquaintance with +Mr. Henry James’s work, it grows into absolute conviction which, +all personal feeling apart, brings a sense of happiness into one’s +artistic existence. If gratitude, as someone defined it, is a +lively sense of favours to come, it becomes very easy to be grateful +to the author of The Ambassadors—to name the latest of his works. +The favours are sure to come; the spring of that benevolence will never +run dry. The stream of inspiration flows brimful in a predetermined +direction, unaffected by the periods of drought, untroubled in its clearness +by the storms of the land of letters, without languor or violence in +its force, never running back upon itself, opening new visions at every +turn of its course through that richly inhabited country its fertility +has created for our delectation, for our judgment, for our exploring. +It is, in fact, a magic spring.</p> +<p>With this phrase the metaphor of the perennial spring, of the inextinguishable +youth, of running waters, as applied to Mr. Henry James’s inspiration, +may be dropped. In its volume and force the body of his work may +be compared rather to a majestic river. All creative art is magic, +is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive, enlightening, familiar +and surprising, for the edification of mankind, pinned down by the conditions +of its existence to the earnest consideration of the most insignificant +tides of reality.</p> +<p>Action in its essence, the creative art of a writer of fiction may +be compared to rescue work carried out in darkness against cross gusts +of wind swaying the action of a great multitude. It is rescue +work, this snatching of vanishing phases of turbulence, disguised in +fair words, out of the native obscurity into a light where the struggling +forms may be seen, seized upon, endowed with the only possible form +of permanence in this world of relative values—the permanence +of memory. And the multitude feels it obscurely too; since the +demand of the individual to the artist is, in effect, the cry, “Take +me out of myself!” meaning really, out of my perishable activity +into the light of imperishable consciousness. But everything is +relative, and the light of consciousness is only enduring, merely the +most enduring of the things of this earth, imperishable only as against +the short-lived work of our industrious hands.</p> +<p>When the last aqueduct shall have crumbled to pieces, the last airship +fallen to the ground, the last blade of grass have died upon a dying +earth, man, indomitable by his training in resistance to misery and +pain, shall set this undiminished light of his eyes against the feeble +glow of the sun. The artistic faculty, of which each of us has +a minute grain, may find its voice in some individual of that last group, +gifted with a power of expression and courageous enough to interpret +the ultimate experience of mankind in terms of his temperament, in terms +of art. I do not mean to say that he would attempt to beguile +the last moments of humanity by an ingenious tale. It would be +too much to expect—from humanity. I doubt the heroism of +the hearers. As to the heroism of the artist, no doubt is necessary. +There would be on his part no heroism. The artist in his calling +of interpreter creates (the clearest form of demonstration) because +he must. He is so much of a voice that, for him, silence is like +death; and the postulate was, that there is a group alive, clustered +on his threshold to watch the last flicker of light on a black sky, +to hear the last word uttered in the stilled workshop of the earth. +It is safe to affirm that, if anybody, it will be the imaginative man +who would be moved to speak on the eve of that day without to-morrow—whether +in austere exhortation or in a phrase of sardonic comment, who can guess?</p> +<p>For my own part, from a short and cursory acquaintance with my kind, +I am inclined to think that the last utterance will formulate, strange +as it may appear, some hope now to us utterly inconceivable. For +mankind is delightful in its pride, its assurance, and its indomitable +tenacity. It will sleep on the battlefield among its own dead, +in the manner of an army having won a barren victory. It will +not know when it is beaten. And perhaps it is right in that quality. +The victories are not, perhaps, so barren as it may appear from a purely +strategical, utilitarian point of view. Mr. Henry James seems +to hold that belief. Nobody has rendered better, perhaps, the +tenacity of temper, or known how to drape the robe of spiritual honour +about the drooping form of a victor in a barren strife. And the +honour is always well won; for the struggles Mr. Henry James chronicles +with such subtle and direct insight are, though only personal contests, +desperate in their silence, none the less heroic (in the modern sense) +for the absence of shouted watchwords, clash of arms and sound of trumpets. +Those are adventures in which only choice souls are ever involved. +And Mr. Henry James records them with a fearless and insistent fidelity +to the <i>péripéties</i> of the contest, and the feelings +of the combatants.</p> +<p>The fiercest excitements of a romance <i>de cape et d’épée</i>, +the romance of yard-arm and boarding pike so dear to youth, whose knowledge +of action (as of other things) is imperfect and limited, are matched, +for the quickening of our maturer years, by the tasks set, by the difficulties +presented, to the sense of truth, of necessity—before all, of +conduct—of Mr. Henry James’s men and women. His mankind +is delightful. It is delightful in its tenacity; it refuses to +own itself beaten; it will sleep on the battlefield. These warlike +images come by themselves under the pen; since from the duality of man’s +nature and the competition of individuals, the life-history of the earth +must in the last instance be a history of a really very relentless warfare. +Neither his fellows, nor his gods, nor his passions will leave a man +alone. In virtue of these allies and enemies, he holds his precarious +dominion, he possesses his fleeting significance; and it is this relation +in all its manifestations, great and little, superficial or profound, +and this relation alone, that is commented upon, interpreted, demonstrated +by the art of the novelist in the only possible way in which the task +can be performed: by the independent creation of circumstance and character, +achieved against all the difficulties of expression, in an imaginative +effort finding its inspiration from the reality of forms and sensations. +That a sacrifice must be made, that something has to be given up, is +the truth engraved in the innermost recesses of the fair temple built +for our edification by the masters of fiction. There is no other +secret behind the curtain. All adventure, all love, every success +is resumed in the supreme energy of an act of renunciation. It +is the uttermost limit of our power; it is the most potent and effective +force at our disposal on which rest the labours of a solitary man in +his study, the rock on which have been built commonwealths whose might +casts a dwarfing shadow upon two oceans. Like a natural force +which is obscured as much as illuminated by the multiplicity of phenomena, +the power of renunciation is obscured by the mass of weaknesses, vacillations, +secondary motives and false steps and compromises which make up the +sum of our activity. But no man or woman worthy of the name can +pretend to anything more, to anything greater. And Mr. Henry James’s +men and women are worthy of the name, within the limits his art, so +clear, so sure of itself, has drawn round their activities. He +would be the last to claim for them Titanic proportions. The earth +itself has grown smaller in the course of ages. But in every sphere +of human perplexities and emotions, there are more greatnesses than +one—not counting here the greatness of the artist himself. +Wherever he stands, at the beginning or the end of things, a man has +to sacrifice his gods to his passions, or his passions to his gods. +That is the problem, great enough, in all truth, if approached in the +spirit of sincerity and knowledge.</p> +<p>In one of his critical studies, published some fifteen years ago, +Mr. Henry James claims for the novelist the standing of the historian +as the only adequate one, as for himself and before his audience. +I think that the claim cannot be contested, and that the position is +unassailable. Fiction is history, human history, or it is nothing. +But it is also more than that; it stands on firmer ground, being based +on the reality of forms and the observation of social phenomena, whereas +history is based on documents, and the reading of print and handwriting—on +second-hand impression. Thus fiction is nearer truth. But +let that pass. A historian may be an artist too, and a novelist +is a historian, the preserver, the keeper, the expounder, of human experience. +As is meet for a man of his descent and tradition, Mr. Henry James is +the historian of fine consciences.</p> +<p>Of course, this is a general statement; but I don’t think its +truth will be, or can be questioned. Its fault is that it leaves +so much out; and, besides, Mr. Henry James is much too considerable +to be put into the nutshell of a phrase. The fact remains that +he has made his choice, and that his choice is justified up to the hilt +by the success of his art. He has taken for himself the greater +part. The range of a fine conscience covers more good and evil +than the range of conscience which may be called, roughly, not fine; +a conscience, less troubled by the nice discrimination of shades of +conduct. A fine conscience is more concerned with essentials; +its triumphs are more perfect, if less profitable, in a worldly sense. +There is, in short, more truth in its working for a historian to detect +and to show. It is a thing of infinite complication and suggestion. +None of these escapes the art of Mr. Henry James. He has mastered +the country, his domain, not wild indeed, but full of romantic glimpses, +of deep shadows and sunny places. There are no secrets left within +his range. He has disclosed them as they should be disclosed—that +is, beautifully. And, indeed, ugliness has but little place in +this world of his creation. Yet, it is always felt in the truthfulness +of his art; it is there, it surrounds the scene, it presses close upon +it. It is made visible, tangible, in the struggles, in the contacts +of the fine consciences, in their perplexities, in the sophism of their +mistakes. For a fine conscience is naturally a virtuous one. +What is natural about it is just its fineness, an abiding sense of the +intangible, ever-present, right. It is most visible in their ultimate +triumph, in their emergence from miracle, through an energetic act of +renunciation. Energetic, not violent: the distinction is wide, +enormous, like that between substance and shadow.</p> +<p>Through it all Mr. Henry James keeps a firm hold of the substance, +of what is worth having, of what is worth holding. The contrary +opinion has been, if not absolutely affirmed, then at least implied, +with some frequency. To most of us, living willingly in a sort +of intellectual moonlight, in the faintly reflected light of truth, +the shadows so firmly renounced by Mr. Henry James’s men and women, +stand out endowed with extraordinary value, with a value so extraordinary +that their rejection offends, by its uncalled-for scrupulousness, those +business-like instincts which a careful Providence has implanted in +our breasts. And, apart from that just cause of discontent, it +is obvious that a solution by rejection must always present a certain +lack of finality, especially startling when contrasted with the usual +methods of solution by rewards and punishments, by crowned love, by +fortune, by a broken leg or a sudden death. Why the reading public +which, as a body, has never laid upon a story-teller the command to +be an artist, should demand from him this sham of Divine Omnipotence, +is utterly incomprehensible. But so it is; and these solutions +are legitimate inasmuch as they satisfy the desire for finality, for +which our hearts yearn with a longing greater than the longing for the +loaves and fishes of this earth. Perhaps the only true desire +of mankind, coming thus to light in its hours of leisure, is to be set +at rest. One is never set at rest by Mr. Henry James’s novels. +His books end as an episode in life ends. You remain with the +sense of the life still going on; and even the subtle presence of the +dead is felt in that silence that comes upon the artist-creation when +the last word has been read. It is eminently satisfying, but it +is not final. Mr. Henry James, great artist and faithful historian, +never attempts the impossible.</p> +<h3>ALPHONSE DAUDET—1898</h3> +<p>It is sweet to talk decorously of the dead who are part of our past, +our indisputable possession. One must admit regretfully that to-day +is but a scramble, that to-morrow may never come; it is only the precious +yesterday that cannot be taken away from us. A gift from the dead, +great and little, it makes life supportable, it almost makes one believe +in a benevolent scheme of creation. And some kind of belief is +very necessary. But the real knowledge of matters infinitely more +profound than any conceivable scheme of creation is with the dead alone. +That is why our talk about them should be as decorous as their silence. +Their generosity and their discretion deserve nothing less at our hands; +and they, who belong already to the unchangeable, would probably disdain +to claim more than this from a mankind that changes its loves and its +hates about every twenty-five years—at the coming of every new +and wiser generation.</p> +<p>One of the most generous of the dead is Daudet, who, with a prodigality +approaching magnificence, gave himself up to us without reserve in his +work, with all his qualities and all his faults. Neither his qualities +nor his faults were great, though they were by no means imperceptible. +It is only his generosity that is out of the common. What strikes +one most in his work is the disinterestedness of the toiler. With +more talent than many bigger men, he did not preach about himself, he +did not attempt to persuade mankind into a belief of his own greatness. +He never posed as a scientist or as a seer, not even as a prophet; and +he neglected his interests to the point of never propounding a theory +for the purpose of giving a tremendous significance to his art, alone +of all things, in a world that, by some strange oversight, has not been +supplied with an obvious meaning. Neither did he affect a passive +attitude before the spectacle of life, an attitude which in gods—and +in a rare mortal here and there—may appear godlike, but assumed +by some men, causes one, very unwillingly, to think of the melancholy +quietude of an ape. He was not the wearisome expounder of this +or that theory, here to-day and spurned to-morrow. He was not +a great artist, he was not an artist at all, if you like—but he +was Alphonse Daudet, a man as naively clear, honest, and vibrating as +the sunshine of his native land; that regrettably undiscriminating sunshine +which matures grapes and pumpkins alike, and cannot, of course, obtain +the commendation of the very select who look at life from under a parasol.</p> +<p>Naturally, being a man from the South, he had a rather outspoken +belief in himself, but his small distinction, worth many a greater, +was in not being in bondage to some vanishing creed. He was a +worker who could not compel the admiration of the few, but who deserved +the affection of the many; and he may be spoken of with tenderness and +regret, for he is not immortal—he is only dead. During his +life the simple man whose business it ought to have been to climb, in +the name of Art, some elevation or other, was content to remain below, +on the plain, amongst his creations, and take an eager part in those +disasters, weaknesses, and joys which are tragic enough in their droll +way, but are by no means so momentous and profound as some writers—probably +for the sake of Art—would like to make us believe. There +is, when one thinks of it, a considerable want of candour in the august +view of life. Without doubt a cautious reticence on the subject, +or even a delicately false suggestion thrown out in that direction is, +in a way, praiseworthy, since it helps to uphold the dignity of man—a +matter of great importance, as anyone can see; still one cannot help +feeling that a certain amount of sincerity would not be wholly blamable. +To state, then, with studied moderation a belief that in unfortunate +moments of lucidity is irresistibly borne in upon most of us—the +blind agitation caused mostly by hunger and complicated by love and +ferocity does not deserve either by its beauty, or its morality, or +its possible results, the artistic fuss made over it. It may be +consoling—for human folly is very <i>bizarre</i>—but it +is scarcely honest to shout at those who struggle drowning in an insignificant +pool: You are indeed admirable and great to be the victims of such a +profound, of such a terrible ocean!</p> +<p>And Daudet was honest; perhaps because he knew no better—but +he was very honest. If he saw only the surface of things it is +for the reason that most things have nothing but a surface. He +did not pretend—perhaps because he did not know how—he did +not pretend to see any depths in a life that is only a film of unsteady +appearances stretched over regions deep indeed, but which have nothing +to do with the half-truths, half-thoughts, and whole illusions of existence. +The road to these distant regions does not lie through the domain of +Art or the domain of Science where well-known voices quarrel noisily +in a misty emptiness; it is a path of toilsome silence upon which travel +men simple and unknown, with closed lips, or, maybe, whispering their +pain softly—only to themselves.</p> +<p>But Daudet did not whisper; he spoke loudly, with animation, with +a clear felicity of tone—as a bird sings. He saw life around +him with extreme clearness, and he felt it as it is—thinner than +air and more elusive than a flash of lightning. He hastened to +offer it his compassion, his indignation, his wonder, his sympathy, +without giving a moment of thought to the momentous issues that are +supposed to lurk in the logic of such sentiments. He tolerated +the little foibles, the small ruffianisms, the grave mistakes; the only +thing he distinctly would not forgive was hardness of heart. This +unpractical attitude would have been fatal to a better man, but his +readers have forgiven him. Withal he is chivalrous to exiled queens +and deformed sempstresses, he is pityingly tender to broken-down actors, +to ruined gentlemen, to stupid Academicians; he is glad of the joys +of the commonplace people in a commonplace way—and he never makes +a secret of all this. No, the man was not an artist. What +if his creations are illumined by the sunshine of his temperament so +vividly that they stand before us infinitely more real than the dingy +illusions surrounding our everyday existence? The misguided man +is for ever pottering amongst them, lifting up his voice, dotting his +i’s in the wrong places. He takes Tartarin by the arm, he +does not conceal his interest in the Nabob’s cheques, his sympathy +for an honest Academician <i>plus bête que nature</i>, his hate +for an architect <i>plus mauvais que la gale</i>; he is in the thick +of it all. He feels with the Duc de Mora and with Felicia Ruys—and +he lets you see it. He does not sit on a pedestal in the hieratic +and imbecile pose of some cheap god whose greatness consists in being +too stupid to care. He cares immensely for his Nabobs, his kings, +his book-keepers, his Colettes, and his Saphos. He vibrates together +with his universe, and with lamentable simplicity follows M. de Montpavon +on that last walk along the Boulevards.</p> +<p>“Monsieur de Montpavon marche à la mort,” and +the creator of that unlucky <i>gentilhomme</i> follows with stealthy +footsteps, with wide eyes, with an impressively pointing finger. +And who wouldn’t look? But it is hard; it is sometimes very +hard to forgive him the dotted i’s, the pointing finger, this +making plain of obvious mysteries. “Monsieur de Montpavon +marche à la mort,” and presently, on the crowded pavement, +takes off his hat with punctilious courtesy to the doctor’s wife, +who, elegant and unhappy, is bound on the same pilgrimage. This +is too much! We feel we cannot forgive him such meetings, the +constant whisper of his presence. We feel we cannot, till suddenly +the very <i>naïveté</i> of it all touches us with the revealed +suggestion of a truth. Then we see that the man is not false; +all this is done in transparent good faith. The man is not melodramatic; +he is only picturesque. He may not be an artist, but he comes +as near the truth as some of the greatest. His creations are seen; +you can look into their very eyes, and these are as thoughtless as the +eyes of any wise generation that has in its hands the fame of writers. +Yes, they are <i>seen</i>, and the man who is not an artist is seen +also commiserating, indignant, joyous, human and alive in their very +midst. Inevitably they <i>marchent à la mort</i>—and +they are very near the truth of our common destiny: their fate is poignant, +it is intensely interesting, and of not the slightest consequence.</p> +<h3>GUY DE MAUPASSANT—1904 <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a></h3> +<p>To introduce Maupassant to English readers with apologetic explanations +as though his art were recondite and the tendency of his work immoral +would be a gratuitous impertinence.</p> +<p>Maupassant’s conception of his art is such as one would expect +from a practical and resolute mind; but in the consummate simplicity +of his technique it ceases to be perceptible. This is one of its +greatest qualities, and like all the great virtues it is based primarily +on self-denial.</p> +<p>To pronounce a judgment upon the general tendency of an author is +a difficult task. One could not depend upon reason alone, nor +yet trust solely to one’s emotions. Used together, they +would in many cases traverse each other, because emotions have their +own unanswerable logic. Our capacity for emotion is limited, and +the field of our intelligence is restricted. Responsiveness to +every feeling, combined with the penetration of every intellectual subterfuge, +would end, not in judgment, but in universal absolution. <i>Tout +comprendre c’est tout pardonner</i>. And in this benevolent +neutrality towards the warring errors of human nature all light would +go out from art and from life.</p> +<p>We are at liberty then to quarrel with Maupassant’s attitude +towards our world in which, like the rest of us, he has that share which +his senses are able to give him. But we need not quarrel with +him violently. If our feelings (which are tender) happen to be +hurt because his talent is not exercised for the praise and consolation +of mankind, our intelligence (which is great) should let us see that +he is a very splendid sinner, like all those who in this valley of compromises +err by over-devotion to the truth that is in them. His determinism, +barren of praise, blame and consolation, has all the merit of his conscientious +art. The worth of every conviction consists precisely in the steadfastness +with which it is held.</p> +<p>Except for his philosophy, which in the case of so consummate an +artist does not matter (unless to the solemn and naive mind), Maupassant +of all writers of fiction demands least forgiveness from his readers. +He does not require forgiveness because he is never dull.</p> +<p>The interest of a reader in a work of imagination is either ethical +or that of simple curiosity. Both are perfectly legitimate, since +there is both a moral and an excitement to be found in a faithful rendering +of life. And in Maupassant’s work there is the interest +of curiosity and the moral of a point of view consistently preserved +and never obtruded for the end of personal gratification. The +spectacle of this immense talent served by exceptional faculties and +triumphing over the most thankless subjects by an unswerving singleness +of purpose is in itself an admirable lesson in the power of artistic +honesty, one may say of artistic virtue. The inherent greatness +of the man consists in this, that he will let none of the fascinations +that beset a writer working in loneliness turn him away from the straight +path, from the vouchsafed vision of excellence. He will not be +led into perdition by the seductions of sentiment, of eloquence, of +humour, of pathos; of all that splendid pageant of faults that pass +between the writer and his probity on the blank sheet of paper, like +the glittering cortège of deadly sins before the austere anchorite +in the desert air of Thebaïde. This is not to say that Maupassant’s +austerity has never faltered; but the fact remains that no tempting +demon has ever succeeded in hurling him down from his high, if narrow, +pedestal.</p> +<p>It is the austerity of his talent, of course, that is in question. +Let the discriminating reader, who at times may well spare a moment +or two to the consideration and enjoyment of artistic excellence, be +asked to reflect a little upon the texture of two stories included in +this volume: “A Piece of String,” and “A Sale.” +How many openings the last offers for the gratuitous display of the +author’s wit or clever buffoonery, the first for an unmeasured +display of sentiment! And both sentiment and buffoonery could +have been made very good too, in a way accessible to the meanest intelligence, +at the cost of truth and honesty. Here it is where Maupassant’s +austerity comes in. He refrains from setting his cleverness against +the eloquence of the facts. There is humour and pathos in these +stories; but such is the greatness of his talent, the refinement of +his artistic conscience, that all his high qualities appear inherent +in the very things of which he speaks, as if they had been altogether +independent of his presentation. Facts, and again facts are his +unique concern. That is why he is not always properly understood. +His facts are so perfectly rendered that, like the actualities of life +itself, they demand from the reader the faculty of observation which +is rare, the power of appreciation which is generally wanting in most +of us who are guided mainly by empty phrases requiring no effort, demanding +from us no qualities except a vague susceptibility to emotion. +Nobody has ever gained the vast applause of a crowd by the simple and +clear exposition of vital facts. Words alone strung upon a convention +have fascinated us as worthless glass beads strung on a thread have +charmed at all times our brothers the unsophisticated savages of the +islands. Now, Maupassant, of whom it has been said that he is +the master of the <i>mot juste</i>, has never been a dealer in words. +His wares have been, not glass beads, but polished gems; not the most +rare and precious, perhaps, but of the very first water of their kind.</p> +<p>That he took trouble with his gems, taking them up in the rough and +polishing each facet patiently, the publication of the two posthumous +volumes of short stories proves abundantly. I think it proves +also the assertion made here that he was by no means a dealer in words. +On looking at the first feeble drafts from which so many perfect stories +have been fashioned, one discovers that what has been matured, improved, +brought to perfection by unwearied endeavour is not the diction of the +tale, but the vision of its true shape and detail. Those first +attempts are not faltering or uncertain in expression. It is the +conception which is at fault. The subjects have not yet been adequately +seen. His proceeding was not to group expressive words, that mean +nothing, around misty and mysterious shapes dear to muddled intellects +and belonging neither to earth nor to heaven. His vision by a +more scrupulous, prolonged and devoted attention to the aspects of the +visible world discovered at last the right words as if miraculously +impressed for him upon the face of things and events. This was +the particular shape taken by his inspiration; it came to him directly, +honestly in the light of his day, not on the tortuous, dark roads of +meditation. His realities came to him from a genuine source, from +this universe of vain appearances wherein we men have found everything +to make us proud, sorry, exalted, and humble.</p> +<p>Maupassant’s renown is universal, but his popularity is restricted. +It is not difficult to perceive why. Maupassant is an intensely +national writer. He is so intensely national in his logic, in +his clearness, in his æsthetic and moral conceptions, that he +has been accepted by his countrymen without having had to pay the tribute +of flattery either to the nation as a whole, or to any class, sphere +or division of the nation. The truth of his art tells with an +irresistible force; and he stands excused from the duty of patriotic +posturing. He is a Frenchman of Frenchmen beyond question or cavil, +and with that he is simple enough to be universally comprehensible. +What is wanting to his universal success is the mediocrity of an obvious +and appealing tenderness. He neglects to qualify his truth with +the drop of facile sweetness; he forgets to strew paper roses over the +tombs. The disregard of these common decencies lays him open to +the charges of cruelty, cynicism, hardness. And yet it can be +safely affirmed that this man wrote from the fulness of a compassionate +heart. He is merciless and yet gentle with his mankind; he does +not rail at their prudent fears and their small artifices; he does not +despise their labours. It seems to me that he looks with an eye +of profound pity upon their troubles, deceptions and misery. But +he looks at them all. He sees—and does not turn away his +head. As a matter of fact he is courageous.</p> +<p>Courage and justice are not popular virtues. The practice of +strict justice is shocking to the multitude who always (perhaps from +an obscure sense of guilt) attach to it the meaning of mercy. +In the majority of us, who want to be left alone with our illusions, +courage inspires a vague alarm. This is what is felt about Maupassant. +His qualities, to use the charming and popular phrase, are not lovable. +Courage being a force will not masquerade in the robes of affected delicacy +and restraint. But if his courage is not of a chivalrous stamp, +it cannot be denied that it is never brutal for the sake of effect. +The writer of these few reflections, inspired by a long and intimate +acquaintance with the work of the man, has been struck by the appreciation +of Maupassant manifested by many women gifted with tenderness and intelligence. +Their more delicate and audacious souls are good judges of courage. +Their finer penetration has discovered his genuine masculinity without +display, his virility without a pose. They have discerned in his +faithful dealings with the world that enterprising and fearless temperament, +poor in ideas but rich in power, which appeals most to the feminine +mind.</p> +<p>It cannot be denied that he thinks very little. In him extreme +energy of perception achieves great results, as in men of action the +energy of force and desire. His view of intellectual problems +is perhaps more simple than their nature warrants; still a man who has +written <i>Yvette</i> cannot be accused of want of subtlety. But +one cannot insist enough upon this, that his subtlety, his humour, his +grimness, though no doubt they are his own, are never presented otherwise +but as belonging to our life, as found in nature, whose beauties and +cruelties alike breathe the spirit of serene unconsciousness.</p> +<p>Maupassant’s philosophy of life is more temperamental than +rational. He expects nothing from gods or men. He trusts +his senses for information and his instinct for deductions. It +may seem that he has made but little use of his mind. But let +me be clearly understood. His sensibility is really very great; +and it is impossible to be sensible, unless one thinks vividly, unless +one thinks correctly, starting from intelligible premises to an unsophisticated +conclusion.</p> +<p>This is literary honesty. It may be remarked that it does not +differ very greatly from the ideal honesty of the respectable majority, +from the honesty of law-givers, of warriors, of kings, of bricklayers, +of all those who express their fundamental sentiment in the ordinary +course of their activities, by the work of their hands.</p> +<p>The work of Maupassant’s hands is honest. He thinks sufficiently +to concrete his fearless conclusions in illuminative instances. +He renders them with that exact knowledge of the means and that absolute +devotion to the aim of creating a true effect—which is art. +He is the most accomplished of narrators.</p> +<p>It is evident that Maupassant looked upon his mankind in another +spirit than those writers who make haste to submerge the difficulties +of our holding-place in the universe under a flood of false and sentimental +assumptions. Maupassant was a true and dutiful lover of our earth. +He says himself in one of his descriptive passages: “Nous autres +que séduit la terre . . .” It was true. The +earth had for him a compelling charm. He looks upon her august +and furrowed face with the fierce insight of real passion. His +is the power of detecting the one immutable quality that matters in +the changing aspects of nature and under the ever-shifting surface of +life. To say that he could not embrace in his glance all its magnificence +and all its misery is only to say that he was human. He lays claim +to nothing that his matchless vision has not made his own. This +creative artist has the true imagination; he never condescends to invent +anything; he sets up no empty pretences. And he stoops to no littleness +in his art—least of all to the miserable vanity of a catching +phrase.</p> +<h3>ANATOLE FRANCE—1904</h3> +<h4>I.—“CRAINQUEBILLE”</h4> +<p>The latest volume of M. Anatole France purports, by the declaration +of its title-page, to contain several profitable narratives. The +story of Crainquebille’s encounter with human justice stands at +the head of them; a tale of a well-bestowed charity closes the book +with the touch of playful irony characteristic of the writer on whom +the most distinguished amongst his literary countrymen have conferred +the rank of Prince of Prose.</p> +<p>Never has a dignity been better borne. M. Anatole France is +a good prince. He knows nothing of tyranny but much of compassion. +The detachment of his mind from common errors and current superstitions +befits the exalted rank he holds in the Commonwealth of Literature. +It is just to suppose that the clamour of the tribes in the forum had +little to do with his elevation. Their elect are of another stamp. +They are such as their need of precipitate action requires. He +is the Elect of the Senate—the Senate of Letters—whose Conscript +Fathers have recognised him as <i>primus inter pares</i>; a post of +pure honour and of no privilege.</p> +<p>It is a good choice. First, because it is just, and next, because +it is safe. The dignity will suffer no diminution in M. Anatole +France’s hands. He is worthy of a great tradition, learned +in the lessons of the past, concerned with the present, and as earnest +as to the future as a good prince should be in his public action. +It is a Republican dignity. And M. Anatole France, with his sceptical +insight into an forms of government, is a good Republican. He +is indulgent to the weaknesses of the people, and perceives that political +institutions, whether contrived by the wisdom of the few or the ignorance +of the many, are incapable of securing the happiness of mankind. +He perceives this truth in the serenity of his soul and in the elevation +of his mind. He expresses his convictions with measure, restraint +and harmony, which are indeed princely qualities. He is a great +analyst of illusions. He searches and probes their innermost recesses +as if they were realities made of an eternal substance. And therein +consists his humanity; this is the expression of his profound and unalterable +compassion. He will flatter no tribe no section in the forum or +in the market-place. His lucid thought is not beguiled into false +pity or into the common weakness of affection. He feels that men +born in ignorance as in the house of an enemy, and condemned to struggle +with error and passions through endless centuries, should be spared +the supreme cruelty of a hope for ever deferred. He knows that +our best hopes are irrealisable; that it is the almost incredible misfortune +of mankind, but also its highest privilege, to aspire towards the impossible; +that men have never failed to defeat their highest aims by the very +strength of their humanity which can conceive the most gigantic tasks +but leaves them disarmed before their irremediable littleness. +He knows this well because he is an artist and a master; but he knows, +too, that only in the continuity of effort there is a refuge from despair +for minds less clear-seeing and philosophic than his own. Therefore +he wishes us to believe and to hope, preserving in our activity the +consoling illusion of power and intelligent purpose. He is a good +and politic prince.</p> +<p>“The majesty of justice is contained entire in each sentence +pronounced by the judge in the name of the sovereign people. Jérome +Crainquebille, hawker of vegetables, became aware of the august aspect +of the law as he stood indicted before the tribunal of the higher Police +Court on a charge of insulting a constable of the force.” +With this exposition begins the first tale of M. Anatole France’s +latest volume.</p> +<p>The bust of the Republic and the image of the Crucified Christ appear +side by side above the bench occupied by the President Bourriche and +his two Assessors; all the laws divine and human are suspended over +the head of Crainquebille.</p> +<p>From the first visual impression of the accused and of the court +the author passes by a characteristic and natural turn to the historical +and moral significance of those two emblems of State and Religion whose +accord is only possible to the confused reasoning of an average man. +But the reasoning of M. Anatole France is never confused. His +reasoning is clear and informed by a profound erudition. Such +is not the case of Crainquebille, a street hawker, charged with insulting +the constituted power of society in the person of a policeman. +The charge is not true, nothing was further from his thoughts; but, +amazed by the novelty of his position, he does not reflect that the +Cross on the wall perpetuates the memory of a sentence which for nineteen +hundred years all the Christian peoples have looked upon as a grave +miscarriage of justice. He might well have challenged the President +to pronounce any sort of sentence, if it were merely to forty-eight +hours of simple imprisonment, in the name of the Crucified Redeemer.</p> +<p>He might have done so. But Crainquebille, who has lived pushing +every day for half a century his hand-barrow loaded with vegetables +through the streets of Paris, has not a philosophic mind. Truth +to say he has nothing. He is one of the disinherited. Properly +speaking, he has no existence at all, or, to be strictly truthful, he +had no existence till M. Anatole France’s philosophic mind and +human sympathy have called him up from his nothingness for our pleasure, +and, as the title-page of the book has it, no doubt for our profit also.</p> +<p>Therefore we behold him in the dock, a stranger to all historical, +political or social considerations which can be brought to bear upon +his case. He remains lost in astonishment. Penetrated with +respect, overwhelmed with awe, he is ready to trust the judge upon the +question of his transgression. In his conscience he does not think +himself culpable; but M. Anatole France’s philosophical mind discovers +for us that he feels all the insignificance of such a thing as the conscience +of a mere street-hawker in the face of the symbols of the law and before +the ministers of social repression. Crainquebille is innocent; +but already the young advocate, his defender, has half persuaded him +of his guilt.</p> +<p>On this phrase practically ends the introductory chapter of the story +which, as the author’s dedication states, has inspired an admirable +draughtsman and a skilful dramatist, each in his art, to a vision of +tragic grandeur. And this opening chapter without a name—consisting +of two and a half pages, some four hundred words at most—is a +masterpiece of insight and simplicity, resumed in M. Anatole France’s +distinction of thought and in his princely command of words.</p> +<p>It is followed by six more short chapters, concise and full, delicate +and complete like the petals of a flower, presenting to us the Adventure +of Crainquebille—Crainquebille before the justice—An Apology +for the President of the Tribunal—Of the Submission of Crainquebille +to the Laws of the Republic—Of his Attitude before the Public +Opinion, and so on to the chapter of the Last Consequences. We +see, created for us in his outward form and innermost perplexity, the +old man degraded from his high estate of a law-abiding street-hawker +and driven to insult, really this time, the majesty of the social order +in the person of another police-constable. It is not an act of +revolt, and still less of revenge. Crainquebille is too old, too +resigned, too weary, too guileless to raise the black standard of insurrection. +He is cold and homeless and starving. He remembers the warmth +and the food of the prison. He perceives the means to get back +there. Since he has been locked up, he argues with himself, for +uttering words which, as a matter of fact he did not say, he will go +forth now, and to the first policeman he meets will say those very words +in order to be imprisoned again. Thus reasons Crainquebille with +simplicity and confidence. He accepts facts. Nothing surprises +him. But all the phenomena of social organisation and of his own +life remain for him mysterious to the end. The description of +the policeman in his short cape and hood, who stands quite still, under +the light of a street lamp at the edge of the pavement shining with +the wet of a rainy autumn evening along the whole extent of a long and +deserted thoroughfare, is a perfect piece of imaginative precision. +From under the edge of the hood his eyes look upon Crainquebille, who +has just uttered in an uncertain voice the sacramental, insulting phrase +of the popular slang—<i>Mort aux vaches</i>! They look upon +him shining in the deep shadow of the hood with an expression of sadness, +vigilance, and contempt.</p> +<p>He does not move. Crainquebille, in a feeble and hesitating +voice, repeats once more the insulting words. But this policeman +is full of philosophic superiority, disdain, and indulgence. He +refuses to take in charge the old and miserable vagabond who stands +before him shivering and ragged in the drizzle. And the ruined +Crainquebille, victim of a ridiculous miscarriage of justice, appalled +at this magnanimity, passes on hopelessly down the street full of shadows +where the lamps gleam each in a ruddy halo of falling mist.</p> +<p>M. Anatole France can speak for the people. This prince of +the Senate is invested with the tribunitian power. M. Anatole +France is something of a Socialist; and in that respect he seems to +depart from his sceptical philosophy. But as an illustrious statesman, +now no more, a great prince too, with an ironic mind and a literary +gift, has sarcastically remarked in one of his public speeches: “We +are all Socialists now.” And in the sense in which it may +be said that we all in Europe are Christians that is true enough. +To many of us Socialism is merely an emotion. An emotion is much +and is also less than nothing. It is the initial impulse. +The real Socialism of to-day is a religion. It has its dogmas. +The value of the dogma does not consist in its truthfulness, and M. +Anatole France, who loves truth, does not love dogma. Only, unlike +religion, the cohesive strength of Socialism lies not in its dogmas +but in its ideal. It is perhaps a too materialistic ideal, and +the mind of M. Anatole France may not find in it either comfort or consolation. +It is not to be doubted that he suspects this himself; but there is +something reposeful in the finality of popular conceptions. M. +Anatole France, a good prince and a good Republican, will succeed no +doubt in being a good Socialist. He will disregard the stupidity +of the dogma and the unlovely form of the ideal. His art will +find its own beauty in the imaginative presentation of wrongs, of errors, +and miseries that call aloud for redress. M. Anatole France is +humane. He is also human. He may be able to discard his +philosophy; to forget that the evils are many and the remedies are few, +that there is no universal panacea, that fatality is invincible, that +there is an implacable menace of death in the triumph of the humanitarian +idea. He may forget all that because love is stronger than truth.</p> +<p>Besides “Crainquebille” this volume contains sixteen +other stories and sketches. To define them it is enough to say +that they are written in M. Anatole France’s prose. One +sketch entitled “Riquet” may be found incorporated in the +volume of <i>Monsieur Bergeret à Paris</i>. “Putois” +is a remarkable little tale, significant, humorous, amusing, and symbolic. +It concerns the career of a man born in the utterance of a hasty and +untruthful excuse made by a lady at a loss how to decline without offence +a very pressing invitation to dinner from a very tyrannical aunt. +This happens in a provincial town, and the lady says in effect: “Impossible, +my dear aunt. To-morrow I am expecting the gardener.” +And the garden she glances at is a poor garden; it is a wild garden; +its extent is insignificant and its neglect seems beyond remedy. +“A gardener! What for?” asks the aunt. “To +work in the garden.” And the poor lady is abashed at the +transparence of her evasion. But the lie is told, it is believed, +and she sticks to it. When the masterful old aunt inquires, “What +is the man’s name, my dear?” she answers brazenly, “His +name is Putois.” “Where does he live?” +“Oh, I don’t know; anywhere. He won’t give his +address. One leaves a message for him here and there.” +“Oh! I see,” says the other; “he is a sort of +ne’er do well, an idler, a vagabond. I advise you, my dear, +to be careful how you let such a creature into your grounds; but I have +a large garden, and when you do not want his services I shall find him +some work to do, and see he does it too. Tell your Putois to come +and see me.” And thereupon Putois is born; he stalks abroad, +invisible, upon his career of vagabondage and crime, stealing melons +from gardens and tea-spoons from pantries, indulging his licentious +proclivities; becoming the talk of the town and of the countryside; +seen simultaneously in far-distant places; pursued by gendarmes, whose +brigadier assures the uneasy householders that he “knows that +scamp very well, and won’t be long in laying his hands upon him.” +A detailed description of his person collected from the information +furnished by various people appears in the columns of a local newspaper. +Putois lives in his strength and malevolence. He lives after the +manner of legendary heroes, of the gods of Olympus. He is the +creation of the popular mind. There comes a time when even the +innocent originator of that mysterious and potent evil-doer is induced +to believe for a moment that he may have a real and tangible presence. +All this is told with the wit and the art and the philosophy which is +familiar to M. Anatole France’s readers and admirers. For +it is difficult to read M. Anatole France without admiring him. +He has the princely gift of arousing a spontaneous loyalty, but with +this difference, that the consent of our reason has its place by the +side of our enthusiasm. He is an artist. As an artist he +awakens emotion. The quality of his art remains, as an inspiration, +fascinating and inscrutable; but the proceedings of his thought compel +our intellectual admiration.</p> +<p>In this volume the trifle called “The Military Manoeuvres at +Montil,” apart from its far-reaching irony, embodies incidentally +the very spirit of automobilism. Somehow or other, how you cannot +tell, the flight over the country in a motor-car, its sensations, its +fatigue, its vast topographical range, its incidents down to the bursting +of a tyre, are brought home to you with all the force of high imaginative +perception. It would be out of place to analyse here the means +by which the true impression is conveyed so that the absurd rushing +about of General Decuir, in a 30-horse-power car, in search of his cavalry +brigade, becomes to you a more real experience than any day-and-night +run you may ever have taken yourself. Suffice it to say that M. +Anatole France had thought the thing worth doing and that it becomes, +in virtue of his art, a distinct achievement. And there are other +sketches in this book, more or less slight, but all worthy of regard—the +childhood’s recollections of Professor Bergeret and his sister +Zoé; the dialogue of the two upright judges and the conversation +of their horses; the dream of M. Jean Marteau, aimless, extravagant, +apocalyptic, and of all the dreams one ever dreamt, the most essentially +dreamlike. The vision of M. Anatole France, the Prince of Prose, +ranges over all the extent of his realm, indulgent and penetrating, +disillusioned and curious, finding treasures of truth and beauty concealed +from less gifted magicians. Contemplating the exactness of his +images and the justice of his judgment, the freedom of his fancy and +the fidelity of his purpose, one becomes aware of the futility of literary +watchwords and the vanity of all the schools of fiction. Not that +M. Anatole France is a wild and untrammelled genius. He is not +that. Issued legitimately from the past, he is mindful of his +high descent. He has a critical temperament joined to creative +power. He surveys his vast domain in a spirit of princely moderation +that knows nothing of excesses but much of restraint.</p> +<h4>II.—“L’ÎLE DES PINGOUINS”</h4> +<p>M. Anatole France, historian and adventurer, has given us many profitable +histories of saints and sinners, of Roman procurators and of officials +of the Third Republic, of <i>grandes dames</i> and of dames not so very +grand, of ornate Latinists and of inarticulate street hawkers, of priests +and generals—in fact, the history of all humanity as it appears +to his penetrating eye, serving a mind marvellously incisive in its +scepticism, and a heart that, of all contemporary hearts gifted with +a voice, contains the greatest treasure of charitable irony. As +to M. Anatole France’s adventures, these are well-known. +They lie open to this prodigal world in the four volumes of the <i>Vie +Littéraire</i>, describing the adventures of a choice soul amongst +masterpieces. For such is the romantic view M. Anatole France +takes of the life of a literary critic. History and adventure, +then, seem to be the chosen fields for the magnificent evolutions of +M. Anatole France’s prose; but no material limits can stand in +the way of a genius. The latest book from his pen—which +may be called golden, as the lips of an eloquent saint once upon a time +were acclaimed golden by the faithful—this latest book is, up +to a certain point, a book of travel.</p> +<p>I would not mislead a public whose confidence I court. The +book is not a record of globe-trotting. I regret it. It +would have been a joy to watch M. Anatole France pouring the clear elixir +compounded of his Pyrrhonic philosophy, his Benedictine erudition, his +gentle wit and most humane irony into such an unpromising and opaque +vessel. He would have attempted it in a spirit of benevolence +towards his fellow men and of compassion for that life of the earth +which is but a vain and transitory illusion. M. Anatole France +is a great magician, yet there seem to be tasks which he dare not face. +For he is also a sage.</p> +<p>It is a book of ocean travel—not, however, as understood by +Herr Ballin of Hamburg, the Machiavel of the Atlantic. It is a +book of exploration and discovery—not, however, as conceived by +an enterprising journal and a shrewdly philanthropic king of the nineteenth +century. It is nothing so recent as that. It dates much +further back; long, long before the dark age when Krupp of Essen wrought +at his steel plates and a German Emperor condescendingly suggested the +last improvements in ships’ dining-tables. The best idea +of the inconceivable antiquity of that enterprise I can give you is +by stating the nature of the explorer’s ship. It was a trough +of stone, a vessel of hollowed granite.</p> +<p>The explorer was St. Maël, a saint of Armorica. I had +never heard of him before, but I believe now in his arduous existence +with a faith which is a tribute to M. Anatole France’s pious earnestness +and delicate irony. St. Maël existed. It is distinctly +stated of him that his life was a progress in virtue. Thus it +seems that there may be saints that are not progressively virtuous. +St. Maël was not of that kind. He was industrious. +He evangelised the heathen. He erected two hundred and eighteen +chapels and seventy-four abbeys. Indefatigable navigator of the +faith, he drifted casually in the miraculous trough of stone from coast +to coast and from island to island along the northern seas. At +the age of eighty-four his high stature was bowed by his long labours, +but his sinewy arms preserved their vigour and his rude eloquence had +lost nothing of its force.</p> +<p>A nautical devil tempting him by the worldly suggestion of fitting +out his desultory, miraculous trough with mast, sail, and rudder for +swifter progression (the idea of haste has sprung from the pride of +Satan), the simple old saint lent his ear to the subtle arguments of +the progressive enemy of mankind.</p> +<p>The venerable St. Maël fell away from grace by not perceiving +at once that a gift of heaven cannot be improved by the contrivances +of human ingenuity. His punishment was adequate. A terrific +tempest snatched the rigged ship of stone in its whirlwinds, and, to +be brief, the dazed St. Maël was stranded violently on the Island +of Penguins.</p> +<p>The saint wandered away from the shore. It was a flat, round +island whence rose in the centre a conical mountain capped with clouds. +The rain was falling incessantly—a gentle, soft rain which caused +the simple saint to exclaim in great delight: “This is the island +of tears, the island of contrition!”</p> +<p>Meantime the inhabitants had flocked in their tens of thousands to +an amphitheatre of rocks; they were penguins; but the holy man, rendered +deaf and purblind by his years, mistook excusably the multitude of silly, +erect, and self-important birds for a human crowd. At once he +began to preach to them the doctrine of salvation. Having finished +his discourse he lost no time in administering to his interesting congregation +the sacrament of baptism.</p> +<p>If you are at all a theologian you will see that it was no mean adventure +to happen to a well-meaning and zealous saint. Pray reflect on +the magnitude of the issues! It is easy to believe what M. Anatole +France says, that, when the baptism of the Penguins became known in +Paradise, it caused there neither joy nor sorrow, but a profound sensation.</p> +<p>M. Anatole France is no mean theologian himself. He reports +with great casuistical erudition the debates in the saintly council +assembled in Heaven for the consideration of an event so disturbing +to the economy of religious mysteries. Ultimately the baptised +Penguins had to be turned into human beings; and together with the privilege +of sublime hopes these innocent birds received the curse of original +sin, with the labours, the miseries, the passions, and the weaknesses +attached to the fallen condition of humanity.</p> +<p>At this point M. Anatole France is again an historian. From +being the Hakluyt of a saintly adventurer he turns (but more concisely) +into the Gibbon of Imperial Penguins. Tracing the development +of their civilisation, the absurdity of their desires, the pathos of +their folly and the ridiculous littleness of their quarrels, his golden +pen lightens by relevant but unpuritanical anecdotes the austerity of +a work devoted to a subject so grave as the Polity of Penguins. +It is a very admirable treatment, and I hasten to congratulate all men +of receptive mind on the feast of wisdom which is theirs for the mere +plucking of a book from a shelf.</p> +<h3>TURGENEV <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a>—1917</h3> +<p>Dear Edward,</p> +<p>I am glad to hear that you are about to publish a study of Turgenev, +that fortunate artist who has found so much in life for us and no doubt +for himself, with the exception of bare justice. Perhaps that +will come to him, too, in time. Your study may help the consummation. +For his luck persists after his death. What greater luck an artist +like Turgenev could wish for than to find in the English-speaking world +a translator who has missed none of the most delicate, most simple beauties +of his work, and a critic who has known how to analyse and point out +its high qualities with perfect sympathy and insight.</p> +<p>After twenty odd years of friendship (and my first literary friendship +too) I may well permit myself to make that statement, while thinking +of your wonderful Prefaces as they appeared from time to time in the +volumes of Turgenev’s complete edition, the last of which came +into the light of public indifference in the ninety-ninth year of the +nineteenth century.</p> +<p>With that year one may say, with some justice, that the age of Turgenev +had come to an end too; yet work so simple and human, so independent +of the transitory formulas and theories of art, belongs as you point +out in the Preface to <i>Smoke</i> “to all time.”</p> +<p>Turgenev’s creative activity covers about thirty years. +Since it came to an end the social and political events in Russia have +moved at an accelerated pace, but the deep origins of them, in the moral +and intellectual unrest of the souls, are recorded in the whole body +of his work with the unerring lucidity of a great national writer. +The first stirrings, the first gleams of the great forces can be seen +almost in every page of the novels, of the short stories and of <i>A +Sportsman’s Sketches</i>—those marvellous landscapes peopled +by unforgettable figures.</p> +<p>Those will never grow old. Fashions in monsters do change, +but the truth of humanity goes on for ever, unchangeable and inexhaustible +in the variety of its disclosures. Whether Turgenev’s art, +which has captured it with such mastery and such gentleness, is for +“all time” it is hard to say. Since, as you say yourself, +he brings all his problems and characters to the test of love, we may +hope that it will endure at least till the infinite emotions of love +are replaced by the exact simplicity of perfected Eugenics. But +even by then, I think, women would not have changed much; and the women +of Turgenev who understood them so tenderly, so reverently and so passionately—they, +at least, are certainly for all time.</p> +<p>Women are, one may say, the foundation of his art. They are +Russian of course. Never was a writer so profoundly, so whole-souledly +national. But for non-Russian readers, Turgenev’s Russia +is but a canvas on which the incomparable artist of humanity lays his +colours and his forms in the great light and the free air of the world. +Had he invented them all and also every stick and stone, brook and hill +and field in which they move, his personages would have been just as +true and as poignant in their perplexed lives. They are his own +and also universal. Any one can accept them with no more question +than one accepts the Italians of Shakespeare.</p> +<p>In the larger, non-Russian view, what should make Turgenev sympathetic +and welcome to the English-speaking world, is his essential humanity. +All his creations, fortunate and unfortunate, oppressed and oppressors, +are human beings, not strange beasts in a menagerie or damned souls +knocking themselves to pieces in the stuffy darkness of mystical contradictions. +They are human beings, fit to live, fit to suffer, fit to struggle, +fit to win, fit to lose, in the endless and inspiring game of pursuing +from day to day the ever-receding future.</p> +<p>I began by calling him lucky, and he was, in a sense. But one +ends by having some doubts. To be so great without the slightest +parade and so fine without any tricks of “cleverness” must +be fatal to any man’s influence with his contemporaries.</p> +<p>Frankly, I don’t want to appear as qualified to judge of things +Russian. It wouldn’t be true. I know nothing of them. +But I am aware of a few general truths, such as, for instance, that +no man, whatever may be the loftiness of his character, the purity of +his motives and the peace of his conscience—no man, I say, likes +to be beaten with sticks during the greater part of his existence. +From what one knows of his history it appears clearly that in Russia +almost any stick was good enough to beat Turgenev with in his latter +years. When he died the characteristically chicken-hearted Autocracy +hastened to stuff his mortal envelope into the tomb it refused to honour, +while the sensitive Revolutionists went on for a time flinging after +his shade those jeers and curses from which that impartial lover of +<i>all</i> his countrymen had suffered so much in his lifetime. +For he, too, was sensitive. Every page of his writing bears its +testimony to the fatal absence of callousness in the man.</p> +<p>And now he suffers a little from other things. In truth it +is not the convulsed terror-haunted Dostoievski but the serene Turgenev +who is under a curse. For only think! Every gift has been +heaped on his cradle: absolute sanity and the deepest sensibility, the +clearest vision and the quickest responsiveness, penetrating insight +and unfailing generosity of judgment, an exquisite perception of the +visible world and an unerring instinct for the significant, for the +essential in the life of men and women, the clearest mind, the warmest +heart, the largest sympathy—and all that in perfect measure. +There’s enough there to ruin the prospects of any writer. +For you know very well, my dear Edward, that if you had Antinous himself +in a booth of the world’s fair, and killed yourself in protesting +that his soul was as perfect as his body, you wouldn’t get one +per cent. of the crowd struggling next door for a sight of the Double-headed +Nightingale or of some weak-kneed giant grinning through a horse collar.</p> +<p>J. C.</p> +<h3>STEPHEN CRANE—A NOTE WITHOUT DATES—1919</h3> +<p>My acquaintance with Stephen Crane was brought about by Mr. Pawling, +partner in the publishing firm of Mr. William Heinemann.</p> +<p>One day Mr. Pawling said to me: “Stephen Crane has arrived +in England. I asked him if there was anybody he wanted to meet +and he mentioned two names. One of them was yours.” +I had then just been reading, like the rest of the world, Crane’s +<i>Red Badge of Courage</i>. The subject of that story was war, +from the point of view of an individual soldier’s emotions. +That individual (he remains nameless throughout) was interesting enough +in himself, but on turning over the pages of that little book which +had for the moment secured such a noisy recognition I had been even +more interested in the personality of the writer. The picture +of a simple and untried youth becoming through the needs of his country +part of a great fighting machine was presented with an earnestness of +purpose, a sense of tragic issues, and an imaginative force of expression +which struck me as quite uncommon and altogether worthy of admiration.</p> +<p>Apparently Stephen Crane had received a favourable impression from +the reading of the <i>Nigger of the Narcissus</i>, a book of mine which +had also been published lately. I was truly pleased to hear this.</p> +<p>On my next visit to town we met at a lunch. I saw a young man +of medium stature and slender build, with very steady, penetrating blue +eyes, the eyes of a being who not only sees visions but can brood over +them to some purpose.</p> +<p>He had indeed a wonderful power of vision, which he applied to the +things of this earth and of our mortal humanity with a penetrating force +that seemed to reach, within life’s appearances and forms, the +very spirit of life’s truth. His ignorance of the world +at large—he had seen very little of it—did not stand in +the way of his imaginative grasp of facts, events, and picturesque men.</p> +<p>His manner was very quiet, his personality at first sight interesting, +and he talked slowly with an intonation which on some people, mainly +Americans, had, I believe, a jarring effect. But not on me. +Whatever he said had a personal note, and he expressed himself with +a graphic simplicity which was extremely engaging. He knew little +of literature, either of his own country or of any other, but he was +himself a wonderful artist in words whenever he took a pen into his +hand. Then his gift came out—and it was seen then to be +much more than mere felicity of language. His impressionism of +phrase went really deeper than the surface. In his writing he +was very sure of his effects. I don’t think he was ever +in doubt about what he could do. Yet it often seemed to me that +he was but half aware of the exceptional quality of his achievement.</p> +<p>This achievement was curtailed by his early death. It was a +great loss to his friends, but perhaps not so much to literature. +I think that he had given his measure fully in the few books he had +the time to write. Let me not be misunderstood: the loss was great, +but it was the loss of the delight his art could give, not the loss +of any further possible revelation. As to himself, who can say +how much he gained or lost by quitting so early this world of the living, +which he knew how to set before us in the terms of his own artistic +vision? Perhaps he did not lose a great deal. The recognition +he was accorded was rather languid and given him grudgingly. The +worthiest welcome he secured for his tales in this country was from +Mr. W. Henley in the <i>New Review</i> and later, towards the end of +his life, from the late Mr. William Blackwood in his magazine. +For the rest I must say that during his sojourn in England he had the +misfortune to be, as the French say, <i>mal entouré</i>. +He was beset by people who understood not the quality of his genius +and were antagonistic to the deeper fineness of his nature. Some +of them have died since, but dead or alive they are not worth speaking +about now. I don’t think he had any illusions about them +himself: yet there was a strain of good-nature and perhaps of weakness +in his character which prevented him from shaking himself free from +their worthless and patronising attentions, which in those days caused +me much secret irritation whenever I stayed with him in either of his +English homes. My wife and I like best to remember him riding +to meet us at the gate of the Park at Brede. Born master of his +sincere impressions, he was also a born horseman. He never appeared +so happy or so much to advantage as on the back of a horse. He +had formed the project of teaching my eldest boy to ride, and meantime, +when the child was about two years old, presented him with his first +dog.</p> +<p>I saw Stephen Crane a few days after his arrival in London. +I saw him for the last time on his last day in England. It was +in Dover, in a big hotel, in a bedroom with a large window looking on +to the sea. He had been very ill and Mrs. Crane was taking him +to some place in Germany, but one glance at that wasted face was enough +to tell me that it was the most forlorn of all hopes. The last +words he breathed out to me were: “I am tired. Give my love +to your wife and child.” When I stopped at the door for +another look I saw that he had turned his head on the pillow and was +staring wistfully out of the window at the sails of a cutter yacht that +glided slowly across the frame, like a dim shadow against the grey sky.</p> +<p>Those who have read his little tale, “Horses,” and the +story, “The Open Boat,” in the volume of that name, know +with what fine understanding he loved horses and the sea. And +his passage on this earth was like that of a horseman riding swiftly +in the dawn of a day fated to be short and without sunshine.</p> +<h3>TALES OF THE SEA—1898</h3> +<p>It is by his irresistible power to reach the adventurous side in +the character, not only of his own, but of all nations, that Marryat +is largely human. He is the enslaver of youth, not by the literary +artifices of presentation, but by the natural glamour of his own temperament. +To his young heroes the beginning of life is a splendid and warlike +lark, ending at last in inheritance and marriage. His novels are +not the outcome of his art, but of his character, like the deeds that +make up his record of naval service. To the artist his work is +interesting as a completely successful expression of an unartistic nature. +It is absolutely amazing to us, as the disclosure of the spirit animating +the stirring time when the nineteenth century was young. There +is an air of fable about it. Its loss would be irreparable, like +the curtailment of national story or the loss of an historical document. +It is the beginning and the embodiment of an inspiring tradition.</p> +<p>To this writer of the sea the sea was not an element. It was +a stage, where was displayed an exhibition of valour, and of such achievement +as the world had never seen before. The greatness of that achievement +cannot be pronounced imaginary, since its reality has affected the destinies +of nations; nevertheless, in its grandeur it has all the remoteness +of an ideal. History preserves the skeleton of facts and, here +and there, a figure or a name; but it is in Marryat’s novels that +we find the mass of the nameless, that we see them in the flesh, that +we obtain a glimpse of the everyday life and an insight into the spirit +animating the crowd of obscure men who knew how to build for their country +such a shining monument of memories.</p> +<p>Marryat is really a writer of the Service. What sets him apart +is his fidelity. His pen serves his country as well as did his +professional skill and his renowned courage. His figures move +about between water and sky, and the water and the sky are there only +to frame the deeds of the Service. His novels, like amphibious +creatures, live on the sea and frequent the shore, where they flounder +deplorably. The loves and the hates of his boys are as primitive +as their virtues and their vices. His women, from the beautiful +Agnes to the witch-like mother of Lieutenant Vanslyperken, are, with +the exception of the sailors’ wives, like the shadows of what +has never been. His Silvas, his Ribieras, his Shriftens, his Delmars +remind us of people we have heard of somewhere, many times, without +ever believing in their existence. His morality is honourable +and conventional. There is cruelty in his fun and he can invent +puns in the midst of carnage. His naïveties are perpetrated +in a lurid light. There is an endless variety of types, all surface, +with hard edges, with memorable eccentricities of outline, with a childish +and heroic effect in the drawing. They do not belong to life; +they belong exclusively to the Service. And yet they live; there +is a truth in them, the truth of their time; a headlong, reckless audacity, +an intimacy with violence, an unthinking fearlessness, and an exuberance +of vitality which only years of war and victories can give. His +adventures are enthralling; the rapidity of his action fascinates; his +method is crude, his sentimentality, obviously incidental, is often +factitious. His greatness is undeniable.</p> +<p>It is undeniable. To a multitude of readers the navy of to-day +is Marryat’s navy still. He has created a priceless legend. +If he be not immortal, yet he will last long enough for the highest +ambition, because he has dealt manfully with an inspiring phase in the +history of that Service on which the life of his country depends. +The tradition of the great past he has fixed in his pages will be cherished +for ever as the guarantee of the future. He loved his country +first, the Service next, the sea perhaps not at all. But the sea +loved him without reserve. It gave him his professional distinction +and his author’s fame—a fame such as not often falls to +the lot of a true artist.</p> +<p>At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic, another man +wrote of the sea with true artistic instinct. He is not invincibly +young and heroic; he is mature and human, though for him also the stress +of adventure and endeavour must end fatally in inheritance and marriage. +For James Fenimore Cooper nature was not the frame-work, it was an essential +part of existence. He could hear its voice, he could understand +its silence, and he could interpret both for us in his prose with all +that felicity and sureness of effect that belong to a poetical conception +alone. His fame, as wide but less brilliant than that of his contemporary, +rests mostly on a novel which is not of the sea. But he loved +the sea and looked at it with consummate understanding. In his +sea tales the sea inter-penetrates with life; it is in a subtle way +a factor in the problem of existence, and, for all its greatness, it +is always in touch with the men, who, bound on errands of war or gain, +traverse its immense solitudes. His descriptions have the magistral +ampleness of a gesture indicating the sweep of a vast horizon. +They embrace the colours of sunset, the peace of starlight, the aspects +of calm and storm, the great loneliness of the waters, the stillness +of watchful coasts, and the alert readiness which marks men who live +face to face with the promise and the menace of the sea.</p> +<p>He knows the men and he knows the sea. His method may be often +faulty, but his art is genuine. The truth is within him. +The road to legitimate realism is through poetical feeling, and he possesses +that—only it is expressed in the leisurely manner of his time. +He has the knowledge of simple hearts. Long Tom Coffin is a monumental +seaman with the individuality of life and the significance of a type. +It is hard to believe that Manual and Borroughcliffe, Mr. Marble of +Marble-Head, Captain Tuck of the packet-ship <i>Montauk</i>, or Daggett, +the tenacious commander of the <i>Sea Lion</i> of Martha’s Vineyard, +must pass away some day and be utterly forgotten. His sympathy +is large, and his humour is as genuine—and as perfectly unaffected—as +is his art. In certain passages he reaches, very simply, the heights +of inspired vision.</p> +<p>He wrote before the great American language was born, and he wrote +as well as any novelist of his time. If he pitches upon episodes +redounding to the glory of the young republic, surely England has glory +enough to forgive him, for the sake of his excellence, the patriotic +bias at her expense. The interest of his tales is convincing and +unflagging; and there runs through his work a steady vein of friendliness +for the old country which the succeeding generations of his compatriots +have replaced by a less definite sentiment.</p> +<p>Perhaps no two authors of fiction influenced so many lives and gave +to so many the initial impulse towards a glorious or a useful career. +Through the distances of space and time those two men of another race +have shaped also the life of the writer of this appreciation. +Life is life, and art is art—and truth is hard to find in either. +Yet in testimony to the achievement of both these authors it may be +said that, in the case of the writer at least, the youthful glamour, +the headlong vitality of the one and the profound sympathy, the artistic +insight of the other—to which he had surrendered—have withstood +the brutal shock of facts and the wear of laborious years. He +has never regretted his surrender.</p> +<h3>AN OBSERVER IN MALAYA <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a>—1898</h3> +<p>In his new volume, Mr. Hugh Clifford, at the beginning of the sketch +entitled “At the Heels of the White Man,” expresses his +anxiety as to the state of England’s account in the Day-Book of +the Recording Angel “for the good and the bad we have done—both +with the most excellent intentions.” The intentions will, +no doubt, count for something, though, of course, every nation’s +conquests are paved with good intentions; or it may be that the Recording +Angel, looking compassionately at the strife of hearts, may disdain +to enter into the Eternal Book the facts of a struggle which has the +reward of its righteousness even on this earth—in victory and +lasting greatness, or in defeat and humiliation.</p> +<p>And, also, love will count for much. If the opinion of a looker-on +from afar is worth anything, Mr. Hugh Clifford’s anxiety about +his country’s record is needless. To the Malays whom he +governs, instructs, and guides he is the embodiment of the intentions, +of the conscience and might of his race. And of all the nations +conquering distant territories in the name of the most excellent intentions, +England alone sends out men who, with such a transparent sincerity of +feeling, can speak, as Mr. Hugh Clifford does, of the place of toil +and exile as “the land which is very dear to me, where the best +years of my life have been spent”—and where (I would stake +my right hand on it) his name is pronounced with respect and affection +by those brown men about whom he writes.</p> +<p>All these studies are on a high level of interest, though not all +on the same level. The descriptive chapters, results of personal +observation, seem to me the most interesting. And, indeed, in +a book of this kind it is the author’s personality which awakens +the greatest interest; it shapes itself before one in the ring of sentences, +it is seen between the lines—like the progress of a traveller +in the jungle that may be traced by the sound of the <i>parang</i> chopping +the swaying creepers, while the man himself is glimpsed, now and then, +indistinct and passing between the trees. Thus in his very vagueness +of appearance, the writer seen through the leaves of his book becomes +a fascinating companion in a land of fascination.</p> +<p>It is when dealing with the aspects of nature that Mr. Hugh Clifford +is most convincing. He looks upon them lovingly, for the land +is “very dear to him,” and he records his cherished impressions +so that the forest, the great flood, the jungle, the rapid river, and +the menacing rock dwell in the memory of the reader long after the book +is closed. He does not say anything, in so many words, of his +affection for those who live amid the scenes he describes so well, but +his humanity is large enough to pardon us if we suspect him of such +a rare weakness. In his preface he expresses the regret at not +having the gifts (whatever they may be) of the kailyard school, or—looking +up to a very different plane—the genius of Mr. Barrie. He +has, however, gifts of his own, and his genius has served his country +and his fortunes in another direction. Yet it is when attempting +what he professes himself unable to do, in telling us the simple story +of Ûmat, the punkah-puller, with unaffected simplicity and half-concealed +tenderness, that he comes nearest to artistic achievement.</p> +<p>Each study in this volume presents some idea, illustrated by a fact +told without artifice, but with an elective sureness of knowledge. +The story of Tukang Burok’s love, related in the old man’s +own words, conveys the very breath of Malay thought and speech. +In “His Little Bill,” the coolie, Lim Teng Wah, facing his +debtor, stands very distinct before us, an insignificant and tragic +victim of fate with whom he had quarrelled to the death over a matter +of seven dollars and sixty-eight cents. The story of “The +Schooner with a Past” may be heard, from the Straits eastward, +with many variations. Out in the Pacific the schooner becomes +a cutter, and the pearl-divers are replaced by the Black-birds of the +Labour Trade. But Mr. Hugh Clifford’s variation is very +good. There is a passage in it—a trifle—just the diver +as seen coming up from the depths, that in its dozen lines or so attains +to distinct artistic value. And, scattered through the book, there +are many other passages of almost equal descriptive excellence.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, to apply artistic standards to this book would be a +fundamental error in appreciation. Like faith, enthusiasm, or +heroism, art veils part of the truth of life to make the rest appear +more splendid, inspiring, or sinister. And this book is only truth, +interesting and futile, truth unadorned, simple and straightforward. +The Resident of Pahang has the devoted friendship of Ûmat, the +punkah-puller, he has an individual faculty of vision, a large sympathy, +and the scrupulous consciousness of the good and evil in his hands. +He may as well rest content with such gifts. One cannot expect +to be, at the same time, a ruler of men and an irreproachable player +on the flute.</p> +<h3>A HAPPY WANDERER—1910</h3> +<p>Converts are interesting people. Most of us, if you will pardon +me for betraying the universal secret, have, at some time or other, +discovered in ourselves a readiness to stray far, ever so far, on the +wrong road. And what did we do in our pride and our cowardice? +Casting fearful glances and waiting for a dark moment, we buried our +discovery discreetly, and kept on in the old direction, on that old, +beaten track we have not had courage enough to leave, and which we perceive +now more clearly than before to be but the arid way of the grave.</p> +<p>The convert, the man capable of grace (I am speaking here in a secular +sense), is not discreet. His pride is of another kind; he jumps +gladly off the track—the touch of grace is mostly sudden—and +facing about in a new direction may even attain the illusion of having +turned his back on Death itself.</p> +<p>Some converts have, indeed, earned immortality by their exquisite +indiscretion. The most illustrious example of a convert, that +Flower of chivalry, Don Quixote de la Mancha, remains for all the world +the only genuine immortal hidalgo. The delectable Knight of Spain +became converted, as you know, from the ways of a small country squire +to an imperative faith in a tender and sublime mission. Forthwith +he was beaten with sticks and in due course shut up in a wooden cage +by the Barber and the Priest, the fit ministers of a justly shocked +social order. I do not know if it has occurred to anybody yet +to shut up Mr. Luffmann in a wooden cage. <a name="citation4"></a><a href="#footnote4">{4}</a> +I do not raise the point because I wish him any harm. Quite the +contrary. I am a humane person. Let him take it as the highest +praise—but I must say that he richly deserves that sort of attention.</p> +<p>On the other hand I would not have him unduly puffed up with the +pride of the exalted association. The grave wisdom, the admirable +amenity, the serene grace of the secular patron-saint of all mortals +converted to noble visions are not his. Mr. Luffmann has no mission. +He is no Knight sublimely Errant. But he is an excellent Vagabond. +He is full of merit. That peripatetic guide, philosopher and friend +of all nations, Mr. Roosevelt, would promptly excommunicate him with +a big stick. The truth is that the ex-autocrat of all the States +does not like rebels against the sullen order of our universe. +Make the best of it or perish—he cries. A sane lineal successor +of the Barber and the Priest, and a sagacious political heir of the +incomparable Sancho Panza (another great Governor), that distinguished +littérateur has no mercy for dreamers. And our author happens +to be a man of (you may trace them in his books) some rather fine reveries.</p> +<p>Every convert begins by being a rebel, and I do not see myself how +any mercy can possibly be extended to Mr. Luffmann. He is a convert +from the creed of strenuous life. For this renegade the body is +of little account; to him work appears criminal when it suppresses the +demands of the inner life; while he was young he did grind virtuously +at the sacred handle, and now, he says, he has fallen into disgrace +with some people because he believes no longer in toil without end. +Certain respectable folk hate him—so he says—because he +dares to think that “poetry, beauty, and the broad face of the +world are the best things to be in love with.” He confesses +to loving Spain on the ground that she is “the land of to-morrow, +and holds the gospel of never-mind.” The universal striving +to push ahead he considers mere vulgar folly. Didn’t I tell +you he was a fit subject for the cage?</p> +<p>It is a relief (we are all humane, are we not?) to discover that +this desperate character is not altogether an outcast. Little +girls seem to like him. One of them, after listening to some of +his tales, remarked to her mother, “Wouldn’t it be lovely +if what he says were true!” Here you have Woman! The +charming creatures will neither strain at a camel nor swallow a gnat. +Not publicly. These operations, without which the world they have +such a large share in could not go on for ten minutes, are left to us—men. +And then we are chided for being coarse. This is a refined objection +but does not seem fair. Another little girl—or perhaps the +same little girl—wrote to him in Cordova, “I hope Poste-Restante +is a nice place, and that you are very comfortable.” Woman +again! I have in my time told some stories which are (I hate false +modesty) both true and lovely. Yet no little girl ever wrote to +me in kindly terms. And why? Simply because I am not enough +of a Vagabond. The dear despots of the fireside have a weakness +for lawless characters. This is amiable, but does not seem rational.</p> +<p>Being Quixotic, Mr. Luffmann is no Impressionist. He is far +too earnest in his heart, and not half sufficiently precise in his style +to be that. But he is an excellent narrator. More than any +Vagabond I have ever met, he knows what he is about. There is +not one of his quiet days which is dull. You will find in them +a love-story not made up, the <i>coup-de-foudre</i>, the lightning-stroke +of Spanish love; and you will marvel how a spell so sudden and vehement +can be at the same time so tragically delicate. You will find +there landladies devoured with jealousy, astute housekeepers, delightful +boys, wise peasants, touchy shopkeepers, all the <i>cosas de España</i>—and, +in addition, the pale girl Rosario. I recommend that pathetic +and silent victim of fate to your benevolent compassion. You will +find in his pages the humours of starving workers of the soil, the vision +among the mountains of an exulting mad spirit in a mighty body, and +many other visions worthy of attention. And they are exact visions, +for this idealist is no visionary. He is in sympathy with suffering +mankind, and has a grasp on real human affairs. I mean the great +and pitiful affairs concerned with bread, love, and the obscure, unexpressed +needs which drive great crowds to prayer in the holy places of the earth.</p> +<p>But I like his conception of what a “quiet” life is like! +His quiet days require no fewer than forty-two of the forty-nine provinces +of Spain to take their ease in. For his unquiet days, I presume, +the seven—or is it nine?—crystal spheres of Alexandrian +cosmogony would afford, but a wretchedly straitened space. A most +unconventional thing is his notion of quietness. One would take +it as a joke; only that, perchance, to the author of <i>Quiet Days in +Spain</i> all days may seem quiet, because, a courageous convert, he +is now at peace with himself.</p> +<p>How better can we take leave of this interesting Vagabond than with +the road salutation of passing wayfarers: “And on you be peace! +. . . You have chosen your ideal, and it is a good choice. There’s +nothing like giving up one’s life to an unselfish passion. +Let the rich and the powerful of this globe preach their sound gospel +of palpable progress. The part of the ideal you embrace is the +better one, if only in its illusions. No great passion can be +barren. May a world of gracious and poignant images attend the +lofty solitude of your renunciation!”</p> +<h3>THE LIFE BEYOND—1910</h3> +<p>You have no doubt noticed that certain books produce a sort of physical +effect on one—mostly an audible effect. I am not alluding +here to Blue books or to books of statistics. The effect of these +is simply exasperating and no more. No! the books I have in mind +are just the common books of commerce you and I read when we have five +minutes to spare, the usual hired books published by ordinary publishers, +printed by ordinary printers, and censored (when they happen to be novels) +by the usual circulating libraries, the guardians of our firesides, +whose names are household words within the four seas.</p> +<p>To see the fair and the brave of this free country surrendering themselves +with unbounded trust to the direction of the circulating libraries is +very touching. It is even, in a sense, a beautiful spectacle, +because, as you know, humility is a rare and fragrant virtue; and what +can be more humble than to surrender your morals and your intellect +to the judgment of one of your tradesmen? I suppose that there +are some very perfect people who allow the Army and Navy Stores to censor +their diet. So much merit, however, I imagine, is not frequently +met with here below. The flesh, alas! is weak, and—from +a certain point of view—so important!</p> +<p>A superficial person might be rendered miserable by the simple question: +What would become of us if the circulating libraries ceased to exist? +It is a horrid and almost indelicate supposition, but let us be brave +and face the truth. On this earth of ours nothing lasts. +<i>Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse</i>. Imagine the utter wreck +overtaking the morals of our beautiful country-houses should the circulating +libraries suddenly die! But pray do not shudder. There is +no occasion.</p> +<p>Their spirit shall survive. I declare this from inward conviction, +and also from scientific information received lately. For observe: +the circulating libraries are human institutions. I beg you to +follow me closely. They are human institutions, and being human, +they are not animal, and, therefore, they are spiritual. Thus, +any man with enough money to take a shop, stock his shelves, and pay +for advertisements shall be able to evoke the pure and censorious spectre +of the circulating libraries whenever his own commercial spirit moves +him.</p> +<p>For, and this is the information alluded to above, Science, having +in its infinite wanderings run up against various wonders and mysteries, +is apparently willing now to allow a spiritual quality to man and, I +conclude, to all his works as well.</p> +<p>I do not know exactly what this “Science” may be; and +I do not think that anybody else knows; but that is the information +stated shortly. It is contained in a book reposing under my thoughtful +eyes. <a name="citation5"></a><a href="#footnote5">{5}</a> I know +it is not a censored book, because I can see for myself that it is not +a novel. The author, on his side, warns me that it is not philosophy, +that it is not metaphysics, that it is not natural science. After +this comprehensive warning, the definition of the book becomes, you +will admit, a pretty hard nut to crack.</p> +<p>But meantime let us return for a moment to my opening remark about +the physical effect of some common, hired books. A few of them +(not necessarily books of verse) are melodious; the music some others +make for you as you read has the disagreeable emphasis of a barrel-organ; +the tinkling-cymbals book (it was not written by a humorist) I only +met once. But there is infinite variety in the noises books do +make. I have now on my shelves a book apparently of the most valuable +kind which, before I have read half-a-dozen lines, begins to make a +noise like a buzz-saw. I am inconsolable; I shall never, I fear, +discover what it is all about, for the buzzing covers the words, and +at every try I am absolutely forced to give it up ere the end of the +page is reached.</p> +<p>The book, however, which I have found so difficult to define, is +by no means noisy. As a mere piece of writing it may be described +as being breathless itself and taking the reader’s breath away, +not by the magnitude of its message but by a sort of anxious volubility +in the delivery. The constantly elusive argument and the illustrative +quotations go on without a single reflective pause. For this reason +alone the reading of that work is a fatiguing process.</p> +<p>The author himself (I use his own words) “suspects” that +what he has written “may be theology after all.” It +may be. It is not my place either to allay or to confirm the author’s +suspicion of his own work. But I will state its main thesis: “That +science regarded in the gross dictates the spirituality of man and strongly +implies a spiritual destiny for individual human beings.” +This means: Existence after Death—that is, Immortality.</p> +<p>To find out its value you must go to the book. But I will observe +here that an Immortality liable at any moment to betray itself fatuously +by the forcible incantations of Mr. Stead or Professor Crookes is scarcely +worth having. Can you imagine anything more squalid than an Immortality +at the beck and call of Eusapia Palladino? That woman lives on +the top floor of a Neapolitan house, and gets our poor, pitiful, august +dead, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, spirit of our spirit, who +have loved, suffered and died, as we must love, suffer, and die—she +gets them to beat tambourines in a corner and protrude shadowy limbs +through a curtain. This is particularly horrible, because, if +one had to put one’s faith in these things one could not even +die safely from disgust, as one would long to do.</p> +<p>And to believe that these manifestations, which the author evidently +takes for modern miracles, will stay our tottering faith; to believe +that the new psychology has, only the other day, discovered man to be +a “spiritual mystery,” is really carrying humility towards +that universal provider, Science, too far.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>We moderns have complicated our old perplexities to the point of +absurdity; our perplexities older than religion itself. It is +not for nothing that for so many centuries the priest, mounting the +steps of the altar, murmurs, “Why art thou sad, my soul, and why +dost thou trouble me?” Since the day of Creation two veiled +figures, Doubt and Melancholy, are pacing endlessly in the sunshine +of the world. What humanity needs is not the promise of scientific +immortality, but compassionate pity in this life and infinite mercy +on the Day of Judgment.</p> +<p>And, for the rest, during this transient hour of our pilgrimage, +we may well be content to repeat the Invocation of Sar Peladan. +Sar Peladan was an occultist, a seer, a modern magician. He believed +in astrology, in the spirits of the air, in elves; he was marvellously +and deliciously absurd. Incidentally he wrote some incomprehensible +poems and a few pages of harmonious prose, for, you must know, “a +magician is nothing else but a great harmonist.” Here are +some eight lines of the magnificent Invocation. Let me, however, +warn you, strictly between ourselves, that my translation is execrable. +I am sorry to say I am no magician.</p> +<p>“O Nature, indulgent Mother, forgive! Open your arms +to the son, prodigal and weary.</p> +<p>“I have attempted to tear asunder the veil you have hung to +conceal from us the pain of life, and I have been wounded by the mystery. +. . . Œdipus, half way to finding the word of the enigma, young +Faust, regretting already the simple life, the life of the heart, I +come back to you repentant, reconciled, O gentle deceiver!”</p> +<h3>THE ASCENDING EFFORT—1910</h3> +<p>Much good paper has been lamentably wasted to prove that science +has destroyed, that it is destroying, or, some day, may destroy poetry. +Meantime, unblushing, unseen, and often unheard, the guileless poets +have gone on singing in a sweet strain. How they dare do the impossible +and virtually forbidden thing is a cause for wonder but not for legislation. +Not yet. We are at present too busy reforming the silent burglar +and planning concerts to soothe the savage breast of the yelling hooligan. +As somebody—perhaps a publisher—said lately: “Poetry +is of no account now-a-days.”</p> +<p>But it is not totally neglected. Those persons with gold-rimmed +spectacles whose usual occupation is to spy upon the obvious have remarked +audibly (on several occasions) that poetry has so far not given to science +any acknowledgment worthy of its distinguished position in the popular +mind. Except that Tennyson looked down the throat of a foxglove, +that Erasmus Darwin wrote <i>The Loves of the Plants</i> and a scoffer +<i>The Loves of the Triangles</i>, poets have been supposed to be indecorously +blind to the progress of science. What tribute, for instance, +has poetry paid to electricity? All I can remember on the spur +of the moment is Mr. Arthur Symons’ line about arc lamps: “Hung +with the globes of some unnatural fruit.”</p> +<p>Commerce and Manufacture praise on every hand in their not mute but +inarticulate way the glories of science. Poetry does not play +its part. Behold John Keats, skilful with the surgeon’s +knife; but when he writes poetry his inspiration is not from the operating +table. Here I am reminded, though, of a modern instance to the +contrary in prose. Mr. H. G. Wells, who, as far as I know, has +never written a line of verse, was inspired a few years ago to write +a short story, <i>Under the Knife</i>. Out of a clock-dial, a +brass rod, and a whiff of chloroform, he has conjured for us a sensation +of space and eternity, evoked the face of the Unknowable, and an awesome, +august voice, like the voice of the Judgment Day; a great voice, perhaps +the voice of science itself, uttering the words: “There shall +be no more pain!” I advise you to look up that story, so +human and so intimate, because Mr. Wells, the writer of prose whose +amazing inventiveness we all know, remains a poet even in his most perverse +moments of scorn for things as they are. His poetic imagination +is sometimes even greater than his inventiveness, I am not afraid to +say. But, indeed, imaginative faculty would make any man a poet—were +he born without tongue for speech and without hands to seize his fancy +and fasten her down to a wretched piece of paper.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>The book <a name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6">{6}</a> which +in the course of the last few days I have opened and shut several times +is not imaginative. But, on the other hand, it is not a dumb book, +as some are. It has even a sort of sober and serious eloquence, +reminding us that not poetry alone is at fault in this matter. +Mr. Bourne begins his <i>Ascending Effort</i> with a remark by Sir Francis +Galton upon Eugenics that “if the principles he was advocating +were to become effective they must be introduced into the national conscience, +like a new religion.” “Introduced” suggests +compulsory vaccination. Mr. Bourne, who is not a theologian, wishes +to league together not science and religion, but science and the arts. +“The intoxicating power of art,” he thinks, is the very +thing needed to give the desired effect to the doctrines of science. +In uninspired phrase he points to the arts playing once upon a time +a part in “popularising the Christian tenets.” With +painstaking fervour as great as the fervour of prophets, but not so +persuasive, he foresees the arts some day popularising science. +Until that day dawns, science will continue to be lame and poetry blind. +He himself cannot smooth or even point out the way, though he thinks +that “a really prudent people would be greedy of beauty,” +and their public authorities “as careful of the sense of comfort +as of sanitation.”</p> +<p>As the writer of those remarkable rustic note-books, <i>The Bettesworth +Book</i> and <i>Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer</i>, the author has a claim +upon our attention. But his seriousness, his patience, his almost +touching sincerity, can only command the respect of his readers and +nothing more. He is obsessed by science, haunted and shadowed +by it, until he has been bewildered into awe. He knows, indeed, +that art owes its triumphs and its subtle influence to the fact that +it issues straight from our organic vitality, and is a movement of life-cells +with their matchless unintellectual knowledge. But the fact that +poetry does not seem obviously in love with science has never made him +doubt whether it may not be an argument against his haste to see the +marriage ceremony performed amid public rejoicings.</p> +<p>Many a man has heard or read and believes that the earth goes round +the sun; one small blob of mud among several others, spinning ridiculously +with a waggling motion like a top about to fall. This is the Copernican +system, and the man believes in the system without often knowing as +much about it as its name. But while watching a sunset he sheds +his belief; he sees the sun as a small and useful object, the servant +of his needs and the witness of his ascending effort, sinking slowly +behind a range of mountains, and then he holds the system of Ptolemy. +He holds it without knowing it. In the same way a poet hears, +reads, and believes a thousand undeniable truths which have not yet +got into his blood, nor will do after reading Mr. Bourne’s book; +he writes, therefore, as if neither truths nor book existed. Life +and the arts follow dark courses, and will not turn aside to the brilliant +arc-lights of science. Some day, without a doubt,—and it +may be a consolation to Mr. Bourne to know it—fully informed critics +will point out that Mr. Davies’s poem on a dark woman combing +her hair must have been written after the invasion of appendicitis, +and that Mr. Yeats’s “Had I the heaven’s embroidered +cloths” came before radium was quite unnecessarily dragged out +of its respectable obscurity in pitchblende to upset the venerable (and +comparatively naive) chemistry of our young days.</p> +<p>There are times when the tyranny of science and the cant of science +are alarming, but there are other times when they are entertaining—and +this is one of them. “Many a man prides himself” says +Mr. Bourne, “on his piety or his views of art, whose whole range +of ideas, could they be investigated, would be found ordinary, if not +base, because they have been adopted in compliance with some external +persuasion or to serve some timid purpose instead of proceeding authoritatively +from the living selection of his hereditary taste.” This +extract is a fair sample of the book’s thought and of its style. +But Mr. Bourne seems to forget that “persuasion” is a vain +thing. The appreciation of great art comes from within.</p> +<p>It is but the merest justice to say that the transparent honesty +of Mr. Bourne’s purpose is undeniable. But the whole book +is simply an earnest expression of a pious wish; and, like the generality +of pious wishes, this one seems of little dynamic value—besides +being impracticable.</p> +<p>Yes, indeed. Art has served Religion; artists have found the +most exalted inspiration in Christianity; but the light of Transfiguration +which has illuminated the profoundest mysteries of our sinful souls +is not the light of the generating stations, which exposes the depths +of our infatuation where our mere cleverness is permitted for a while +to grope for the unessential among invincible shadows.</p> +<h3>THE CENSOR OF PLAYS—AN APPRECIATION—1907</h3> +<p>A couple of years ago I was moved to write a one-act play—and +I lived long enough to accomplish the task. We live and learn. +When the play was finished I was informed that it had to be licensed +for performance. Thus I learned of the existence of the Censor +of Plays. I may say without vanity that I am intelligent enough +to have been astonished by that piece of information: for facts must +stand in some relation to time and space, and I was aware of being in +England—in the twentieth-century England. The fact did not +fit the date and the place. That was my first thought. It +was, in short, an improper fact. I beg you to believe that I am +writing in all seriousness and am weighing my words scrupulously.</p> +<p>Therefore I don’t say inappropriate. I say improper—that +is: something to be ashamed of. And at first this impression was +confirmed by the obscurity in which the figure embodying this after +all considerable fact had its being. The Censor of Plays! +His name was not in the mouths of all men. Far from it. +He seemed stealthy and remote. There was about that figure the +scent of the far East, like the peculiar atmosphere of a Mandarin’s +back yard, and the mustiness of the Middle Ages, that epoch when mankind +tried to stand still in a monstrous illusion of final certitude attained +in morals, intellect and conscience.</p> +<p>It was a disagreeable impression. But I reflected that probably +the censorship of plays was an inactive monstrosity; not exactly a survival, +since it seemed obviously at variance with the genius of the people, +but an heirloom of past ages, a bizarre and imported curiosity preserved +because of that weakness one has for one’s old possessions apart +from any intrinsic value; one more object of exotic <i>virtù</i>, +an Oriental <i>potiche</i>, a <i>magot chinois</i> conceived by a childish +and extravagant imagination, but allowed to stand in stolid impotence +in the twilight of the upper shelf.</p> +<p>Thus I quieted my uneasy mind. Its uneasiness had nothing to +do with the fate of my one-act play. The play was duly produced, +and an exceptionally intelligent audience stared it coldly off the boards. +It ceased to exist. It was a fair and open execution. But +having survived the freezing atmosphere of that auditorium I continued +to exist, labouring under no sense of wrong. I was not pleased, +but I was content. I was content to accept the verdict of a free +and independent public, judging after its conscience the work of its +free, independent and conscientious servant—the artist.</p> +<p>Only thus can the dignity of artistic servitude be preserved—not +to speak of the bare existence of the artist and the self-respect of +the man. I shall say nothing of the self-respect of the public. +To the self-respect of the public the present appeal against the censorship +is being made and I join in it with all my heart.</p> +<p>For I have lived long enough to learn that the monstrous and outlandish +figure, the <i>magot chinois</i> whom I believed to be but a memorial +of our forefathers’ mental aberration, that grotesque <i>potiche</i>, +works! The absurd and hollow creature of clay seems to be alive +with a sort of (surely) unconscious life worthy of its traditions. +It heaves its stomach, it rolls its eyes, it brandishes a monstrous +arm: and with the censorship, like a Bravo of old Venice with a more +carnal weapon, stabs its victim from behind in the twilight of its upper +shelf. Less picturesque than the Venetian in cloak and mask, less +estimable, too, in this, that the assassin plied his moral trade at +his own risk deriving no countenance from the powers of the Republic, +it stands more malevolent, inasmuch that the Bravo striking in the dusk +killed but the body, whereas the grotesque thing nodding its mandarin +head may in its absurd unconsciousness strike down at any time the spirit +of an honest, of an artistic, perhaps of a sublime creation.</p> +<p>This Chinese monstrosity, disguised in the trousers of the Western +Barbarian and provided by the State with the immortal Mr. Stiggins’s +plug hat and umbrella, is with us. It is an office. An office +of trust. And from time to time there is found an official to +fill it. He is a public man. The least prominent of public +men, the most unobtrusive, the most obscure if not the most modest.</p> +<p>But however obscure, a public man may be told the truth if only once +in his life. His office flourishes in the shade; not in the rustic +shade beloved of the violet but in the muddled twilight of mind, where +tyranny of every sort flourishes. Its holder need not have either +brain or heart, no sight, no taste, no imagination, not even bowels +of compassion. He needs not these things. He has power. +He can kill thought, and incidentally truth, and incidentally beauty, +providing they seek to live in a dramatic form. He can do it, +without seeing, without understanding, without feeling anything; out +of mere stupid suspicion, as an irresponsible Roman Cæsar could +kill a senator. He can do that and there is no one to say him +nay. He may call his cook (Molière used to do that) from +below and give her five acts to judge every morning as a matter of constant +practice and still remain the unquestioned destroyer of men’s +honest work. He may have a glass too much. This accident +has happened to persons of unimpeachable morality—to gentlemen. +He may suffer from spells of imbecility like Clodius. He may . +. . what might he not do! I tell you he is the Cæsar of +the dramatic world. There has been since the Roman Principate +nothing in the way of irresponsible power to compare with the office +of the Censor of Plays.</p> +<p>Looked at in this way it has some grandeur, something colossal in +the odious and the absurd. This figure in whose power it is to +suppress an intellectual conception—to kill thought (a dream for +a mad brain, my masters!)—seems designed in a spirit of bitter +comedy to bring out the greatness of a Philistine’s conceit and +his moral cowardice.</p> +<p>But this is England in the twentieth century, and one wonders that +there can be found a man courageous enough to occupy the post. +It is a matter for meditation. Having given it a few minutes I +come to the conclusion in the serenity of my heart and the peace of +my conscience that he must be either an extreme megalomaniac or an utterly +unconscious being.</p> +<p>He must be unconscious. It is one of the qualifications for +his magistracy. Other qualifications are equally easy. He +must have done nothing, expressed nothing, imagined nothing. He +must be obscure, insignificant and mediocre—in thought, act, speech +and sympathy. He must know nothing of art, of life—and of +himself. For if he did he would not dare to be what he is. +Like that much questioned and mysterious bird, the phoenix, he sits +amongst the cold ashes of his predecessor upon the altar of morality, +alone of his kind in the sight of wondering generations.</p> +<p>And I will end with a quotation reproducing not perhaps the exact +words but the true spirit of a lofty conscience.</p> +<p>“Often when sitting down to write the notice of a play, especially +when I felt it antagonistic to my canons of art, to my tastes or my +convictions, I hesitated in the fear lest my conscientious blame might +check the development of a great talent, my sincere judgment condemn +a worthy mind. With the pen poised in my hand I hesitated, whispering +to myself ‘What if I were perchance doing my part in killing a +masterpiece.’”</p> +<p>Such were the lofty scruples of M. Jules Lemaître—dramatist +and dramatic critic, a great citizen and a high magistrate in the Republic +of Letters; a Censor of Plays exercising his august office openly in +the light of day, with the authority of a European reputation. +But then M. Jules Lemaître is a man possessed of wisdom, of great +fame, of a fine conscience—not an obscure hollow Chinese monstrosity +ornamented with Mr. Stiggins’s plug hat and cotton umbrella by +its anxious grandmother—the State.</p> +<p>Frankly, is it not time to knock the improper object off its shelf? +It has stood too long there. Hatched in Pekin (I should say) by +some Board of Respectable Rites, the little caravan monster has come +to us by way of Moscow—I suppose. It is outlandish. +It is not venerable. It does not belong here. Is it not +time to knock it off its dark shelf with some implement appropriate +to its worth and status? With an old broom handle for instance.</p> +<h2>PART II—LIFE</h2> +<h3>AUTOCRACY AND WAR—1905</h3> +<p>From the firing of the first shot on the banks of the Sha-ho, the +fate of the great battle of the Russo-Japanese war hung in the balance +for more than a fortnight. The famous three-day battles, for which +history has reserved the recognition of special pages, sink into insignificance +before the struggles in Manchuria engaging half a million men on fronts +of sixty miles, struggles lasting for weeks, flaming up fiercely and +dying away from sheer exhaustion, to flame up again in desperate persistence, +and end—as we have seen them end more than once—not from +the victor obtaining a crushing advantage, but through the mortal weariness +of the combatants.</p> +<p>We have seen these things, though we have seen them only in the cold, +silent, colourless print of books and newspapers. In stigmatising +the printed word as cold, silent and colourless, I have no intention +of putting a slight upon the fidelity and the talents of men who have +provided us with words to read about the battles in Manchuria. +I only wished to suggest that in the nature of things, the war in the +Far East has been made known to us, so far, in a grey reflection of +its terrible and monotonous phases of pain, death, sickness; a reflection +seen in the perspective of thousands of miles, in the dim atmosphere +of official reticence, through the veil of inadequate words. Inadequate, +I say, because what had to be reproduced is beyond the common experience +of war, and our imagination, luckily for our peace of mind, has remained +a slumbering faculty, notwithstanding the din of humanitarian talk and +the real progress of humanitarian ideas. Direct vision of the +fact, or the stimulus of a great art, can alone make it turn and open +its eyes heavy with blessed sleep; and even there, as against the testimony +of the senses and the stirring up of emotion, that saving callousness +which reconciles us to the conditions of our existence, will assert +itself under the guise of assent to fatal necessity, or in the enthusiasm +of a purely æsthetic admiration of the rendering. In this +age of knowledge our sympathetic imagination, to which alone we can +look for the ultimate triumph of concord and justice, remains strangely +impervious to information, however correctly and even picturesquely +conveyed. As to the vaunted eloquence of a serried array of figures, +it has all the futility of precision without force. It is the +exploded superstition of enthusiastic statisticians. An over-worked +horse falling in front of our windows, a man writhing under a cart-wheel +in the streets awaken more genuine emotion, more horror, pity, and indignation +than the stream of reports, appalling in their monotony, of tens of +thousands of decaying bodies tainting the air of the Manchurian plains, +of other tens of thousands of maimed bodies groaning in ditches, crawling +on the frozen ground, filling the field hospitals; of the hundreds of +thousands of survivors no less pathetic and even more tragic in being +left alive by fate to the wretched exhaustion of their pitiful toil.</p> +<p>An early Victorian, or perhaps a pre-Victorian, sentimentalist, looking +out of an upstairs window, I believe, at a street—perhaps Fleet +Street itself—full of people, is reported, by an admiring friend, +to have wept for joy at seeing so much life. These arcadian tears, +this facile emotion worthy of the golden age, comes to us from the past, +with solemn approval, after the close of the Napoleonic wars and before +the series of sanguinary surprises held in reserve by the nineteenth +century for our hopeful grandfathers. We may well envy them their +optimism of which this anecdote of an amiable wit and sentimentalist +presents an extreme instance, but still, a true instance, and worthy +of regard in the spontaneous testimony to that trust in the life of +the earth, triumphant at last in the felicity of her children. +Moreover, the psychology of individuals, even in the most extreme instances, +reflects the general effect of the fears and hopes of its time. +Wept for joy! I should think that now, after eighty years, the +emotion would be of a sterner sort. One could not imagine anybody +shedding tears of joy at the sight of much life in a street, unless, +perhaps, he were an enthusiastic officer of a general staff or a popular +politician, with a career yet to make. And hardly even that. +In the case of the first tears would be unprofessional, and a stern +repression of all signs of joy at the provision of so much food for +powder more in accord with the rules of prudence; the joy of the second +would be checked before it found issue in weeping by anxious doubts +as to the soundness of these electors’ views upon the question +of the hour, and the fear of missing the consensus of their votes.</p> +<p>No! It seems that such a tender joy would be misplaced now +as much as ever during the last hundred years, to go no further back. +The end of the eighteenth century was, too, a time of optimism and of +dismal mediocrity in which the French Revolution exploded like a bombshell. +In its lurid blaze the insufficiency of Europe, the inferiority of minds, +of military and administrative systems, stood exposed with pitiless +vividness. And there is but little courage in saying at this time +of the day that the glorified French Revolution itself, except for its +destructive force, was in essentials a mediocre phenomenon. The +parentage of that great social and political upheaval was intellectual, +the idea was elevated; but it is the bitter fate of any idea to lose +its royal form and power, to lose its “virtue” the moment +it descends from its solitary throne to work its will among the people. +It is a king whose destiny is never to know the obedience of his subjects +except at the cost of degradation. The degradation of the ideas +of freedom and justice at the root of the French Revolution is made +manifest in the person of its heir; a personality without law or faith, +whom it has been the fashion to represent as an eagle, but who was, +in truth, more like a sort of vulture preying upon the body of a Europe +which did, indeed, for some dozen of years, very much resemble a corpse. +The subtle and manifold influence for evil of the Napoleonic episode +as a school of violence, as a sower of national hatreds, as the direct +provocator of obscurantism and reaction, of political tyranny and injustice, +cannot well be exaggerated.</p> +<p>The nineteenth century began with wars which were the issue of a +corrupted revolution. It may be said that the twentieth begins +with a war which is like the explosive ferment of a moral grave, whence +may yet emerge a new political organism to take the place of a gigantic +and dreaded phantom. For a hundred years the ghost of Russian +might, overshadowing with its fantastic bulk the councils of Central +and Western Europe, sat upon the gravestone of autocracy, cutting off +from air, from light, from all knowledge of themselves and of the world, +the buried millions of Russian people. Not the most determined +cockney sentimentalist could have had the heart to weep for joy at the +thought of its teeming numbers! And yet they were living, they +are alive yet, since, through the mist of print, we have seen their +blood freezing crimson upon the snow of the squares and streets of St. +Petersburg; since their generations born in the grave are yet alive +enough to fill the ditches and cover the fields of Manchuria with their +torn limbs; to send up from the frozen ground of battlefields a chorus +of groans calling for vengeance from Heaven; to kill and retreat, or +kill and advance, without intermission or rest for twenty hours, for +fifty hours, for whole weeks of fatigue, hunger, cold, and murder—till +their ghastly labour, worthy of a place amongst the punishments of Dante’s +Inferno, passing through the stages of courage, of fury, of hopelessness, +sinks into the night of crazy despair.</p> +<p>It seems that in both armies many men are driven beyond the bounds +of sanity by the stress of moral and physical misery. Great numbers +of soldiers and regimental officers go mad as if by way of protest against +the peculiar sanity of a state of war: mostly among the Russians, of +course. The Japanese have in their favour the tonic effect of +success; and the innate gentleness of their character stands them in +good stead. But the Japanese grand army has yet another advantage +in this nerve-destroying contest, which for endless, arduous toil of +killing surpasses all the wars of history. It has a base for its +operations; a base of a nature beyond the concern of the many books +written upon the so-called art of war, which, considered by itself, +purely as an exercise of human ingenuity, is at best only a thing of +well-worn, simple artifices. The Japanese army has for its base +a reasoned conviction; it has behind it the profound belief in the right +of a logical necessity to be appeased at the cost of so much blood and +treasure. And in that belief, whether well or ill founded, that +army stands on the high ground of conscious assent, shouldering deliberately +the burden of a long-tried faithfulness. The other people (since +each people is an army nowadays), torn out from a miserable quietude +resembling death itself, hurled across space, amazed, without starting-point +of its own or knowledge of the aim, can feel nothing but a horror-stricken +consciousness of having mysteriously become the plaything of a black +and merciless fate.</p> +<p>The profound, the instructive nature of this war is resumed by the +memorable difference in the spiritual state of the two armies; the one +forlorn and dazed on being driven out from an abyss of mental darkness +into the red light of a conflagration, the other with a full knowledge +of its past and its future, “finding itself” as it were +at every step of the trying war before the eyes of an astonished world. +The greatness of the lesson has been dwarfed for most of us by an often +half-conscious prejudice of race-difference. The West having managed +to lodge its hasty foot on the neck of the East, is prone to forget +that it is from the East that the wonders of patience and wisdom have +come to a world of men who set the value of life in the power to act +rather than in the faculty of meditation. It has been dwarfed +by this, and it has been obscured by a cloud of considerations with +whose shaping wisdom and meditation had little or nothing to do; by +the weary platitudes on the military situation which (apart from geographical +conditions) is the same everlasting situation that has prevailed since +the times of Hannibal and Scipio, and further back yet, since the beginning +of historical record—since prehistoric times, for that matter; +by the conventional expressions of horror at the tale of maiming and +killing; by the rumours of peace with guesses more or less plausible +as to its conditions. All this is made legitimate by the consecrated +custom of writers in such time as this—the time of a great war. +More legitimate in view of the situation created in Europe are the speculations +as to the course of events after the war. More legitimate, but +hardly more wise than the irresponsible talk of strategy that never +changes, and of terms of peace that do not matter.</p> +<p>And above it all—unaccountably persistent—the decrepit, +old, hundred years old, spectre of Russia’s might still faces +Europe from across the teeming graves of Russian people. This +dreaded and strange apparition, bristling with bayonets, armed with +chains, hung over with holy images; that something not of this world, +partaking of a ravenous ghoul, of a blind Djinn grown up from a cloud, +and of the Old Man of the Sea, still faces us with its old stupidity, +with its strange mystical arrogance, stamping its shadowy feet upon +the gravestone of autocracy already cracked beyond repair by the torpedoes +of Togo and the guns of Oyama, already heaving in the blood-soaked ground +with the first stirrings of a resurrection.</p> +<p>Never before had the Western world the opportunity to look so deep +into the black abyss which separates a soulless autocracy posing as, +and even believing itself to be, the arbiter of Europe, from the benighted, +starved souls of its people. This is the real object-lesson of +this war, its unforgettable information. And this war’s +true mission, disengaged from the economic origins of that contest, +from doors open or shut, from the fields of Korea for Russian wheat +or Japanese rice, from the ownership of ice-free ports and the command +of the waters of the East—its true mission was to lay a ghost. +It has accomplished it. Whether Kuropatkin was incapable or unlucky, +whether or not Russia issuing next year, or the year after next, from +behind a rampart of piled-up corpses will win or lose a fresh campaign, +are minor considerations. The task of Japan is done, the mission +accomplished; the ghost of Russia’s might is laid. Only +Europe, accustomed so long to the presence of that portent, seems unable +to comprehend that, as in the fables of our childhood, the twelve strokes +of the hour have rung, the cock has crowed, the apparition has vanished—never +to haunt again this world which has been used to gaze at it with vague +dread and many misgivings.</p> +<p>It was a fascination. And the hallucination still lasts as +inexplicable in its persistence as in its duration. It seems so +unaccountable, that the doubt arises as to the sincerity of all that +talk as to what Russia will or will not do, whether it will raise or +not another army, whether it will bury the Japanese in Manchuria under +seventy millions of sacrificed peasants’ caps (as her Press boasted +a little more than a year ago) or give up to Japan that jewel of her +crown, Saghalien, together with some other things; whether, perchance, +as an interesting alternative, it will make peace on the Amur in order +to make war beyond the Oxus.</p> +<p>All these speculations (with many others) have appeared gravely in +print; and if they have been gravely considered by only one reader out +of each hundred, there must be something subtly noxious to the human +brain in the composition of newspaper ink; or else it is that the large +page, the columns of words, the leaded headings, exalt the mind into +a state of feverish credulity. The printed page of the Press makes +a sort of still uproar, taking from men both the power to reflect and +the faculty of genuine feeling; leaving them only the artificially created +need of having something exciting to talk about.</p> +<p>The truth is that the Russia of our fathers, of our childhood, of +our middle-age; the testamentary Russia of Peter the Great—who +imagined that all the nations were delivered into the hand of Tsardom—can +do nothing. It can do nothing because it does not exist. +It has vanished for ever at last, and as yet there is no new Russia +to take the place of that ill-omened creation, which, being a fantasy +of a madman’s brain, could in reality be nothing else than a figure +out of a nightmare seated upon a monument of fear and oppression.</p> +<p>The true greatness of a State does not spring from such a contemptible +source. It is a matter of logical growth, of faith and courage. +Its inspiration springs from the constructive instinct of the people, +governed by the strong hand of a collective conscience and voiced in +the wisdom and counsel of men who seldom reap the reward of gratitude. +Many States have been powerful, but, perhaps, none have been truly great—as +yet. That the position of a State in reference to the moral methods +of its development can be seen only historically, is true. Perhaps +mankind has not lived long enough for a comprehensive view of any particular +case. Perhaps no one will ever live long enough; and perhaps this +earth shared out amongst our clashing ambitions by the anxious arrangements +of statesmen will come to an end before we attain the felicity of greeting +with unanimous applause the perfect fruition of a great State. +It is even possible that we are destined for another sort of bliss altogether: +that sort which consists in being perpetually duped by false appearances. +But whatever political illusion the future may hold out to our fear +or our admiration, there will be none, it is safe to say, which in the +magnitude of anti-humanitarian effect will equal that phantom now driven +out of the world by the thunder of thousands of guns; none that in its +retreat will cling with an equally shameless sincerity to more unworthy +supports: to the moral corruption and mental darkness of slavery, to +the mere brute force of numbers.</p> +<p>This very ignominy of infatuation should make clear to men’s +feelings and reason that the downfall of Russia’s might is unavoidable. +Spectral it lived and spectral it disappears without leaving a memory +of a single generous deed, of a single service rendered—even involuntarily—to +the polity of nations. Other despotisms there have been, but none +whose origin was so grimly fantastic in its baseness, and the beginning +of whose end was so gruesomely ignoble. What is amazing is the +myth of its irresistible strength which is dying so hard.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Considered historically, Russia’s influence in Europe seems +the most baseless thing in the world; a sort of convention invented +by diplomatists for some dark purpose of their own, one would suspect, +if the lack of grasp upon the realities of any given situation were +not the main characteristic of the management of international relations. +A glance back at the last hundred years shows the invariable, one may +say the logical, powerlessness of Russia. As a military power +it has never achieved by itself a single great thing. It has been +indeed able to repel an ill-considered invasion, but only by having +recourse to the extreme methods of desperation. In its attacks +upon its specially selected victim this giant always struck as if with +a withered right hand. All the campaigns against Turkey prove +this, from Potemkin’s time to the last Eastern war in 1878, entered +upon with every advantage of a well-nursed prestige and a carefully +fostered fanaticism. Even the half-armed were always too much +for the might of Russia, or, rather, of the Tsardom. It was victorious +only against the practically disarmed, as, in regard to its ideal of +territorial expansion, a glance at a map will prove sufficiently. +As an ally, Russia has been always unprofitable, taking her share in +the defeats rather than in the victories of her friends, but always +pushing her own claims with the arrogance of an arbiter of military +success. She has been unable to help to any purpose a single principle +to hold its own, not even the principle of authority and legitimism +which Nicholas the First had declared so haughtily to rest under his +special protection; just as Nicholas the Second has tried to make the +maintenance of peace on earth his own exclusive affair. And the +first Nicholas was a good Russian; he held the belief in the sacredness +of his realm with such an intensity of faith that he could not survive +the first shock of doubt. Rightly envisaged, the Crimean war was +the end of what remained of absolutism and legitimism in Europe. +It threw the way open for the liberation of Italy. The war in +Manchuria makes an end of absolutism in Russia, whoever has got to perish +from the shock behind a rampart of dead ukases, manifestoes, and rescripts. +In the space of fifty years the self-appointed Apostle of Absolutism +and the self-appointed Apostle of Peace, the Augustus and the Augustulus +of the <i>régime</i> that was wont to speak contemptuously to +European Foreign Offices in the beautiful French phrases of Prince Gorchakov, +have fallen victims, each after his kind, to their shadowy and dreadful +familiar, to the phantom, part ghoul, part Djinn, part Old Man of the +Sea, with beak and claws and a double head, looking greedily both east +and west on the confines of two continents.</p> +<p>That nobody through all that time penetrated the true nature of the +monster it is impossible to believe. But of the many who must +have seen, all were either too modest, too cautious, perhaps too discreet, +to speak; or else were too insignificant to be heard or believed. +Yet not all.</p> +<p>In the very early sixties, Prince Bismarck, then about to leave his +post of Prussian Minister in St. Petersburg, called—so the story +goes—upon another distinguished diplomatist. After some +talk upon the general situation, the future Chancellor of the German +Empire remarked that it was his practice to resume the impressions he +had carried out of every country where he had made a long stay, in a +short sentence, which he caused to be engraved upon some trinket. +“I am leaving this country now, and this is what I bring away +from it,” he continued, taking off his finger a new ring to show +to his colleague the inscription inside: “La Russie, c’est +le néant.”</p> +<p>Prince Bismarck had the truth of the matter and was neither too modest +nor too discreet to speak out. Certainly he was not afraid of +not being believed. Yet he did not shout his knowledge from the +house-tops. He meant to have the phantom as his accomplice in +an enterprise which has set the clock of peace back for many a year.</p> +<p>He had his way. The German Empire has been an accomplished +fact for more than a third of a century—a great and dreadful legacy +left to the world by the ill-omened phantom of Russia’s might.</p> +<p>It is that phantom which is disappearing now—unexpectedly, +astonishingly, as if by a touch of that wonderful magic for which the +East has always been famous. The pretence of belief in its existence +will no longer answer anybody’s purposes (now Prince Bismarck +is dead) unless the purposes of the writers of sensational paragraphs +as to this <i>Néant</i> making an armed descent upon the plains +of India. That sort of folly would be beneath notice if it did +not distract attention from the real problem created for Europe by a +war in the Far East.</p> +<p>For good or evil in the working out of her destiny, Russia is bound +to remain a <i>Néant</i> for many long years, in a more even +than a Bismarckian sense. The very fear of this spectre being +gone, it behoves us to consider its legacy—the fact (no phantom +that) accomplished in Central Europe by its help and connivance.</p> +<p>The German Empire may feel at bottom the loss of an old accomplice +always amenable to the confidential whispers of a bargain; but in the +first instance it cannot but rejoice at the fundamental weakening of +a possible obstacle to its instincts of territorial expansion. +There is a removal of that latent feeling of restraint which the presence +of a powerful neighbour, however implicated with you in a sense of common +guilt, is bound to inspire. The common guilt of the two Empires +is defined precisely by their frontier line running through the Polish +provinces. Without indulging in excessive feelings of indignation +at that country’s partition, or going so far as to believe—with +a late French politician—in the “immanente justice des choses,” +it is clear that a material situation, based upon an essentially immoral +transaction, contains the germ of fatal differences in the temperament +of the two partners in iniquity—whatever the iniquity is. +Germany has been the evil counsellor of Russia on all the questions +of her Polish problem. Always urging the adoption of the most +repressive measures with a perfectly logical duplicity, Prince Bismarck’s +Empire has taken care to couple the neighbourly offers of military assistance +with merciless advice. The thought of the Polish provinces accepting +a frank reconciliation with a humanised Russia and bringing the weight +of homogeneous loyalty within a few miles of Berlin, has been always +intensely distasteful to the arrogant Germanising tendencies of the +other partner in iniquity. And, besides, the way to the Baltic +provinces leads over the Niemen and over the Vistula.</p> +<p>And now, when there is a possibility of serious internal disturbances +destroying the sort of order autocracy has kept in Russia, the road +over these rivers is seen wearing a more inviting aspect. At any +moment the pretext of armed intervention may be found in a revolutionary +outbreak provoked by Socialists, perhaps—but at any rate by the +political immaturity of the enlightened classes and by the political +barbarism of the Russian people. The throes of Russian resurrection +will be long and painful. This is not the place to speculate upon +the nature of these convulsions, but there must be some violent break-up +of the lamentable tradition, a shattering of the social, of the administrative—certainly +of the territorial—unity.</p> +<p>Voices have been heard saying that the time for reforms in Russia +is already past. This is the superficial view of the more profound +truth that for Russia there has never been such a time within the memory +of mankind. It is impossible to initiate a rational scheme of +reform upon a phase of blind absolutism; and in Russia there has never +been anything else to which the faintest tradition could, after ages +of error, go back as to a parting of ways.</p> +<p>In Europe the old monarchical principle stands justified in its historical +struggle with the growth of political liberty by the evolution of the +idea of nationality as we see it concreted at the present time; by the +inception of that wider solidarity grouping together around the standard +of monarchical power these larger, agglomerations of mankind. +This service of unification, creating close-knit communities possessing +the ability, the will, and the power to pursue a common ideal, has prepared +the ground for the advent of a still larger understanding: for the solidarity +of Europeanism, which must be the next step towards the advent of Concord +and Justice; an advent that, however delayed by the fatal worship of +force and the errors of national selfishness, has been, and remains, +the only possible goal of our progress.</p> +<p>The conceptions of legality, of larger patriotism, of national duties +and aspirations have grown under the shadow of the old monarchies of +Europe, which were the creations of historical necessity. There +were seeds of wisdom in their very mistakes and abuses. They had +a past and a future; they were human. But under the shadow of +Russian autocracy nothing could grow. Russian autocracy succeeded +to nothing; it had no historical past, and it cannot hope for a historical +future. It can only end. By no industry of investigation, +by no fantastic stretch of benevolence, can it be presented as a phase +of development through which a Society, a State, must pass on the way +to the full consciousness of its destiny. It lies outside the +stream of progress. This despotism has been utterly un-European. +Neither has it been Asiatic in its nature. Oriental despotisms +belong to the history of mankind; they have left their trace on our +minds and our imagination by their splendour, by their culture, by their +art, by the exploits of great conquerors. The record of their +rise and decay has an intellectual value; they are in their origins +and their course the manifestations of human needs, the instruments +of racial temperament, of catastrophic force, of faith and fanaticism. +The Russian autocracy as we see it now is a thing apart. It is +impossible to assign to it any rational origin in the vices, the misfortunes, +the necessities, or the aspirations of mankind. That despotism +has neither an European nor an Oriental parentage; more, it seems to +have no root either in the institutions or the follies of this earth. +What strikes one with a sort of awe is just this something inhuman in +its character. It is like a visitation, like a curse from Heaven +falling in the darkness of ages upon the immense plains of forest and +steppe lying dumbly on the confines of two continents: a true desert +harbouring no Spirit either of the East or of the West.</p> +<p>This pitiful fate of a country held by an evil spell, suffering from +an awful visitation for which the responsibility cannot be traced either +to her sins or her follies, has made Russia as a nation so difficult +to understand by Europe. From the very first ghastly dawn of her +existence as a State she had to breathe the atmosphere of despotism; +she found nothing but the arbitrary will of an obscure autocrat at the +beginning and end of her organisation. Hence arises her impenetrability +to whatever is true in Western thought. Western thought, when +it crosses her frontier, falls under the spell of her autocracy and +becomes a noxious parody of itself. Hence the contradictions, +the riddles of her national life, which are looked upon with such curiosity +by the rest of the world. The curse had entered her very soul; +autocracy, and nothing else in the world, has moulded her institutions, +and with the poison of slavery drugged the national temperament into +the apathy of a hopeless fatalism. It seems to have gone into +the blood, tainting every mental activity in its source by a half-mystical, +insensate, fascinating assertion of purity and holiness. The Government +of Holy Russia, arrogating to itself the supreme power to torment and +slaughter the bodies of its subjects like a God-sent scourge, has been +most cruel to those whom it allowed to live under the shadow of its +dispensation. The worst crime against humanity of that system +we behold now crouching at bay behind vast heaps of mangled corpses +is the ruthless destruction of innumerable minds. The greatest +horror of the world—madness—walked faithfully in its train. +Some of the best intellects of Russia, after struggling in vain against +the spell, ended by throwing themselves at the feet of that hopeless +despotism as a giddy man leaps into an abyss. An attentive survey +of Russia’s literature, of her Church, of her administration and +the cross-currents of her thought, must end in the verdict that the +Russia of to-day has not the right to give her voice on a single question +touching the future of humanity, because from the very inception of +her being the brutal destruction of dignity, of truth, of rectitude, +of all that is faithful in human nature has been made the imperative +condition of her existence. The great governmental secret of that +imperium which Prince Bismarck had the insight and the courage to call +<i>Le Néant</i>, has been the extirpation of every intellectual +hope. To pronounce in the face of such a past the word Evolution, +which is precisely the expression of the highest intellectual hope, +is a gruesome pleasantry. There can be no evolution out of a grave. +Another word of less scientific sound has been very much pronounced +of late in connection with Russia’s future, a word of more vague +import, a word of dread as much as of hope—Revolution.</p> +<p>In the face of the events of the last four months, this word has +sprung instinctively, as it were, on grave lips, and has been heard +with solemn forebodings. More or less consciously, Europe is preparing +herself for a spectacle of much violence and perhaps of an inspiring +nobility of greatness. And there will be nothing of what she expects. +She will see neither the anticipated character of the violence, nor +yet any signs of generous greatness. Her expectations, more or +less vaguely expressed, give the measure of her ignorance of that <i>Néant</i> +which for so many years had remained hidden behind this phantom of invincible +armies.</p> +<p><i>Néant</i>! In a way, yes! And yet perhaps Prince +Bismarck has let himself be led away by the seduction of a good phrase +into the use of an inexact form. The form of his judgment had +to be pithy, striking, engraved within a ring. If he erred, then, +no doubt, he erred deliberately. The saying was near enough the +truth to serve, and perhaps he did not want to destroy utterly by a +more severe definition the prestige of the sham that could not deceive +his genius. Prince Bismarck has been really complimentary to the +useful phantom of the autocratic might. There is an awe-inspiring +idea of infinity conveyed in the word <i>Néant</i>—and +in Russia there is no idea. She is not a <i>Néant</i>, +she is and has been simply the negation of everything worth living for. +She is not an empty void, she is a yawning chasm open between East and +West; a bottomless abyss that has swallowed up every hope of mercy, +every aspiration towards personal dignity, towards freedom, towards +knowledge, every ennobling desire of the heart, every redeeming whisper +of conscience. Those that have peered into that abyss, where the +dreams of Panslavism, of universal conquest, mingled with the hate and +contempt for Western ideas, drift impotently like shapes of mist, know +well that it is bottomless; that there is in it no ground for anything +that could in the remotest degree serve even the lowest interests of +mankind—and certainly no ground ready for a revolution. +The sin of the old European monarchies was not the absolutism inherent +in every form of government; it was the inability to alter the forms +of their legality, grown narrow and oppressive with the march of time. +Every form of legality is bound to degenerate into oppression, and the +legality in the forms of monarchical institutions sooner, perhaps, than +any other. It has not been the business of monarchies to be adaptive +from within. With the mission of uniting and consolidating the +particular ambitions and interests of feudalism in favour of a larger +conception of a State, of giving self-consciousness, force and nationality +to the scattered energies of thought and action, they were fated to +lag behind the march of ideas they had themselves set in motion in a +direction they could neither understand nor approve. Yet, for +all that, the thrones still remain, and what is more significant, perhaps, +some of the dynasties, too, have survived. The revolutions of +European States have never been in the nature of absolute protests <i>en +masse</i> against the monarchical principle; they were the uprising +of the people against the oppressive degeneration of legality. +But there never has been any legality in Russia; she is a negation of +that as of everything else that has its root in reason or conscience. +The ground of every revolution had to be intellectually prepared. +A revolution is a short cut in the rational development of national +needs in response to the growth of world-wide ideals. It is conceivably +possible for a monarch of genius to put himself at the head of a revolution +without ceasing to be the king of his people. For the autocracy +of Holy Russia the only conceivable self-reform is—suicide.</p> +<p>The same relentless fate holds in its grip the all-powerful ruler +and his helpless people. Wielders of a power purchased by an unspeakable +baseness of subjection to the Khans of the Tartar horde, the Princes +of Russia who, in their heart of hearts had come in time to regard themselves +as superior to every monarch of Europe, have never risen to be the chiefs +of a nation. Their authority has never been sanctioned by popular +tradition, by ideas of intelligent loyalty, of devotion, of political +necessity, of simple expediency, or even by the power of the sword. +In whatever form of upheaval autocratic Russia is to find her end, it +can never be a revolution fruitful of moral consequences to mankind. +It cannot be anything else but a rising of slaves. It is a tragic +circumstance that the only thing one can wish to that people who had +never seen face to face either law, order, justice, right, truth about +itself or the rest of the world; who had known nothing outside the capricious +will of its irresponsible masters, is that it should find in the approaching +hour of need, not an organiser or a law-giver, with the wisdom of a +Lycurgus or a Solon for their service, but at least the force of energy +and desperation in some as yet unknown Spartacus.</p> +<p>A brand of hopeless mental and moral inferiority is set upon Russian +achievements; and the coming events of her internal changes, however +appalling they may be in their magnitude, will be nothing more impressive +than the convulsions of a colossal body. As her boasted military +force that, corrupt in its origin, has ever struck no other but faltering +blows, so her soul, kept benumbed by her temporal and spiritual master +with the poison of tyranny and superstition, will find itself on awakening +possessed of no language, a monstrous full-grown child having first +to learn the ways of living thought and articulate speech. It +is safe to say tyranny, assuming a thousand protean shapes, will remain +clinging to her struggles for a long time before her blind multitudes +succeed at last in trampling her out of existence under their millions +of bare feet.</p> +<p>That would be the beginning. What is to come after? The +conquest of freedom to call your soul your own is only the first step +on the road to excellence. We, in Europe, have gone a step or +two further, have had the time to forget how little that freedom means. +To Russia it must seem everything. A prisoner shut up in a noisome +dungeon concentrates all his hope and desire on the moment of stepping +out beyond the gates. It appears to him pregnant with an immense +and final importance; whereas what is important is the spirit in which +he will draw the first breath of freedom, the counsels he will hear, +the hands he may find extended, the endless days of toil that must follow, +wherein he will have to build his future with no other material but +what he can find within himself.</p> +<p>It would be vain for Russia to hope for the support and counsel of +collective wisdom. Since 1870 (as a distinguished statesman of +the old tradition disconsolately exclaimed) “il n’y a plus +d’Europe!” There is, indeed, no Europe. The +idea of a Europe united in the solidarity of her dynasties, which for +a moment seemed to dawn on the horizon of the Vienna Congress through +the subsiding dust of Napoleonic alarums and excursions, has been extinguished +by the larger glamour of less restraining ideals. Instead of the +doctrines of solidarity it was the doctrine of nationalities much more +favourable to spoliations that came to the front, and since its greatest +triumphs at Sadowa and Sedan there is no Europe. Meanwhile till +the time comes when there will be no frontiers, there are alliances +so shamelessly based upon the exigencies of suspicion and mistrust that +their cohesive force waxes and wanes with every year, almost with the +event of every passing month. This is the atmosphere Russia will +find when the last rampart of tyranny has been beaten down. But +what hands, what voices will she find on coming out into the light of +day? An ally she has yet who more than any other of Russia’s +allies has found that it had parted with lots of solid substance in +exchange for a shadow. It is true that the shadow was indeed the +mightiest, the darkest that the modern world had ever known—and +the most overbearing. But it is fading now, and the tone of truest +anxiety as to what is to take its place will come, no doubt, from that +and no other direction, and no doubt, also, it will have that note of +generosity which even in the moments of greatest aberration is seldom +wanting in the voice of the French people.</p> +<p>Two neighbours Russia will find at her door. Austria, traditionally +unaggressive whenever her hand is not forced, ruled by a dynasty of +uncertain future, weakened by her duality, can only speak to her in +an uncertain, bilingual phrase. Prussia, grown in something like +forty years from an almost pitiful dependant into a bullying friend +and evil counsellor of Russia’s masters, may, indeed, hasten to +extend a strong hand to the weakness of her exhausted body, but if so +it will be only with the intention of tearing away the long-coveted +part of her substance.</p> +<p>Pan-Germanism is by no means a shape of mists, and Germany is anything +but a <i>Néant</i> where thought and effort are likely to lose +themselves without sound or trace. It is a powerful and voracious +organisation, full of unscrupulous self-confidence, whose appetite for +aggrandisement will only be limited by the power of helping itself to +the severed members of its friends and neighbours. The era of +wars so eloquently denounced by the old Republicans as the peculiar +blood guilt of dynastic ambitions is by no means over yet. They +will be fought out differently, with lesser frequency, with an increased +bitterness and the savage tooth-and-claw obstinacy of a struggle for +existence. They will make us regret the time of dynastic ambitions, +with their human absurdity moderated by prudence and even by shame, +by the fear of personal responsibility and the regard paid to certain +forms of conventional decency. For, if the monarchs of Europe +have been derided for addressing each other as “brother” +in autograph communications, that relationship was at least as effective +as any form of brotherhood likely to be established between the rival +nations of this continent, which, we are assured on all hands, is the +heritage of democracy. In the ceremonial brotherhood of monarchs +the reality of blood-ties, for what little it is worth, acted often +as a drag on unscrupulous desires of glory or greed. Besides, +there was always the common danger of exasperated peoples, and some +respect for each other’s divine right. No leader of a democracy, +without other ancestry but the sudden shout of a multitude, and debarred +by the very condition of his power from even thinking of a direct heir, +will have any interest in calling brother the leader of another democracy—a +chief as fatherless and heirless as himself.</p> +<p>The war of 1870, brought about by the third Napoleon’s half-generous, +half-selfish adoption of the principle of nationalities, was the first +war characterised by a special intensity of hate, by a new note in the +tune of an old song for which we may thank the Teutonic thoroughness. +Was it not that excellent bourgeoise, Princess Bismarck (to keep only +to great examples), who was so righteously anxious to see men, women +and children—emphatically the children, too—of the abominable +French nation massacred off the face of the earth? This illustration +of the new war-temper is artlessly revealed in the prattle of the amiable +Busch, the Chancellor’s pet “reptile” of the Press. +And this was supposed to be a war for an idea! Too much, however, +should not be made of that good wife’s and mother’s sentiments +any more than of the good First Emperor William’s tears, shed +so abundantly after every battle, by letter, telegram, and otherwise, +during the course of the same war, before a dumb and shamefaced continent. +These were merely the expressions of the simplicity of a nation which +more than any other has a tendency to run into the grotesque. +There is worse to come.</p> +<p>To-day, in the fierce grapple of two nations of different race, the +short era of national wars seems about to close. No war will be +waged for an idea. The “noxious idle aristocracies” +of yesterday fought without malice for an occupation, for the honour, +for the fun of the thing. The virtuous, industrious democratic +States of to-morrow may yet be reduced to fighting for a crust of dry +bread, with all the hate, ferocity, and fury that must attach to the +vital importance of such an issue. The dreams sanguine humanitarians +raised almost to ecstasy about the year fifty of the last century by +the moving sight of the Crystal Palace—crammed full with that +variegated rubbish which it seems to be the bizarre fate of humanity +to produce for the benefit of a few employers of labour—have vanished +as quickly as they had arisen. The golden hopes of peace have +in a single night turned to dead leaves in every drawer of every benevolent +theorist’s writing table. A swift disenchantment overtook +the incredible infatuation which could put its trust in the peaceful +nature of industrial and commercial competition.</p> +<p>Industrialism and commercialism—wearing high-sounding names +in many languages (<i>Welt-politik</i> may serve for one instance) picking +up coins behind the severe and disdainful figure of science whose giant +strides have widened for us the horizon of the universe by some few +inches—stand ready, almost eager, to appeal to the sword as soon +as the globe of the earth has shrunk beneath our growing numbers by +another ell or so. And democracy, which has elected to pin its +faith to the supremacy of material interests, will have to fight their +battles to the bitter end, on a mere pittance—unless, indeed, +some statesman of exceptional ability and overwhelming prestige succeeds +in carrying through an international understanding for the delimitation +of spheres of trade all over the earth, on the model of the territorial +spheres of influence marked in Africa to keep the competitors for the +privilege of improving the nigger (as a buying machine) from flying +prematurely at each other’s throats.</p> +<p>This seems the only expedient at hand for the temporary maintenance +of European peace, with its alliances based on mutual distrust, preparedness +for war as its ideal, and the fear of wounds, luckily stronger, so far, +than the pinch of hunger, its only guarantee. The true peace of +the world will be a place of refuge much less like a beleaguered fortress +and more, let us hope, in the nature of an Inviolable Temple. +It will be built on less perishable foundations than those of material +interests. But it must be confessed that the architectural aspect +of the universal city remains as yet inconceivable—that the very +ground for its erection has not been cleared of the jungle.</p> +<p>Never before in history has the right of war been more fully admitted +in the rounded periods of public speeches, in books, in public prints, +in all the public works of peace, culminating in the establishment of +the Hague Tribunal—that solemnly official recognition of the Earth +as a House of Strife. To him whose indignation is qualified by +a measure of hope and affection, the efforts of mankind to work its +own salvation present a sight of alarming comicality. After clinging +for ages to the steps of the heavenly throne, they are now, without +much modifying their attitude, trying with touching ingenuity to steal +one by one the thunderbolts of their Jupiter. They have removed +war from the list of Heaven-sent visitations that could only be prayed +against; they have erased its name from the supplication against the +wrath of war, pestilence, and famine, as it is found in the litanies +of the Roman Catholic Church; they have dragged the scourge down from +the skies and have made it into a calm and regulated institution. +At first sight the change does not seem for the better. Jove’s +thunderbolt looks a most dangerous plaything in the hands of the people. +But a solemnly established institution begins to grow old at once in +the discussion, abuse, worship, and execration of men. It grows +obsolete, odious, and intolerable; it stands fatally condemned to an +unhonoured old age.</p> +<p>Therein lies the best hope of advanced thought, and the best way +to help its prospects is to provide in the fullest, frankest way for +the conditions of the present day. War is one of its conditions; +it is its principal condition. It lies at the heart of every question +agitating the fears and hopes of a humanity divided against itself. +The succeeding ages have changed nothing except the watchwords of the +armies. The intellectual stage of mankind being as yet in its +infancy, and States, like most individuals, having but a feeble and +imperfect consciousness of the worth and force of the inner life, the +need of making their existence manifest to themselves is determined +in the direction of physical activity. The idea of ceasing to +grow in territory, in strength, in wealth, in influence—in anything +but wisdom and self-knowledge—is odious to them as the omen of +the end. Action, in which is to be found the illusion of a mastered +destiny, can alone satisfy our uneasy vanity and lay to rest the haunting +fear of the future—a sentiment concealed, indeed, but proving +its existence by the force it has, when invoked, to stir the passions +of a nation. It will be long before we have learned that in the +great darkness before us there is nothing that we need fear. Let +us act lest we perish—is the cry. And the only form of action +open to a State can be of no other than aggressive nature.</p> +<p>There are many kinds of aggressions, though the sanction of them +is one and the same—the magazine rifle of the latest pattern. +In preparation for or against that form of action the States of Europe +are spending now such moments of uneasy leisure as they can snatch from +the labours of factory and counting-house.</p> +<p>Never before has war received so much homage at the lips of men, +and reigned with less disputed sway in their minds. It has harnessed +science to its gun-carriages, it has enriched a few respectable manufacturers, +scattered doles of food and raiment amongst a few thousand skilled workmen, +devoured the first youth of whole generations, and reaped its harvest +of countless corpses. It has perverted the intelligence of men, +women, and children, and has made the speeches of Emperors, Kings, Presidents, +and Ministers monotonous with ardent protestations of fidelity to peace. +Indeed, war has made peace altogether its own, it has modelled it on +its own image: a martial, overbearing, war-lord sort of peace, with +a mailed fist, and turned-up moustaches, ringing with the din of grand +manoeuvres, eloquent with allusions to glorious feats of arms; it has +made peace so magnificent as to be almost as expensive to keep up as +itself. It has sent out apostles of its own, who at one time went +about (mostly in newspapers) preaching the gospel of the mystic sanctity +of its sacrifices, and the regenerating power of spilt blood, to the +poor in mind—whose name is legion.</p> +<p>It has been observed that in the course of earthly greatness a day +of culminating triumph is often paid for by a morrow of sudden extinction. +Let us hope it is so. Yet the dawn of that day of retribution +may be a long time breaking above a dark horizon. War is with +us now; and, whether this one ends soon or late, war will be with us +again. And it is the way of true wisdom for men and States to +take account of things as they are.</p> +<p>Civilisation has done its little best by our sensibilities for whose +growth it is responsible. It has managed to remove the sights +and sounds of battlefields away from our doorsteps. But it cannot +be expected to achieve the feat always and under every variety of circumstance. +Some day it must fail, and we shall have then a wealth of appallingly +unpleasant sensations brought home to us with painful intimacy. +It is not absurd to suppose that whatever war comes to us next it will +<i>not</i> be a distant war waged by Russia either beyond the Amur or +beyond the Oxus.</p> +<p>The Japanese armies have laid that ghost for ever, because the Russia +of the future will not, for the reasons explained above, be the Russia +of to-day. It will not have the same thoughts, resentments and +aims. It is even a question whether it will preserve its gigantic +frame unaltered and unbroken. All speculation loses itself in +the magnitude of the events made possible by the defeat of an autocracy +whose only shadow of a title to existence was the invincible power of +military conquest. That autocratic Russia will have a miserable +end in harmony with its base origin and inglorious life does not seem +open to doubt. The problem of the immediate future is posed not +by the eventual manner but by the approaching fact of its disappearance.</p> +<p>The Japanese armies, in laying the oppressive ghost, have not only +accomplished what will be recognised historically as an important mission +in the world’s struggle against all forms of evil, but have also +created a situation. They have created a situation in the East +which they are competent to manage by themselves; and in doing this +they have brought about a change in the condition of the West with which +Europe is not well prepared to deal. The common ground of concord, +good faith and justice is not sufficient to establish an action upon; +since the conscience of but very few men amongst us, and of no single +Western nation as yet, will brook the restraint of abstract ideas as +against the fascination of a material advantage. And eagle-eyed +wisdom alone cannot take the lead of human action, which in its nature +must for ever remain short-sighted. The trouble of the civilised +world is the want of a common conservative principle abstract enough +to give the impulse, practical enough to form the rallying point of +international action tending towards the restraint of particular ambitions. +Peace tribunals instituted for the greater glory of war will not replace +it. Whether such a principle exists—who can say? If +it does not, then it ought to be invented. A sage with a sense +of humour and a heart of compassion should set about it without loss +of time, and a solemn prophet full of words and fire ought to be given +the task of preparing the minds. So far there is no trace of such +a principle anywhere in sight; even its plausible imitations (never +very effective) have disappeared long ago before the doctrine of national +aspirations. <i>Il n’y a plus d’Europe</i>—there +is only an armed and trading continent, the home of slowly maturing +economical contests for life and death and of loudly proclaimed world-wide +ambitions. There are also other ambitions not so loud, but deeply +rooted in the envious acquisitive temperament of the last corner amongst +the great Powers of the Continent, whose feet are not exactly in the +ocean—not yet—and whose head is very high up—in Pomerania, +the breeding place of such precious Grenadiers that Prince Bismarck +(whom it is a pleasure to quote) would not have given the bones of one +of them for the settlement of the old Eastern Question. But times +have changed, since, by way of keeping up, I suppose, some old barbaric +German rite, the faithful servant of the Hohenzollerns was buried alive +to celebrate the accession of a new Emperor.</p> +<p>Already the voice of surmises has been heard hinting tentatively +at a possible re-grouping of European Powers. The alliance of +the three Empires is supposed possible. And it may be possible. +The myth of Russia’s power is dying very hard—hard enough +for that combination to take place—such is the fascination that +a discredited show of numbers will still exercise upon the imagination +of a people trained to the worship of force. Germany may be willing +to lend its support to a tottering autocracy for the sake of an undisputed +first place, and of a preponderating voice in the settlement of every +question in that south-east of Europe which merges into Asia. +No principle being involved in such an alliance of mere expediency, +it would never be allowed to stand in the way of Germany’s other +ambitions. The fall of autocracy would bring its restraint automatically +to an end. Thus it may be believed that the support Russian despotism +may get from its once humble friend and client will not be stamped by +that thoroughness which is supposed to be the mark of German superiority. +Russia weakened down to the second place, or Russia eclipsed altogether +during the throes of her regeneration, will answer equally well the +plans of German policy—which are many and various and often incredible, +though the aim of them all is the same: aggrandisement of territory +and influence, with no regard to right and justice, either in the East +or in the West. For that and no other is the true note of your +<i>Welt-politik</i> which desires to live.</p> +<p>The German eagle with a Prussian head looks all round the horizon, +not so much for something to do that would count for good in the records +of the earth, as simply for something good to get. He gazes upon +the land and upon the sea with the same covetous steadiness, for he +has become of late a maritime eagle, and has learned to box the compass. +He gazes north and south, and east and west, and is inclined to look +intemperately upon the waters of the Mediterranean when they are blue. +The disappearance of the Russian phantom has given a foreboding of unwonted +freedom to the <i>Welt-politik</i>. According to the national +tendency this assumption of Imperial impulses would run into the grotesque +were it not for the spikes of the <i>pickelhaubes</i> peeping out grimly +from behind. Germany’s attitude proves that no peace for +the earth can be found in the expansion of material interests which +she seems to have adopted exclusively as her only aim, ideal, and watchword. +For the use of those who gaze half-unbelieving at the passing away of +the Russian phantom, part Ghoul, part Djinn, part Old Man of the Sea, +and wait half-doubting for the birth of a nation’s soul in this +age which knows no miracles, the once-famous saying of poor Gambetta, +tribune of the people (who was simple and believed in the “immanent +justice of things”), may be adapted in the shape of a warning +that, so far as a future of liberty, concord, and justice is concerned: +“Le Prussianisme—voilà l’ennemi!”</p> +<h3>THE CRIME OF PARTITION—1919</h3> +<p>At the end of the eighteenth century, when the partition of Poland +had become an accomplished fact, the world qualified it at once as a +crime. This strong condemnation proceeded, of course, from the +West of Europe; the Powers of the Centre, Prussia and Austria, were +not likely to admit that this spoliation fell into the category of acts +morally reprehensible and carrying the taint of anti-social guilt. +As to Russia, the third party to the crime, and the originator of the +scheme, she had no national conscience at the time. The will of +its rulers was always accepted by the people as the expression of an +omnipotence derived directly from God. As an act of mere conquest +the best excuse for the partition lay simply in the fact that it happened +to be possible; there was the plunder and there was the opportunity +to get hold of it. Catherine the Great looked upon this extension +of her dominions with a cynical satisfaction. Her political argument +that the destruction of Poland meant the repression of revolutionary +ideas and the checking of the spread of Jacobinism in Europe was a characteristically +impudent pretence. There may have been minds here and there amongst +the Russians that perceived, or perhaps only felt, that by the annexation +of the greater part of the Polish Republic, Russia approached nearer +to the comity of civilised nations and ceased, at least territorially, +to be an Asiatic Power.</p> +<p>It was only after the partition of Poland that Russia began to play +a great part in Europe. To such statesmen as she had then that +act of brigandage must have appeared inspired by great political wisdom. +The King of Prussia, faithful to the ruling principle of his life, wished +simply to aggrandise his dominions at a much smaller cost and at much +less risk than he could have done in any other direction; for at that +time Poland was perfectly defenceless from a material point of view, +and more than ever, perhaps, inclined to put its faith in humanitarian +illusions. Morally, the Republic was in a state of ferment and +consequent weakness, which so often accompanies the period of social +reform. The strength arrayed against her was just then overwhelming; +I mean the comparatively honest (because open) strength of armed forces. +But, probably from innate inclination towards treachery, Frederick of +Prussia selected for himself the part of falsehood and deception. +Appearing on the scene in the character of a friend he entered deliberately +into a treaty of alliance with the Republic, and then, before the ink +was dry, tore it up in brazen defiance of the commonest decency, which +must have been extremely gratifying to his natural tastes.</p> +<p>As to Austria, it shed diplomatic tears over the transaction. +They cannot be called crocodile tears, insomuch that they were in a +measure sincere. They arose from a vivid perception that Austria’s +allotted share of the spoil could never compensate her for the accession +of strength and territory to the other two Powers. Austria did +not really want an extension of territory at the cost of Poland. +She could not hope to improve her frontier in that way, and economically +she had no need of Galicia, a province whose natural resources were +undeveloped and whose salt mines did not arouse her cupidity because +she had salt mines of her own. No doubt the democratic complexion +of Polish institutions was very distasteful to the conservative monarchy; +Austrian statesmen did see at the time that the real danger to the principle +of autocracy was in the West, in France, and that all the forces of +Central Europe would be needed for its suppression. But the movement +towards a <i>partage</i> on the part of Russia and Prussia was too definite +to be resisted, and Austria had to follow their lead in the destruction +of a State which she would have preferred to preserve as a possible +ally against Prussian and Russian ambitions. It may be truly said +that the destruction of Poland secured the safety of the French Revolution. +For when in 1795 the crime was consummated, the Revolution had turned +the corner and was in a state to defend itself against the forces of +reaction.</p> +<p>In the second half of the eighteenth century there were two centres +of liberal ideas on the continent of Europe: France and Poland. +On an impartial survey one may say without exaggeration that then France +was relatively every bit as weak as Poland; even, perhaps, more so. +But France’s geographical position made her much less vulnerable. +She had no powerful neighbours on her frontier; a decayed Spain in the +south and a conglomeration of small German Principalities on the east +were her happy lot. The only States which dreaded the contamination +of the new principles and had enough power to combat it were Prussia, +Austria, and Russia, and they had another centre of forbidden ideas +to deal with in defenceless Poland, unprotected by nature, and offering +an immediate satisfaction to their cupidity. They made their choice, +and the untold sufferings of a nation which would not die was the price +exacted by fate for the triumph of revolutionary ideals.</p> +<p>Thus even a crime may become a moral agent by the lapse of time and +the course of history. Progress leaves its dead by the way, for +progress is only a great adventure as its leaders and chiefs know very +well in their hearts. It is a march into an undiscovered country; +and in such an enterprise the victims do not count. As an emotional +outlet for the oratory of freedom it was convenient enough to remember +the Crime now and then: the Crime being the murder of a State and the +carving of its body into three pieces. There was really nothing +to do but to drop a few tears and a few flowers of rhetoric upon the +grave. But the spirit of the nation refused to rest therein. +It haunted the territories of the Old Republic in the manner of a ghost +haunting its ancestral mansion where strangers are making themselves +at home; a calumniated, ridiculed, and pooh-pooh’d ghost, and +yet never ceasing to inspire a sort of awe, a strange uneasiness, in +the hearts of the unlawful possessors. Poland deprived of its +independence, of its historical continuity, with its religion and language +persecuted and repressed, became a mere geographical expression. +And even that, itself, seemed strangely vague, had lost its definite +character, was rendered doubtful by the theories and the claims of the +spoliators who, by a strange effect of uneasy conscience, while strenuously +denying the moral guilt of the transaction, were always trying to throw +a veil of high rectitude over the Crime. What was most annoying +to their righteousness was the fact that the nation, stabbed to the +heart, refused to grow insensible and cold. That persistent and +almost uncanny vitality was sometimes very inconvenient to the rest +of Europe also. It would intrude its irresistible claim into every +problem of European politics, into the theory of European equilibrium, +into the question of the Near East, the Italian question, the question +of Schleswig-Holstein, and into the doctrine of nationalities. +That ghost, not content with making its ancestral halls uncomfortable +for the thieves, haunted also the Cabinets of Europe, waved indecently +its bloodstained robes in the solemn atmosphere of Council-rooms, where +congresses and conferences sit with closed windows. It would not +be exorcised by the brutal jeers of Bismarck and the fine railleries +of Gorchakov.</p> +<p>As a Polish friend observed to me some years ago: “Till the +year ’48 the Polish problem has been to a certain extent a convenient +rallying-point for all manifestations of liberalism. Since that +time we have come to be regarded simply as a nuisance. It’s +very disagreeable.”</p> +<p>I agreed that it was, and he continued: “What are we to do? +We did not create the situation by any outside action of ours. +Through all the centuries of its existence Poland has never been a menace +to anybody, not even to the Turks, to whom it has been merely an obstacle.”</p> +<p>Nothing could be more true. The spirit of aggressiveness was +absolutely foreign to the Polish temperament, to which the preservation +of its institutions and its liberties was much more precious than any +ideas of conquest. Polish wars were defensive, and they were mostly +fought within Poland’s own borders. And that those territories +were often invaded was but a misfortune arising from its geographical +position. Territorial expansion was never the master-thought of +Polish statesmen. The consolidation of the territories of the +<i>sérénissime</i> Republic, which made of it a Power +of the first rank for a time, was not accomplished by force. It +was not the consequence of successful aggression, but of a long and +successful defence against the raiding neighbours from the East. +The lands of Lithuanian and Ruthenian speech were never conquered by +Poland. These peoples were not compelled by a series of exhausting +wars to seek safety in annexation. It was not the will of a prince +or a political intrigue that brought about the union. Neither +was it fear. The slowly-matured view of the economical and social +necessities and, before all, the ripening moral sense of the masses +were the motives that induced the forty three representatives of Lithuanian +and Ruthenian provinces, led by their paramount prince, to enter into +a political combination unique in the history of the world, a spontaneous +and complete union of sovereign States choosing deliberately the way +of peace. Never was strict truth better expressed in a political +instrument than in the preamble of the first Union Treaty (1413). +It begins with the words: “This Union, being the outcome not of +hatred, but of love”—words that Poles have not heard addressed +to them politically by any nation for the last hundred and fifty years.</p> +<p>This union being an organic, living thing capable of growth and development +was, later, modified and confirmed by two other treaties, which guaranteed +to all the parties in a just and eternal union all their rights, liberties, +and respective institutions. The Polish State offers a singular +instance of an extremely liberal administrative federalism which, in +its Parliamentary life as well as its international politics, presented +a complete unity of feeling and purpose. As an eminent French +diplomatist remarked many years ago: “It is a very remarkable +fact in the history of the Polish State, this invariable and unanimous +consent of the populations; the more so that, the King being looked +upon simply as the chief of the Republic, there was no monarchical bond, +no dynastic fidelity to control and guide the sentiment of the nations, +and their union remained as a pure affirmation of the national will.” +The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its Ruthenian Provinces retained their +statutes, their own administration, and their own political institutions. +That those institutions in the course of time tended to assimilation +with the Polish form was not the result of any pressure, but simply +of the superior character of Polish civilisation.</p> +<p>Even after Poland lost its independence this alliance and this union +remained firm in spirit and fidelity. All the national movements +towards liberation were initiated in the name of the whole mass of people +inhabiting the limits of the old Republic, and all the Provinces took +part in them with complete devotion. It is only in the last generation +that efforts have been made to create a tendency towards separation, +which would indeed serve no one but Poland’s common enemies. +And, strangely enough, it is the internationalists, men who professedly +care nothing for race or country, who have set themselves this task +of disruption, one can easily see for what sinister purpose. The +ways of the internationalists may be dark, but they are not inscrutable.</p> +<p>From the same source no doubt there will flow in the future a poisoned +stream of hints of a reconstituted Poland being a danger to the races +once so closely associated within the territories of the Old Republic. +The old partners in “the Crime” are not likely to forgive +their victim its inconvenient and almost shocking obstinacy in keeping +alive. They had tried moral assassination before and with some +small measure of success, for, indeed, the Polish question, like all +living reproaches, had become a nuisance. Given the wrong, and +the apparent impossibility of righting it without running risks of a +serious nature, some moral alleviation may be found in the belief that +the victim had brought its misfortunes on its own head by its own sins. +That theory, too, had been advanced about Poland (as if other nations +had known nothing of sin and folly), and it made some way in the world +at different times, simply because good care was taken by the interested +parties to stop the mouth of the accused. But it has never carried +much conviction to honest minds. Somehow, in defiance of the cynical +point of view as to the Force of Lies and against all the power of falsified +evidence, truth often turns out to be stronger than calumny. With +the course of years, however, another danger sprang up, a danger arising +naturally from the new political alliances dividing Europe into two +armed camps. It was the danger of silence. Almost without +exception the Press of Western Europe in the twentieth century refused +to touch the Polish question in any shape or form whatever. Never +was the fact of Polish vitality more embarrassing to European diplomacy +than on the eve of Poland’s resurrection.</p> +<p>When the war broke out there was something gruesomely comic in the +proclamations of emperors and archdukes appealing to that invincible +soul of a nation whose existence or moral worth they had been so arrogantly +denying for more than a century. Perhaps in the whole record of +human transactions there have never been performances so brazen and +so vile as the manifestoes of the German Emperor and the Grand Duke +Nicholas of Russia; and, I imagine, no more bitter insult has been offered +to human heart and intelligence than the way in which those proclamations +were flung into the face of historical truth. It was like a scene +in a cynical and sinister farce, the absurdity of which became in some +sort unfathomable by the reflection that nobody in the world could possibly +be so abjectly stupid as to be deceived for a single moment. At +that time, and for the first two months of the war, I happened to be +in Poland, and I remember perfectly well that, when those precious documents +came out, the confidence in the moral turpitude of mankind they implied +did not even raise a scornful smile on the lips of men whose most sacred +feelings and dignity they outraged. They did not deign to waste +their contempt on them. In fact, the situation was too poignant +and too involved for either hot scorn or a coldly rational discussion. +For the Poles it was like being in a burning house of which all the +issues were locked. There was nothing but sheer anguish under +the strange, as if stony, calmness which in the utter absence of all +hope falls on minds that are not constitutionally prone to despair. +Yet in this time of dismay the irrepressible vitality of the nation +would not accept a neutral attitude. I was told that even if there +were no issue it was absolutely necessary for the Poles to affirm their +national existence. Passivity, which could be regarded as a craven +acceptance of all the material and moral horrors ready to fall upon +the nation, was not to be thought of for a moment. Therefore, +it was explained to me, the Poles <i>must</i> act. Whether this +was a counsel of wisdom or not it is very difficult to say, but there +are crises of the soul which are beyond the reach of wisdom. When +there is apparently no issue visible to the eyes of reason, sentiment +may yet find a way out, either towards salvation or to utter perdition, +no one can tell—and the sentiment does not even ask the question. +Being there as a stranger in that tense atmosphere, which was yet not +unfamiliar to me, I was not very anxious to parade my wisdom, especially +after it had been pointed out in answer to my cautious arguments that, +if life has its values worth fighting for, death, too, has that in it +which can make it worthy or unworthy.</p> +<p>Out of the mental and moral trouble into which the grouping of the +Powers at the beginning of war had thrown the counsels of Poland there +emerged at last the decision that the Polish Legions, a peace organisation +in Galicia directed by Pilsudski (afterwards given the rank of General, +and now apparently the Chief of the Government in Warsaw), should take +the field against the Russians. In reality it did not matter against +which partner in the “Crime” Polish resentment should be +directed. There was little to choose between the methods of Russian +barbarism, which were both crude and rotten, and the cultivated brutality +tinged with contempt of Germany’s superficial, grinding civilisation. +There was nothing to choose between them. Both were hateful, and +the direction of the Polish effort was naturally governed by Austria’s +tolerant attitude, which had connived for years at the semi-secret organisation +of the Polish Legions. Besides, the material possibility pointed +out the way. That Poland should have turned at first against the +ally of Western Powers, to whose moral support she had been looking +for so many years, is not a greater monstrosity than that alliance with +Russia which had been entered into by England and France with rather +less excuse and with a view to eventualities which could perhaps have +been avoided by a firmer policy and by a greater resolution in the face +of what plainly appeared unavoidable.</p> +<p>For let the truth be spoken. The action of Germany, however +cruel, sanguinary, and faithless, was nothing in the nature of a stab +in the dark. The Germanic Tribes had told the whole world in all +possible tones carrying conviction, the gently persuasive, the coldly +logical; in tones Hegelian, Nietzschean, warlike, pious, cynical, inspired, +what they were going to do to the inferior races of the earth, so full +of sin and all unworthiness. But with a strange similarity to +the prophets of old (who were also great moralists and invokers of might) +they seemed to be crying in a desert. Whatever might have been +the secret searching of hearts, the Worthless Ones would not take heed. +It must also be admitted that the conduct of the menaced Governments +carried with it no suggestion of resistance. It was no doubt, +the effect of neither courage nor fear, but of that prudence which causes +the average man to stand very still in the presence of a savage dog. +It was not a very politic attitude, and the more reprehensible in so +far that it seemed to arise from the mistrust of their own people’s +fortitude. On simple matters of life and death a people is always +better than its leaders, because a people cannot argue itself as a whole +into a sophisticated state of mind out of deference for a mere doctrine +or from an exaggerated sense of its own cleverness. I am speaking +now of democracies whose chiefs resemble the tyrant of Syracuse in this, +that their power is unlimited (for who can limit the will of a voting +people?) and who always see the domestic sword hanging by a hair above +their heads.</p> +<p>Perhaps a different attitude would have checked German self-confidence, +and her overgrown militarism would have died from the excess of its +own strength. What would have been then the moral state of Europe +it is difficult to say. Some other excess would probably have +taken its place, excess of theory, or excess of sentiment, or an excess +of the sense of security leading to some other form of catastrophe; +but it is certain that in that case the Polish question would not have +taken a concrete form for ages. Perhaps it would never have taken +form! In this world, where everything is transient, even the most +reproachful ghosts end by vanishing out of old mansions, out of men’s +consciences. Progress of enlightenment, or decay of faith? +In the years before the war the Polish ghost was becoming so thin that +it was impossible to get for it the slightest mention in the papers. +A young Pole coming to me from Paris was extremely indignant, but I, +indulging in that detachment which is the product of greater age, longer +experience, and a habit of meditation, refused to share that sentiment. +He had gone begging for a word on Poland to many influential people, +and they had one and all told him that they were going to do no such +thing. They were all men of ideas and therefore might have been +called idealists, but the notion most strongly anchored in their minds +was the folly of touching a question which certainly had no merit of +actuality and would have had the appalling effect of provoking the wrath +of their old enemies and at the same time offending the sensibilities +of their new friends. It was an unanswerable argument. I +couldn’t share my young friend’s surprise and indignation. +My practice of reflection had also convinced me that there is nothing +on earth that turns quicker on its pivot than political idealism when +touched by the breath of practical politics.</p> +<p>It would be good to remember that Polish independence as embodied +in a Polish State is not the gift of any kind of journalism, neither +is it the outcome even of some particularly benevolent idea or of any +clearly apprehended sense of guilt. I am speaking of what I know +when I say that the original and only formative idea in Europe was the +idea of delivering the fate of Poland into the hands of Russian Tsarism. +And, let us remember, it was assumed then to be a victorious Tsarism +at that. It was an idea talked of openly, entertained seriously, +presented as a benevolence, with a curious blindness to its grotesque +and ghastly character. It was the idea of delivering the victim +with a kindly smile and the confident assurance that “it would +be all right” to a perfectly unrepentant assassin, who, after +sawing furiously at its throat for a hundred years or so, was expected +to make friends suddenly and kiss it on both cheeks in the mystic Russian +fashion. It was a singularly nightmarish combination of international +polity, and no whisper of any other would have been officially tolerated. +Indeed, I do not think in the whole extent of Western Europe there was +anybody who had the slightest mind to whisper on that subject. +Those were the days of the dark future, when Benckendorf put down his +name on the Committee for the Relief of Polish Populations driven by +the Russian armies into the heart of Russia, when the Grand Duke Nicholas +(the gentleman who advocated a St. Bartholomew’s Night for the +suppression of Russian liberalism) was displaying his “divine” +(I have read the very word in an English newspaper of standing) strategy +in the great retreat, where Mr. Iswolsky carried himself haughtily on +the banks of the Seine; and it was beginning to dawn upon certain people +there that he was a greater nuisance even than the Polish question.</p> +<p>But there is no use in talking about all that. Some clever +person has said that it is always the unexpected that happens, and on +a calm and dispassionate survey the world does appear mainly to one +as a scene of miracles. Out of Germany’s strength, in whose +purpose so many people refused to believe, came Poland’s opportunity, +in which nobody could have been expected to believe. Out of Russia’s +collapse emerged that forbidden thing, the Polish independence, not +as a vengeful figure, the retributive shadow of the crime, but as something +much more solid and more difficult to get rid of—a political necessity +and a moral solution. Directly it appeared its practical usefulness +became undeniable, and also the fact that, for better or worse, it was +impossible to get rid of it again except by the unthinkable way of another +carving, of another partition, of another crime.</p> +<p>Therein lie the strength and the future of the thing so strictly +forbidden no farther back than two years or so, of the Polish independence +expressed in a Polish State. It comes into the world morally free, +not in virtue of its sufferings, but in virtue of its miraculous rebirth +and of its ancient claim for services rendered to Europe. Not +a single one of the combatants of all the fronts of the world has died +consciously for Poland’s freedom. That supreme opportunity +was denied even to Poland’s own children. And it is just +as well! Providence in its inscrutable way had been merciful, +for had it been otherwise the load of gratitude would have been too +great, the sense of obligation too crushing, the joy of deliverance +too fearful for mortals, common sinners with the rest of mankind before +the eye of the Most High. Those who died East and West, leaving +so much anguish and so much pride behind them, died neither for the +creation of States, nor for empty words, nor yet for the salvation of +general ideas. They died neither for democracy, nor leagues, nor +systems, nor yet for abstract justice, which is an unfathomable mystery. +They died for something too deep for words, too mighty for the common +standards by which reason measures the advantages of life and death, +too sacred for the vain discourses that come and go on the lips of dreamers, +fanatics, humanitarians, and statesmen. They died . . . .</p> +<p>Poland’s independence springs up from that great immolation, +but Poland’s loyalty to Europe will not be rooted in anything +so trenchant and burdensome as the sense of an immeasurable indebtedness, +of that gratitude which in a worldly sense is sometimes called eternal, +but which lies always at the mercy of weariness and is fatally condemned +by the instability of human sentiments to end in negation. Polish +loyalty will be rooted in something much more solid and enduring, in +something that could never be called eternal, but which is, in fact, +life-enduring. It will be rooted in the national temperament, +which is about the only thing on earth that can be trusted. Men +may deteriorate, they may improve too, but they don’t change. +Misfortune is a hard school which may either mature or spoil a national +character, but it may be reasonably advanced that the long course of +adversity of the most cruel kind has not injured the fundamental characteristics +of the Polish nation which has proved its vitality against the most +demoralising odds. The various phases of the Polish sense of self-preservation +struggling amongst the menacing forces and the no less threatening chaos +of the neighbouring Powers should be judged impartially. I suggest +impartiality and not indulgence simply because, when appraising the +Polish question, it is not necessary to invoke the softer emotions. +A little calm reflection on the past and the present is all that is +necessary on the part of the Western world to judge the movements of +a community whose ideals are the same, but whose situation is unique. +This situation was brought vividly home to me in the course of an argument +more than eighteen months ago. “Don’t forget,” +I was told, “that Poland has got to live in contact with Germany +and Russia to the end of time. Do you understand the force of +that expression: ‘To the end of time’? Facts must +be taken into account, and especially appalling facts, such as this, +to which there is no possible remedy on earth. For reasons which +are, properly speaking, physiological, a prospect of friendship with +Germans or Russians even in the most distant future is unthinkable. +Any alliance of heart and mind would be a monstrous thing, and monsters, +as we all know, cannot live. You can’t base your conduct +on a monstrous conception. We are either worth or not worth preserving, +but the horrible psychology of the situation is enough to drive the +national mind to distraction. Yet under a destructive pressure, +of which Western Europe can have no notion, applied by forces that were +not only crushing but corrupting, we have preserved our sanity. +Therefore there can be no fear of our losing our minds simply because +the pressure is removed. We have neither lost our heads nor yet +our moral sense. Oppression, not merely political, but affecting +social relations, family life, the deepest affections of human nature, +and the very fount of natural emotions, has never made us vengeful. +It is worthy of notice that with every incentive present in our emotional +reactions we had no recourse to political assassination. Arms +in hand, hopeless or hopefully, and always against immeasurable odds, +we did affirm ourselves and the justice of our cause; but wild justice +has never been a part of our conception of national manliness. +In all the history of Polish oppression there was only one shot fired +which was not in battle. Only one! And the man who fired +it in Paris at the Emperor Alexander II. was but an individual connected +with no organisation, representing no shade of Polish opinion. +The only effect in Poland was that of profound regret, not at the failure, +but at the mere fact of the attempt. The history of our captivity +is free from that stain; and whatever follies in the eyes of the world +we may have perpetrated, we have neither murdered our enemies nor acted +treacherously against them, nor yet have been reduced to the point of +cursing each other.”</p> +<p>I could not gainsay the truth of that discourse, I saw as clearly +as my interlocutor the impossibility of the faintest sympathetic bond +between Poland and her neighbours ever being formed in the future. +The only course that remains to a reconstituted Poland is the elaboration, +establishment, and preservation of the most correct method of political +relations with neighbours to whom Poland’s existence is bound +to be a humiliation and an offence. Calmly considered it is an +appalling task, yet one may put one’s trust in that national temperament +which is so completely free from aggressiveness and revenge. Therein +lie the foundations of all hope. The success of renewed life for +that nation whose fate is to remain in exile, ever isolated from the +West, amongst hostile surroundings, depends on the sympathetic understanding +of its problems by its distant friends, the Western Powers, which in +their democratic development must recognise the moral and intellectual +kinship of that distant outpost of their own type of civilisation, which +was the only basis of Polish culture.</p> +<p>Whatever may be the future of Russia and the final organisation of +Germany, the old hostility must remain unappeased, the fundamental antagonism +must endure for years to come. The Crime of the Partition was +committed by autocratic Governments which were the Governments of their +time; but those Governments were characterised in the past, as they +will be in the future, by their people’s national traits, which +remain utterly incompatible with the Polish mentality and Polish sentiment. +Both the German submissiveness (idealistic as it may be) and the Russian +lawlessness (fed on the corruption of all the virtues) are utterly foreign +to the Polish nation, whose qualities and defects are altogether of +another kind, tending to a certain exaggeration of individualism and, +perhaps, to an extreme belief in the Governing Power of Free Assent: +the one invariably vital principle in the internal government of the +Old Republic. There was never a history more free from political +bloodshed than the history of the Polish State, which never knew either +feudal institutions or feudal quarrels. At the time when heads +were falling on the scaffolds all over Europe there was only one political +execution in Poland—only one; and as to that there still exists +a tradition that the great Chancellor who democratised Polish institutions, +and had to order it in pursuance of his political purpose, could not +settle that matter with his conscience till the day of his death. +Poland, too, had her civil wars, but this can hardly be made a matter +of reproach to her by the rest of the world. Conducted with humanity, +they left behind them no animosities and no sense of repression, and +certainly no legacy of hatred. They were but a recognised argument +in political discussion and tended always towards conciliation.</p> +<p>I cannot imagine, whatever form of democratic government Poland elaborates +for itself, that either the nation or its leaders would do anything +but welcome the closest scrutiny of their renewed political existence. +The difficulty of the problem of that existence will be so great that +some errors will be unavoidable, and one may be sure that they will +be taken advantage of by its neighbours to discredit that living witness +to a great historical crime. If not the actual frontiers, then +the moral integrity of the new State is sure to be assailed before the +eyes of Europe. Economical enmity will also come into play when +the world’s work is resumed again and competition asserts its +power. Charges of aggression are certain to be made, especially +as related to the small States formed of the territories of the Old +Republic. And everybody knows the power of lies which go about +clothed in coats of many colours, whereas, as is well known, Truth has +no such advantage, and for that reason is often suppressed as not altogether +proper for everyday purposes. It is not often recognised, because +it is not always fit to be seen.</p> +<p>Already there are innuendoes, threats, hints thrown out, and even +awful instances fabricated out of inadequate materials, but it is historically +unthinkable that the Poland of the future, with its sacred tradition +of freedom and its hereditary sense of respect for the rights of individuals +and States, should seek its prosperity in aggressive action or in moral +violence against that part of its once fellow-citizens who are Ruthenians +or Lithuanians. The only influence that cannot be restrained is +simply the influence of time, which disengages truth from all facts +with a merciless logic and prevails over the passing opinions, the changing +impulses of men. There can be no doubt that the moral impulses +and the material interests of the new nationalities, which seem to play +now the game of disintegration for the benefit of the world’s +enemies, will in the end bring them nearer to the Poland of this war’s +creation, will unite them sooner or later by a spontaneous movement +towards the State which had adopted and brought them up in the development +of its own humane culture—the offspring of the West.</p> +<h3>A NOTE ON THE POLISH PROBLEM—1916</h3> +<p>We must start from the assumption that promises made by proclamation +at the beginning of this war may be binding on the individuals who made +them under the stress of coming events, but cannot be regarded as binding +the Governments after the end of the war.</p> +<p>Poland has been presented with three proclamations. Two of +them were in such contrast with the avowed principles and the historic +action for the last hundred years (since the Congress of Vienna) of +the Powers concerned, that they were more like cynical insults to the +nation’s deepest feelings, its memory and its intelligence, than +state papers of a conciliatory nature.</p> +<p>The German promises awoke nothing but indignant contempt; the Russian +a bitter incredulity of the most complete kind. The Austrian proclamation, +which made no promises and contented itself with pointing out the Austro-Polish +relations for the last forty-five years, was received in silence. +For it is a fact that in Austrian Poland alone Polish nationality was +recognised as an element of the Empire, and individuals could breathe +the air of freedom, of civil life, if not of political independence.</p> +<p>But for Poles to be Germanophile is unthinkable. To be Russophile +or Austrophile is at best a counsel of despair in view of a European +situation which, because of the grouping of the powers, seems to shut +from them every hope, expressed or unexpressed, of a national future +nursed through more than a hundred years of suffering and oppression.</p> +<p>Through most of these years, and especially since 1830, Poland (I +use this expression since Poland exists as a spiritual entity to-day +as definitely as it ever existed in her past) has put her faith in the +Western Powers. Politically it may have been nothing more than +a consoling illusion, and the nation had a half-consciousness of this. +But what Poland was looking for from the Western Powers without discouragement +and with unbroken confidence was moral support.</p> +<p>This is a fact of the sentimental order. But such facts have +their positive value, for their idealism derives from perhaps the highest +kind of reality. A sentiment asserts its claim by its force, persistence +and universality. In Poland that sentimental attitude towards +the Western Powers is universal. It extends to all classes. +The very children are affected by it as soon as they begin to think.</p> +<p>The political value of such a sentiment consists in this, that it +is based on profound resemblances. Therefore one can build on +it as if it were a material fact. For the same reason it would +be unsafe to disregard it if one proposed to build solidly. The +Poles, whom superficial or ill-informed theorists are trying to force +into the social and psychological formula of Slavonism, are in truth +not Slavonic at all. In temperament, in feeling, in mind, and +even in unreason, they are Western, with an absolute comprehension of +all Western modes of thought, even of those which are remote from their +historical experience.</p> +<p>That element of racial unity which may be called Polonism, remained +compressed between Prussian Germanism on one side and the Russian Slavonism +on the other. For Germanism it feels nothing but hatred. +But between Polonism and Slavonism there is not so much hatred as a +complete and ineradicable incompatibility.</p> +<p>No political work of reconstructing Poland either as a matter of +justice or expediency could be sound which would leave the new creation +in dependence to Germanism or to Slavonism.</p> +<p>The first need not be considered. The second must be—unless +the Powers elect to drop the Polish question either under the cover +of vague assurances or without any disguise whatever.</p> +<p>But if it is considered it will be seen at once that the Slavonic +solution of the Polish Question can offer no guarantees of duration +or hold the promise of security for the peace of Europe.</p> +<p>The only basis for it would be the Grand Duke’s Manifesto. +But that Manifesto, signed by a personage now removed from Europe to +Asia, and by a man, moreover, who if true to himself, to his conception +of patriotism and to his family tradition could not have put his hand +to it with any sincerity of purpose, is now divested of all authority. +The forcible vagueness of its promises, its startling inconsistency +with the hundred years of ruthlessly denationalising oppression permit +one to doubt whether it was ever meant to have any authority.</p> +<p>But in any case it could have had no effect. The very nature +of things would have brought to nought its professed intentions.</p> +<p>It is impossible to suppose that a State of Russia’s power +and antecedents would tolerate a privileged community (of, to Russia, +unnational complexion) within the body of the Empire. All history +shows that such an arrangement, however hedged in by the most solemn +treaties and declarations, cannot last. In this case it would +lead to a tragic issue. The absorption of Polonism is unthinkable. +The last hundred years of European History proves it undeniably. +There remains then extirpation, a process of blood and iron; and the +last act of the Polish drama would be played then before a Europe too +weary to interfere, and to the applause of Germany.</p> +<p>It would not be just to say that the disappearance of Polonism would +add any strength to the Slavonic power of expansion. It would +add no strength, but it would remove a possibly effective barrier against +the surprises the future of Europe may hold in store for the Western +Powers.</p> +<p>Thus the question whether Polonism is worth saving presents itself +as a problem of politics with a practical bearing on the stability of +European peace—as a barrier or perhaps better (in view of its +detached position) as an outpost of the Western Powers placed between +the great might of Slavonism which has not yet made up its mind to anything, +and the organised Germanism which has spoken its mind with no uncertain +voice, before the world.</p> +<p>Looked at in that light alone Polonism seems worth saving. +That it has lived so long on its trust in the moral support of the Western +Powers may give it another and even stronger claim, based on a truth +of a more profound kind. Polonism had resisted the utmost efforts +of Germanism and Slavonism for more than a hundred years. Why? +Because of the strength of its ideals conscious of their kinship with +the West. Such a power of resistance creates a moral obligation +which it would be unsafe to neglect. There is always a risk in +throwing away a tool of proved temper.</p> +<p>In this profound conviction of the practical and ideal worth of Polonism +one approaches the problem of its preservation with a very vivid sense +of the practical difficulties derived from the grouping of the Powers. +The uncertainty of the extent and of the actual form of victory for +the Allies will increase the difficulty of formulating a plan of Polish +regeneration at the present moment.</p> +<p>Poland, to strike its roots again into the soil of political Europe, +will require a guarantee of security for the healthy development and +for the untrammelled play of such institutions as she may be enabled +to give to herself.</p> +<p>Those institutions will be animated by the spirit of Polonism, which, +having been a factor in the history of Europe and having proved its +vitality under oppression, has established its right to live. +That spirit, despised and hated by Germany and incompatible with Slavonism +because of moral differences, cannot avoid being (in its renewed assertion) +an object of dislike and mistrust.</p> +<p>As an unavoidable consequence of the past Poland will have to begin +its existence in an atmosphere of enmities and suspicions. That +advanced outpost of Western civilisation will have to hold its ground +in the midst of hostile camps: always its historical fate.</p> +<p>Against the menace of such a specially dangerous situation the paper +and ink of public Treaties cannot be an effective defence. Nothing +but the actual, living, active participation of the two Western Powers +in the establishment of the new Polish commonwealth, and in the first +twenty years of its existence, will give the Poles a sufficient guarantee +of security in the work of restoring their national life.</p> +<p>An Anglo-French protectorate would be the ideal form of moral and +material support. But Russia, as an ally, must take her place +in it on such a footing as will allay to the fullest extent her possible +apprehensions and satisfy her national sentiment. That necessity +will have to be formally recognised.</p> +<p>In reality Russia has ceased to care much for her Polish possessions. +Public recognition of a mistake in political morality and a voluntary +surrender of territory in the cause of European concord, cannot damage +the prestige of a powerful State. The new spheres of expansion +in regions more easily assimilable, will more than compensate Russia +for the loss of territory on the Western frontier of the Empire.</p> +<p>The experience of Dual Controls and similar combinations has been +so unfortunate in the past that the suggestion of a Triple Protectorate +may well appear at first sight monstrous even to unprejudiced minds. +But it must be remembered that this is a unique case and a problem altogether +exceptional, justifying the employment of exceptional means for its +solution. To those who would doubt the possibility of even bringing +such a scheme into existence the answer may be made that there are psychological +moments when any measure tending towards the ends of concord and justice +may be brought into being. And it seems that the end of the war +would be the moment for bringing into being the political scheme advocated +in this note.</p> +<p>Its success must depend on the singleness of purpose in the contracting +Powers, and on the wisdom, the tact, the abilities, the good-will of +men entrusted with its initiation and its further control. Finally +it may be pointed out that this plan is the only one offering serious +guarantees to all the parties occupying their respective positions within +the scheme.</p> +<p>If her existence as a state is admitted as just, expedient and necessary, +Poland has the moral right to receive her constitution not from the +hand of an old enemy, but from the Western Powers alone, though of course +with the fullest concurrence of Russia.</p> +<p>This constitution, elaborated by a committee of Poles nominated by +the three Governments, will (after due discussion and amendment by the +High Commissioners of the Protecting Powers) be presented to Poland +as the initial document, the charter of her new life, freely offered +and unreservedly accepted.</p> +<p>It should be as simple and short as a written constitution can be—establishing +the Polish Commonwealth, settling the lines of representative institutions, +the form of judicature, and leaving the greatest measure possible of +self-government to the provinces forming part of the re-created Poland.</p> +<p>This constitution will be promulgated immediately after the three +Powers had settled the frontiers of the new State, including the town +of Danzic (free port) and a proportion of seaboard. The legislature +will then be called together and a general treaty will regulate Poland’s +international portion as a protected state, the status of the High Commissioners +and such-like matters. The legislature will ratify, thus making +Poland, as it were, a party in the establishment of the protectorate. +A point of importance.</p> +<p>Other general treaties will define Poland’s position in the +Anglo-Franco-Russian alliance, fix the numbers of the army, and settle +the participation of the Powers in its organisation and training.</p> +<h3>POLAND REVISITED—1915</h3> +<h4>I.</h4> +<p>I have never believed in political assassination as a means to an +end, and least of all in assassination of the dynastic order. +I don’t know how far murder can ever approach the perfection of +a fine art, but looked upon with the cold eye of reason it seems but +a crude expedient of impatient hope or hurried despair. There +are few men whose premature death could influence human affairs more +than on the surface. The deeper stream of causes depends not on +individuals who, like the mass of mankind, are carried on by a destiny +which no murder has ever been able to placate, divert, or arrest.</p> +<p>In July of last year I was a stranger in a strange city in the Midlands +and particularly out of touch with the world’s politics. +Never a very diligent reader of newspapers, there were at that time +reasons of a private order which caused me to be even less informed +than usual on public affairs as presented from day to day in that necessarily +atmosphereless, perspectiveless manner of the daily papers, which somehow, +for a man possessed of some historic sense, robs them of all real interest. +I don’t think I had looked at a daily for a month past.</p> +<p>But though a stranger in a strange city I was not lonely, thanks +to a friend who had travelled there out of pure kindness to bear me +company in a conjuncture which, in a most private sense, was somewhat +trying.</p> +<p>It was this friend who, one morning at breakfast, informed me of +the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand.</p> +<p>The impression was mediocre. I was barely aware that such a +man existed. I remembered only that not long before he had visited +London. The recollection was rather of a cloud of insignificant +printed words his presence in this country provoked.</p> +<p>Various opinions had been expressed of him, but his importance was +Archducal, dynastic, purely accidental. Can there be in the world +of real men anything more shadowy than an Archduke? And now he +was no more; removed with an atrocity of circumstances which made one +more sensible of his humanity than when he was in life. I connected +that crime with Balkanic plots and aspirations so little that I had +actually to ask where it had happened. My friend told me it was +in Serajevo, and wondered what would be the consequences of that grave +event. He asked me what I thought would happen next.</p> +<p>It was with perfect sincerity that I answered “Nothing,” +and having a great repugnance to consider murder as a factor of politics, +I dismissed the subject. It fitted with my ethical sense that +an act cruel and absurd should be also useless. I had also the +vision of a crowd of shadowy Archdukes in the background, out of which +one would step forward to take the place of that dead man in the light +of the European stage. And then, to speak the whole truth, there +was no man capable of forming a judgment who attended so little to the +march of events as I did at that time. What for want of a more +definite term I must call my mind was fixed upon my own affairs, not +because they were in a bad posture, but because of their fascinating +holiday-promising aspect. I had been obtaining my information +as to Europe at second hand, from friends good enough to come down now +and then to see us. They arrived with their pockets full of crumpled +newspapers, and answered my queries casually, with gentle smiles of +scepticism as to the reality of my interest. And yet I was not +indifferent; but the tension in the Balkans had become chronic after +the acute crisis, and one could not help being less conscious of it. +It had wearied out one’s attention. Who could have guessed +that on that wild stage we had just been looking at a miniature rehearsal +of the great world-drama, the reduced model of the very passions and +violences of what the future held in store for the Powers of the Old +World? Here and there, perhaps, rare minds had a suspicion of +that possibility, while they watched Old Europe stage-managing fussily +by means of notes and conferences, the prophetic reproduction of its +awaiting fate. It was wonderfully exact in the spirit; same roar +of guns, same protestations of superiority, same words in the air; race, +liberation, justice—and the same mood of trivial demonstrations. +One could not take to-day a ticket for Petersburg. “You +mean Petrograd,” would say the booking clerk. Shortly after +the fall of Adrianople a friend of mine passing through Sophia asked +for some <i>café turc</i> at the end of his lunch.</p> +<p>“Monsieur veut dire Café balkanique,” the patriotic +waiter corrected him austerely.</p> +<p>I will not say that I had not observed something of that instructive +aspect of the war of the Balkans both in its first and in its second +phase. But those with whom I touched upon that vision were pleased +to see in it the evidence of my alarmist cynicism. As to alarm, +I pointed out that fear is natural to man, and even salutary. +It has done as much as courage for the preservation of races and institutions. +But from a charge of cynicism I have always shrunk instinctively. +It is like a charge of being blind in one eye, a moral disablement, +a sort of disgraceful calamity that must he carried off with a jaunty +bearing—a sort of thing I am not capable of. Rather than +be thought a mere jaunty cripple I allowed myself to be blinded by the +gross obviousness of the usual arguments. It was pointed out to +me that these Eastern nations were not far removed from a savage state. +Their economics were yet at the stage of scratching the earth and feeding +the pigs. The highly-developed material civilisation of Europe +could not allow itself to be disturbed by a war. The industry +and the finance could not allow themselves to be disorganised by the +ambitions of an idle class, or even the aspirations, whatever they might +be, of the masses.</p> +<p>Very plausible all this sounded. War does not pay. There +had been a book written on that theme—an attempt to put pacificism +on a material basis. Nothing more solid in the way of argument +could have been advanced on this trading and manufacturing globe. +War was “bad business!” This was final.</p> +<p>But, truth to say, on this July day I reflected but little on the +condition of the civilised world. Whatever sinister passions were +heaving under its splendid and complex surface, I was too agitated by +a simple and innocent desire of my own, to notice the signs or interpret +them correctly. The most innocent of passions will take the edge +off one’s judgment. The desire which possessed me was simply +the desire to travel. And that being so it would have taken something +very plain in the way of symptoms to shake my simple trust in the stability +of things on the Continent. My sentiment and not my reason was +engaged there. My eyes were turned to the past, not to the future; +the past that one cannot suspect and mistrust, the shadowy and unquestionable +moral possession the darkest struggles of which wear a halo of glory +and peace.</p> +<p>In the preceding month of May we had received an invitation to spend +some weeks in Poland in a country house in the neighbourhood of Cracow, +but within the Russian frontier. The enterprise at first seemed +to me considerable. Since leaving the sea, to which I have been +faithful for so many years, I have discovered that there is in my composition +very little stuff from which travellers are made. I confess that +my first impulse about a projected journey is to leave it alone. +But the invitation received at first with a sort of dismay ended by +rousing the dormant energy of my feelings. Cracow is the town +where I spent with my father the last eighteen months of his life. +It was in that old royal and academical city that I ceased to be a child, +became a boy, had known the friendships, the admirations, the thoughts +and the indignations of that age. It was within those historical +walls that I began to understand things, form affections, lay up a store +of memories and a fund of sensations with which I was to break violently +by throwing myself into an unrelated existence. It was like the +experience of another world. The wings of time made a great dusk +over all this, and I feared at first that if I ventured bodily in there +I would discover that I who have had to do with a good many imaginary +lives have been embracing mere shadows in my youth. I feared. +But fear in itself may become a fascination. Men have gone, alone +and trembling, into graveyards at midnight—just to see what would +happen. And this adventure was to be pursued in sunshine. +Neither would it be pursued alone. The invitation was extended +to us all. This journey would have something of a migratory character, +the invasion of a tribe. My present, all that gave solidity and +value to it, at any rate, would stand by me in this test of the reality +of my past. I was pleased with the idea of showing my companions +what Polish country life was like; to visit the town where I was at +school before the boys by my side should grow too old, and gaining an +individual past of their own, should lose their unsophisticated interest +in mine. It is only in the short instants of early youth that +we have the faculty of coming out of ourselves to see dimly the visions +and share the emotions of another soul. For youth all is reality +in this world, and with justice, since it apprehends so vividly its +images behind which a longer life makes one doubt whether there is any +substance. I trusted to the fresh receptivity of these young beings +in whom, unless Heredity is an empty word, there should have been a +fibre which would answer to the sight, to the atmosphere, to the memories +of that corner of the earth where my own boyhood had received its earliest +independent impressions.</p> +<p>The first days of the third week in July, while the telegraph wires +hummed with the words of enormous import which were to fill blue books, +yellow books, white books, and to arouse the wonder of mankind, passed +for us in light-hearted preparations for the journey. What was +it but just a rush through Germany, to get across as quickly as possible?</p> +<p>Germany is the part of the earth’s solid surface of which I +know the least. In all my life I had been across it only twice. +I may well say of it <i>vidi tantum</i>; and the very little I saw was +through the window of a railway carriage at express speed. Those +journeys of mine had been more like pilgrimages when one hurries on +towards the goal for the satisfaction of a deeper need than curiosity. +In this last instance, too, I was so incurious that I would have liked +to have fallen asleep on the shores of England and opened my eyes, if +it were possible, only on the other side of the Silesian frontier. +Yet, in truth, as many others have done, I had “sensed it”—that +promised land of steel, of chemical dyes, of method, of efficiency; +that race planted in the middle of Europe, assuming in grotesque vanity +the attitude of Europeans amongst effete Asiatics or barbarous niggers; +and, with a consciousness of superiority freeing their hands from all +moral bonds, anxious to take up, if I may express myself so, the “perfect +man’s burden.” Meantime, in a clearing of the Teutonic +forest, their sages were rearing a Tree of Cynical Wisdom, a sort of +Upas tree, whose shade may be seen now lying over the prostrate body +of Belgium. It must be said that they laboured openly enough, +watering it with the most authentic sources of all madness, and watching +with their be-spectacled eyes the slow ripening of the glorious blood-red +fruit. The sincerest words of peace, words of menace, and I verily +believe words of abasement, even if there had been a voice vile enough +to utter them, would have been wasted on their ecstasy. For when +the fruit ripens on a branch it must fall. There is nothing on +earth that can prevent it.</p> +<h4>II.</h4> +<p>For reasons which at first seemed to me somewhat obscure, that one +of my companions whose wishes are law decided that our travels should +begin in an unusual way by the crossing of the North Sea. We should +proceed from Harwich to Hamburg. Besides being thirty-six times +longer than the Dover-Calais passage this rather unusual route had an +air of adventure in better keeping with the romantic feeling of this +Polish journey which for so many years had been before us in a state +of a project full of colour and promise, but always retreating, elusive +like an enticing mirage.</p> +<p>And, after all, it had turned out to be no mirage. No wonder +they were excited. It’s no mean experience to lay your hands +on a mirage. The day of departure had come, the very hour had +struck. The luggage was coming downstairs. It was most convincing. +Poland then, if erased from the map, yet existed in reality; it was +not a mere <i>pays du rêve</i>, where you can travel only in imagination. +For no man, they argued, not even father, an habitual pursuer of dreams, +would push the love of the novelist’s art of make-believe to the +point of burdening himself with real trunks for a voyage <i>au pays +du rêve</i>.</p> +<p>As we left the door of our house, nestling in, perhaps, the most +peaceful nook in Kent, the sky, after weeks of perfectly brazen serenity, +veiled its blue depths and started to weep fine tears for the refreshment +of the parched fields. A pearly blur settled over them, and a +light sifted of all glare, of everything unkindly and searching that +dwells in the splendour of unveiled skies. All unconscious of +going towards the very scenes of war, I carried off in my eye, this +tiny fragment of Great Britain; a few fields, a wooded rise; a clump +of trees or two, with a short stretch of road, and here and there a +gleam of red wall and tiled roof above the darkening hedges wrapped +up in soft mist and peace. And I felt that all this had a very +strong hold on me as the embodiment of a beneficent and gentle spirit; +that it was dear to me not as an inheritance, but as an acquisition, +as a conquest in the sense in which a woman is conquered—by love, +which is a sort of surrender.</p> +<p>These were strange, as if disproportionate thoughts to the matter +in hand, which was the simplest sort of a Continental holiday. +And I am certain that my companions, near as they are to me, felt no +other trouble but the suppressed excitement of pleasurable anticipation. +The forms and the spirit of the land before their eyes were their inheritance, +not their conquest—which is a thing precarious, and, therefore, +the most precious, possessing you if only by the fear of unworthiness +rather than possessed by you. Moreover, as we sat together in +the same railway carriage, they were looking forward to a voyage in +space, whereas I felt more and more plainly, that what I had started +on was a journey in time, into the past; a fearful enough prospect for +the most consistent, but to him who had not known how to preserve against +his impulses the order and continuity of his life—so that at times +it presented itself to his conscience as a series of betrayals—still +more dreadful.</p> +<p>I down here these thoughts so exclusively personal, to explain why +there was no room in my consciousness for the apprehension of a European +war. I don’t mean to say that I ignored the possibility; +I simply did not think of it. And it made no difference; for if +I had thought of it, it could only have been in the lame and inconclusive +way of the common uninitiated mortals; and I am sure that nothing short +of intellectual certitude—obviously unattainable by the man in +the street—could have stayed me on that journey which now that +I had started on it seemed an irrevocable thing, a necessity of my self-respect.</p> +<p>London, the London before the war, flaunting its enormous glare, +as of a monstrous conflagration up into the black sky—with its +best Venice-like aspect of rainy evenings, the wet asphalted streets +lying with the sheen of sleeping water in winding canals, and the great +houses of the city towering all dark, like empty palaces, above the +reflected lights of the glistening roadway.</p> +<p>Everything in the subdued incomplete night-life around the Mansion +House went on normally with its fascinating air of a dead commercial +city of sombre walls through which the inextinguishable activity of +its millions streamed East and West in a brilliant flow of lighted vehicles.</p> +<p>In Liverpool Street, as usual too, through the double gates, a continuous +line of taxi-cabs glided down the inclined approach and up again, like +an endless chain of dredger-buckets, pouring in the passengers, and +dipping them out of the great railway station under the inexorable pallid +face of the clock telling off the diminishing minutes of peace. +It was the hour of the boat-trains to Holland, to Hamburg, and there +seemed to be no lack of people, fearless, reckless, or ignorant, who +wanted to go to these places. The station was normally crowded, +and if there was a great flutter of evening papers in the multitude +of hands there were no signs of extraordinary emotion on that multitude +of faces. There was nothing in them to distract me from the thought +that it was singularly appropriate that I should start from this station +on the retraced way of my existence. For this was the station +at which, thirty-seven years before, I arrived on my first visit to +London. Not the same building, but the same spot. At nineteen +years of age, after a period of probation and training I had imposed +upon myself as ordinary seaman on board a North Sea coaster, I had come +up from Lowestoft—my first long railway journey in England—to +“sign on” for an Antipodean voyage in a deep-water ship. +Straight from a railway carriage I had walked into the great city with +something of the feeling of a traveller penetrating into a vast and +unexplored wilderness. No explorer could have been more lonely. +I did not know a single soul of all these millions that all around me +peopled the mysterious distances of the streets. I cannot say +I was free from a little youthful awe, but at that age one’s feelings +are simple. I was elated. I was pursuing a clear aim, I +was carrying out a deliberate plan of making out of myself, in the first +place, a seaman worthy of the service, good enough to work by the side +of the men with whom I was to live; and in the second place, I had to +justify my existence to myself, to redeem a tacit moral pledge. +Both these aims were to be attained by the same effort. How simple +seemed the problem of life then, on that hazy day of early September +in the year 1878, when I entered London for the first time.</p> +<p>From that point of view—Youth and a straightforward scheme +of conduct—it was certainly a year of grace. All the help +I had to get in touch with the world I was invading was a piece of paper +not much bigger than the palm of my hand—in which I held it—torn +out of a larger plan of London for the greater facility of reference. +It had been the object of careful study for some days past. The +fact that I could take a conveyance at the station never occurred to +my mind, no, not even when I got out into the street, and stood, taking +my anxious bearings, in the midst, so to speak, of twenty thousand hansoms. +A strange absence of mind or unconscious conviction that one cannot +approach an important moment of one’s life by means of a hired +carriage? Yes, it would have been a preposterous proceeding. +And indeed I was to make an Australian voyage and encircle the globe +before ever entering a London hansom.</p> +<p>Another document, a cutting from a newspaper, containing the address +of an obscure shipping agent, was in my pocket. And I needed not +to take it out. That address was as if graven deep in my brain. +I muttered its words to myself as I walked on, navigating the sea of +London by the chart concealed in the palm of my hand; for I had vowed +to myself not to inquire my way from anyone. Youth is the time +of rash pledges. Had I taken a wrong turning I would have been +lost; and if faithful to my pledge I might have remained lost for days, +for weeks, have left perhaps my bones to be discovered bleaching in +some blind alley of the Whitechapel district, as it had happened to +lonely travellers lost in the bush. But I walked on to my destination +without hesitation or mistake, showing there, for the first time, some +of that faculty to absorb and make my own the imaged topography of a +chart, which in later years was to help me in regions of intricate navigation +to keep the ships entrusted to me off the ground. The place I +was bound to was not easy to find. It was one of those courts +hidden away from the charted and navigable streets, lost among the thick +growth of houses like a dark pool in the depths of a forest, approached +by an inconspicuous archway as if by secret path; a Dickensian nook +of London, that wonder city, the growth of which bears no sign of intelligent +design, but many traces of freakishly sombre phantasy the Great Master +knew so well how to bring out by the magic of his understanding love. +And the office I entered was Dickensian too. The dust of the Waterloo +year lay on the panes and frames of its windows; early Georgian grime +clung to its sombre wainscoting.</p> +<p>It was one o’clock in the afternoon, but the day was gloomy. +By the light of a single gas-jet depending from the smoked ceiling I +saw an elderly man, in a long coat of black broadcloth. He had +a grey beard, a big nose, thick lips, and heavy shoulders. His +curly white hair and the general character of his head recalled vaguely +a burly apostle in the <i>barocco</i> style of Italian art. Standing +up at a tall, shabby, slanting desk, his silver-rimmed spectacles pushed +up high on his forehead, he was eating a mutton-chop, which had been +just brought to him from some Dickensian eating-house round the corner.</p> +<p>Without ceasing to eat he turned to me his florid, <i>barocco</i> +apostle’s face with an expression of inquiry.</p> +<p>I produced elaborately a series of vocal sounds which must have borne +sufficient resemblance to the phonetics of English speech, for his face +broke into a smile of comprehension almost at once.—“Oh, +it’s you who wrote a letter to me the other day from Lowestoft +about getting a ship.”</p> +<p>I had written to him from Lowestoft. I can’t remember +a single word of that letter now. It was my very first composition +in the English language. And he had understood it, evidently, +for he spoke to the point at once, explaining that his business, mainly, +was to find good ships for young gentlemen who wanted to go to sea as +premium apprentices with a view of being trained for officers. +But he gathered that this was not my object. I did not desire +to be apprenticed. Was that the case?</p> +<p>It was. He was good enough to say then, “Of course I +see that you are a gentleman. But your wish is to get a berth +before the mast as an Able Seaman if possible. Is that it?”</p> +<p>It was certainly my wish; but he stated doubtfully that he feared +he could not help me much in this. There was an Act of Parliament +which made it penal to procure ships for sailors. “An Act-of-Parliament. +A law,” he took pains to impress it again and again on my foreign +understanding, while I looked at him in consternation.</p> +<p>I had not been half an hour in London before I had run my head against +an Act of Parliament! What a hopeless adventure! However, +the <i>barocco</i> apostle was a resourceful person in his way, and +we managed to get round the hard letter of it without damage to its +fine spirit. Yet, strictly speaking, it was not the conduct of +a good citizen; and in retrospect there is an unfilial flavour about +that early sin of mine. For this Act of Parliament, the Merchant +Shipping Act of the Victorian era, had been in a manner of speaking +a father and mother to me. For many years it had regulated and +disciplined my life, prescribed my food and the amount of my breathing +space, had looked after my health and tried as much as possible to secure +my personal safety in a risky calling. It isn’t such a bad +thing to lead a life of hard toil and plain duty within the four corners +of an honest Act of Parliament. And I am glad to say that its +seventies have never been applied to me.</p> +<p>In the year 1878, the year of “Peace with Honour,” I +had walked as lone as any human being in the streets of London, out +of Liverpool Street Station, to surrender myself to its care. +And now, in the year of the war waged for honour and conscience more +than for any other cause, I was there again, no longer alone, but a +man of infinitely dear and close ties grown since that time, of work +done, of words written, of friendships secured. It was like the +closing of a thirty-six-year cycle.</p> +<p>All unaware of the War Angel already awaiting, with the trumpet at +his lips, the stroke of the fatal hour, I sat there, thinking that this +life of ours is neither long nor short, but that it can appear very +wonderful, entertaining, and pathetic, with symbolic images and bizarre +associations crowded into one half-hour of retrospective musing.</p> +<p>I felt, too, that this journey, so suddenly entered upon, was bound +to take me away from daily life’s actualities at every step. +I felt it more than ever when presently we steamed out into the North +Sea, on a dark night fitful with gusts of wind, and I lingered on deck, +alone of all the tale of the ship’s passengers. That sea +was to me something unforgettable, something much more than a name. +It had been for some time the schoolroom of my trade. On it, I +may safely say, I had learned, too, my first words of English. +A wild and stormy abode, sometimes, was that confined, shallow-water +academy of seamanship from which I launched myself on the wide oceans. +My teachers had been the sailors of the Norfolk shore; coast men, with +steady eyes, mighty limbs, and gentle voice; men of very few words, +which at least were never bare of meaning. Honest, strong, steady +men, sobered by domestic ties, one and all, as far as I can remember.</p> +<p>That is what years ago the North Sea I could hear growling in the +dark all round the ship had been for me. And I fancied that I +must have been carrying its voice in my ear ever since, for nothing +could be more familiar than those short, angry sounds I was listening +to with a smile of affectionate recognition.</p> +<p>I could not guess that before many days my old schoolroom would be +desecrated by violence, littered with wrecks, with death walking its +waves, hiding under its waters. Perhaps while I am writing these +words the children, or maybe the grandchildren, of my pacific teachers +are out in trawlers, under the Naval flag, dredging for German submarine +mines.</p> +<h4>III.</h4> +<p>I have said that the North Sea was my finishing school of seamanship +before I launched myself on the wider oceans. Confined as it is +in comparison with the vast stage of this water-girt globe, I did not +know it in all its parts. My class-room was the region of the +English East Coast which, in the year of Peace with Honour, had long +forgotten the war episodes belonging to its maritime history. +It was a peaceful coast, agricultural, industrial, the home of fishermen. +At night the lights of its many towns played on the clouds, or in clear +weather lay still, here and there, in brilliant pools above the ink-black +outline of the land. On many a night I have hauled at the braces +under the shadow of that coast, envying, as sailors will, the people +on shore sleeping quietly in their beds within sound of the sea. +I imagine that not one head on those envied pillows was made uneasy +by the slightest premonition of the realities of naval war the short +lifetime of one generation was to bring so close to their homes.</p> +<p>Though far away from that region of kindly memories and traversing +a part of the North Sea much less known to me, I was deeply conscious +of the familiarity of my surroundings. It was a cloudy, nasty +day: and the aspects of Nature don’t change, unless in the course +of thousands of years—or, perhaps, centuries. The Phoenicians, +its first discoverers, the Romans, the first imperial rulers of that +sea, had experienced days like this, so different in the wintry quality +of the light, even on a July afternoon, from anything they had ever +known in their native Mediterranean. For myself, a very late comer +into that sea, and its former pupil, I accorded amused recognition to +the characteristic aspect so well remembered from my days of training. +The same old thing. A grey-green expanse of smudgy waters grinning +angrily at one with white foam-ridges, and over all a cheerless, unglowing +canopy, apparently made of wet blotting-paper. From time to time +a flurry of fine rain blew along like a puff of smoke across the dots +of distant fishing boats, very few, very scattered, and tossing restlessly +on an ever dissolving, ever re-forming sky-line.</p> +<p>Those flurries, and the steady rolling of the ship, accounted for +the emptiness of the decks, favouring my reminiscent mood. It +might have been a day of five and thirty years ago, when there were +on this and every other sea more sails and less smoke-stacks to be seen. +Yet, thanks to the unchangeable sea I could have given myself up to +the illusion of a revised past, had it not been for the periodical transit +across my gaze of a German passenger. He was marching round and +round the boat deck with characteristic determination. Two sturdy +boys gambolled round him in his progress like two disorderly satellites +round their parent planet. He was bringing them home, from their +school in England, for their holiday. What could have induced +such a sound Teuton to entrust his offspring to the unhealthy influences +of that effete, corrupt, rotten and criminal country I cannot imagine. +It could hardly have been from motives of economy. I did not speak +to him. He trod the deck of that decadent British ship with a +scornful foot while his breast (and to a large extent his stomach, too) +appeared expanded by the consciousness of a superior destiny. +Later I could observe the same truculent bearing, touched with the racial +grotesqueness, in the men of the <i>Landwehr</i> corps, that passed +through Cracow to reinforce the Austrian army in Eastern Galicia. +Indeed, the haughty passenger might very well have been, most probably +was, an officer of the <i>Landwehr</i>; and perhaps those two fine active +boys are orphans by now. Thus things acquire significance by the +lapse of time. A citizen, a father, a warrior, a mote in the dust-cloud +of six million fighting particles, an unconsidered trifle for the jaws +of war, his humanity was not consciously impressed on my mind at the +time. Mainly, for me, he was a sharp tapping of heels round the +corner of the deck-house, a white yachting cap and a green overcoat +getting periodically between my eyes and the shifting cloud-horizon +of the ashy-grey North Sea. He was but a shadowy intrusion and +a disregarded one, for, far away there to the West, in the direction +of the Dogger Bank, where fishermen go seeking their daily bread and +sometimes find their graves, I could behold an experience of my own +in the winter of ’81, not of war, truly, but of a fairly lively +contest with the elements which were very angry indeed.</p> +<p>There had been a troublesome week of it, including one hateful night—or +a night of hate (it isn’t for nothing that the North Sea is also +called the German Ocean)—when all the fury stored in its heart +seemed concentrated on one ship which could do no better than float +on her side in an unnatural, disagreeable, precarious, and altogether +intolerable manner. There were on board, besides myself, seventeen +men all good and true, including a round enormous Dutchman who, in those +hours between sunset and sunrise, managed to lose his blown-out appearance +somehow, became as it were deflated, and thereafter for a good long +time moved in our midst wrinkled and slack all over like a half-collapsed +balloon. The whimpering of our deck-boy, a skinny, impressionable +little scarecrow out of a training-ship, for whom, because of the tender +immaturity of his nerves, this display of German Ocean frightfulness +was too much (before the year was out he developed into a sufficiently +cheeky young ruffian), his desolate whimpering, I say, heard between +the gusts of that black, savage night, was much more present to my mind +and indeed to my senses than the green overcoat and the white cap of +the German passenger circling the deck indefatigably, attended by his +two gyrating children.</p> +<p>“That’s a very nice gentleman.” This information, +together with the fact that he was a widower and a regular passenger +twice a year by the ship, was communicated to me suddenly by our captain. +At intervals through the day he would pop out of the chart-room and +offer me short snatches of conversation. He owned a simple soul +and a not very entertaining mind, and he was without malice and, I believe, +quite unconsciously, a warm Germanophil. And no wonder! +As he told me himself, he had been fifteen years on that run, and spent +almost as much of his life in Hamburg as in Harwich.</p> +<p>“Wonderful people they are,” he repeated from time to +time, without entering into particulars, but with many nods of sagacious +obstinacy. What he knew of them, I suppose, were a few commercial +travellers and small merchants, most likely. But I had observed +long before that German genius has a hypnotising power over half-baked +souls and half-lighted minds. There is an immense force of suggestion +in highly organised mediocrity. Had it not hypnotised half Europe? +My man was very much under the spell of German excellence. On +the other hand, his contempt for France was equally general and unbounded. +I tried to advance some arguments against this position, but I only +succeeded in making him hostile. “I believe you are a Frenchman +yourself,” he snarled at last, giving me an intensely suspicious +look; and forthwith broke off communications with a man of such unsound +sympathies.</p> +<p>Hour by hour the blotting-paper sky and the great flat greenish smudge +of the sea had been taking on a darker tone, without any change in their +colouring and texture. Evening was coming on over the North Sea. +Black uninteresting hummocks of land appeared, dotting the duskiness +of water and clouds in the Eastern board: tops of islands fringing the +German shore. While I was looking at their antics amongst the +waves—and for all their solidity they were very elusive things +in the failing light—another passenger came out on deck. +This one wore a dark overcoat and a grey cap. The yellow leather +strap of his binocular case crossed his chest. His elderly red +cheeks nourished but a very thin crop of short white hairs, and the +end of his nose was so perfectly round that it determined the whole +character of his physiognomy. Indeed nothing else in it had the +slightest chance to assert itself. His disposition, unlike the +widower’s, appeared to be mild and humane. He offered me +the loan of his glasses. He had a wife and some small children +concealed in the depths of the ship, and he thought they were very well +where they were. His eldest son was about the decks somewhere.</p> +<p>“We are Americans,” he remarked weightily, but in a rather +peculiar tone. He spoke English with the accent of our captain’s +“wonderful people,” and proceeded to give me the history +of the family’s crossing the Atlantic in a White Star liner. +They remained in England just the time necessary for a railway journey +from Liverpool to Harwich. His people (those in the depths of +the ship) were naturally a little tired.</p> +<p>At that moment a young man of about twenty, his son, rushed up to +us from the fore-deck in a state of intense elation. “Hurrah,” +he cried under his breath. “The first German light! +Hurrah!”</p> +<p>And those two American citizens shook hands on it with the greatest +fervour, while I turned away and received full in the eyes the brilliant +wink of the Borkum lighthouse squatting low down in the darkness. +The shade of the night had settled on the North Sea.</p> +<p>I do not think I have ever seen before a night so full of lights. +The great change of sea life since my time was brought home to me. +I had been conscious all day of an interminable procession of steamers. +They went on and on as if in chase of each other, the Baltic trade, +the trade of Scandinavia, of Denmark, of Germany, pitching heavily into +a head sea and bound for the gateway of Dover Straits. Singly, +and in small companies of two and three, they emerged from the dull, +colourless, sunless distances ahead as if the supply of rather roughly +finished mechanical toys were inexhaustible in some mysterious cheap +store away there, below the grey curve of the earth. Cargo steam +vessels have reached by this time a height of utilitarian ugliness which, +when one reflects that it is the product of human ingenuity, strikes +hopeless awe into one. These dismal creations look still uglier +at sea than in port, and with an added touch of the ridiculous. +Their rolling waddle when seen at a certain angle, their abrupt clockwork +nodding in a sea-way, so unlike the soaring lift and swing of a craft +under sail, have in them something caricatural, a suggestion of a low +parody directed at noble predecessors by an improved generation of dull, +mechanical toilers, conceited and without grace.</p> +<p>When they switched on (each of these unlovely cargo tanks carried +tame lightning within its slab-sided body), when they switched on their +lamps they spangled the night with the cheap, electric, shop-glitter, +here, there, and everywhere, as of some High Street, broken up and washed +out to sea. Later, Heligoland cut into the overhead darkness with +its powerful beam, infinitely prolonged out of unfathomable night under +the clouds.</p> +<p>I remained on deck until we stopped and a steam pilot-boat, so overlighted +amidships that one could not make out her complete shape, glided across +our bows and sent a pilot on board. I fear that the oar, as a +working implement, will become presently as obsolete as the sail. +The pilot boarded us in a motor-dinghy. More and more is mankind +reducing its physical activities to pulling levers and twirling little +wheels. Progress! Yet the older methods of meeting natural +forces demanded intelligence too; an equally fine readiness of wits. +And readiness of wits working in combination with the strength of muscles +made a more complete man.</p> +<p>It was really a surprisingly small dinghy and it ran to and fro like +a water-insect fussing noisily down there with immense self-importance. +Within hail of us the hull of the Elbe lightship floated all dark and +silent under its enormous round, service lantern; a faithful black shadow +watching the broad estuary full of lights.</p> +<p>Such was my first view of the Elbe approached under the wings of +peace ready for flight away from the luckless shores of Europe. +Our visual impressions remain with us so persistently that I find it +extremely difficult to hold fast to the rational belief that now everything +is dark over there, that the Elbe lightship has been towed away from +its post of duty, the triumphant beam of Heligoland extinguished, and +the pilot-boat laid up, or turned to warlike uses for lack of its proper +work to do. And obviously it must be so.</p> +<p>Any trickle of oversea trade that passes yet that way must be creeping +along cautiously with the unlighted, war-blighted black coast close +on one hand, and sudden death on the other. For all the space +we steamed through that Sunday evening must now be one great minefield, +sown thickly with the seeds of hate; while submarines steal out to sea, +over the very spot perhaps where the insect-dinghy put a pilot on board +of us with so much fussy importance. Mines; Submarines. +The last word in sea-warfare! Progress—impressively disclosed +by this war.</p> +<p>There have been other wars! Wars not inferior in the greatness +of the stake and in the fierce animosity of feelings. During that +one which was finished a hundred years ago it happened that while the +English Fleet was keeping watch on Brest, an American, perhaps Fulton +himself, offered to the Maritime Prefect of the port and to the French +Admiral, an invention which would sink all the unsuspecting English +ships one after another—or, at any rate most of them. The +offer was not even taken into consideration; and the Prefect ends his +report to the Minister in Paris with a fine phrase of indignation: “It +is not the sort of death one would deal to brave men.”</p> +<p>And behold, before history had time to hatch another war of the like +proportions in the intensity of aroused passions and the greatness of +issues, the dead flavour of archaism descended on the manly sentiment +of those self-denying words. Mankind has been demoralised since +by its own mastery of mechanical appliances. Its spirit is apparently +so weak now, and its flesh has grown so strong, that it will face any +deadly horror of destruction and cannot resist the temptation to use +any stealthy, murderous contrivance. It has become the intoxicated +slave of its own detestable ingenuity. It is true, too, that since +the Napoleonic time another sort of war-doctrine has been inculcated +in a nation, and held out to the world.</p> +<h4>IV.</h4> +<p>On this journey of ours, which for me was essentially not a progress, +but a retracing of footsteps on the road of life, I had no beacons to +look for in Germany. I had never lingered in that land which, +on the whole, is so singularly barren of memorable manifestations of +generous sympathies and magnanimous impulses. An ineradicable, +invincible, provincialism of envy and vanity clings to the forms of +its thought like a frowsy garment. Even while yet very young I +turned my eyes away from it instinctively as from a threatening phantom. +I believe that children and dogs have, in their innocence, a special +power of perception as far as spectral apparitions and coming misfortunes +are concerned.</p> +<p>I let myself be carried through Germany as if it were pure space, +without sights, without sounds. No whispers of the war reached +my voluntary abstraction. And perhaps not so very voluntary after +all! Each of us is a fascinating spectacle to himself, and I had +to watch my own personality returning from another world, as it were, +to revisit the glimpses of old moons. Considering the condition +of humanity, I am, perhaps, not so much to blame for giving myself up +to that occupation. We prize the sensation of our continuity, +and we can only capture it in that way. By watching.</p> +<p>We arrived in Cracow late at night. After a scrambly supper, +I said to my eldest boy, “I can’t go to bed. I am +going out for a look round. Coming?”</p> +<p>He was ready enough. For him, all this was part of the interesting +adventure of the whole journey. We stepped out of the portal of +the hotel into an empty street, very silent and bright with moonlight. +I was, indeed, revisiting the glimpses of the moon. I felt so +much like a ghost that the discovery that I could remember such material +things as the right turn to take and the general direction of the street +gave me a moment of wistful surprise.</p> +<p>The street, straight and narrow, ran into the great Market Square +of the town, the centre of its affairs and of the lighter side of its +life. We could see at the far end of the street a promising widening +of space. At the corner an unassuming (but armed) policeman, wearing +ceremoniously at midnight a pair of white gloves which made his big +hands extremely noticeable, turned his head to look at the grizzled +foreigner holding forth in a strange tongue to a youth on whose arm +he leaned.</p> +<p>The Square, immense in its solitude, was full to the brim of moonlight. +The garland of lights at the foot of the houses seemed to burn at the +bottom of a bluish pool. I noticed with infinite satisfaction +that the unnecessary trees the Municipality insisted upon sticking between +the stones had been steadily refusing to grow. They were not a +bit bigger than the poor victims I could remember. Also, the paving +operations seemed to be exactly at the same point at which I left them +forty years before. There were the dull, torn-up patches on that +bright expanse, the piles of paving material looking ominously black, +like heads of rocks on a silvery sea. Who was it that said that +Time works wonders? What an exploded superstition! As far +as these trees and these paving stones were concerned, it had worked +nothing. The suspicion of the unchangeableness of things already +vaguely suggested to my senses by our rapid drive from the railway station +was agreeably strengthened within me.</p> +<p>“We are now on the line A.B.,” I said to my companion, +importantly.</p> +<p>It was the name bestowed in my time on one of the sides of the Square +by the senior students of that town of classical learning and historical +relics. The common citizens knew nothing of it, and, even if they +had, would not have dreamed of taking it seriously. He who used +it was of the initiated, belonged to the Schools. We youngsters +regarded that name as a fine jest, the invention of a most excellent +fancy. Even as I uttered it to my boy I experienced again that +sense of my privileged initiation. And then, happening to look +up at the wall, I saw in the light of the corner lamp, a white, cast-iron +tablet fixed thereon, bearing an inscription in raised black letters, +thus: “Line A.B.” Heavens! The name had been +adopted officially! Any town urchin, any guttersnipe, any herb-selling +woman of the market-place, any wandering Boeotian, was free to talk +of the line A.B., to walk on the line A.B., to appoint to meet his friends +on the line A.B. It had become a mere name in a directory. +I was stunned by the extreme mutability of things. Time could +work wonders, and no mistake. A Municipality had stolen an invention +of excellent fancy, and a fine jest had turned into a horrid piece of +cast-iron.</p> +<p>I proposed that we should walk to the other end of the line, using +the profaned name, not only without gusto, but with positive distaste. +And this, too, was one of the wonders of Time, for a bare minute had +worked that change. There was at the end of the line a certain +street I wanted to look at, I explained to my companion.</p> +<p>To our right the unequal massive towers of St. Mary’s Church +soared aloft into the ethereal radiance of the air, very black on their +shaded sides, glowing with a soft phosphorescent sheen on the others. +In the distance the Florian Gate, thick and squat under its pointed +roof, barred the street with the square shoulders of the old city wall. +In the narrow, brilliantly pale vista of bluish flagstones and silvery +fronts of houses, its black archway stood out small and very distinct.</p> +<p>There was not a soul in sight, and not even the echo of a footstep +for our ears. Into this coldly illuminated and dumb emptiness +there issued out of my aroused memory, a small boy of eleven, wending +his way, not very fast, to a preparatory school for day-pupils on the +second floor of the third house down from the Florian Gate. It +was in the winter months of 1868. At eight o’clock of every +morning that God made, sleet or shine, I walked up Florian Street. +But of that, my first school, I remember very little. I believe +that one of my co-sufferers there has become a much appreciated editor +of historical documents. But I didn’t suffer much from the +various imperfections of my first school. I was rather indifferent +to school troubles. I had a private gnawing worm of my own. +This was the time of my father’s last illness. Every evening +at seven, turning my back on the Florian Gate, I walked all the way +to a big old house in a quiet narrow street a good distance beyond the +Great Square. There, in a large drawing-room, panelled and bare, +with heavy cornices and a lofty ceiling, in a little oasis of light +made by two candles in a desert of dusk, I sat at a little table to +worry and ink myself all over till the task of my preparation was done. +The table of my toil faced a tall white door, which was kept closed; +now and then it would come ajar and a nun in a white coif would squeeze +herself through the crack, glide across the room, and disappear. +There were two of these noiseless nursing nuns. Their voices were +seldom heard. For, indeed, what could they have had to say? +When they did speak to me it was with their lips hardly moving, in a +claustral, clear whisper. Our domestic matters were ordered by +the elderly housekeeper of our neighbour on the second floor, a Canon +of the Cathedral, lent for the emergency. She, too, spoke but +seldom. She wore a black dress with a cross hanging by a chain +on her ample bosom. And though when she spoke she moved her lips +more than the nuns, she never let her voice rise above a peacefully +murmuring note. The air around me was all piety, resignation, +and silence.</p> +<p>I don’t know what would have become of me if I had not been +a reading boy. My prep. finished I would have had nothing to do +but sit and watch the awful stillness of the sick room flow out through +the closed door and coldly enfold my scared heart. I suppose that +in a futile childish way I would have gone crazy. But I was a +reading boy. There were many books about, lying on consoles, on +tables, and even on the floor, for we had not had time to settle down. +I read! What did I not read! Sometimes the elder nun, gliding +up and casting a mistrustful look on the open pages, would lay her hand +lightly on my head and suggest in a doubtful whisper, “Perhaps +it is not very good for you to read these books.” I would +raise my eyes to her face mutely, and with a vague gesture of giving +it up she would glide away.</p> +<p>Later in the evening, but not always, I would be permitted to tip-toe +into the sick room to say good-night to the figure prone on the bed, +which often could not acknowledge my presence but by a slow movement +of the eyes, put my lips dutifully to the nerveless hand lying on the +coverlet, and tip-toe out again. Then I would go to bed, in a +room at the end of the corridor, and often, not always, cry myself into +a good sound sleep.</p> +<p>I looked forward to what was coming with an incredulous terror. +I turned my eyes from it sometimes with success, and yet all the time +I had an awful sensation of the inevitable. I had also moments +of revolt which stripped off me some of my simple trust in the government +of the universe. But when the inevitable entered the sick room +and the white door was thrown wide open, I don’t think I found +a single tear to shed. I have a suspicion that the Canon’s +housekeeper looked on me as the most callous little wretch on earth.</p> +<p>The day of the funeral came in due course and all the generous “Youth +of the Schools,” the grave Senate of the University, the delegations +of the Trade-guilds, might have obtained (if they cared) <i>de visu</i> +evidence of the callousness of the little wretch. There was nothing +in my aching head but a few words, some such stupid sentences as, “It’s +done,” or, “It’s accomplished” (in Polish it +is much shorter), or something of the sort, repeating itself endlessly. +The long procession moved out of the narrow street, down a long street, +past the Gothic front of St. Mary’s under its unequal towers, +towards the Florian Gate.</p> +<p>In the moonlight-flooded silence of the old town of glorious tombs +and tragic memories, I could see again the small boy of that day following +a hearse; a space kept clear in which I walked alone, conscious of an +enormous following, the clumsy swaying of the tall black machine, the +chanting of the surpliced clergy at the head, the flames of tapers passing +under the low archway of the gate, the rows of bared heads on the pavements +with fixed, serious eyes. Half the population had turned out on +that fine May afternoon. They had not come to honour a great achievement, +or even some splendid failure. The dead and they were victims +alike of an unrelenting destiny which cut them off from every path of +merit and glory. They had come only to render homage to the ardent +fidelity of the man whose life had been a fearless confession in word +and deed of a creed which the simplest heart in that crowd could feel +and understand.</p> +<p>It seemed to me that if I remained longer there in that narrow street +I should become the helpless prey of the Shadows I had called up. +They were crowding upon me, enigmatic and insistent in their clinging +air of the grave that tasted of dust and of the bitter vanity of old +hopes.</p> +<p>“Let’s go back to the hotel, my boy,” I said. +“It’s getting late.”</p> +<p>It will be easily understood that I neither thought nor dreamt that +night of a possible war. For the next two days I went about amongst +my fellow men, who welcomed me with the utmost consideration and friendliness, +but unanimously derided my fears of a war. They would not believe +in it. It was impossible. On the evening of the second day +I was in the hotel’s smoking room, an irrationally private apartment, +a sanctuary for a few choice minds of the town, always pervaded by a +dim religious light, and more hushed than any club reading-room I have +ever been in. Gathered into a small knot, we were discussing the +situation in subdued tones suitable to the genius of the place.</p> +<p>A gentleman with a fine head of white hair suddenly pointed an impatient +finger in my direction and apostrophised me.</p> +<p>“What I want to know is whether, should there be war, England +would come in.”</p> +<p>The time to draw a breath, and I spoke out for the Cabinet without +faltering.</p> +<p>“Most assuredly. I should think all Europe knows that +by this time.”</p> +<p>He took hold of the lapel of my coat, and, giving it a slight jerk +for greater emphasis, said forcibly:</p> +<p>“Then, if England will, as you say, and all the world knows +it, there can be no war. Germany won’t be so mad as that.”</p> +<p>On the morrow by noon we read of the German ultimatum. The +day after came the declaration of war, and the Austrian mobilisation +order. We were fairly caught. All that remained for me to +do was to get my party out of the way of eventual shells. The +best move which occurred to me was to snatch them up instantly into +the mountains to a Polish health resort of great repute—which +I did (at the rate of one hundred miles in eleven hours) by the last +civilian train permitted to leave Cracow for the next three weeks.</p> +<p>And there we remained amongst the Poles from all parts of Poland, +not officially interned, but simply unable to obtain the permission +to travel by train, or road. It was a wonderful, a poignant two +months. This is not the time, and, perhaps, not the place, to +enlarge upon the tragic character of the situation; a whole people seeing +the culmination of its misfortunes in a final catastrophe, unable to +trust anyone, to appeal to anyone, to look for help from any quarter; +deprived of all hope and even of its last illusions, and unable, in +the trouble of minds and the unrest of consciences, to take refuge in +stoical acceptance. I have seen all this. And I am glad +I have not so many years left me to remember that appalling feeling +of inexorable fate, tangible, palpable, come after so many cruel years, +a figure of dread, murmuring with iron lips the final words: Ruin—and +Extinction.</p> +<p>But enough of this. For our little band there was the awful +anguish of incertitude as to the real nature of events in the West. +It is difficult to give an idea how ugly and dangerous things looked +to us over there. Belgium knocked down and trampled out of existence, +France giving in under repeated blows, a military collapse like that +of 1870, and England involved in that disastrous alliance, her army +sacrificed, her people in a panic! Polish papers, of course, had +no other but German sources of information. Naturally, we did +not believe all we read, but it was sometimes excessively difficult +to react with sufficient firmness.</p> +<p>We used to shut our door, and there, away from everybody, we sat +weighing the news, hunting up discrepancies, scenting lies, finding +reasons for hopefulness, and generally cheering each other up. +But it was a beastly time. People used to come to me with very +serious news and ask, “What do you think of it?” And +my invariable answer was: “Whatever has happened, or is going +to happen, whoever wants to make peace, you may be certain that England +will not make it, not for ten years, if necessary.”’</p> +<p>But enough of this, too. Through the unremitting efforts of +Polish friends we obtained at last the permission to travel to Vienna. +Once there, the wing of the American Eagle was extended over our uneasy +heads. We cannot be sufficiently grateful to the American Ambassador +(who, all along, interested himself in our fate) for his exertions on +our behalf, his invaluable assistance and the real friendliness of his +reception in Vienna. Owing to Mr. Penfield’s action we obtained +the permission to leave Austria. And it was a near thing, for +his Excellency has informed my American publishers since that a week +later orders were issued to have us detained till the end of the war. +However, we effected our hair’s-breadth escape into Italy; and, +reaching Genoa, took passage in a Dutch mail steamer, homeward-bound +from Java with London as a port of call.</p> +<p>On that sea-route I might have picked up a memory at every mile if +the past had not been eclipsed by the tremendous actuality. We +saw the signs of it in the emptiness of the Mediterranean, the aspect +of Gibraltar, the misty glimpse in the Bay of Biscay of an outward-bound +convoy of transports, in the presence of British submarines in the Channel. +Innumerable drifters flying the Naval flag dotted the narrow waters, +and two Naval officers coming on board off the South Foreland, piloted +the ship through the Downs.</p> +<p>The Downs! There they were, thick with the memories of my sea-life. +But what were to me now the futilities of an individual past? +As our ship’s head swung into the estuary of the Thames, a deep, +yet faint, concussion passed through the air, a shock rather than a +sound, which missing my ear found its way straight into my heart. +Turning instinctively to look at my boys, I happened to meet my wife’s +eyes. She also had felt profoundly, coming from far away across +the grey distances of the sea, the faint boom of the big guns at work +on the coast of Flanders—shaping the future.</p> +<h3>FIRST NEWS—1918</h3> +<p>Four years ago, on the first day of August, in the town of Cracow, +Austrian Poland, nobody would believe that the war was coming. +My apprehensions were met by the words: “We have had these scares +before.” This incredulity was so universal amongst people +of intelligence and information, that even I, who had accustomed myself +to look at the inevitable for years past, felt my conviction shaken. +At that time, it must be noted, the Austrian army was already partly +mobilised, and as we came through Austrian Silesia we had noticed all +the bridges being guarded by soldiers.</p> +<p>“Austria will back down,” was the opinion of all the +well-informed men with whom I talked on the first of August. The +session of the University was ended and the students were either all +gone or going home to different parts of Poland, but the professors +had not all departed yet on their respective holidays, and amongst them +the tone of scepticism prevailed generally. Upon the whole there +was very little inclination to talk about the possibility of a war. +Nationally, the Poles felt that from their point of view there was nothing +to hope from it. “Whatever happens,” said a very distinguished +man to me, “we may be certain that it’s our skins which +will pay for it as usual.” A well-known literary critic +and writer on economical subjects said to me: “War seems a material +impossibility, precisely because it would mean the complete ruin of +all material interests.”</p> +<p>He was wrong, as we know; but those who said that Austria as usual +would back down were, as a matter of fact perfectly right. Austria +did back down. What these men did not foresee was the interference +of Germany. And one cannot blame them very well; for who could +guess that, when the balance stood even, the German sword would be thrown +into the scale with nothing in the open political situation to justify +that act, or rather that crime—if crime can ever be justified? +For, as the same intelligent man said to me: “As it is, those +people” (meaning Germans) “have very nearly the whole world +in their economic grip. Their prestige is even greater than their +actual strength. It can get for them practically everything they +want. Then why risk it?” And there was no apparent +answer to the question put in that way. I must also say that the +Poles had no illusions about the strength of Russia. Those illusions +were the monopoly of the Western world.</p> +<p>Next day the librarian of the University invited me to come and have +a look at the library which I had not seen since I was fourteen years +old. It was from him that I learned that the greater part of my +father’s MSS. was preserved there. He confessed that he +had not looked them through thoroughly yet, but he told me that there +was a lot of very important letters bearing on the epoch from ’60 +to ’63, to and from many prominent Poles of that time: and he +added: “There is a bundle of correspondence that will appeal to +you personally. Those are letters written by your father to an +intimate friend in whose papers they were found. They contain +many references to yourself, though you couldn’t have been more +than four years old at the time. Your father seems to have been +extremely interested in his son.” That afternoon I went +to the University, taking with me <i>my</i> eldest son. The attention +of that young Englishman was mainly attracted by some relics of Copernicus +in a glass case. I saw the bundle of letters and accepted the +kind proposal of the librarian that he should have them copied for me +during the holidays. In the range of the deserted vaulted rooms +lined with books, full of august memories, and in the passionless silence +of all this enshrined wisdom, we walked here and there talking of the +past, the great historical past in which lived the inextinguishable +spark of national life; and all around us the centuries-old buildings +lay still and empty, composing themselves to rest after a year of work +on the minds of another generation.</p> +<p>No echo of the German ultimatum to Russia penetrated that academical +peace. But the news had come. When we stepped into the street +out of the deserted main quadrangle, we three, I imagine, were the only +people in the town who did not know of it. My boy and I parted +from the librarian (who hurried home to pack up for his holiday) and +walked on to the hotel, where we found my wife actually in the car waiting +for us to take a run of some ten miles to the country house of an old +school-friend of mine. He had been my greatest chum. In +my wanderings about the world I had heard that his later career both +at school and at the University had been of extraordinary brilliance—in +classics, I believe. But in this, the iron-grey moustache period +of his life, he informed me with badly concealed pride that he had gained +world fame as the Inventor—no, Inventor is not the word—Producer, +I believe would be the right term—of a wonderful kind of beetroot +seed. The beet grown from this seed contained more sugar to the +square inch—or was it to the square root?—than any other +kind of beet. He exported this seed, not only with profit (and +even to the United States), but with a certain amount of glory which +seemed to have gone slightly to his head. There is a fundamental +strain of agriculturalist in a Pole which no amount of brilliance, even +classical, can destroy. While we were having tea outside, looking +down the lovely slope of the gardens at the view of the city in the +distance, the possibilities of the war faded from our minds. Suddenly +my friend’s wife came to us with a telegram in her hand and said +calmly: “General mobilisation, do you know?” We looked +at her like men aroused from a dream. “Yes,” she insisted, +“they are already taking the horses out of the ploughs and carts.” +I said: “We had better go back to town as quick as we can,” +and my friend assented with a troubled look: “Yes, you had better.” +As we passed through villages on our way back we saw mobs of horses +assembled on the commons with soldiers guarding them, and groups of +villagers looking on silently at the officers with their note-books +checking deliveries and writing out receipts. Some old peasant +women were already weeping aloud.</p> +<p>When our car drew up at the door of the hotel, the manager himself +came to help my wife out. In the first moment I did not quite +recognise him. His luxuriant black locks were gone, his head was +closely cropped, and as I glanced at it he smiled and said: “I +shall sleep at the barracks to-night.”</p> +<p>I cannot reproduce the atmosphere of that night, the first night +after mobilisation. The shops and the gateways of the houses were +of course closed, but all through the dark hours the town hummed with +voices; the echoes of distant shouts entered the open windows of our +bedroom. Groups of men talking noisily walked in the middle of +the roadway escorted by distressed women: men of all callings and of +all classes going to report themselves at the fortress. Now and +then a military car tooting furiously would whisk through the streets +empty of wheeled traffic, like an intensely black shadow under the great +flood of electric lights on the grey pavement.</p> +<p>But what produced the greatest impression on my mind was a gathering +at night in the coffee-room of my hotel of a few men of mark whom I +was asked to join. It was about one o’clock in the morning. +The shutters were up. For some reason or other the electric light +was not switched on, and the big room was lit up only by a few tall +candles, just enough for us to see each other’s faces by. +I saw in those faces the awful desolation of men whose country, torn +in three, found itself engaged in the contest with no will of its own, +and not even the power to assert itself at the cost of life. All +the past was gone, and there was no future, whatever happened; no road +which did not seem to lead to moral annihilation. I remember one +of those men addressing me after a period of mournful silence compounded +of mental exhaustion and unexpressed forebodings.</p> +<p>“What do you think England will do? If there is a ray +of hope anywhere it is only there.”</p> +<p>I said: “I believe I know what England will do” (this +was before the news of the violation of Belgian neutrality arrived), +“though I won’t tell you, for I am not absolutely certain. +But I can tell you what I am absolutely certain of. It is this: +If England comes into the war, then, no matter who may want to make +peace at the end of six months at the cost of right and justice, England +will keep on fighting for years if necessary. You may reckon on +that.”</p> +<p>“What, even alone?” asked somebody across the room.</p> +<p>I said: “Yes, even alone. But if things go so far as +that England will not be alone.”</p> +<p>I think that at that moment I must have been inspired.</p> +<h3>WELL DONE—1918</h3> +<h4>I.</h4> +<p>It can be safely said that for the last four years the seamen of +Great Britain have done well. I mean that every kind and sort +of human being classified as seaman, steward, foremast hand, fireman, +lamp-trimmer, mate, master, engineer, and also all through the innumerable +ratings of the Navy up to that of Admiral, has done well. I don’t +say marvellously well or miraculously well or wonderfully well or even +very well, because these are simply over-statements of undisciplined +minds. I don’t deny that a man may be a marvellous being, +but this is not likely to be discovered in his lifetime, and not always +even after he is dead. Man’s marvellousness is a hidden +thing, because the secrets of his heart are not to be read by his fellows. +As to a man’s work, if it is done well it is the very utmost that +can be said. You can do well, and you can do no more for people +to see. In the Navy, where human values are thoroughly understood, +the highest signal of commendation complimenting a ship (that is, a +ship’s company) on some achievements consists exactly of those +two simple words “Well done,” followed by the name of the +ship. Not marvellously done, astonishingly done, wonderfully done—no, +only just:</p> +<p>“Well done, so-and-so.”</p> +<p>And to the men it is a matter of infinite pride that somebody should +judge it proper to mention aloud, as it were, that they have done well. +It is a memorable occurrence, for in the sea services you are expected +professionally and as a matter of course to do well, because nothing +less will do. And in sober speech no man can be expected to do +more than well. The superlatives are mere signs of uninformed +wonder. Thus the official signal which can express nothing but +a delicate share of appreciation becomes a great honour.</p> +<p>Speaking now as a purely civil seaman (or, perhaps, I ought to say +civilian, because politeness is not what I have in my mind) I may say +that I have never expected the Merchant Service to do otherwise than +well during the war. There were people who obviously did not feel +the same confidence, nay, who even confidently expected to see the collapse +of merchant seamen’s courage. I must admit that such pronouncements +did arrest my attention. In my time I have never been able to +detect any faint hearts in the ships’ companies with whom I have +served in various capacities. But I reflected that I had left +the sea in ’94, twenty years before the outbreak of the war that +was to apply its severe test to the quality of modern seamen. +Perhaps they had deteriorated, I said unwillingly to myself. I +remembered also the alarmist articles I had read about the great number +of foreigners in the British Merchant Service, and I didn’t know +how far these lamentations were justified.</p> +<p>In my time the proportion of non-Britishers in the crews of the ships +flying the red ensign was rather under one-third, which, as a matter +of fact, was less than the proportion allowed under the very strict +French navigation laws for the crews of the ships of that nation. +For the strictest laws aiming at the preservation of national seamen +had to recognise the difficulties of manning merchant ships all over +the world. The one-third of the French law seemed to be the irreducible +minimum. But the British proportion was even less. Thus +it may be said that up to the date I have mentioned the crews of British +merchant ships engaged in deep water voyages to Australia, to the East +Indies and round the Horn were essentially British. The small +proportion of foreigners which I remember were mostly Scandinavians, +and my general impression remains that those men were good stuff. +They appeared always able and ready to do their duty by the flag under +which they served. The majority were Norwegians, whose courage +and straightness of character are matters beyond doubt. I remember +also a couple of Finns, both carpenters, of course, and very good craftsmen; +a Swede, the most scientific sailmaker I ever met; another Swede, a +steward, who really might have been called a British seaman since he +had sailed out of London for over thirty years, a rather superior person; +one Italian, an everlastingly smiling but a pugnacious character; one +Frenchman, a most excellent sailor, tireless and indomitable under very +difficult circumstances; one Hollander, whose placid manner of looking +at the ship going to pieces under our feet I shall never forget, and +one young, colourless, muscularly very strong German, of no particular +character. Of non-European crews, lascars and Kalashes, I have +had very little experience, and that was only in one steamship and for +something less than a year. It was on the same occasion that I +had my only sight of Chinese firemen. Sight is the exact word. +One didn’t speak to them. One saw them going along the decks, +to and fro, characteristic figures with rolled-up pigtails, very dirty +when coming off duty and very clean-faced when going on duty. +They never looked at anybody, and one never had occasion to address +them directly. Their appearances in the light of day were very +regular, and yet somewhat ghostlike in their detachment and silence.</p> +<p>But of the white crews of British ships and almost exclusively British +in blood and descent, the immediate predecessors of the men whose worth +the nation has discovered for itself to-day, I have had a thorough experience. +At first amongst them, then with them, I have shared all the conditions +of their very special life. For it was very special. In +my early days, starting out on a voyage was like being launched into +Eternity. I say advisedly Eternity instead of Space, because of +the boundless silence which swallowed up one for eighty days—for +one hundred days—for even yet more days of an existence without +echoes and whispers. Like Eternity itself! For one can’t +conceive a vocal Eternity. An enormous silence, in which there +was nothing to connect one with the Universe but the incessant wheeling +about of the sun and other celestial bodies, the alternation of light +and shadow, eternally chasing each other over the sky. The time +of the earth, though most carefully recorded by the half-hourly bells, +did not count in reality.</p> +<p>It was a special life, and the men were a very special kind of men. +By this I don’t mean to say they were more complex than the generality +of mankind. Neither were they very much simpler. I have +already admitted that man is a marvellous creature, and no doubt those +particular men were marvellous enough in their way. But in their +collective capacity they can be best defined as men who lived under +the command to do well, or perish utterly. I have written of them +with all the truth that was in me, and with an the impartiality of which +I was capable. Let me not be misunderstood in this statement. +Affection can be very exacting, and can easily miss fairness on the +critical side. I have looked upon them with a jealous eye, expecting +perhaps even more than it was strictly fair to expect. And no +wonder—since I had elected to be one of them very deliberately, +very completely, without any looking back or looking elsewhere. +The circumstances were such as to give me the feeling of complete identification, +a very vivid comprehension that if I wasn’t one of them I was +nothing at all. But what was most difficult to detect was the +nature of the deep impulses which these men obeyed. What spirit +was it that inspired the unfailing manifestations of their simple fidelity? +No outward cohesive force of compulsion or discipline was holding them +together or had ever shaped their unexpressed standards. It was +very mysterious. At last I came to the conclusion that it must +be something in the nature of the life itself; the sea-life chosen blindly, +embraced for the most part accidentally by those men who appeared but +a loose agglomeration of individuals toiling for their living away from +the eyes of mankind. Who can tell how a tradition comes into the +world? We are children of the earth. It may be that the +noblest tradition is but the offspring of material conditions, of the +hard necessities besetting men’s precarious lives. But once +it has been born it becomes a spirit. Nothing can extinguish its +force then. Clouds of greedy selfishness, the subtle dialectics +of revolt or fear, may obscure it for a time, but in very truth it remains +an immortal ruler invested with the power of honour and shame.</p> +<h4>II.</h4> +<p>The mysteriously born tradition of sea-craft commands unity in a +body of workers engaged in an occupation in which men have to depend +upon each other. It raises them, so to speak, above the frailties +of their dead selves. I don’t wish to be suspected of lack +of judgment and of blind enthusiasm. I don’t claim special +morality or even special manliness for the men who in my time really +lived at sea, and at the present time live at any rate mostly at sea. +But in their qualities as well as in their defects, in their weaknesses +as well as in their “virtue,” there was indubitably something +apart. They were never exactly of the earth earthly. They +couldn’t be that. Chance or desire (mostly desire) had set +them apart, often in their very childhood; and what is to be remarked +is that from the very nature of things this early appeal, this early +desire, had to be of an imaginative kind. Thus their simple minds +had a sort of sweetness. They were in a way preserved. I +am not alluding here to the preserving qualities of the salt in the +sea. The salt of the sea is a very good thing in its way; it preserves +for instance one from catching a beastly cold while one remains wet +for weeks together in the “roaring forties.” But in +sober unpoetical truth the sea-salt never gets much further than the +seaman’s skin, which in certain latitudes it takes the opportunity +to encrust very thoroughly. That and nothing more. And then, +what is this sea, the subject of so many apostrophes in verse and prose +addressed to its greatness and its mystery by men who had never penetrated +either the one or the other? The sea is uncertain, arbitrary, +featureless, and violent. Except when helped by the varied majesty +of the sky, there is something inane in its serenity and something stupid +in its wrath, which is endless, boundless, persistent, and futile—a +grey, hoary thing raging like an old ogre uncertain of its prey. +Its very immensity is wearisome. At any time within the navigating +centuries mankind might have addressed it with the words: “What +are you, after all? Oh, yes, we know. The greatest scene +of potential terror, a devouring enigma of space. Yes. But +our lives have been nothing if not a continuous defiance of what you +can do and what you may hold; a spiritual and material defiance carried +on in our plucky cockleshells on and on beyond the successive provocations +of your unreadable horizons.”</p> +<p>Ah, but the charm of the sea! Oh, yes, charm enough. +Or rather a sort of unholy fascination as of an elusive nymph whose +embrace is death, and a Medusa’s head whose stare is terror. +That sort of charm is calculated to keep men morally in order. +But as to sea-salt, with its particular bitterness like nothing else +on earth, that, I am safe to say, penetrates no further than the seamen’s +lips. With them the inner soundness is caused by another kind +of preservative of which (nobody will be surprised to hear) the main +ingredient is a certain kind of love that has nothing to do with the +futile smiles and the futile passions of the sea.</p> +<p>Being love this feeling is naturally naive and imaginative. +It has also in it that strain of fantasy that is so often, nay almost +invariably, to be found in the temperament of a true seaman. But +I repeat that I claim no particular morality for seamen. I will +admit without difficulty that I have found amongst them the usual defects +of mankind, characters not quite straight, uncertain tempers, vacillating +wills, capriciousness, small meannesses; all this coming out mostly +on the contact with the shore; and all rather naive, peculiar, a little +fantastic. I have even had a downright thief in my experience. +One.</p> +<p>This is indeed a minute proportion, but it might have been my luck; +and since I am writing in eulogy of seamen I feel irresistibly tempted +to talk about this unique specimen; not indeed to offer him as an example +of morality, but to bring out certain characteristics and set out a +certain point of view. He was a large, strong man with a guileless +countenance, not very communicative with his shipmates, but when drawn +into any sort of conversation displaying a very painstaking earnestness. +He was fair and candid-eyed, of a very satisfactory smartness, and, +from the officer-of-the-watch point of view,—altogether dependable. +Then, suddenly, he went and stole. And he didn’t go away +from his honourable kind to do that thing to somebody on shore; he stole +right there on the spot, in proximity to his shipmates, on board his +own ship, with complete disregard for old Brown, our night watchman +(whose fame for trustworthiness was utterly blasted for the rest of +the voyage) and in such a way as to bring the profoundest possible trouble +to all the blameless souls animating that ship. He stole eleven +golden sovereigns, and a gold pocket chronometer and chain. I +am really in doubt whether the crime should not be entered under the +category of sacrilege rather than theft. Those things belonged +to the captain! There was certainly something in the nature of +the violation of a sanctuary, and of a particularly impudent kind, too, +because he got his plunder out of the captain’s state-room while +the captain was asleep there. But look, now, at the fantasy of +the man! After going through the pockets of the clothes, he did +not hasten to retreat. No. He went deliberately into the +saloon and removed from the sideboard two big heavy, silver-plated lamps, +which he carried to the fore-end of the ship and stood symmetrically +on the knight-heads. This, I must explain, means that he took +them away as far as possible from the place where they belonged. +These were the deeds of darkness. In the morning the bo’sun +came along dragging after him a hose to wash the foc’sle head, +and, beholding the shiny cabin lamps, resplendent in the morning light, +one on each side of the bowsprit, he was paralysed with awe. He +dropped the nozzle from his nerveless hands—and such hands, too! +I happened along, and he said to me in a distracted whisper: “Look +at that, sir, look.” “Take them back aft at once yourself,” +I said, very amazed, too. As we approached the quarterdeck we +perceived the steward, a prey to a sort of sacred horror, holding up +before us the captain’s trousers.</p> +<p>Bronzed men with brooms and buckets in their hands stood about with +open mouths. “I have found them lying in the passage outside +the captain’s door,” the steward declared faintly. +The additional statement that the captain’s watch was gone from +its hook by the bedside raised the painful sensation to the highest +pitch. We knew then we had a thief amongst us. Our thief! +Behold the solidarity of a ship’s company. He couldn’t +be to us like any other thief. We all had to live under the shadow +of his crime for days; but the police kept on investigating, and one +morning a young woman appeared on board swinging a parasol, attended +by two policemen, and identified the culprit. She was a barmaid +of some bar near the Circular Quay, and knew really nothing of our man +except that he looked like a respectable sailor. She had seen +him only twice in her life. On the second occasion he begged her +nicely as a great favour to take care for him of a small solidly tied-up +paper parcel for a day or two. But he never came near her again. +At the end of three weeks she opened it, and, of course, seeing the +contents, was much alarmed, and went to the nearest police-station for +advice. The police took her at once on board our ship, where all +hands were mustered on the quarterdeck. She stared wildly at all +our faces, pointed suddenly a finger with a shriek, “That’s +the man,” and incontinently went off into a fit of hysterics in +front of thirty-six seamen. I must say that never in my life did +I see a ship’s company look so frightened. Yes, in this +tale of guilt, there was a curious absence of mere criminality, and +a touch of that fantasy which is often a part of a seaman’s character. +It wasn’t greed that moved him, I think. It was something +much less simple: boredom, perhaps, or a bet, or the pleasure of defiance.</p> +<p>And now for the point of view. It was given to me by a short, +black-bearded A.B. of the crew, who on sea passages washed my flannel +shirts, mended my clothes and, generally, looked after my room. +He was an excellent needleman and washerman, and a very good sailor. +Standing in this peculiar relation to me, he considered himself privileged +to open his mind on the matter one evening when he brought back to my +cabin three clean and neatly folded shirts. He was profoundly +pained. He said: “What a ship’s company! Never +seen such a crowd! Liars, cheats, thieves. . . ”</p> +<p>It was a needlessly jaundiced view. There were in that ship’s +company three or four fellows who dealt in tall yarns, and I knew that +on the passage out there had been a dispute over a game in the foc’sle +once or twice of a rather acute kind, so that all card-playing had to +be abandoned. In regard to thieves, as we know, there was only +one, and he, I am convinced, came out of his reserve to perform an exploit +rather than to commit a crime. But my black-bearded friend’s +indignation had its special morality, for he added, with a burst of +passion: “And on board our ship, too—a ship like this. . +.”</p> +<p>Therein lies the secret of the seamen’s special character as +a body. The ship, this ship, our ship, the ship we serve, is the +moral symbol of our life. A ship has to be respected, actually +and ideally; her merit, her innocence, are sacred things. Of all +the creations of man she is the closest partner of his toil and courage. +From every point of view it is imperative that you should do well by +her. And, as always in the case of true love, all you can do for +her adds only to the tale of her merits in your heart. Mute and +compelling, she claims not only your fidelity, but your respect. +And the supreme “Well done!” which you may earn is made +over to her.</p> +<h4>III.</h4> +<p>It is my deep conviction, or, perhaps, I ought to say my deep feeling +born from personal experience, that it is not the sea but the ships +of the sea that guide and command that spirit of adventure which some +say is the second nature of British men. I don’t want to +provoke a controversy (for intellectually I am rather a Quietist) but +I venture to affirm that the main characteristic of the British men +spread all over the world, is not the spirit of adventure so much as +the spirit of service. I think that this could be demonstrated +from the history of great voyages and the general activity of the race. +That the British man has always liked his service to be adventurous +rather than otherwise cannot be denied, for each British man began by +being young in his time when all risk has a glamour. Afterwards, +with the course of years, risk became a part of his daily work; he would +have missed it from his side as one misses a loved companion.</p> +<p>The mere love of adventure is no saving grace. It is no grace +at all. It lays a man under no obligation of faithfulness to an +idea and even to his own self. Roughly speaking, an adventurer +may be expected to have courage, or at any rate may be said to need +it. But courage in itself is not an ideal. A successful +highwayman showed courage of a sort, and pirate crews have been known +to fight with courage or perhaps only with reckless desperation in the +manner of cornered rats. There is nothing in the world to prevent +a mere lover or pursuer of adventure from running at any moment. +There is his own self, his mere taste for excitement, the prospect of +some sort of gain, but there is no sort of loyalty to bind him in honour +to consistent conduct. I have noticed that the majority of mere +lovers of adventure are mightily careful of their skins; and the proof +of it is that so many of them manage to keep it whole to an advanced +age. You find them in mysterious nooks of islands and continents, +mostly red-nosed and watery-eyed, and not even amusingly boastful. +There is nothing more futile under the sun than a mere adventurer. +He might have loved at one time—which would have been a saving +grace. I mean loved adventure for itself. But if so, he +was bound to lose this grace very soon. Adventure by itself is +but a phantom, a dubious shape without a heart. Yes, there is +nothing more futile than an adventurer; but nobody can say that the +adventurous activities of the British race are stamped with the futility +of a chase after mere emotions.</p> +<p>The successive generations that went out to sea from these Isles +went out to toil desperately in adventurous conditions. A man +is a worker. If he is not that he is nothing. Just nothing—like +a mere adventurer. Those men understood the nature of their work, +but more or less dimly, in various degrees of imperfection. The +best and greatest of their leaders even had never seen it clearly, because +of its magnitude and the remoteness of its end. This is the common +fate of mankind, whose most positive achievements are born from dreams +and visions followed loyally to an unknown destination. And it +doesn’t matter. For the great mass of mankind the only saving +grace that is needed is steady fidelity to what is nearest to hand and +heart in the short moment of each human effort. In other and in +greater words, what is needed is a sense of immediate duty, and a feeling +of impalpable constraint. Indeed, seamen and duty are all the +time inseparable companions. It has been suggested to me that +this sense of duty is not a patriotic sense or a religious sense, or +even a social sense in a seaman. I don’t know. It +seems to me that a seaman’s duty may be an unconscious compound +of these three, something perhaps smaller than either, but something +much more definite for the simple mind and more adapted to the humbleness +of the seaman’s task. It has been suggested also to me that +the impalpable constraint is put upon the nature of a seaman by the +Spirit of the Sea, which he serves with a dumb and dogged devotion.</p> +<p>Those are fine words conveying a fine idea. But this I do know, +that it is very difficult to display a dogged devotion to a mere spirit, +however great. In everyday life ordinary men require something +much more material, effective, definite and symbolic on which to concentrate +their love and their devotion. And then, what is it, this Spirit +of the Sea? It is too great and too elusive to be embraced and +taken to a human breast. All that a guileless or guileful seaman +knows of it is its hostility, its exaction of toil as endless as its +ever-renewed horizons. No. What awakens the seaman’s +sense of duty, what lays that impalpable constraint upon the strength +of his manliness, what commands his not always dumb if always dogged +devotion, is not the spirit of the sea but something that in his eyes +has a body, a character, a fascination, and almost a soul—it is +his ship.</p> +<p>There is not a day that has passed for many centuries now without +the sun seeing scattered over all the seas groups of British men whose +material and moral existence is conditioned by their loyalty to each +other and their faithful devotion to a ship.</p> +<p>Each age has sent its contingent, not of sons (for the great mass +of seamen have always been a childless lot) but of loyal and obscure +successors taking up the modest but spiritual inheritance of a hard +life and simple duties; of duties so simple that nothing ever could +shake the traditional attitude born from the physical conditions of +the service. It was always the ship, bound on any possible errand +in the service of the nation, that has been the stage for the exercise +of seamen’s primitive virtues. The dimness of great distances +and the obscurity of lives protected them from the nation’s admiring +gaze. Those scattered distant ships’ companies seemed to +the eyes of the earth only one degree removed (on the right side, I +suppose) from the other strange monsters of the deep. If spoken +of at all they were spoken of in tones of half-contemptuous indulgence. +A good many years ago it was my lot to write about one of those ships’ +companies on a certain sea, under certain circumstances, in a book of +no particular length.</p> +<p>That small group of men whom I tried to limn with loving care, but +sparing none of their weaknesses, was characterised by a friendly reviewer +as a lot of engaging ruffians. This gave me some food for thought. +Was it, then, in that guise that they appeared through the mists of +the sea, distant, perplexed, and simple-minded? And what on earth +is an “engaging ruffian”? He must be a creature of +literary imagination, I thought, for the two words don’t match +in my personal experience. It has happened to me to meet a few +ruffians here and there, but I never found one of them “engaging.” +I consoled myself, however, by the reflection that the friendly reviewer +must have been talking like a parrot, which so often seems to understand +what it says.</p> +<p>Yes, in the mists of the sea, and in their remoteness from the rest +of the race, the shapes of those men appeared distorted, uncouth and +faint—so faint as to be almost invisible. It needed the +lurid light of the engines of war to bring them out into full view, +very simple, without worldly graces, organised now into a body of workers +by the genius of one of themselves, who gave them a place and a voice +in the social scheme; but in the main still apart in their homeless, +childless generations, scattered in loyal groups over all the seas, +giving faithful care to their ships and serving the nation, which, since +they are seamen, can give them no reward but the supreme “Well +Done.”</p> +<h3>TRADITION—1918</h3> +<p>“Work is the law. Like iron that lying idle degenerates +into a mass of useless rust, like water that in an unruffled pool sickens +into a stagnant and corrupt state, so without action the spirit of men +turns to a dead thing, loses its force, ceases prompting us to leave +some trace of ourselves on this earth.” The sense of the +above lines does not belong to me. It may be found in the note-books +of one of the greatest artists that ever lived, Leonardo da Vinci. +It has a simplicity and a truth which no amount of subtle comment can +destroy.</p> +<p>The Master who had meditated so deeply on the rebirth of arts and +sciences, on the inward beauty of all things,—ships’ lines, +women’s faces—and on the visible aspects of nature was profoundly +right in his pronouncement on the work that is done on the earth. +From the hard work of men are born the sympathetic consciousness of +a common destiny, the fidelity to right practice which makes great craftsmen, +the sense of right conduct which we may call honour, the devotion to +our calling and the idealism which is not a misty, winged angel without +eyes, but a divine figure of terrestrial aspect with a clear glance +and with its feet resting firmly on the earth on which it was born.</p> +<p>And work will overcome all evil, except ignorance, which is the condition +of humanity and, like the ambient air, fills the space between the various +sorts and conditions of men, which breeds hatred, fear, and contempt +between the masses of mankind, and puts on men’s lips, on their +innocent lips, words that are thoughtless and vain.</p> +<p>Thoughtless, for instance, were the words that (in all innocence, +I believe) came on the lips of a prominent statesman making in the House +of Commons an eulogistic reference to the British Merchant Service. +In this name I include men of diverse status and origin, who live on +and by the sea, by it exclusively, outside all professional pretensions +and social formulas, men for whom not only their daily bread but their +collective character, their personal achievement and their individual +merit come from the sea. Those words of the statesman were meant +kindly; but, after all, this is not a complete excuse. Rightly +or wrongly, we expect from a man of national importance a larger and +at the same time a more scrupulous precision of speech, for it is possible +that it may go echoing down the ages. His words were:</p> +<p>“It is right when thinking of the Navy not to forget the men +of the Merchant Service, who have shown—and it is more surprising +because they have had no traditions towards it—courage as great,” +etc., etc.</p> +<p>And then he went on talking of the execution of Captain Fryatt, an +event of undying memory, but less connected with the permanent, unchangeable +conditions of sea service than with the wrong view German minds delight +in taking of Englishmen’s psychology. The enemy, he said, +meant by this atrocity to frighten our sailors away from the sea.</p> +<p>“What has happened?” he goes on to ask. “Never +at any time in peace have sailors stayed so short a time ashore or shown +such a readiness to step again into a ship.”</p> +<p>Which means, in other words, that they answered to the call. +I should like to know at what time of history the English Merchant Service, +the great body of merchant seamen, had failed to answer the call. +Noticed or unnoticed, ignored or commanded, they have answered invariably +the call to do their work, the very conditions of which made them what +they are. They have always served the nation’s needs through +their own invariable fidelity to the demands of their special life; +but with the development and complexity of material civilisation they +grew less prominent to the nation’s eye among all the vast schemes +of national industry. Never was the need greater and the call +to the services more urgent than to-day. And those inconspicuous +workers on whose qualities depends so much of the national welfare have +answered it without dismay, facing risk without glory, in the perfect +faithfulness to that tradition which the speech of the statesman denies +to them at the very moment when he thinks fit to praise their courage +. . . and mention his surprise!</p> +<p>The hour of opportunity has struck—not for the first time—for +the Merchant Service; and if I associate myself with all my heart in +the admiration and the praise which is the greatest reward of brave +men I must be excused from joining in any sentiment of surprise. +It is perhaps because I have not been born to the inheritance of that +tradition, which has yet fashioned the fundamental part of my character +in my young days, that I am so consciously aware of it and venture to +vindicate its existence in this outspoken manner.</p> +<p>Merchant seamen have always been what they are now, from their earliest +days, before the Royal Navy had been fashioned out of the material they +furnished for the hands of kings and statesmen. Their work has +made them, as work undertaken with single-minded devotion makes men, +giving to their achievements that vitality and continuity in which their +souls are expressed, tempered and matured through the succeeding generations. +In its simplest definition the work of merchant seamen has been to take +ships entrusted to their care from port to port across the seas; and, +from the highest to the lowest, to watch and labour with devotion for +the safety of the property and the lives committed to their skill and +fortitude through the hazards of innumerable voyages.</p> +<p>That was always the clear task, the single aim, the simple ideal, +the only problem for an unselfish solution. The terms of it have +changed with the years, its risks have worn different aspects from time +to time. There are no longer any unexplored seas. Human +ingenuity has devised better means to meet the dangers of natural forces. +But it is always the same problem. The youngsters who were growing +up at sea at the end of my service are commanding ships now. At +least I have heard of some of them who do. And whatever the shape +and power of their ships the character of the duty remains the same. +A mine or a torpedo that strikes your ship is not so very different +from a sharp, uncharted rock tearing her life out of her in another +way. At a greater cost of vital energy, under the well-nigh intolerable +stress of vigilance and resolution, they are doing steadily the work +of their professional forefathers in the midst of multiplied dangers. +They go to and fro across the oceans on their everlasting task: the +same men, the same stout hearts, the same fidelity to an exacting tradition +created by simple toilers who in their time knew how to live and die +at sea.</p> +<p>Allowed to share in this work and in this tradition for something +like twenty years, I am bold enough to think that perhaps I am not altogether +unworthy to speak of it. It was the sphere not only of my activity +but, I may safely say, also of my affections; but after such a close +connection it is very difficult to avoid bringing in one’s own +personality. Without looking at all at the aspects of the Labour +problem, I can safely affirm that I have never, never seen British seamen +refuse any risk, any exertion, any effort of spirit or body up to the +extremest demands of their calling. Years ago—it seems ages +ago—I have seen the crew of a British ship fight the fire in the +cargo for a whole sleepless week and then, with her decks blown up, +I have seen them still continue the fight to save the floating shell. +And at last I have seen them refuse to be taken off by a vessel standing +by, and this only in order “to see the last of our ship,” +at the word, at the simple word, of a man who commanded them, a worthy +soul indeed, but of no heroic aspect. I have seen that. +I have shared their days in small boats. Hard days. Ages +ago. And now let me mention a story of to-day.</p> +<p>I will try to relate it here mainly in the words of the chief engineer +of a certain steamship which, after bunkering, left Lerwick, bound for +Iceland. The weather was cold, the sea pretty rough, with a stiff +head wind. All went well till next day, about 1.30 p.m., then +the captain sighted a suspicious object far away to starboard. +Speed was increased at once to close in with the Faroes and good lookouts +were set fore and aft. Nothing further was seen of the suspicious +object, but about half-past three without any warning the ship was struck +amidships by a torpedo which exploded in the bunkers. None of +the crew was injured by the explosion, and all hands, without exception, +behaved admirably.</p> +<p>The chief officer with his watch managed to lower the No. 3 boat. +Two other boats had been shattered by the explosion, and though another +lifeboat was cleared and ready, there was no time to lower it, and “some +of us jumped while others were washed overboard. Meantime the +captain had been busy handing lifebelts to the men and cheering them +up with words and smiles, with no thought of his own safety.” +The ship went down in less than four minutes. The captain was +the last man on board, going down with her, and was sucked under. +On coming up he was caught under an upturned boat to which five hands +were clinging. “One lifeboat,” says the chief engineer, +“which was floating empty in the distance was cleverly manoeuvred +to our assistance by the steward, who swam off to her pluckily. +Our next endeavour was to release the captain, who was entangled under +the boat. As it was impossible to right her, we set-to to split +her side open with the boat hook, because by awful bad luck the head +of the axe we had flew off at the first blow and was lost. The +rescue took thirty minutes, and the extricated captain was in a pitiable +condition, being badly bruised and having swallowed a lot of salt water. +He was unconscious. While at that work the submarine came to the +surface quite close and made a complete circle round us, the seven men +that we counted on the conning tower laughing at our efforts.</p> +<p>“There were eighteen of us saved. I deeply regret the +loss of the chief officer, a fine fellow and a kind shipmate showing +splendid promise. The other men lost—one A.B., one greaser, +and two firemen—were quiet, conscientious, good fellows.”</p> +<p>With no restoratives in the boat, they endeavoured to bring the captain +round by means of massage. Meantime the oars were got out in order +to reach the Faroes, which were about thirty miles dead to windward, +but after about nine hours’ hard work they had to desist, and, +putting out a sea-anchor, they took shelter under the canvas boat-cover +from the cold wind and torrential rain. Says the narrator: “We +were all very wet and miserable, and decided to have two biscuits all +round. The effects of this and being under the shelter of the +canvas warmed us up and made us feel pretty well contented. At +about sunrise the captain showed signs of recovery, and by the time +the sun was up he was looking a lot better, much to our relief.”</p> +<p>After being informed of what had been done the revived captain “dropped +a bombshell in our midst,” by proposing to make for the Shetlands, +which were <i>only</i> one hundred and fifty miles off. “The +wind is in our favour,” he said. “I promise to take +you there. Are you all willing?” This—comments +the chief engineer—“from a man who but a few hours previously +had been hauled back from the grave!” The captain’s +confident manner inspired the men, and they all agreed. Under +the best possible conditions a boat-run of one hundred and fifty miles +in the North Atlantic and in winter weather would have been a feat of +no mean merit, but in the circumstances it required uncommon nerve and +skill to carry out such a promise. With an oar for a mast and +the boat-cover cut down for a sail they started on their dangerous journey, +with the boat compass and the stars for their guide. The captain’s +undaunted serenity buoyed them all up against despondency. He +told them what point he was making for. It was Ronas Hill, “and +we struck it as straight as a die.”</p> +<p>The chief engineer commends also the ship steward for the manner +in which he made the little food they had last, the cheery spirit he +manifested, and the great help he was to the captain by keeping the +men in good humour. That trusty man had “his hands cruelly +chafed with the rowing, but it never damped his spirits.”</p> +<p>They made Ronas Hill (as straight as a die), and the chief engineer +cannot express their feelings of gratitude and relief when they set +their feet on the shore. He praises the unbounded kindness of +the people in Hillswick. “It seemed to us all like Paradise +regained,” he says, concluding his letter with the words:</p> +<p>“And there was our captain, just his usual self, as if nothing +had happened, as if bringing the boat that hazardous journey and being +the means of saving eighteen souls was to him an everyday occurrence.”</p> +<p>Such is the chief engineer’s testimony to the continuity of +the old tradition of the sea, which made by the work of men has in its +turn created for them their simple ideal of conduct.</p> +<h3>CONFIDENCE—1919</h3> +<h4>I.</h4> +<p>The seamen hold up the Edifice. They have been holding it up +in the past and they will hold it up in the future, whatever this future +may contain of logical development, of unforeseen new shapes, of great +promises and of dangers still unknown.</p> +<p>It is not an unpardonable stretching of the truth to say that the +British Empire rests on transportation. I am speaking now naturally +of the sea, as a man who has lived on it for many years, at a time, +too, when on sighting a vessel on the horizon of any of the great oceans +it was perfectly safe to bet any reasonable odds on her being a British +ship—with the certitude of making a pretty good thing of it at +the end of the voyage.</p> +<p>I have tried to convey here in popular terms the strong impression +remembered from my young days. The Red Ensign prevailed on the +high seas to such an extent that one always experienced a slight shock +on seeing some other combination of colours blow out at the peak or +flag-pole of any chance encounter in deep water. In the long run +the persistence of the visual fact forced upon the mind a half-unconscious +sense of its inner significance. We have all heard of the well-known +view that trade follows the flag. And that is not always true. +There is also this truth that the flag, in normal conditions, represents +commerce to the eye and understanding of the average man. This +is a truth, but it is not the whole truth. In its numbers and +in its unfailing ubiquity, the British Red Ensign, under which naval +actions too have been fought, adventures entered upon and sacrifices +offered, represented in fact something more than the prestige of a great +trade.</p> +<p>The flutter of that piece of red bunting showered sentiment on the +nations of the earth. I will not venture to say that in every +case that sentiment was of a friendly nature. Of hatred, half +concealed or concealed not at all, this is not the place to speak; and +indeed the little I have seen of it about the world was tainted with +stupidity and seemed to confess in its very violence the extreme poorness +of its case. But generally it was more in the nature of envious +wonder qualified by a half-concealed admiration.</p> +<p>That flag, which but for the Union Jack in the corner might have +been adopted by the most radical of revolutions, affirmed in its numbers +the stability of purpose, the continuity of effort and the greatness +of Britain’s opportunity pursued steadily in the order and peace +of the world: that world which for twenty-five years or so after 1870 +may be said to have been living in holy calm and hushed silence with +only now and then a slight clink of metal, as if in some distant part +of mankind’s habitation some restless body had stumbled over a +heap of old armour.</p> +<h4>II.</h4> +<p>We who have learned by now what a world-war is like may be excused +for considering the disturbances of that period as insignificant brawls, +mere hole-and-corner scuffles. In the world, which memory depicts +as so wonderfully tranquil all over, it was the sea yet that was the +safest place. And the Red Ensign, commercial, industrial, historic, +pervaded the sea! Assertive only by its numbers, highly significant, +and, under its character of a trade—emblem, nationally expressive, +it was symbolic of old and new ideas, of conservatism and progress, +of routine and enterprise, of drudgery and adventure—and of a +certain easy-going optimism that would have appeared the Father of Sloth +itself if it had not been so stubbornly, so everlastingly active.</p> +<p>The unimaginative, hard-working men, great and small, who served +this flag afloat and ashore, nursed dumbly a mysterious sense of its +greatness. It sheltered magnificently their vagabond labours under +the sleepless eye of the sun. It held up the Edifice. But +it crowned it too. This is not the extravagance of a mixed metaphor. +It is the sober expression of a not very complex truth. Within +that double function the national life that flag represented so well +went on in safety, assured of its daily crust of bread for which we +all pray and without which we would have to give up faith, hope and +charity, the intellectual conquests of our minds and the sanctified +strength of our labouring arms. I may permit myself to speak of +it in these terms because as a matter of fact it was on that very symbol +that I had founded my life and (as I have said elsewhere in a moment +of outspoken gratitude) had known for many years no other roof above +my head.</p> +<p>In those days that symbol was not particularly regarded. Superficially +and definitely it represented but one of the forms of national activity +rather remote from the close-knit organisations of other industries, +a kind of toil not immediately under the public eye. It was of +its Navy that the nation, looking out of the windows of its world-wide +Edifice, was proudly aware. And that was but fair. The Navy +is the armed man at the gate. An existence depending upon the +sea must be guarded with a jealous, sleepless vigilance, for the sea +is but a fickle friend.</p> +<p>It had provoked conflicts, encouraged ambitions, and had lured some +nations to destruction—as we know. He—man or people—who, +boasting of long years of familiarity with the sea, neglects the strength +and cunning of his right hand is a fool. The pride and trust of +the nation in its Navy so strangely mingled with moments of neglect, +caused by a particularly thick-headed idealism, is perfectly justified. +It is also very proper: for it is good for a body of men conscious of +a great responsibility to feel themselves recognised, if only in that +fallible, imperfect and often irritating way in which recognition is +sometimes offered to the deserving.</p> +<p>But the Merchant Service had never to suffer from that sort of irritation. +No recognition was thrust on it offensively, and, truth to say, it did +not seem to concern itself unduly with the claims of its own obscure +merit. It had no consciousness. It had no words. It +had no time. To these busy men their work was but the ordinary +labour of earning a living; their duties in their ever-recurring round +had, like the sun itself, the commonness of daily things; their individual +fidelity was not so much united as merely co-ordinated by an aim that +shone with no spiritual lustre. They were everyday men. +They were that, eminently. When the great opportunity came to +them to link arms in response to a supreme call they received it with +characteristic simplicity, incorporating self-sacrifice into the texture +of their common task, and, as far as emotion went, framing the horror +of mankind’s catastrophic time within the rigid rules of their +professional conscience. And who can say that they could have +done better than this?</p> +<p>Such was their past both remote and near. It has been stubbornly +consistent, and as this consistency was based upon the character of +men fashioned by a very old tradition, there is no doubt that it will +endure. Such changes as came into the sea life have been for the +main part mechanical and affecting only the material conditions of that +inbred consistency. That men don’t change is a profound +truth. They don’t change because it is not necessary for +them to change even if they could accomplish that miracle. It +is enough for them to be infinitely adaptable—as the last four +years have abundantly proved.</p> +<h4>III.</h4> +<p>Thus one may await the future without undue excitement and with unshaken +confidence. Whether the hues of sunrise are angry or benign, gorgeous +or sinister, we shall always have the same sky over our heads. +Yet by a kindly dispensation of Providence the human faculty of astonishment +will never lack food. What could be more surprising for instance, +than the calm invitation to Great Britain to discard the force and protection +of its Navy? It has been suggested, it has been proposed—I +don’t know whether it has been pressed. Probably not much. +For if the excursions of audacious folly have no bounds that human eye +can see, reason has the habit of never straying very far away from its +throne.</p> +<p>It is not the first time in history that excited voices have been +heard urging the warrior still panting from the fray to fling his tried +weapons on the altar of peace, for they would be needed no more! +And such voices have been, in undying hope or extreme weariness, listened +to sometimes. But not for long. After all every sort of +shouting is a transitory thing. It is the grim silence of facts +that remains.</p> +<p>The British Merchant Service has been challenged in its supremacy +before. It will be challenged again. It may be even asked +menacingly in the name of some humanitarian doctrine or some empty ideal +to step down voluntarily from that place which it has managed to keep +for so many years. But I imagine that it will take more than words +of brotherly love or brotherly anger (which, as is well known, is the +worst kind of anger) to drive British seamen, armed or unarmed, from +the seas. Firm in this indestructible if not easily explained +conviction, I can allow myself to think placidly of that long, long +future which I shall not see.</p> +<p>My confidence rests on the hearts of men who do not change, though +they may forget many things for a time and even forget to be themselves +in a moment of false enthusiasm. But of that I am not afraid. +It will not be for long. I know the men. Through the kindness +of the Admiralty (which, let me confess here in a white sheet, I repaid +by the basest ingratitude) I was permitted during the war to renew my +contact with the British seamen of the merchant service. It is +to their generosity in recognising me under the shore rust of twenty-five +years as one of themselves that I owe one of the deepest emotions of +my life. Never for a moment did I feel among them like an idle, +wandering ghost from a distant past. They talked to me seriously, +openly, and with professional precision, of facts, of events, of implements, +I had never heard of in my time; but the hands I grasped were like the +hands of the generation which had trained my youth and is now no more. +I recognised the character of their glances, the accent of their voices. +Their moving tales of modern instances were presented to me with that +peculiar turn of mind flavoured by the inherited humour and sagacity +of the sea. I don’t know what the seaman of the future will +be like. He may have to live all his days with a telephone tied +up to his head and bristle all over with scientific antennæ like +a figure in a fantastic tale. But he will always be the man revealed +to us lately, immutable in his slight variations like the closed path +of this planet of ours on which he must find his exact position once, +at the very least, in every twenty-four hours.</p> +<p>The greatest desideratum of a sailor’s life is to be “certain +of his position.” It is a source of great worry at times, +but I don’t think that it need be so at this time. Yet even +the best position has its dangers on account of the fickleness of the +elements. But I think that, left untrammelled to the individual +effort of its creators and to the collective spirit of its servants, +the British Merchant Service will manage to maintain its position on +this restless and watery globe.</p> +<h3>FLIGHT—1917</h3> +<p>To begin at the end, I will say that the “landing” surprised +me by a slight and very characteristically “dead” sort of +shock.</p> +<p>I may fairly call myself an amphibious creature. A good half +of my active existence has been passed in familiar contact with salt +water, and I was aware, theoretically, that water is not an elastic +body: but it was only then that I acquired the absolute conviction of +the fact. I remember distinctly the thought flashing through my +head: “By Jove! it isn’t elastic!” Such is the +illuminating force of a particular experience.</p> +<p>This landing (on the water of the North Sea) was effected in a Short +biplane after one hour and twenty minutes in the air. I reckon +every minute like a miser counting his hoard, for, if what I’ve +got is mine, I am not likely now to increase the tale. That feeling +is the effect of age. It strikes me as I write that, when next +time I leave the surface of this globe, it won’t be to soar bodily +above it in the air. Quite the contrary. And I am not thinking +of a submarine either. . . .</p> +<p>But let us drop this dismal strain and go back logically to the beginning. +I must confess that I started on that flight in a state—I won’t +say of fury, but of a most intense irritation. I don’t remember +ever feeling so annoyed in my life.</p> +<p>It came about in this way. Two or three days before, I had +been invited to lunch at an R.N.A.S. station, and was made to feel very +much at home by the nicest lot of quietly interesting young men it had +ever been my good fortune to meet. Then I was taken into the sheds. +I walked respectfully round and round a lot of machines of all kinds, +and the more I looked at them the more I felt somehow that for all the +effect they produced on me they might have been so many land-vehicles +of an eccentric design. So I said to Commander O., who very kindly +was conducting me: “This is all very fine, but to realise what +one is looking at, one must have been up.”</p> +<p>He said at once: “I’ll give you a flight to-morrow if +you like.”</p> +<p>I postulated that it should be none of those “ten minutes in +the air” affairs. I wanted a real business flight. +Commander O. assured me that I would get “awfully bored,” +but I declared that I was willing to take that risk. “Very +well,” he said. “Eleven o’clock to-morrow. +Don’t be late.”</p> +<p>I am sorry to say I was about two minutes late, which was enough, +however, for Commander O. to greet me with a shout from a great distance: +“Oh! You are coming, then!”</p> +<p>“Of course I am coming,” I yelled indignantly.</p> +<p>He hurried up to me. “All right. There’s +your machine, and here’s your pilot. Come along.”</p> +<p>A lot of officers closed round me, rushed me into a hut: two of them +began to button me into the coat, two more were ramming a cap on my +head, others stood around with goggles, with binoculars. . . I couldn’t +understand the necessity of such haste. We weren’t going +to chase Fritz. There was no sign of Fritz anywhere in the blue. +Those dear boys did not seem to notice my age—fifty-eight, if +a day—nor my infirmities—a gouty subject for years. +This disregard was very flattering, and I tried to live up to it, but +the pace seemed to me terrific. They galloped me across a vast +expanse of open ground to the water’s edge.</p> +<p>The machine on its carriage seemed as big as a cottage, and much +more imposing. My young pilot went up like a bird. There +was an idle, able-bodied ladder loafing against a shed within fifteen +feet of me, but as nobody seemed to notice it, I recommended myself +mentally to Heaven and started climbing after the pilot. The close +view of the real fragility of that rigid structure startled me considerably, +while Commander O. discomposed me still more by shouting repeatedly: +“Don’t put your foot there!” I didn’t +know where to put my foot. There was a slight crack; I heard some +swear-words below me, and then with a supreme effort I rolled in and +dropped into a basket-chair, absolutely winded. A small crowd +of mechanics and officers were looking up at me from the ground, and +while I gasped visibly I thought to myself that they would be sure to +put it down to sheer nervousness. But I hadn’t breath enough +in my body to stick my head out and shout down to them:</p> +<p>“You know, it isn’t that at all!”</p> +<p>Generally I try not to think of my age and infirmities. They +are not a cheerful subject. But I was never so angry and disgusted +with them as during that minute or so before the machine took the water. +As to my feelings in the air, those who will read these lines will know +their own, which are so much nearer the mind and the heart than any +writings of an unprofessional can be. At first all my faculties +were absorbed and as if neutralised by the sheer novelty of the situation. +The first to emerge was the sense of security so much more perfect than +in any small boat I’ve ever been in; the, as it were, material, +stillness, and immobility (though it was a bumpy day). I very +soon ceased to hear the roar of the wind and engines—unless, indeed, +some cylinders missed, when I became acutely aware of that. Within +the rigid spread of the powerful planes, so strangely motionless I had +sometimes the illusion of sitting as if by enchantment in a block of +suspended marble. Even while looking over at the aeroplane’s +shadow running prettily over land and sea, I had the impression of extreme +slowness. I imagine that had she suddenly nose-dived out of control, +I would have gone to the final smash without a single additional heartbeat. +I am sure I would not have known. It is doubtless otherwise with +the man in control.</p> +<p>But there was no dive, and I returned to earth (after an hour and +twenty minutes) without having felt “bored” for a single +second. I descended (by the ladder) thinking that I would never +go flying again. No, never any more—lest its mysterious +fascination, whose invisible wing had brushed my heart up there, should +change to unavailing regret in a man too old for its glory.</p> +<h3>SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC—1912</h3> +<p>It is with a certain bitterness that one must admit to oneself that +the late <i>S.S. Titanic</i> had a “good press.” It +is perhaps because I have no great practice of daily newspapers (I have +never seen so many of them together lying about my room) that the white +spaces and the big lettering of the headlines have an incongruously +festive air to my eyes, a disagreeable effect of a feverish exploitation +of a sensational God-send. And if ever a loss at sea fell under +the definition, in the terms of a bill of lading, of Act of God, this +one does, in its magnitude, suddenness and severity; and in the chastening +influence it should have on the self-confidence of mankind.</p> +<p>I say this with all the seriousness the occasion demands, though +I have neither the competence nor the wish to take a theological view +of this great misfortune, sending so many souls to their last account. +It is but a natural <i>reflection</i>. Another one flowing also +from the phraseology of bills of lading (a bill of lading is a shipping +document limiting in certain of its clauses the liability of the carrier) +is that the “King’s Enemies” of a more or less overt +sort are not altogether sorry that this fatal mishap should strike the +prestige of the greatest Merchant Service of the world. I believe +that not a thousand miles from these shores certain public prints have +betrayed in gothic letters their satisfaction—to speak plainly—by +rather ill-natured comments.</p> +<p>In what light one is to look at the action of the American Senate +is more difficult to say. From a certain point of view the sight +of the august senators of a great Power rushing to New York and beginning +to bully and badger the luckless “Yamsi”—on the very +quay-side so to speak—seems to furnish the Shakespearian touch +of the comic to the real tragedy of the fatuous drowning of all these +people who to the last moment put their trust in mere bigness, in the +reckless affirmations of commercial men and mere technicians and in +the irresponsible paragraphs of the newspapers booming these ships! +Yes, a grim touch of comedy. One asks oneself what these men are +after, with this very provincial display of authority. I beg my +friends in the United States pardon for calling these zealous senators +men. I don’t wish to be disrespectful. They may be +of the stature of demi-gods for all I know, but at that great distance +from the shores of effete Europe and in the presence of so many guileless +dead, their size seems diminished from this side. What are they +after? What is there for them to find out? We know what +had happened. The ship scraped her side against a piece of ice, +and sank after floating for two hours and a half, taking a lot of people +down with her. What more can they find out from the unfair badgering +of the unhappy “Yamsi,” or the ruffianly abuse of the same.</p> +<p>“Yamsi,” I should explain, is a mere code address, and +I use it here symbolically. I have seen commerce pretty close. +I know what it is worth, and I have no particular regard for commercial +magnates, but one must protest against these Bumble-like proceedings. +Is it indignation at the loss of so many lives which is at work here? +Well, the American railroads kill very many people during one single +year, I dare say. Then why don’t these dignitaries come +down on the presidents of their own railroads, of which one can’t +say whether they are mere means of transportation or a sort of gambling +game for the use of American plutocrats. Is it only an ardent +and, upon the whole, praiseworthy desire for information? But +the reports of the inquiry tell us that the august senators, though +raising a lot of questions testifying to the complete innocence and +even blankness of their minds, are unable to understand what the second +officer is saying to them. We are so informed by the press from +the other side. Even such a simple expression as that one of the +look-out men was stationed in the “eyes of the ship” was +too much for the senators of the land of graphic expression. What +it must have been in the more recondite matters I won’t even try +to think, because I have no mind for smiles just now. They were +greatly exercised about the sound of explosions heard when half the +ship was under water already. Was there one? Were there +two? They seemed to be smelling a rat there! Has not some +charitable soul told them (what even schoolboys who read sea stories +know) that when a ship sinks from a leak like this, a deck or two is +always blown up; and that when a steamship goes down by the head, the +boilers may, and often do break adrift with a sound which resembles +the sound of an explosion? And they may, indeed, explode, for +all I know. In the only case I have seen of a steamship sinking +there was such a sound, but I didn’t dive down after her to investigate. +She was not of 45,000 tons and declared unsinkable, but the sight was +impressive enough. I shall never forget the muffled, mysterious +detonation, the sudden agitation of the sea round the slowly raised +stern, and to this day I have in my eye the propeller, seen perfectly +still in its frame against a clear evening sky.</p> +<p>But perhaps the second officer has explained to them by this time +this and a few other little facts. Though why an officer of the +British merchant service should answer the questions of any king, emperor, +autocrat, or senator of any foreign power (as to an event in which a +British ship alone was concerned, and which did not even take place +in the territorial waters of that power) passes my understanding. +The only authority he is bound to answer is the Board of Trade. +But with what face the Board of Trade, which, having made the regulations +for 10,000 ton ships, put its dear old bald head under its wing for +ten years, took it out only to shelve an important report, and with +a dreary murmur, “Unsinkable,” put it back again, in the +hope of not being disturbed for another ten years, with what face it +will be putting questions to that man who has done his duty, as to the +facts of this disaster and as to his professional conduct in it—well, +I don’t know! I have the greatest respect for our established +authorities. I am a disciplined man, and I have a natural indulgence +for the weaknesses of human institutions; but I will own that at times +I have regretted their—how shall I say it?—their imponderability. +A Board of Trade—what is it? A Board of . . . I believe +the Speaker of the Irish Parliament is one of the members of it. +A ghost. Less than that; as yet a mere memory. An office +with adequate and no doubt comfortable furniture and a lot of perfectly +irresponsible gentlemen who exist packed in its equable atmosphere softly, +as if in a lot of cotton-wool, and with no care in the world; for there +can be no care without personal responsibility—such, for instance, +as the seamen have—those seamen from whose mouths this irresponsible +institution can take away the bread—as a disciplinary measure. +Yes—it’s all that. And what more? The name of +a politician—a party man! Less than nothing; a mere void +without as much as a shadow of responsibility cast into it from that +light in which move the masses of men who work, who deal in things and +face the realities—not the words—of this life.</p> +<p>Years ago I remember overhearing two genuine shellbacks of the old +type commenting on a ship’s officer, who, if not exactly incompetent, +did not commend himself to their severe judgment of accomplished sailor-men. +Said one, resuming and concluding the discussion in a funnily judicial +tone:</p> +<p>“The Board of Trade must have been drunk when they gave him +his certificate.”</p> +<p>I confess that this notion of the Board of Trade as an entity having +a brain which could be overcome by the fumes of strong liquor charmed +me exceedingly. For then it would have been unlike the limited +companies of which some exasperated wit has once said that they had +no souls to be saved and no bodies to be kicked, and thus were free +in this world and the next from all the effective sanctions of conscientious +conduct. But, unfortunately, the picturesque pronouncement overheard +by me was only a characteristic sally of an annoyed sailor. The +Board of Trade is composed of bloodless departments. It has no +limbs and no physiognomy, or else at the forthcoming inquiry it might +have paid to the victims of the <i>Titanic</i> disaster the small tribute +of a blush. I ask myself whether the Marine Department of the +Board of Trade did really believe, when they decided to shelve the report +on equipment for a time, that a ship of 45,000 tons, that <i>any</i> +ship, could be made practically indestructible by means of water-tight +bulkheads? It seems incredible to anybody who had ever reflected +upon the properties of material, such as wood or steel. You can’t, +let builders say what they like, make a ship of such dimensions as strong +proportionately as a much smaller one. The shocks our old whalers +had to stand amongst the heavy floes in Baffin’s Bay were perfectly +staggering, notwithstanding the most skilful handling, and yet they +lasted for years. The <i>Titanic</i>, if one may believe the last +reports, has only scraped against a piece of ice which, I suspect, was +not an enormously bulky and comparatively easily seen berg, but the +low edge of a floe—and sank. Leisurely enough, God knows—and +here the advantage of bulkheads comes in—for time is a great friend, +a good helper—though in this lamentable case these bulkheads served +only to prolong the agony of the passengers who could not be saved. +But she sank, causing, apart from the sorrow and the pity of the loss +of so many lives, a sort of surprised consternation that such a thing +should have happened at all. Why? You build a 45,000 tons +hotel of thin steel plates to secure the patronage of, say, a couple +of thousand rich people (for if it had been for the emigrant trade alone, +there would have been no such exaggeration of mere size), you decorate +it in the style of the Pharaohs or in the Louis Quinze style—I +don’t know which—and to please the aforesaid fatuous handful +of individuals, who have more money than they know what to do with, +and to the applause of two continents, you launch that mass with two +thousand people on board at twenty-one knots across the sea—a +perfect exhibition of the modern blind trust in mere material and appliances. +And then this happens. General uproar. The blind trust in +material and appliances has received a terrible shock. I will +say nothing of the credulity which accepts any statement which specialists, +technicians and office-people are pleased to make, whether for purposes +of gain or glory. You stand there astonished and hurt in your +profoundest sensibilities. But what else under the circumstances +could you expect?</p> +<p>For my part I could much sooner believe in an unsinkable ship of +3,000 tons than in one of 40,000 tons. It is one of those things +that stand to reason. You can’t increase the thickness of +scantling and plates indefinitely. And the mere weight of this +bigness is an added disadvantage. In reading the reports, the +first reflection which occurs to one is that, if that luckless ship +had been a couple of hundred feet shorter, she would have probably gone +clear of the danger. But then, perhaps, she could not have had +a swimming bath and a French café. That, of course, is +a serious consideration. I am well aware that those responsible +for her short and fatal existence ask us in desolate accents to believe +that if she had hit end on she would have survived. Which, by +a sort of coy implication, seems to mean that it was all the fault of +the officer of the watch (he is dead now) for trying to avoid the obstacle. +We shall have presently, in deference to commercial and industrial interests, +a new kind of seamanship. A very new and “progressive” +kind. If you see anything in the way, by no means try to avoid +it; smash at it full tilt. And then—and then only you shall +see the triumph of material, of clever contrivances, of the whole box +of engineering tricks in fact, and cover with glory a commercial concern +of the most unmitigated sort, a great Trust, and a great ship-building +yard, justly famed for the super-excellence of its material and workmanship. +Unsinkable! See? I told you she was unsinkable, if only +handled in accordance with the new seamanship. Everything’s +in that. And, doubtless, the Board of Trade, if properly approached, +would consent to give the needed instructions to its examiners of Masters +and Mates. Behold the examination-room of the future. Enter +to the grizzled examiner a young man of modest aspect: “Are you +well up in modern seamanship?” “I hope so, sir.” +“H’m, let’s see. You are at night on the bridge +in charge of a 150,000 tons ship, with a motor track, organ-loft, etc., +etc., with a full cargo of passengers, a full crew of 1,500 café +waiters, two sailors and a boy, three collapsible boats as per Board +of Trade regulations, and going at your three-quarter speed of, say, +about forty knots. You perceive suddenly right ahead, and close +to, something that looks like a large ice-floe. What would you +do?” “Put the helm amidships.” “Very +well. Why?” “In order to hit end on.” +“On what grounds should you endeavour to hit end on?” +“Because we are taught by our builders and masters that the heavier +the smash, the smaller the damage, and because the requirements of material +should be attended to.”</p> +<p>And so on and so on. The new seamanship: when in doubt try +to ram fairly—whatever’s before you. Very simple. +If only the <i>Titanic</i> had rammed that piece of ice (which was not +a monstrous berg) fairly, every puffing paragraph would have been vindicated +in the eyes of the credulous public which pays. But would it have +been? Well, I doubt it. I am well aware that in the eighties +the steamship Arizona, one of the “greyhounds of the ocean” +in the jargon of that day, did run bows on against a very unmistakable +iceberg, and managed to get into port on her collision bulkhead. +But the <i>Arizona</i> was not, if I remember rightly, 5,000 tons register, +let alone 45,000, and she was not going at twenty knots per hour. +I can’t be perfectly certain at this distance of time, but her +sea-speed could not have been more than fourteen at the outside. +Both these facts made for safety. And, even if she had been engined +to go twenty knots, there would not have been behind that speed the +enormous mass, so difficult to check in its impetus, the terrific weight +of which is bound to do damage to itself or others at the slightest +contact.</p> +<p>I assure you it is not for the vain pleasure of talking about my +own poor experiences, but only to illustrate my point, that I will relate +here a very unsensational little incident I witnessed now rather more +than twenty years ago in Sydney, N.S.W. Ships were beginning then +to grow bigger year after year, though, of course, the present dimensions +were not even dreamt of. I was standing on the Circular Quay with +a Sydney pilot watching a big mail steamship of one of our best-known +companies being brought alongside. We admired her lines, her noble +appearance, and were impressed by her size as well, though her length, +I imagine, was hardly half that of the <i>Titanic</i>.</p> +<p>She came into the Cove (as that part of the harbour is called), of +course very slowly, and at some hundred feet or so short of the quay +she lost her way. That quay was then a wooden one, a fine structure +of mighty piles and stringers bearing a roadway—a thing of great +strength. The ship, as I have said before, stopped moving when +some hundred feet from it. Then her engines were rung on slow +ahead, and immediately rung off again. The propeller made just +about five turns, I should say. She began to move, stealing on, +so to speak, without a ripple; coming alongside with the utmost gentleness. +I went on looking her over, very much interested, but the man with me, +the pilot, muttered under his breath: “Too much, too much.” +His exercised judgment had warned him of what I did not even suspect. +But I believe that neither of us was exactly prepared for what happened. +There was a faint concussion of the ground under our feet, a groaning +of piles, a snapping of great iron bolts, and with a sound of ripping +and splintering, as when a tree is blown down by the wind, a great strong +piece of wood, a baulk of squared timber, was displaced several feet +as if by enchantment. I looked at my companion in amazement. +“I could not have believed it,” I declared. “No,” +he said. “You would not have thought she would have cracked +an egg—eh?”</p> +<p>I certainly wouldn’t have thought that. He shook his +head, and added: “Ah! These great, big things, they want +some handling.”</p> +<p>Some months afterwards I was back in Sydney. The same pilot +brought me in from sea. And I found the same steamship, or else +another as like her as two peas, lying at anchor not far from us. +The pilot told me she had arrived the day before, and that he was to +take her alongside to-morrow. I reminded him jocularly of the +damage to the quay. “Oh!” he said, “we are not +allowed now to bring them in under their own steam. We are using +tugs.”</p> +<p>A very wise regulation. And this is my point—that size +is to a certain extent an element of weakness. The bigger the +ship, the more delicately she must be handled. Here is a contact +which, in the pilot’s own words, you wouldn’t think could +have cracked an egg; with the astonishing result of something like eighty +feet of good strong wooden quay shaken loose, iron bolts snapped, a +baulk of stout timber splintered. Now, suppose that quay had been +of granite (as surely it is now)—or, instead of the quay, if there +had been, say, a North Atlantic fog there, with a full-grown iceberg +in it awaiting the gentle contact of a ship groping its way along blindfold? +Something would have been hurt, but it would not have been the iceberg.</p> +<p>Apparently, there is a point in development when it ceases to be +a true progress—in trade, in games, in the marvellous handiwork +of men, and even in their demands and desires and aspirations of the +moral and mental kind. There is a point when progress, to remain +a real advance, must change slightly the direction of its line. +But this is a wide question. What I wanted to point out here is—that +the old <i>Arizona</i>, the marvel of her day, was proportionately stronger, +handier, better equipped, than this triumph of modern naval architecture, +the loss of which, in common parlance, will remain the sensation of +this year. The clatter of the presses has been worthy of the tonnage, +of the preliminary pæans of triumph round that vanished hull, +of the reckless statements, and elaborate descriptions of its ornate +splendour. A great babble of news (and what sort of news too, +good heavens!) and eager comment has arisen around this catastrophe, +though it seems to me that a less strident note would have been more +becoming in the presence of so many victims left struggling on the sea, +of lives miserably thrown away for nothing, or worse than nothing: for +false standards of achievement, to satisfy a vulgar demand of a few +moneyed people for a banal hotel luxury—the only one they can +understand—and because the big ship pays, in one way or another: +in money or in advertising value.</p> +<p>It is in more ways than one a very ugly business, and a mere scrape +along the ship’s side, so slight that, if reports are to be believed, +it did not interrupt a card party in the gorgeously fitted (but in chaste +style) smoking-room—or was it in the delightful French café?—is +enough to bring on the exposure. All the people on board existed +under a sense of false security. How false, it has been sufficiently +demonstrated. And the fact which seems undoubted, that some of +them actually were reluctant to enter the boats when told to do so, +shows the strength of that falsehood. Incidentally, it shows also +the sort of discipline on board these ships, the sort of hold kept on +the passengers in the face of the unforgiving sea. These people +seemed to imagine it an optional matter: whereas the order to leave +the ship should be an order of the sternest character, to be obeyed +unquestioningly and promptly by every one on board, with men to enforce +it at once, and to carry it out methodically and swiftly. And +it is no use to say it cannot be done, for it can. It has been +done. The only requisite is manageableness of the ship herself +and of the numbers she carries on board. That is the great thing +which makes for safety. A commander should be able to hold his +ship and everything on board of her in the hollow of his hand, as it +were. But with the modern foolish trust in material, and with +those floating hotels, this has become impossible. A man may do +his best, but he cannot succeed in a task which from greed, or more +likely from sheer stupidity, has been made too great for anybody’s +strength.</p> +<p>The readers of <i>The English Review</i>, who cast a friendly eye +nearly six years ago on my Reminiscences, and know how much the merchant +service, ships and men, has been to me, will understand my indignation +that those men of whom (speaking in no sentimental phrase, but in the +very truth of feeling) I can’t even now think otherwise than as +brothers, have been put by their commercial employers in the impossibility +to perform efficiently their plain duty; and this from motives which +I shall not enumerate here, but whose intrinsic unworthiness is plainly +revealed by the greatness, the miserable greatness, of that disaster. +Some of them have perished. To die for commerce is hard enough, +but to go under that sea we have been trained to combat, with a sense +of failure in the supreme duty of one’s calling is indeed a bitter +fate. Thus they are gone, and the responsibility remains with +the living who will have no difficulty in replacing them by others, +just as good, at the same wages. It was their bitter fate. +But I, who can look at some arduous years when their duty was my duty +too, and their feelings were my feelings, can remember some of us who +once upon a time were more fortunate.</p> +<p>It is of them that I would talk a little, for my own comfort partly, +and also because I am sticking all the time to my subject to illustrate +my point, the point of manageableness which I have raised just now. +Since the memory of the lucky <i>Arizona</i> has been evoked by others +than myself, and made use of by me for my own purpose, let me call up +the ghost of another ship of that distant day whose less lucky destiny +inculcates another lesson making for my argument. The <i>Douro</i>, +a ship belonging to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, was rather +less than one-tenth the measurement of the <i>Titanic</i>. Yet, +strange as it may appear to the ineffable hotel exquisites who form +the bulk of the first-class Cross-Atlantic Passengers, people of position +and wealth and refinement did not consider it an intolerable hardship +to travel in her, even all the way from South America; this being the +service she was engaged upon. Of her speed I know nothing, but +it must have been the average of the period, and the decorations of +her saloons were, I dare say, quite up to the mark; but I doubt if her +birth had been boastfully paragraphed all round the Press, because that +was not the fashion of the time. She was not a mass of material +gorgeously furnished and upholstered. She was a ship. And +she was not, in the apt words of an article by Commander C. Crutchley, +R.N.R., which I have just read, “run by a sort of hotel syndicate +composed of the Chief Engineer, the Purser, and the Captain,” +as these monstrous Atlantic ferries are. She was really commanded, +manned, and equipped as a ship meant to keep the sea: a ship first and +last in the fullest meaning of the term, as the fact I am going to relate +will show.</p> +<p>She was off the Spanish coast, homeward bound, and fairly full, just +like the <i>Titanic</i>; and further, the proportion of her crew to +her passengers, I remember quite well, was very much the same. +The exact number of souls on board I have forgotten. It might +have been nearly three hundred, certainly not more. The night +was moonlit, but hazy, the weather fine with a heavy swell running from +the westward, which means that she must have been rolling a great deal, +and in that respect the conditions for her were worse than in the case +of the <i>Titanic</i>. Some time either just before or just after +midnight, to the best of my recollection, she was run into amidships +and at right angles by a large steamer which after the blow backed out, +and, herself apparently damaged, remained motionless at some distance.</p> +<p>My recollection is that the <i>Douro</i> remained afloat after the +collision for fifteen minutes or thereabouts. It might have been +twenty, but certainly something under the half-hour. In that time +the boats were lowered, all the passengers put into them, and the lot +shoved off. There was no time to do anything more. All the +crew of the <i>Douro</i> went down with her, literally without a murmur. +When she went she plunged bodily down like a stone. The only members +of the ship’s company who survived were the third officer, who +was from the first ordered to take charge of the boats, and the seamen +told off to man them, two in each. Nobody else was picked up. +A quartermaster, one of the saved in the way of duty, with whom I talked +a month or so afterwards, told me that they pulled up to the spot, but +could neither see a head nor hear the faintest cry.</p> +<p>But I have forgotten. A passenger was drowned. She was +a lady’s maid who, frenzied with terror, refused to leave the +ship. One of the boats waited near by till the chief officer, +finding himself absolutely unable to tear the girl away from the rail +to which she dung with a frantic grasp, ordered the boat away out of +danger. My quartermaster told me that he spoke over to them in +his ordinary voice, and this was the last sound heard before the ship +sank.</p> +<p>The rest is silence. I daresay there was the usual official +inquiry, but who cared for it? That sort of thing speaks for itself +with no uncertain voice; though the papers, I remember, gave the event +no space to speak of: no large headlines—no headlines at all. +You see it was not the fashion at the time. A seaman-like piece +of work, of which one cherishes the old memory at this juncture more +than ever before. She was a ship commanded, manned, equipped—not +a sort of marine Ritz, proclaimed unsinkable and sent adrift with its +casual population upon the sea, without enough boats, without enough +seamen (but with a Parisian café and four hundred of poor devils +of waiters) to meet dangers which, let the engineers say what they like, +lurk always amongst the waves; sent with a blind trust in mere material, +light-heartedly, to a most miserable, most fatuous disaster.</p> +<p>And there are, too, many ugly developments about this tragedy. +The rush of the senatorial inquiry before the poor wretches escaped +from the jaws of death had time to draw breath, the vituperative abuse +of a man no more guilty than others in this matter, and the suspicion +of this aimless fuss being a political move to get home on the M.T. +Company, into which, in common parlance, the United States Government +has got its knife, I don’t pretend to understand why, though with +the rest of the world I am aware of the fact. Perhaps there may +be an excellent and worthy reason for it; but I venture to suggest that +to take advantage of so many pitiful corpses, is not pretty. And +the exploiting of the mere sensation on the other side is not pretty +in its wealth of heartless inventions. Neither is the welter of +Marconi lies which has not been sent vibrating without some reason, +for which it would be nauseous to inquire too closely. And the +calumnious, baseless, gratuitous, circumstantial lie charging poor Captain +Smith with desertion of his post by means of suicide is the vilest and +most ugly thing of all in this outburst of journalistic enterprise, +without feeling, without honour, without decency.</p> +<p>But all this has its moral. And that other sinking which I +have related here and to the memory of which a seaman turns with relief +and thankfulness has its moral too. Yes, material may fail, and +men, too, may fail sometimes; but more often men, when they are given +the chance, will prove themselves truer than steel, that wonderful thin +steel from which the sides and the bulkheads of our modern sea-leviathans +are made.</p> +<h3>CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE ADMIRABLE INQUIRY INTO THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC—1912</h3> +<p>I have been taken to task by a friend of mine on the “other +side” for my strictures on Senator Smith’s investigation +into the loss of the <i>Titanic</i>, in the number of <i>The English +Review</i> for May, 1912. I will admit that the motives of the +investigation may have been excellent, and probably were; my criticism +bore mainly on matters of form and also on the point of efficiency. +In that respect I have nothing to retract. The Senators of the +Commission had absolutely no knowledge and no practice to guide them +in the conduct of such an investigation; and this fact gave an air of +unreality to their zealous exertions. I think that even in the +United States there is some regret that this zeal of theirs was not +tempered by a large dose of wisdom. It is fitting that people +who rush with such ardour to the work of putting questions to men yet +gasping from a narrow escape should have, I wouldn’t say a tincture +of technical information, but enough knowledge of the subject to direct +the trend of their inquiry. The newspapers of two continents have +noted the remarks of the President of the Senatorial Commission with +comments which I will not reproduce here, having a scant respect for +the “organs of public opinion,” as they fondly believe themselves +to be. The absolute value of their remarks was about as great +as the value of the investigation they either mocked at or extolled. +To the United States Senate I did not intend to be disrespectful. +I have for that body, of which one hears mostly in connection with tariffs, +as much reverence as the best of Americans. To manifest more or +less would be an impertinence in a stranger. I have expressed +myself with less reserve on our Board of Trade. That was done +under the influence of warm feelings. We were all feeling warmly +on the matter at that time. But, at any rate, our Board of Trade +Inquiry, conducted by an experienced President, discovered a very interesting +fact on the very second day of its sitting: the fact that the water-tight +doors in the bulkheads of that wonder of naval architecture could be +opened down below by any irresponsible person. Thus the famous +closing apparatus on the bridge, paraded as a device of greater safety, +with its attachments of warning bells, coloured lights, and all these +pretty-pretties, was, in the case of this ship, little better than a +technical farce.</p> +<p>It is amusing, if anything connected with this stupid catastrophe +can be amusing, to see the secretly crestfallen attitude of technicians. +They are the high priests of the modern cult of perfected material and +of mechanical appliances, and would fain forbid the profane from inquiring +into its mysteries. We are the masters of progress, they say, +and you should remain respectfully silent. And they take refuge +behind their mathematics. I have the greatest regard for mathematics +as an exercise of mind. It is the only manner of thinking which +approaches the Divine. But mere calculations, of which these men +make so much, when unassisted by imagination and when they have gained +mastery over common sense, are the most deceptive exercises of intellect. +Two and two are four, and two are six. That is immutable; you +may trust your soul to that; but you must be certain first of your quantities. +I know how the strength of materials can be calculated away, and also +the evidence of one’s senses. For it is by some sort of +calculation involving weights and levels that the technicians responsible +for the <i>Titanic</i> persuaded themselves that a ship <i>not divided</i> +by water-tight compartments could be “unsinkable.” +Because, you know, she was not divided. You and I, and our little +boys, when we want to divide, say, a box, take care to procure a piece +of wood which will reach from the bottom to the lid. We know that +if it does not reach all the way up, the box will not be divided into +two compartments. It will be only partly divided. The <i>Titanic</i> +was only partly divided. She was just sufficiently divided to +drown some poor devils like rats in a trap. It is probable that +they would have perished in any case, but it is a particularly horrible +fate to die boxed up like this. Yes, she was sufficiently divided +for that, but not sufficiently divided to prevent the water flowing +over.</p> +<p>Therefore to a plain man who knows something of mathematics but is +not bemused by calculations, she was, from the point of view of “unsinkability,” +not divided at all. What would you say of people who would boast +of a fireproof building, an hotel, for instance, saying, “Oh, +we have it divided by fireproof bulkheads which would localise any outbreak,” +and if you were to discover on closer inspection that these bulkheads +closed no more than two-thirds of the openings they were meant to close, +leaving above an open space through which draught, smoke, and fire could +rush from one end of the building to the other? And, furthermore, +that those partitions, being too high to climb over, the people confined +in each menaced compartment had to stay there and become asphyxiated +or roasted, because no exits to the outside, say to the roof, had been +provided! What would you think of the intelligence or candour +of these advertising people? What would you think of them? +And yet, apart from the obvious difference in the action of fire and +water, the cases are essentially the same.</p> +<p>It would strike you and me and our little boys (who are not engineers +yet) that to approach—I won’t say attain—somewhere +near absolute safety, the divisions to keep out water should extend +from the bottom right up to the uppermost deck of <i>the hull</i>. +I repeat, the <i>hull</i>, because there are above the hull the decks +of the superstructures of which we need not take account. And +further, as a provision of the commonest humanity, that each of these +compartments should have a perfectly independent and free access to +that uppermost deck: that is, into the open. Nothing less will +do. Division by bulkheads that really divide, and free access +to the deck from every water-tight compartment. Then the responsible +man in the moment of danger and in the exercise of his judgment could +close all the doors of these water-tight bulkheads by whatever clever +contrivance has been invented for the purpose, without a qualm at the +awful thought that he may be shutting up some of his fellow creatures +in a death-trap; that he may be sacrificing the lives of men who, down +there, are sticking to the posts of duty as the engine-room staffs of +the Merchant Service have never failed to do. I know very well +that the engineers of a ship in a moment of emergency are not quaking +for their lives, but, as far as I have known them, attend calmly to +their duty. We all must die; but, hang it all, a man ought to +be given a chance, if not for his life, then at least to die decently. +It’s bad enough to have to stick down there when something disastrous +is going on and any moment may be your last; but to be drowned shut +up under deck is too bad. Some men of the <i>Titanic</i> died +like that, it is to be feared. Compartmented, so to speak. +Just think what it means! Nothing can approach the horror of that +fate except being buried alive in a cave, or in a mine, or in your family +vault.</p> +<p>So, once more: continuous bulkheads—a clear way of escape to +the deck out of each water-tight compartment. Nothing less. +And if specialists, the precious specialists of the sort that builds +“unsinkable ships,” tell you that it cannot be done, don’t +you believe them. It can be done, and they are quite clever enough +to do it too. The objections they will raise, however disguised +in the solemn mystery of technical phrases, will not be technical, but +commercial. I assure you that there is not much mystery about +a ship of that sort. She is a tank. She is a tank ribbed, +joisted, stayed, but she is no greater mystery than a tank. The +<i>Titanic</i> was a tank eight hundred feet long, fitted as an hotel, +with corridors, bed-rooms, halls, and so on (not a very mysterious arrangement +truly), and for the hazards of her existence I should think about as +strong as a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin. I make this comparison +because Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tins, being almost a national institution, +are probably known to all my readers. Well, about that strong, +and perhaps not quite so strong. Just look at the side of such +a tin, and then think of a 50,000 ton ship, and try to imagine what +the thickness of her plates should be to approach anywhere the relative +solidity of that biscuit-tin. In my varied and adventurous career +I have been thrilled by the sight of a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin +kicked by a mule sky-high, as the saying is. It came back to earth +smiling, with only a sort of dimple on one of its cheeks. A proportionately +severe blow would have burst the side of the <i>Titanic</i> or any other +“triumph of modern naval architecture” like brown paper—I +am willing to bet.</p> +<p>I am not saying this by way of disparagement. There is reason +in things. You can’t make a 50,000 ton ship as strong as +a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin. But there is also reason in +the way one accepts facts, and I refuse to be awed by the size of a +tank bigger than any other tank that ever went afloat to its doom. +The people responsible for her, though disconcerted in their hearts +by the exposure of that disaster, are giving themselves airs of superiority—priests +of an Oracle which has failed, but still must remain the Oracle. +The assumption is that they are ministers of progress. But the +mere increase of size is not progress. If it were, elephantiasis, +which causes a man’s legs to become as large as tree-trunks, would +be a sort of progress, whereas it is nothing but a very ugly disease. +Yet directly this very disconcerting catastrophe happened, the servants +of the silly Oracle began to cry: “It’s no use! You +can’t resist progress. The big ship has come to stay.” +Well, let her stay on, then, in God’s name! But she isn’t +a servant of progress in any sense. She is the servant of commercialism. +For progress, if dealing with the problems of a material world, has +some sort of moral aspect—if only, say, that of conquest, which +has its distinct value since man is a conquering animal. But bigness +is mere exaggeration. The men responsible for these big ships +have been moved by considerations of profit to be made by the questionable +means of pandering to an absurd and vulgar demand for banal luxury—the +seaside hotel luxury. One even asks oneself whether there was +such a demand? It is inconceivable to think that there are people +who can’t spend five days of their life without a suite of apartments, +cafés, bands, and such-like refined delights. I suspect +that the public is not so very guilty in this matter. These things +were pushed on to it in the usual course of trade competition. +If to-morrow you were to take all these luxuries away, the public would +still travel. I don’t despair of mankind. I believe +that if, by some catastrophic miracle all ships of every kind were to +disappear off the face of the waters, together with the means of replacing +them, there would be found, before the end of the week, men (millionaires, +perhaps) cheerfully putting out to sea in bath-tubs for a fresh start. +We are all like that. This sort of spirit lives in mankind still +uncorrupted by the so-called refinements, the ingenuity of tradesmen, +who look always for something new to sell, offers to the public.</p> +<p>Let her stay,—I mean the big ship—since she has come +to stay. I only object to the attitude of the people, who, having +called her into being and having romanced (to speak politely) about +her, assume a detached sort of superiority, goodness only knows why, +and raise difficulties in the way of every suggestion—difficulties +about boats, about bulkheads, about discipline, about davits, all sorts +of difficulties. To most of them the only answer would be: “Where +there’s a will there’s a way”—the most wise +of proverbs. But some of these objections are really too stupid +for anything. I shall try to give an instance of what I mean.</p> +<p>This Inquiry is admirably conducted. I am not alluding to the +lawyers representing “various interests,” who are trying +to earn their fees by casting all sorts of mean aspersions on the characters +of all sorts of people not a bit worse than themselves. It is +honest to give value for your wages; and the “bravos” of +ancient Venice who kept their stilettos in good order and never failed +to deliver the stab bargained for with their employers, considered themselves +an honest body of professional men, no doubt. But they don’t +compel my admiration, whereas the conduct of this Inquiry does. +And as it is pretty certain to be attacked, I take this opportunity +to deposit here my nickel of appreciation. Well, lately, there +came before it witnesses responsible for the designing of the ship. +One of them was asked whether it would not be advisable to make each +coal-bunker of the ship a water-tight compartment by means of a suitable +door.</p> +<p>The answer to such a question should have been, “Certainly,” +for it is obvious to the simplest intelligence that the more water-tight +spaces you provide in a ship (consistently with having her workable) +the nearer you approach safety. But instead of admitting the expediency +of the suggestion, this witness at once raised an objection as to the +possibility of closing tightly the door of a bunker on account of the +slope of coal. This with the true expert’s attitude of “My +dear man, you don’t know what you are talking about.”</p> +<p>Now would you believe that the objection put forward was absolutely +futile? I don’t know whether the distinguished President +of the Court perceived this. Very likely he did, though I don’t +suppose he was ever on terms of familiarity with a ship’s bunker. +But I have. I have been inside; and you may take it that what +I say of them is correct. I don’t wish to be wearisome to +the benevolent reader, but I want to put his finger, so to speak, on +the inanity of the objection raised by the expert. A bunker is +an enclosed space for holding coals, generally located against the ship’s +side, and having an opening, a doorway in fact, into the stokehold. +Men called trimmers go in there, and by means of implements called slices +make the coal run through that opening on to the floor of the stokehold, +where it is within reach of the stokers’ (firemen’s) shovels. +This being so, you will easily understand that there is constantly a +more or less thick layer of coal generally shaped in a slope lying in +that doorway. And the objection of the expert was: that because +of this obstruction it would be impossible to close the water-tight +door, and therefore that the thing could not be done. And that +objection was inane. A water-tight door in a bulkhead may be defined +as a metal plate which is made to close a given opening by some mechanical +means. And if there were a law of Medes and Persians that a water-tight +door should always slide downwards and never otherwise, the objection +would be to a great extent valid. But what is there to prevent +those doors to be fitted so as to move upwards, or horizontally, or +slantwise? In which case they would go through the obstructing +layer of coal as easily as a knife goes through butter. Anyone +may convince himself of it by experimenting with a light piece of board +and a heap of stones anywhere along our roads. Probably the joint +of such a door would weep a little—and there is no necessity for +its being hermetically tight—but the object of converting bunkers +into spaces of safety would be attained. You may take my word +for it that this could be done without any great effort of ingenuity. +And that is why I have qualified the expert’s objection as inane.</p> +<p>Of course, these doors must not be operated from the bridge because +of the risk of trapping the coal-trimmers inside the bunker; but on +the signal of all other water-tight doors in the ship being closed (as +would be done in case of a collision) they too could be closed on the +order of the engineer of the watch, who would see to the safety of the +trimmers. If the rent in the ship’s side were within the +bunker itself, that would become manifest enough without any signal, +and the rush of water into the stokehold could be cut off directly the +doorplate came into its place. Say a minute at the very outside. +Naturally, if the blow of a right-angled collision, for instance, were +heavy enough to smash through the inner bulkhead of the bunker, why, +there would be then nothing to do but for the stokers and trimmers and +everybody in there to clear out of the stoke-room. But that does +not mean that the precaution of having water-tight doors to the bunkers +is useless, superfluous, or impossible. <a name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7">{7}</a></p> +<p>And talking of stokeholds, firemen, and trimmers, men whose heavy +labour has not a single redeeming feature; which is unhealthy, uninspiring, +arduous, without the reward of personal pride in it; sheer, hard, brutalising +toil, belonging neither to earth nor sea, I greet with joy the advent +for marine purposes of the internal combustion engine. The disappearance +of the marine boiler will be a real progress, which anybody in sympathy +with his kind must welcome. Instead of the unthrifty, unruly, +nondescript crowd the boilers require, a crowd of men <i>in</i> the +ship but not <i>of</i> her, we shall have comparatively small crews +of disciplined, intelligent workers, able to steer the ship, handle +anchors, man boats, and at the same time competent to take their place +at a bench as fitters and repairers; the resourceful and skilled seamen—mechanics +of the future, the legitimate successors of these seamen—sailors +of the past, who had their own kind of skill, hardihood, and tradition, +and whose last days it has been my lot to share.</p> +<p>One lives and learns and hears very surprising things—things +that one hardly knows how to take, whether seriously or jocularly, how +to meet—with indignation or with contempt? Things said by +solemn experts, by exalted directors, by glorified ticket-sellers, by +officials of all sorts. I suppose that one of the uses of such +an inquiry is to give such people enough rope to hang themselves with. +And I hope that some of them won’t neglect to do so. One +of them declared two days ago that there was “nothing to learn +from the catastrophe of the <i>Titanic</i>.” That he had +been “giving his best consideration” to certain rules for +ten years, and had come to the conclusion that nothing ever happened +at sea, and that rules and regulations, boats and sailors, were unnecessary; +that what was really wrong with the <i>Titanic</i> was that she carried +too many boats.</p> +<p>No; I am not joking. If you don’t believe me, pray look +back through the reports and you will find it all there. I don’t +recollect the official’s name, but it ought to have been Pooh-Bah. +Well, Pooh-Bah said all these things, and when asked whether he really +meant it, intimated his readiness to give the subject more of “his +best consideration”—for another ten years or so apparently—but +he believed, oh yes! he was certain, that had there been fewer boats +there would have been more people saved. Really, when reading +the report of this admirably conducted inquiry one isn’t certain +at times whether it is an Admirable Inquiry or a felicitous <i>opéra-bouffe</i> +of the Gilbertian type—with a rather grim subject, to be sure.</p> +<p>Yes, rather grim—but the comic treatment never fails. +My readers will remember that in the number of <i>The English Review</i> +for May, 1912, I quoted the old case of the <i>Arizona</i>, and went +on from that to prophesy the coming of a new seamanship (in a spirit +of irony far removed from fun) at the call of the sublime builders of +unsinkable ships. I thought that, as a small boy of my acquaintance +says, I was “doing a sarcasm,” and regarded it as a rather +wild sort of sarcasm at that. Well, I am blessed (excuse the vulgarism) +if a witness has not turned up who seems to have been inspired by the +same thought, and evidently longs in his heart for the advent of the +new seamanship. He is an expert, of course, and I rather believe +he’s the same gentleman who did not see his way to fit water-tight +doors to bunkers. With ludicrous earnestness he assured the Commission +of his intense belief that had only the <i>Titanic</i> struck end-on +she would have come into port all right. And in the whole tone +of his insistent statement there was suggested the regret that the officer +in charge (who is dead now, and mercifully outside the comic scope of +this inquiry) was so ill-advised as to try to pass clear of the ice. +Thus my sarcastic prophecy, that such a suggestion was sure to turn +up, receives an unexpected fulfilment. You will see yet that in +deference to the demands of “progress” the theory of the +new seamanship will become established: “Whatever you see in front +of you—ram it fair. . .” The new seamanship! +Looks simple, doesn’t it? But it will be a very exact art +indeed. The proper handling of an unsinkable ship, you see, will +demand that she should be made to hit the iceberg very accurately with +her nose, because should you perchance scrape the bluff of the bow instead, +she may, without ceasing to be as unsinkable as before, find her way +to the bottom. I congratulate the future Transatlantic passengers +on the new and vigorous sensations in store for them. They shall +go bounding across from iceberg to iceberg at twenty-five knots with +precision and safety, and a “cheerful bumpy sound”—as +the immortal poem has it. It will be a teeth-loosening, exhilarating +experience. The decorations will be Louis-Quinze, of course, and +the café shall remain open all night. But what about the +priceless Sèvres porcelain and the Venetian glass provided for +the service of Transatlantic passengers? Well, I am afraid all +that will have to be replaced by silver goblets and plates. Nasty, +common, cheap silver. But those who <i>will</i> go to sea must +be prepared to put up with a certain amount of hardship.</p> +<p>And there shall be no boats. Why should there be no boats? +Because Pooh-Bah has said that the fewer the boats, the more people +can be saved; and therefore with no boats at all, no one need be lost. +But even if there was a flaw in this argument, pray look at the other +advantages the absence of boats gives you. There can’t be +the annoyance of having to go into them in the middle of the night, +and the unpleasantness, after saving your life by the skin of your teeth, +of being hauled over the coals by irreproachable members of the Bar +with hints that you are no better than a cowardly scoundrel and your +wife a heartless monster. Less Boats. No boats! Great +should be the gratitude of passage-selling Combines to Pooh-Bah; and +they ought to cherish his memory when he dies. But no fear of +that. His kind never dies. All you have to do, O Combine, +is to knock at the door of the Marine Department, look in, and beckon +to the first man you see. That will be he, very much at your service—prepared +to affirm after “ten years of my best consideration” and +a bundle of statistics in hand, that: “There’s no lesson +to be learned, and that there is nothing to be done!”</p> +<p>On an earlier day there was another witness before the Court of Inquiry. +A mighty official of the White Star Line. The impression of his +testimony which the Report gave is of an almost scornful impatience +with all this fuss and pother. Boats! Of course we have +crowded our decks with them in answer to this ignorant clamour. +Mere lumber! How can we handle so many boats with our davits? +Your people don’t know the conditions of the problem. We +have given these matters our best consideration, and we have done what +we thought reasonable. We have done more than our duty. +We are wise, and good, and impeccable. And whoever says otherwise +is either ignorant or wicked.</p> +<p>This is the gist of these scornful answers which disclose the psychology +of commercial undertakings. It is the same psychology which fifty +or so years ago, before Samuel Plimsoll uplifted his voice, sent overloaded +ships to sea. “Why shouldn’t we cram in as much cargo +as our ships will hold? Look how few, how very few of them get +lost, after all.”</p> +<p>Men don’t change. Not very much. And the only answer +to be given to this manager who came out, impatient and indignant, from +behind the plate-glass windows of his shop to be discovered by this +inquiry, and to tell us that he, they, the whole three million (or thirty +million, for all I know) capital Organisation for selling passages has +considered the problem of boats—the only answer to give him is: +that this is not a problem of boats at all. It is the problem +of decent behaviour. If you can’t carry or handle so many +boats, then don’t cram quite so many people on board. It +is as simple as that—this problem of right feeling and right conduct, +the real nature of which seems beyond the comprehension of ticket-providers. +Don’t sell so many tickets, my virtuous dignitary. After +all, men and women (unless considered from a purely commercial point +of view) are not exactly the cattle of the Western-ocean trade, that +used some twenty years ago to be thrown overboard on an emergency and +left to swim round and round before they sank. If you can’t +get more boats, then sell less tickets. Don’t drown so many +people on the finest, calmest night that was ever known in the North +Atlantic—even if you have provided them with a little music to +get drowned by. Sell less tickets! That’s the solution +of the problem, your Mercantile Highness.</p> +<p>But there would be a cry, “Oh! This requires consideration!” +(Ten years of it—eh?) Well, no! This does not require +consideration. This is the very first thing to do. At once. +Limit the number of people by the boats you can handle. That’s +honesty. And then you may go on fumbling for years about these +precious davits which are such a stumbling-block to your humanity. +These fascinating patent davits. These davits that refuse to do +three times as much work as they were meant to do. Oh! The +wickedness of these davits!</p> +<p>One of the great discoveries of this admirable Inquiry is the fascination +of the davits. All these people positively can’t get away +from them. They shuffle about and groan around their davits. +Whereas the obvious thing to do is to eliminate the man-handled davits +altogether. Don’t you think that with all the mechanical +contrivances, with all the generated power on board these ships, it +is about time to get rid of the hundred-years-old, man-power appliances? +Cranes are what is wanted; low, compact cranes with adjustable heads, +one to each set of six or nine boats. And if people tell you of +insuperable difficulties, if they tell you of the swing and spin of +spanned boats, don’t you believe them. The heads of the +cranes need not be any higher than the heads of the davits. The +lift required would be only a couple of inches. As to the spin, +there is a way to prevent that if you have in each boat two men who +know what they are about. I have taken up on board a heavy ship’s +boat, in the open sea (the ship rolling heavily), with a common cargo +derrick. And a cargo derrick is very much like a crane; but a +crane devised <i>ad hoc</i> would be infinitely easier to work. +We must remember that the loss of this ship has altered the moral atmosphere. +As long as the <i>Titanic</i> is remembered, an ugly rush for the boats +may be feared in case of some accident. You can’t hope to +drill into perfect discipline a casual mob of six hundred firemen and +waiters, but in a ship like the <i>Titanic</i> you can keep on a permanent +trustworthy crew of one hundred intelligent seamen and mechanics who +would know their stations for abandoning ship and would do the work +efficiently. The boats could be lowered with sufficient dispatch. +One does not want to let rip one’s boats by the run all at the +same time. With six boat-cranes, six boats would be simultaneously +swung, filled, and got away from the side; and if any sort of order +is kept, the ship could be cleared of the passengers in a quite short +time. For there must be boats enough for the passengers and crew, +whether you increase the number of boats or limit the number of passengers, +irrespective of the size of the ship. That is the only honest +course. Any other would be rather worse than putting sand in the +sugar, for which a tradesman gets fined or imprisoned. Do not +let us take a romantic view of the so-called progress. A company +selling passages is a tradesman; though from the way these people talk +and behave you would think they are benefactors of mankind in some mysterious +way, engaged in some lofty and amazing enterprise.</p> +<p>All these boats should have a motor-engine in them. And, of +course, the glorified tradesman, the mummified official, the technicians, +and all these secretly disconcerted hangers-on to the enormous ticket-selling +enterprise, will raise objections to it with every air of superiority. +But don’t believe them. Doesn’t it strike you as absurd +that in this age of mechanical propulsion, of generated power, the boats +of such ultra-modern ships are fitted with oars and sails, implements +more than three thousand years old? Old as the siege of Troy. +Older! . . . And I know what I am talking about. Only six weeks +ago I was on the river in an ancient, rough, ship’s boat, fitted +with a two-cylinder motor-engine of 7.5 h.p. Just a common ship’s +boat, which the man who owns her uses for taking the workmen and stevedores +to and from the ships loading at the buoys off Greenhithe. She +would have carried some thirty people. No doubt has carried as +many daily for many months. And she can tow a twenty-five ton +water barge—which is also part of that man’s business.</p> +<p>It was a boisterous day, half a gale of wind against the flood tide. +Two fellows managed her. A youngster of seventeen was cox (and +a first-rate cox he was too); a fellow in a torn blue jersey, not much +older, of the usual riverside type, looked after the engine. I +spent an hour and a half in her, running up and down and across that +reach. She handled perfectly. With eight or twelve oars +out she could not have done anything like as well. These two youngsters +at my request kept her stationary for ten minutes, with a touch of engine +and helm now and then, within three feet of a big, ugly mooring buoy +over which the water broke and the spray flew in sheets, and which would +have holed her if she had bumped against it. But she kept her +position, it seemed to me, to an inch, without apparently any trouble +to these boys. You could not have done it with oars. And +her engine did not take up the space of three men, even on the assumption +that you would pack people as tight as sardines in a box.</p> +<p>Not the room of three people, I tell you! But no one would +want to pack a boat like a sardine-box. There must be room enough +to handle the oars. But in that old ship’s boat, even if +she had been desperately overcrowded, there was power (manageable by +two riverside youngsters) to get away quickly from a ship’s side +(very important for your safety and to make room for other boats), the +power to keep her easily head to sea, the power to move at five to seven +knots towards a rescuing ship, the power to come safely alongside. +And all that in an engine which did not take up the room of three people.</p> +<p>A poor boatman who had to scrape together painfully the few sovereigns +of the price had the idea of putting that engine into his boat. +But all these designers, directors, managers, constructors, and others +whom we may include in the generic name of Yamsi, never thought of it +for the boats of the biggest tank on earth, or rather on sea. +And therefore they assume an air of impatient superiority and make objections—however +sick at heart they may be. And I hope they are; at least, as much +as a grocer who has sold a tin of imperfect salmon which destroyed only +half a dozen people. And you know, the tinning of salmon was “progress” +as much at least as the building of the <i>Titanic</i>. More, +in fact. I am not attacking shipowners. I care neither more +nor less for Lines, Companies, Combines, and generally for Trade arrayed +in purple and fine linen than the Trade cares for me. But I am +attacking foolish arrogance, which is fair game; the offensive posture +of superiority by which they hide the sense of their guilt, while the +echoes of the miserably hypocritical cries along the alley-ways of that +ship: “Any more women? Any more women?” linger yet +in our ears.</p> +<p>I have been expecting from one or the other of them all bearing the +generic name of Yamsi, something, a sign of some sort, some sincere +utterance, in the course of this Admirable Inquiry, of manly, of genuine +compunction. In vain. All trade talk. Not a whisper—except +for the conventional expression of regret at the beginning of the yearly +report—which otherwise is a cheerful document. Dividends, +you know. The shop is doing well.</p> +<p>And the Admirable Inquiry goes on, punctuated by idiotic laughter, +by paid-for cries of indignation from under legal wigs, bringing to +light the psychology of various commercial characters too stupid to +know that they are giving themselves away—an admirably laborious +inquiry into facts that speak, nay shout, for themselves.</p> +<p>I am not a soft-headed, humanitarian faddist. I have been ordered +in my time to do dangerous work; I have ordered, others to do dangerous +work; I have never ordered a man to do any work I was not prepared to +do myself. I attach no exaggerated value to human life. +But I know it has a value for which the most generous contributions +to the Mansion House and “Heroes” funds cannot pay. +And they cannot pay for it, because people, even of the third class +(excuse my plain speaking), are not cattle. Death has its sting. +If Yamsi’s manager’s head were forcibly held under the water +of his bath for some little time, he would soon discover that it has. +Some people can only learn from that sort of experience which comes +home to their own dear selves.</p> +<p>I am not a sentimentalist; therefore it is not a great consolation +to me to see all these people breveted as “Heroes” by the +penny and halfpenny Press. It is no consolation at all. +In extremity, in the worst extremity, the majority of people, even of +common people, will behave decently. It’s a fact of which +only the journalists don’t seem aware. Hence their enthusiasm, +I suppose. But I, who am not a sentimentalist, think it would +have been finer if the band of the <i>Titanic</i> had been quietly saved, +instead of being drowned while playing—whatever tune they were +playing, the poor devils. I would rather they had been saved to +support their families than to see their families supported by the magnificent +generosity of the subscribers. I am not consoled by the false, +written-up, Drury Lane aspects of that event, which is neither drama, +nor melodrama, nor tragedy, but the exposure of arrogant folly. +There is nothing more heroic in being drowned very much against your +will, off a holed, helpless, big tank in which you bought your passage, +than in dying of colic caused by the imperfect salmon in the tin you +bought from your grocer.</p> +<p>And that’s the truth. The unsentimental truth stripped +of the romantic garment the Press has wrapped around this most unnecessary +disaster.</p> +<h3>PROTECTION OF OCEAN LINERS <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8">{8}</a>—1914</h3> +<p>The loss of the <i>Empress of Ireland</i> awakens feelings somewhat +different from those the sinking of the <i>Titanic</i> had called up +on two continents. The grief for the lost and the sympathy for +the survivors and the bereaved are the same; but there is not, and there +cannot be, the same undercurrent of indignation. The good ship +that is gone (I remember reading of her launch something like eight +years ago) had not been ushered in with beat of drum as the chief wonder +of the world of waters. The company who owned her had no agents, +authorised or unauthorised, giving boastful interviews about her unsinkability +to newspaper reporters ready to swallow any sort of trade statement +if only sensational enough for their readers—readers as ignorant +as themselves of the nature of all things outside the commonest experience +of the man in the street.</p> +<p>No; there was nothing of that in her case. The company was +content to have as fine, staunch, seaworthy a ship as the technical +knowledge of that time could make her. In fact, she was as safe +a ship as nine hundred and ninety-nine ships out of any thousand now +afloat upon the sea. No; whatever sorrow one can feel, one does +not feel indignation. This was not an accident of a very boastful +marine transportation; this was a real casualty of the sea. The +indignation of the New South Wales Premier flashed telegraphically to +Canada is perfectly uncalled-for. That statesman, whose sympathy +for poor mates and seamen is so suspect to me that I wouldn’t +take it at fifty per cent. discount, does not seem to know that a British +Court of Marine Inquiry, ordinary or extraordinary, is not a contrivance +for catching scapegoats. I, who have been seaman, mate and master +for twenty years, holding my certificate under the Board of Trade, may +safely say that none of us ever felt in danger of unfair treatment from +a Court of Inquiry. It is a perfectly impartial tribunal which +has never punished seamen for the faults of shipowners—as, indeed, +it could not do even if it wanted to. And there is another thing +the angry Premier of New South Wales does not know. It is this: +that for a ship to float for fifteen minutes after receiving such a +blow by a bare stem on her bare side is not so bad.</p> +<p>She took a tremendous list which made the minutes of grace vouchsafed +her of not much use for the saving of lives. But for that neither +her owners nor her officers are responsible. It would have been +wonderful if she had not listed with such a hole in her side. +Even the <i>Aquitania</i> with such an opening in her outer hull would +be bound to take a list. I don’t say this with the intention +of disparaging this latest “triumph of marine architecture”—to +use the consecrated phrase. The <i>Aquitania</i> is a magnificent +ship. I believe she would bear her people unscathed through ninety-nine +per cent. of all possible accidents of the sea. But suppose a +collision out on the ocean involving damage as extensive as this one +was, and suppose then a gale of wind coming on. Even the <i>Aquitania</i> +would not be quite seaworthy, for she would not be manageable.</p> +<p>We have been accustoming ourselves to put our trust in material, +technical skill, invention, and scientific contrivances to such an extent +that we have come at last to believe that with these things we can overcome +the immortal gods themselves. Hence when a disaster like this +happens, there arises, besides the shock to our humane sentiments, a +feeling of irritation, such as the hon. gentleman at the head of the +New South Wales Government has discharged in a telegraphic flash upon +the world.</p> +<p>But it is no use being angry and trying to hang a threat of penal +servitude over the heads of the directors of shipping companies. +You can’t get the better of the immortal gods by the mere power +of material contrivances. There will be neither scapegoats in +this matter nor yet penal servitude for anyone. The Directors +of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company did not sell “safety at +sea” to the people on board the <i>Empress of Ireland</i>. +They never in the slightest degree pretended to do so. What they +did was to sell them a sea-passage, giving very good value for the money. +Nothing more. As long as men will travel on the water, the sea-gods +will take their toll. They will catch good seamen napping, or +confuse their judgment by arts well known to those who go to sea, or +overcome them by the sheer brutality of elemental forces. It seems +to me that the resentful sea-gods never do sleep, and are never weary; +wherein the seamen who are mere mortals condemned to unending vigilance +are no match for them.</p> +<p>And yet it is right that the responsibility should be fixed. +It is the fate of men that even in their contests with the immortal +gods they must render an account of their conduct. Life at sea +is the life in which, simple as it is, you can’t afford to make +mistakes.</p> +<p>With whom the mistake lies here, is not for me to say. I see +that Sir Thomas Shaughnessy has expressed his opinion of Captain Kendall’s +absolute innocence. This statement, premature as it is, does him +honour, for I don’t suppose for a moment that the thought of the +material issue involved in the verdict of the Court of Inquiry influenced +him in the least. I don’t suppose that he is more impressed +by the writ of two million dollars nailed (or more likely pasted) to +the foremast of the Norwegian than I am, who don’t believe that +the <i>Storstad</i> is worth two million shillings. This is merely +a move of commercial law, and even the whole majesty of the British +Empire (so finely invoked by the Sheriff) cannot squeeze more than a +very moderate quantity of blood out of a stone. Sir Thomas, in +his confident pronouncement, stands loyally by a loyal and distinguished +servant of his company.</p> +<p>This thing has to be investigated yet, and it is not proper for me +to express my opinion, though I have one, in this place and at this +time. But I need not conceal my sympathy with the vehement protestations +of Captain Andersen. A charge of neglect and indifference in the +matter of saving lives is the cruellest blow that can be aimed at the +character of a seaman worthy of the name. On the face of the facts +as known up to now the charge does not seem to be true. If upwards +of three hundred people have been, as stated in the last reports, saved +by the <i>Storstad</i>, then that ship must have been at hand and rendering +all the assistance in her power.</p> +<p>As to the point which must come up for the decision of the Court +of Inquiry, it is as fine as a hair. The two ships saw each other +plainly enough before the fog closed on them. No one can question +Captain Kendall’s prudence. He has been as prudent as ever +he could be. There is not a shadow of doubt as to that.</p> +<p>But there is this question: Accepting the position of the two ships +when they saw each other as correctly described in the very latest newspaper +reports, it seems clear that it was the <i>Empress of Ireland’s</i> +duty to keep clear of the collier, and what the Court will have to decide +is whether the stopping of the liner was, under the circumstances, the +best way of keeping her clear of the other ship, which had the right +to proceed cautiously on an unchanged course.</p> +<p>This, reduced to its simplest expression, is the question which the +Court will have to decide.</p> +<p>And now, apart from all problems of manoeuvring, of rules of the +road, of the judgment of the men in command, away from their possible +errors and from the points the Court will have to decide, if we ask +ourselves what it was that was needed to avert this disaster costing +so many lives, spreading so much sorrow, and to a certain point shocking +the public conscience—if we ask that question, what is the answer +to be?</p> +<p>I hardly dare set it down. Yes; what was it that was needed, +what ingenious combinations of ship-building, what transverse bulkheads, +what skill, what genius—how much expense in money and trained +thinking, what learned contriving, to avert that disaster?</p> +<p>To save that ship, all these lives, so much anguish for the dying, +and so much grief for the bereaved, all that was needed in this particular +case in the way of science, money, ingenuity, and seamanship was a man, +and a cork-fender.</p> +<p>Yes; a man, a quartermaster, an able seaman that would know how to +jump to an order and was not an excitable fool. In my time at +sea there was no lack of men in British ships who could jump to an order +and were not excitable fools. As to the so-called cork-fender, +it is a sort of soft balloon made from a net of thick rope rather more +than a foot in diameter. It is such a long time since I have indented +for cork-fenders that I don’t remember how much these things cost +apiece. One of them, hung judiciously over the side at the end +of its lanyard by a man who knew what he was about, might perhaps have +saved from destruction the ship and upwards of a thousand lives.</p> +<p>Two men with a heavy rope-fender would have been better, but even +the other one might have made all the difference between a very damaging +accident and downright disaster. By the time the cork-fender had +been squeezed between the liner’s side and the bluff of the <i>Storstad’s</i> +bow, the effect of the latter’s reversed propeller would have +been produced, and the ships would have come apart with no more damage +than bulged and started plates. Wasn’t there lying about +on that liner’s bridge, fitted with all sorts of scientific contrivances, +a couple of simple and effective cork-fenders—or on board of that +Norwegian either? There must have been, since one ship was just +out of a dock or harbour and the other just arriving. That is +the time, if ever, when cork-fenders are lying about a ship’s +decks. And there was plenty of time to use them, and exactly in +the conditions in which such fenders are effectively used. The +water was as smooth as in any dock; one ship was motionless, the other +just moving at what may be called dock-speed when entering, leaving, +or shifting berths; and from the moment the collision was seen to be +unavoidable till the actual contact a whole minute elapsed. A +minute,—an age under the circumstances. And no one thought +of the homely expedient of dropping a simple, unpretending rope-fender +between the destructive stern and the defenceless side!</p> +<p>I appeal confidently to all the seamen in the still United Kingdom, +from his Majesty the King (who has been really at sea) to the youngest +intelligent A.B. in any ship that will dock next tide in the ports of +this realm, whether there was not a chance there. I have followed +the sea for more than twenty years; I have seen collisions; I have been +involved in a collision myself; and I do believe that in the case under +consideration this little thing would have made all that enormous difference—the +difference between considerable damage and an appalling disaster.</p> +<p>Many letters have been written to the Press on the subject of collisions. +I have seen some. They contain many suggestions, valuable and +otherwise; but there is only one which hits the nail on the head. +It is a letter to the <i>Times</i> from a retired Captain of the Royal +Navy. It is printed in small type, but it deserved to be printed +in letters of gold and crimson. The writer suggests that all steamers +should be obliged by law to carry hung over their stern what we at sea +call a “pudding.”</p> +<p>This solution of the problem is as wonderful in its simplicity as +the celebrated trick of Columbus’s egg, and infinitely more useful +to mankind. A “pudding” is a thing something like +a bolster of stout rope-net stuffed with old junk, but thicker in the +middle than at the ends. It can be seen on almost every tug working +in our docks. It is, in fact, a fixed rope-fender always in a +position where presumably it would do most good. Had the <i>Storstad</i> +carried such a “pudding” proportionate to her size (say, +two feet diameter in the thickest part) across her stern, and hung above +the level of her hawse-pipes, there would have been an accident certainly, +and some repair-work for the nearest ship-yard, but there would have +been no loss of life to deplore.</p> +<p>It seems almost too simple to be true, but I assure you that the +statement is as true as anything can be. We shall see whether +the lesson will be taken to heart. We shall see. There is +a Commission of learned men sitting to consider the subject of saving +life at sea. They are discussing bulkheads, boats, davits, manning, +navigation, but I am willing to bet that not one of them has thought +of the humble “pudding.” They can make what rules +they like. We shall see if, with that disaster calling aloud to +them, they will make the rule that every steamship should carry a permanent +fender across her stern, from two to four feet in diameter in its thickest +part in proportion to the size of the ship. But perhaps they may +think the thing too rough and unsightly for this scientific and æsthetic +age. It certainly won’t look very pretty but I make bold +to say it will save more lives at sea than any amount of the Marconi +installations which are being forced on the shipowners on that very +ground—the safety of lives at sea.</p> +<p>We shall see!</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>To the Editor of the <i>Daily Express</i>.</p> +<p>SIR,</p> +<p>As I fully expected, this morning’s post brought me not a few +letters on the subject of that article of mine in the <i>Illustrated +London News</i>. And they are very much what I expected them to +be.</p> +<p>I shall address my reply to Captain Littlehales, since obviously +he can speak with authority, and speaks in his own name, not under a +pseudonym. And also for the reason that it is no use talking to +men who tell you to shut your head for a confounded fool. They +are not likely to listen to you.</p> +<p>But if there be in Liverpool anybody not too angry to listen, I want +to assure him or them that my exclamatory line, “Was there no +one on board either of these ships to think of dropping a fender—etc.,” +was not uttered in the spirit of blame for anyone. I would not +dream of blaming a seaman for doing or omitting to do anything a person +sitting in a perfectly safe and unsinkable study may think of. +All my sympathy goes to the two captains; much the greater share of +it to Captain Kendall, who has lost his ship and whose load of responsibility +was so much heavier! I may not know a great deal, but I know how +anxious and perplexing are those nearly end-on approaches, so infinitely +more trying to the men in charge than a frank right-angle crossing.</p> +<p>I may begin by reminding Captain Littlehales that I, as well as himself, +have had to form my opinion, or rather my vision, of the accident, from +printed statements, of which many must have been loose and inexact and +none could have been minutely circumstantial. I have read the +reports of the <i>Times</i> and the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>, and no others. +What stands in the columns of these papers is responsible for my conclusion—or +perhaps for the state of my feelings when I wrote the <i>Illustrated +London News</i> article.</p> +<p>From these sober and unsensational reports, I derived the impression +that this collision was a collision of the slowest sort. I take +it, of course, that both the men in charge speak the strictest truth +as to preliminary facts. We know that the <i>Empress of Ireland</i> +was for a time lying motionless. And if the captain of the <i>Storstad</i> +stopped his engines directly the fog came on (as he says he did), then +taking into account the adverse current of the river, the <i>Storstad</i>, +by the time the two ships sighted each other again, must have been barely +moving <i>over the ground</i>. The “over the ground” +speed is the only one that matters in this discussion. In fact, +I represented her to myself as just creeping on ahead—no more. +This, I contend, is an imaginative view (and we can form no other) not +utterly absurd for a seaman to adopt.</p> +<p>So much for the imaginative view of the sad occurrence which caused +me to speak of the fender, and be chided for it in unmeasured terms. +Not by Captain Littlehales, however, and I wish to reply to what he +says with all possible deference. His illustration borrowed from +boxing is very apt, and in a certain sense makes for my contention. +Yes. A blow delivered with a boxing-glove will draw blood or knock +a man out; but it would not crush in his nose flat or break his jaw +for him—at least, not always. And this is exactly my point.</p> +<p>Twice in my sea life I have had occasion to be impressed by the preserving +effect of a fender. Once I was myself the man who dropped it over. +Not because I was so very clever or smart, but simply because I happened +to be at hand. And I agree with Captain Littlehales that to see +a steamer’s stern coming at you at the rate of only two knots +is a staggering experience. The thing seems to have power enough +behind it to cut half through the terrestrial globe.</p> +<p>And perhaps Captain Littlehales is right? It may be that I +am mistaken in my appreciation of circumstances and possibilities in +this case—or in any such case. Perhaps what was really wanted +there was an extraordinary man and an extraordinary fender. I +care nothing if possibly my deep feeling has betrayed me into something +which some people call absurdity.</p> +<p>Absurd was the word applied to the proposal for carrying “enough +boats for all” on board the big liners. And my absurdity +can affect no lives, break no bones—need make no one angry. +Why should I care, then, as long as out of the discussion of my absurdity +there will emerge the acceptance of the suggestion of Captain F. Papillon, +R.N., for the universal and compulsory fitting of very heavy collision +fenders on the stems of all mechanically propelled ships?</p> +<p>An extraordinary man we cannot always get from heaven on order, but +an extraordinary fender that will do its work is well within the power +of a committee of old boatswains to plan out, make, and place in position. +I beg to ask, not in a provocative spirit, but simply as to a matter +of fact which he is better qualified to judge than I am—Will Captain +Littlehales affirm that if the <i>Storstad</i> had carried, slung securely +across the stem, even nothing thicker than a single bale of wool (an +ordinary, hand-pressed, Australian wool-bale), it would have made no +difference?</p> +<p>If scientific men can invent an air cushion, a gas cushion, or even +an electricity cushion (with wires or without), to fit neatly round +the stems and bows of ships, then let them go to work, in God’s +name and produce another “marvel of science” without loss +of time. For something like this has long been due—too long +for the credit of that part of mankind which is not absurd, and in which +I include, among others, such people as marine underwriters, for instance.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, turning to materials I am familiar with, I would put my +trust in canvas, lots of big rope, and in large, very large quantities +of old junk.</p> +<p>It sounds awfully primitive, but if it will mitigate the mischief +in only fifty per cent. of cases, is it not well worth trying? +Most collisions occur at slow speeds, and it ought to be remembered +that in case of a big liner’s loss, involving many lives, she +is generally sunk by a ship much smaller than herself.</p> +<p>JOSEPH CONRAD.</p> +<h3>A FRIENDLY PLACE</h3> +<p>Eighteen years have passed since I last set foot in the London Sailors’ +Home. I was not staying there then; I had gone in to try to find +a man I wanted to see. He was one of those able seamen who, in +a watch, are a perfect blessing to a young officer. I could perhaps +remember here and there among the shadows of my sea-life a more daring +man, or a more agile man, or a man more expert in some special branch +of his calling—such as wire splicing, for instance; but for all-round +competence, he was unequalled. As character he was sterling stuff. +His name was Anderson. He had a fine, quiet face, kindly eyes, +and a voice which matched that something attractive in the whole man. +Though he looked yet in the prime of life, shoulders, chest, limbs untouched +by decay, and though his hair and moustache were only iron-grey, he +was on board ship generally called Old Andy by his fellows. He +accepted the name with some complacency.</p> +<p>I made my enquiry at the highly-glazed entry office. The clerk +on duty opened an enormous ledger, and after running his finger down +a page, informed me that Anderson had gone to sea a week before, in +a ship bound round the Horn. Then, smiling at me, he added: “Old +Andy. We know him well, here. What a nice fellow!”</p> +<p>I, who knew what a “good man,” in a sailor sense, he +was, assented without reserve. Heaven only knows when, if ever, +he came back from that voyage, to the Sailors’ Home of which he +was a faithful client.</p> +<p>I went out glad to know he was safely at sea, but sorry not to have +seen him; though, indeed, if I had, we would not have exchanged more +than a score of words, perhaps. He was not a talkative man, Old +Andy, whose affectionate ship-name clung to him even in that Sailors’ +Home, where the staff understood and liked the sailors (those men without +a home) and did its duty by them with an unobtrusive tact, with a patient +and humorous sense of their idiosyncrasies, to which I hasten to testify +now, when the very existence of that institution is menaced after so +many years of most useful work.</p> +<p>Walking away from it on that day eighteen years ago, I was far from +thinking it was for the last time. Great changes have come since, +over land and sea; and if I were to seek somebody who knew Old Andy +it would be (of all people in the world) Mr. John Galsworthy. +For Mr. John Galsworthy, Andy, and myself have been shipmates together +in our different stations, for some forty days in the Indian Ocean in +the early nineties. And, but for us two, Old Andy’s very +memory would be gone from this changing earth.</p> +<p>Yes, things have changed—the very sky, the atmosphere, the +light of judgment which falls on the labours of men, either splendid +or obscure. Having been asked to say a word to the public on behalf +of the Sailors’ Home, I felt immensely flattered—and troubled. +Flattered to have been thought of in that connection; troubled to find +myself in touch again with that past so deeply rooted in my heart. +And the illusion of nearness is so great while I trace these lines that +I feel as if I were speaking in the name of that worthy Sailor-Shade +of Old Andy, whose faithfully hard life seems to my vision a thing of +yesterday.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>But though the past keeps firm hold on one, yet one feels with the +same warmth that the men and the institutions of to-day have their merit +and their claims. Others will know how to set forth before the +public the merit of the Sailors’ Home in the eloquent terms of +hard facts and some few figures. For myself, I can only bring +a personal note, give a glimpse of the human side of the good work for +sailors ashore, carried on through so many decades with a perfect understanding +of the end in view. I have been in touch with the Sailors’ +Home for sixteen years of my life, off and on; I have seen the changes +in the staff and I have observed the subtle alterations in the physiognomy +of that stream of sailors passing through it, in from the sea and out +again to sea, between the years 1878 and 1894. I have listened +to the talk on the decks of ships in all latitudes, when its name would +turn up frequently, and if I had to characterise its good work in one +sentence, I would say that, for seamen, the Well Street Home was a friendly +place.</p> +<p>It was essentially just that; quietly, unobtrusively, with a regard +for the independence of the men who sought its shelter ashore, and with +no ulterior aims behind that effective friendliness. No small +merit this. And its claim on the generosity of the public is derived +from a long record of valuable public service. Since we are all +agreed that the men of the merchant service are a national asset worthy +of care and sympathy, the public could express this sympathy no better +than by enabling the Sailors’ Home, so useful in the past, to +continue its friendly offices to the seamen of future generations.</p> +<h2>Footnotes</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> Yvette +and Other Stories. Translated by Ada Galsworthy.</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> <i>Turgenev</i>: +A Study. By Edward Garnett.</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a> <i>Studies +in Brown Humanity</i>. By Hugh Clifford.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4">{4}</a> <i>Quiet +Days in Spain</i>. By C. Bogue Luffmann.</p> +<p><a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5">{5}</a> Existence +after Death Implied by Science. By Jasper B. Hunt, M.A.</p> +<p><a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6">{6}</a> <i>The +Ascending Effort</i>. By George Bourne.</p> +<p><a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7">{7}</a> Since +writing the above, I am told that such doors are fitted in the bunkers +of more than one ship in the Atlantic trade.</p> +<p><a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8">{8}</a> The loss +of the <i>Empress of Ireland</i>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1143-h.htm or 1143-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/4/1143 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Notes on Life and Letters + + +Author: Joseph Conrad + +Release Date: March 25, 2005 [eBook #1143] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS*** + + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1921 J. M. Dent edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +NOTES ON LIFE & LETTERS + + +Contents: + +Author's note + +PART I--Letters + +BOOKS--1905. +HENRY JAMES--AN APPRECIATION--1905 +ALPHONSE DAUDET--1898 +GUY DE MAUPASSANT--1904 +ANATOLE FRANCE--1904 +TURGENEV--1917 +STEPHEN CRANE--A NOTE WITHOUT DATES--1919 +TALES OF THE SEA--1898 +AN OBSERVER IN MALAYA--1898 +A HAPPY WANDERER--1910 +THE LIFE BEYOND--1910 +THE ASCENDING EFFORT--1910 +THE CENSOR OF PLAYS--AN APPRECIATION--1907 + +PART II--Life + +AUTOCRACY AND WAR--1905 +THE CRIME OF PARTITION--1919 +A NOTE ON THE POLISH PROBLEM--1916 +POLAND REVISITED--1915 +FIRST NEWS--1918 +WELL DONE--1918 +TRADITION--1918 +CONFIDENCE--1919 +FLIGHT--1917 +SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LOSS OF THE _TITANIC_--1912 +CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE ADMIRABLE INQUIRY INTO THE LOSS OF THE +_TITANIC_--1912 +PROTECTION OF OCEAN LINERS--1914 +A FRIENDLY PLACE + + + + +AUTHOR'S NOTE + + +I don't know whether I ought to offer an apology for this collection +which has more to do with life than with letters. Its appeal is made to +orderly minds. This, to be frank about it, is a process of tidying up, +which, from the nature of things, cannot be regarded as premature. The +fact is that I wanted to do it myself because of a feeling that had +nothing to do with the considerations of worthiness or unworthiness of +the small (but unbroken) pieces collected within the covers of this +volume. Of course it may be said that I might have taken up a broom and +used it without saying anything about it. That, certainly, is one way of +tidying up. + +But it would have been too much to have expected me to treat all this +matter as removable rubbish. All those things had a place in my life. +Whether any of them deserve to have been picked up and ranged on the +shelf--this shelf--I cannot say, and, frankly, I have not allowed my mind +to dwell on the question. I was afraid of thinking myself into a mood +that would hurt my feelings; for those pieces of writing, whatever may be +the comment on their display, appertain to the character of the man. + +And so here they are, dusted, which was but a decent thing to do, but in +no way polished, extending from the year '98 to the year '20, a thin +array (for such a stretch of time) of really innocent attitudes: Conrad +literary, Conrad political, Conrad reminiscent, Conrad controversial. +Well, yes! A one-man show--or is it merely the show of one man? + +The only thing that will not be found amongst those Figures and Things +that have passed away, will be Conrad _en pantoufles_. It is a +constitutional inability. _Schlafrock und pantoffeln_! Not that! Never! +. . . I don't know whether I dare boast like a certain South American +general who used to say that no emergency of war or peace had ever found +him "with his boots off"; but I may say that whenever the various +periodicals mentioned in this book called on me to come out and blow the +trumpet of personal opinions or strike the pensive lute that speaks of +the past, I always tried to pull on my boots first. I didn't want to do +it, God knows! Their Editors, to whom I beg to offer my thanks here, +made me perform mainly by kindness but partly by bribery. Well, yes! +Bribery? What can you expect? I never pretended to be better than the +people in the next street, or even in the same street. + +This volume (including these embarrassed introductory remarks) is as near +as I shall ever come to _deshabille_ in public; and perhaps it will do +something to help towards a better vision of the man, if it gives no more +than a partial view of a piece of his back, a little dusty (after the +process of tidying up), a little bowed, and receding from the world not +because of weariness or misanthropy but for other reasons that cannot be +helped: because the leaves fall, the water flows, the clock ticks with +that horrid pitiless solemnity which you must have observed in the +ticking of the hall clock at home. For reasons like that. Yes! It +recedes. And this was the chance to afford one more view of it--even to +my own eyes. + +The section within this volume called Letters explains itself, though I +do not pretend to say that it justifies its own existence. It claims +nothing in its defence except the right of speech which I believe belongs +to everybody outside a Trappist monastery. The part I have ventured, for +shortness' sake, to call Life, may perhaps justify itself by the +emotional sincerity of the feelings to which the various papers included +under that head owe their origin. And as they relate to events of which +everyone has a date, they are in the nature of sign-posts pointing out +the direction my thoughts were compelled to take at the various cross- +roads. If anybody detects any sort of consistency in the choice, this +will be only proof positive that wisdom had nothing to do with it. +Whether right or wrong, instinct alone is invariable; a fact which only +adds a deeper shade to its inherent mystery. The appearance of +intellectuality these pieces may present at first sight is merely the +result of the arrangement of words. The logic that may be found there is +only the logic of the language. But I need not labour the point. There +will be plenty of people sagacious enough to perceive the absence of all +wisdom from these pages. But I believe sufficiently in human sympathies +to imagine that very few will question their sincerity. Whatever +delusions I may have suffered from I have had no delusions as to the +nature of the facts commented on here. I may have misjudged their +import: but that is the sort of error for which one may expect a certain +amount of toleration. + +The only paper of this collection which has never been published before +is the Note on the Polish Problem. It was written at the request of a +friend to be shown privately, and its "Protectorate" idea, sprung from a +strong sense of the critical nature of the situation, was shaped by the +actual circumstances of the time. The time was about a month before the +entrance of Roumania into the war, and though, honestly, I had seen +already the shadow of coming events I could not permit my misgivings to +enter into and destroy the structure of my plan. I still believe that +there was some sense in it. It may certainly be charged with the +appearance of lack of faith and it lays itself open to the throwing of +many stones; but my object was practical and I had to consider warily the +preconceived notions of the people to whom it was implicitly addressed, +and also their unjustifiable hopes. They were unjustifiable, but who was +to tell them that? I mean who was wise enough and convincing enough to +show them the inanity of their mental attitude? The whole atmosphere was +poisoned with visions that were not so much false as simply impossible. +They were also the result of vague and unconfessed fears, and that made +their strength. For myself, with a very definite dread in my heart, I +was careful not to allude to their character because I did not want the +Note to be thrown away unread. And then I had to remember that the +impossible has sometimes the trick of coming to pass to the confusion of +minds and often to the crushing of hearts. + +Of the other papers I have nothing special to say. They are what they +are, and I am by now too hardened a sinner to feel ashamed of +insignificant indiscretions. And as to their appearance in this form I +claim that indulgence to which all sinners against themselves are +entitled. + +J. C. +1920. + + + + +PART I--LETTERS + + +BOOKS--1905. + + +I. + + +"I have not read this author's books, and if I have read them I have +forgotten what they were about." + +These words are reported as having been uttered in our midst not a +hundred years ago, publicly, from the seat of justice, by a civic +magistrate. The words of our municipal rulers have a solemnity and +importance far above the words of other mortals, because our municipal +rulers more than any other variety of our governors and masters represent +the average wisdom, temperament, sense and virtue of the community. This +generalisation, it ought to be promptly said in the interests of eternal +justice (and recent friendship), does not apply to the United States of +America. There, if one may believe the long and helpless indignations of +their daily and weekly Press, the majority of municipal rulers appear to +be thieves of a particularly irrepressible sort. But this by the way. My +concern is with a statement issuing from the average temperament and the +average wisdom of a great and wealthy community, and uttered by a civic +magistrate obviously without fear and without reproach. + +I confess I am pleased with his temper, which is that of prudence. "I +have not read the books," he says, and immediately he adds, "and if I +have read them I have forgotten." This is excellent caution. And I like +his style: it is unartificial and bears the stamp of manly sincerity. As +a reported piece of prose this declaration is easy to read and not +difficult to believe. Many books have not been read; still more have +been forgotten. As a piece of civic oratory this declaration is +strikingly effective. Calculated to fall in with the bent of the popular +mind, so familiar with all forms of forgetfulness, it has also the power +to stir up a subtle emotion while it starts a train of thought--and what +greater force can be expected from human speech? But it is in +naturalness that this declaration is perfectly delightful, for there is +nothing more natural than for a grave City Father to forget what the +books he has read once--long ago--in his giddy youth maybe--were about. + +And the books in question are novels, or, at any rate, were written as +novels. I proceed thus cautiously (following my illustrious example) +because being without fear and desiring to remain as far as possible +without reproach, I confess at once that I have not read them. + +I have not; and of the million persons or more who are said to have read +them, I never met one yet with the talent of lucid exposition +sufficiently developed to give me a connected account of what they are +about. But they are books, part and parcel of humanity, and as such, in +their ever increasing, jostling multitude, they are worthy of regard, +admiration, and compassion. + +Especially of compassion. It has been said a long time ago that books +have their fate. They have, and it is very much like the destiny of man. +They share with us the great incertitude of ignominy or glory--of severe +justice and senseless persecution--of calumny and misunderstanding--the +shame of undeserved success. Of all the inanimate objects, of all men's +creations, books are the nearest to us, for they contain our very +thought, our ambitions, our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to +truth, and our persistent leaning towards error. But most of all they +resemble us in their precarious hold on life. A bridge constructed +according to the rules of the art of bridge-building is certain of a +long, honourable and useful career. But a book as good in its way as the +bridge may perish obscurely on the very day of its birth. The art of +their creators is not sufficient to give them more than a moment of life. +Of the books born from the restlessness, the inspiration, and the vanity +of human minds, those that the Muses would love best lie more than all +others under the menace of an early death. Sometimes their defects will +save them. Sometimes a book fair to see may--to use a lofty +expression--have no individual soul. Obviously a book of that sort +cannot die. It can only crumble into dust. But the best of books +drawing sustenance from the sympathy and memory of men have lived on the +brink of destruction, for men's memories are short, and their sympathy +is, we must admit, a very fluctuating, unprincipled emotion. + +No secret of eternal life for our books can be found amongst the formulas +of art, any more than for our bodies in a prescribed combination of +drugs. This is not because some books are not worthy of enduring life, +but because the formulas of art are dependent on things variable, +unstable and untrustworthy; on human sympathies, on prejudices, on likes +and dislikes, on the sense of virtue and the sense of propriety, on +beliefs and theories that, indestructible in themselves, always change +their form--often in the lifetime of one fleeting generation. + + +II. + + +Of all books, novels, which the Muses should love, make a serious claim +on our compassion. The art of the novelist is simple. At the same time +it is the most elusive of all creative arts, the most liable to be +obscured by the scruples of its servants and votaries, the one +pre-eminently destined to bring trouble to the mind and the heart of the +artist. After all, the creation of a world is not a small undertaking +except perhaps to the divinely gifted. In truth every novelist must +begin by creating for himself a world, great or little, in which he can +honestly believe. This world cannot be made otherwise than in his own +image: it is fated to remain individual and a little mysterious, and yet +it must resemble something already familiar to the experience, the +thoughts and the sensations of his readers. At the heart of fiction, +even the least worthy of the name, some sort of truth can be found--if +only the truth of a childish theatrical ardour in the game of life, as in +the novels of Dumas the father. But the fair truth of human delicacy can +be found in Mr. Henry James's novels; and the comical, appalling truth of +human rapacity let loose amongst the spoils of existence lives in the +monstrous world created by Balzac. The pursuit of happiness by means +lawful and unlawful, through resignation or revolt, by the clever +manipulation of conventions or by solemn hanging on to the skirts of the +latest scientific theory, is the only theme that can be legitimately +developed by the novelist who is the chronicler of the adventures of +mankind amongst the dangers of the kingdom of the earth. And the kingdom +of this earth itself, the ground upon which his individualities stand, +stumble, or die, must enter into his scheme of faithful record. To +encompass all this in one harmonious conception is a great feat; and even +to attempt it deliberately with serious intention, not from the senseless +prompting of an ignorant heart, is an honourable ambition. For it +requires some courage to step in calmly where fools may be eager to rush. +As a distinguished and successful French novelist once observed of +fiction, "C'est un art _trop_ difficile." + +It is natural that the novelist should doubt his ability to cope with his +task. He imagines it more gigantic than it is. And yet literary +creation being only one of the legitimate forms of human activity has no +value but on the condition of not excluding the fullest recognition of +all the more distinct forms of action. This condition is sometimes +forgotten by the man of letters, who often, especially in his youth, is +inclined to lay a claim of exclusive superiority for his own amongst all +the other tasks of the human mind. The mass of verse and prose may +glimmer here and there with the glow of a divine spark, but in the sum of +human effort it has no special importance. There is no justificative +formula for its existence any more than for any other artistic +achievement. With the rest of them it is destined to be forgotten, +without, perhaps, leaving the faintest trace. Where a novelist has an +advantage over the workers in other fields of thought is in his privilege +of freedom--the freedom of expression and the freedom of confessing his +innermost beliefs--which should console him for the hard slavery of the +pen. + + +III. + + +Liberty of imagination should be the most precious possession of a +novelist. To try voluntarily to discover the fettering dogmas of some +romantic, realistic, or naturalistic creed in the free work of its own +inspiration, is a trick worthy of human perverseness which, after +inventing an absurdity, endeavours to find for it a pedigree of +distinguished ancestors. It is a weakness of inferior minds when it is +not the cunning device of those who, uncertain of their talent, would +seek to add lustre to it by the authority of a school. Such, for +instance, are the high priests who have proclaimed Stendhal for a prophet +of Naturalism. But Stendhal himself would have accepted no limitation of +his freedom. Stendhal's mind was of the first order. His spirit above +must be raging with a peculiarly Stendhalesque scorn and indignation. For +the truth is that more than one kind of intellectual cowardice hides +behind the literary formulas. And Stendhal was pre-eminently courageous. +He wrote his two great novels, which so few people have read, in a spirit +of fearless liberty. + +It must not be supposed that I claim for the artist in fiction the +freedom of moral Nihilism. I would require from him many acts of faith +of which the first would be the cherishing of an undying hope; and hope, +it will not be contested, implies all the piety of effort and +renunciation. It is the God-sent form of trust in the magic force and +inspiration belonging to the life of this earth. We are inclined to +forget that the way of excellence is in the intellectual, as +distinguished from emotional, humility. What one feels so hopelessly +barren in declared pessimism is just its arrogance. It seems as if the +discovery made by many men at various times that there is much evil in +the world were a source of proud and unholy joy unto some of the modern +writers. That frame of mind is not the proper one in which to approach +seriously the art of fiction. It gives an author--goodness only knows +why--an elated sense of his own superiority. And there is nothing more +dangerous than such an elation to that absolute loyalty towards his +feelings and sensations an author should keep hold of in his most exalted +moments of creation. + +To be hopeful in an artistic sense it is not necessary to think that the +world is good. It is enough to believe that there is no impossibility of +its being made so. If the flight of imaginative thought may be allowed +to rise superior to many moralities current amongst mankind, a novelist +who would think himself of a superior essence to other men would miss the +first condition of his calling. To have the gift of words is no such +great matter. A man furnished with a long-range weapon does not become a +hunter or a warrior by the mere possession of a fire-arm; many other +qualities of character and temperament are necessary to make him either +one or the other. Of him from whose armoury of phrases one in a hundred +thousand may perhaps hit the far-distant and elusive mark of art I would +ask that in his dealings with mankind he should be capable of giving a +tender recognition to their obscure virtues. I would not have him +impatient with their small failings and scornful of their errors. I +would not have him expect too much gratitude from that humanity whose +fate, as illustrated in individuals, it is open to him to depict as +ridiculous or terrible. I would wish him to look with a large +forgiveness at men's ideas and prejudices, which are by no means the +outcome of malevolence, but depend on their education, their social +status, even their professions. The good artist should expect no +recognition of his toil and no admiration of his genius, because his toil +can with difficulty be appraised and his genius cannot possibly mean +anything to the illiterate who, even from the dreadful wisdom of their +evoked dead, have, so far, culled nothing but inanities and platitudes. I +would wish him to enlarge his sympathies by patient and loving +observation while he grows in mental power. It is in the impartial +practice of life, if anywhere, that the promise of perfection for his art +can be found, rather than in the absurd formulas trying to prescribe this +or that particular method of technique or conception. Let him mature the +strength of his imagination amongst the things of this earth, which it is +his business to cherish and know, and refrain from calling down his +inspiration ready-made from some heaven of perfections of which he knows +nothing. And I would not grudge him the proud illusion that will come +sometimes to a writer: the illusion that his achievement has almost +equalled the greatness of his dream. For what else could give him the +serenity and the force to hug to his breast as a thing delightful and +human, the virtue, the rectitude and sagacity of his own City, declaring +with simple eloquence through the mouth of a Conscript Father: "I have +not read this author's books, and if I have read them I have forgotten +. . ." + + + +HENRY JAMES--AN APPRECIATION--1905 + + +The critical faculty hesitates before the magnitude of Mr. Henry James's +work. His books stand on my shelves in a place whose accessibility +proclaims the habit of frequent communion. But not all his books. There +is no collected edition to date, such as some of "our masters" have been +provided with; no neat rows of volumes in buckram or half calf, putting +forth a hasty claim to completeness, and conveying to my mind a hint of +finality, of a surrender to fate of that field in which all these +victories have been won. Nothing of the sort has been done for Mr. Henry +James's victories in England. + +In a world such as ours, so painful with all sorts of wonders, one would +not exhaust oneself in barren marvelling over mere bindings, had not the +fact, or rather the absence of the material fact, prominent in the case +of other men whose writing counts, (for good or evil)--had it not been, I +say, expressive of a direct truth spiritual and intellectual; an accident +of--I suppose--the publishing business acquiring a symbolic meaning from +its negative nature. Because, emphatically, in the body of Mr. Henry +James's work there is no suggestion of finality, nowhere a hint of +surrender, or even of probability of surrender, to his own victorious +achievement in that field where he is a master. Happily, he will never +be able to claim completeness; and, were he to confess to it in a moment +of self-ignorance, he would not be believed by the very minds for whom +such a confession naturally would be meant. It is impossible to think of +Mr. Henry James becoming "complete" otherwise than by the brutality of +our common fate whose finality is meaningless--in the sense of its logic +being of a material order, the logic of a falling stone. + +I do not know into what brand of ink Mr. Henry James dips his pen; +indeed, I heard that of late he had been dictating; but I know that his +mind is steeped in the waters flowing from the fountain of intellectual +youth. The thing--a privilege--a miracle--what you will--is not quite +hidden from the meanest of us who run as we read. To those who have the +grace to stay their feet it is manifest. After some twenty years of +attentive acquaintance with Mr. Henry James's work, it grows into +absolute conviction which, all personal feeling apart, brings a sense of +happiness into one's artistic existence. If gratitude, as someone +defined it, is a lively sense of favours to come, it becomes very easy to +be grateful to the author of The Ambassadors--to name the latest of his +works. The favours are sure to come; the spring of that benevolence will +never run dry. The stream of inspiration flows brimful in a +predetermined direction, unaffected by the periods of drought, untroubled +in its clearness by the storms of the land of letters, without languor or +violence in its force, never running back upon itself, opening new +visions at every turn of its course through that richly inhabited country +its fertility has created for our delectation, for our judgment, for our +exploring. It is, in fact, a magic spring. + +With this phrase the metaphor of the perennial spring, of the +inextinguishable youth, of running waters, as applied to Mr. Henry +James's inspiration, may be dropped. In its volume and force the body of +his work may be compared rather to a majestic river. All creative art is +magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms persuasive, enlightening, +familiar and surprising, for the edification of mankind, pinned down by +the conditions of its existence to the earnest consideration of the most +insignificant tides of reality. + +Action in its essence, the creative art of a writer of fiction may be +compared to rescue work carried out in darkness against cross gusts of +wind swaying the action of a great multitude. It is rescue work, this +snatching of vanishing phases of turbulence, disguised in fair words, out +of the native obscurity into a light where the struggling forms may be +seen, seized upon, endowed with the only possible form of permanence in +this world of relative values--the permanence of memory. And the +multitude feels it obscurely too; since the demand of the individual to +the artist is, in effect, the cry, "Take me out of myself!" meaning +really, out of my perishable activity into the light of imperishable +consciousness. But everything is relative, and the light of +consciousness is only enduring, merely the most enduring of the things of +this earth, imperishable only as against the short-lived work of our +industrious hands. + +When the last aqueduct shall have crumbled to pieces, the last airship +fallen to the ground, the last blade of grass have died upon a dying +earth, man, indomitable by his training in resistance to misery and pain, +shall set this undiminished light of his eyes against the feeble glow of +the sun. The artistic faculty, of which each of us has a minute grain, +may find its voice in some individual of that last group, gifted with a +power of expression and courageous enough to interpret the ultimate +experience of mankind in terms of his temperament, in terms of art. I do +not mean to say that he would attempt to beguile the last moments of +humanity by an ingenious tale. It would be too much to expect--from +humanity. I doubt the heroism of the hearers. As to the heroism of the +artist, no doubt is necessary. There would be on his part no heroism. +The artist in his calling of interpreter creates (the clearest form of +demonstration) because he must. He is so much of a voice that, for him, +silence is like death; and the postulate was, that there is a group +alive, clustered on his threshold to watch the last flicker of light on a +black sky, to hear the last word uttered in the stilled workshop of the +earth. It is safe to affirm that, if anybody, it will be the imaginative +man who would be moved to speak on the eve of that day without +to-morrow--whether in austere exhortation or in a phrase of sardonic +comment, who can guess? + +For my own part, from a short and cursory acquaintance with my kind, I am +inclined to think that the last utterance will formulate, strange as it +may appear, some hope now to us utterly inconceivable. For mankind is +delightful in its pride, its assurance, and its indomitable tenacity. It +will sleep on the battlefield among its own dead, in the manner of an +army having won a barren victory. It will not know when it is beaten. +And perhaps it is right in that quality. The victories are not, perhaps, +so barren as it may appear from a purely strategical, utilitarian point +of view. Mr. Henry James seems to hold that belief. Nobody has rendered +better, perhaps, the tenacity of temper, or known how to drape the robe +of spiritual honour about the drooping form of a victor in a barren +strife. And the honour is always well won; for the struggles Mr. Henry +James chronicles with such subtle and direct insight are, though only +personal contests, desperate in their silence, none the less heroic (in +the modern sense) for the absence of shouted watchwords, clash of arms +and sound of trumpets. Those are adventures in which only choice souls +are ever involved. And Mr. Henry James records them with a fearless and +insistent fidelity to the _peripeties_ of the contest, and the feelings +of the combatants. + +The fiercest excitements of a romance _de cape et d'epee_, the romance of +yard-arm and boarding pike so dear to youth, whose knowledge of action +(as of other things) is imperfect and limited, are matched, for the +quickening of our maturer years, by the tasks set, by the difficulties +presented, to the sense of truth, of necessity--before all, of conduct--of +Mr. Henry James's men and women. His mankind is delightful. It is +delightful in its tenacity; it refuses to own itself beaten; it will +sleep on the battlefield. These warlike images come by themselves under +the pen; since from the duality of man's nature and the competition of +individuals, the life-history of the earth must in the last instance be a +history of a really very relentless warfare. Neither his fellows, nor +his gods, nor his passions will leave a man alone. In virtue of these +allies and enemies, he holds his precarious dominion, he possesses his +fleeting significance; and it is this relation in all its manifestations, +great and little, superficial or profound, and this relation alone, that +is commented upon, interpreted, demonstrated by the art of the novelist +in the only possible way in which the task can be performed: by the +independent creation of circumstance and character, achieved against all +the difficulties of expression, in an imaginative effort finding its +inspiration from the reality of forms and sensations. That a sacrifice +must be made, that something has to be given up, is the truth engraved in +the innermost recesses of the fair temple built for our edification by +the masters of fiction. There is no other secret behind the curtain. All +adventure, all love, every success is resumed in the supreme energy of an +act of renunciation. It is the uttermost limit of our power; it is the +most potent and effective force at our disposal on which rest the labours +of a solitary man in his study, the rock on which have been built +commonwealths whose might casts a dwarfing shadow upon two oceans. Like +a natural force which is obscured as much as illuminated by the +multiplicity of phenomena, the power of renunciation is obscured by the +mass of weaknesses, vacillations, secondary motives and false steps and +compromises which make up the sum of our activity. But no man or woman +worthy of the name can pretend to anything more, to anything greater. And +Mr. Henry James's men and women are worthy of the name, within the limits +his art, so clear, so sure of itself, has drawn round their activities. +He would be the last to claim for them Titanic proportions. The earth +itself has grown smaller in the course of ages. But in every sphere of +human perplexities and emotions, there are more greatnesses than one--not +counting here the greatness of the artist himself. Wherever he stands, +at the beginning or the end of things, a man has to sacrifice his gods to +his passions, or his passions to his gods. That is the problem, great +enough, in all truth, if approached in the spirit of sincerity and +knowledge. + +In one of his critical studies, published some fifteen years ago, Mr. +Henry James claims for the novelist the standing of the historian as the +only adequate one, as for himself and before his audience. I think that +the claim cannot be contested, and that the position is unassailable. +Fiction is history, human history, or it is nothing. But it is also more +than that; it stands on firmer ground, being based on the reality of +forms and the observation of social phenomena, whereas history is based +on documents, and the reading of print and handwriting--on second-hand +impression. Thus fiction is nearer truth. But let that pass. A +historian may be an artist too, and a novelist is a historian, the +preserver, the keeper, the expounder, of human experience. As is meet +for a man of his descent and tradition, Mr. Henry James is the historian +of fine consciences. + +Of course, this is a general statement; but I don't think its truth will +be, or can be questioned. Its fault is that it leaves so much out; and, +besides, Mr. Henry James is much too considerable to be put into the +nutshell of a phrase. The fact remains that he has made his choice, and +that his choice is justified up to the hilt by the success of his art. He +has taken for himself the greater part. The range of a fine conscience +covers more good and evil than the range of conscience which may be +called, roughly, not fine; a conscience, less troubled by the nice +discrimination of shades of conduct. A fine conscience is more concerned +with essentials; its triumphs are more perfect, if less profitable, in a +worldly sense. There is, in short, more truth in its working for a +historian to detect and to show. It is a thing of infinite complication +and suggestion. None of these escapes the art of Mr. Henry James. He +has mastered the country, his domain, not wild indeed, but full of +romantic glimpses, of deep shadows and sunny places. There are no +secrets left within his range. He has disclosed them as they should be +disclosed--that is, beautifully. And, indeed, ugliness has but little +place in this world of his creation. Yet, it is always felt in the +truthfulness of his art; it is there, it surrounds the scene, it presses +close upon it. It is made visible, tangible, in the struggles, in the +contacts of the fine consciences, in their perplexities, in the sophism +of their mistakes. For a fine conscience is naturally a virtuous one. +What is natural about it is just its fineness, an abiding sense of the +intangible, ever-present, right. It is most visible in their ultimate +triumph, in their emergence from miracle, through an energetic act of +renunciation. Energetic, not violent: the distinction is wide, enormous, +like that between substance and shadow. + +Through it all Mr. Henry James keeps a firm hold of the substance, of +what is worth having, of what is worth holding. The contrary opinion has +been, if not absolutely affirmed, then at least implied, with some +frequency. To most of us, living willingly in a sort of intellectual +moonlight, in the faintly reflected light of truth, the shadows so firmly +renounced by Mr. Henry James's men and women, stand out endowed with +extraordinary value, with a value so extraordinary that their rejection +offends, by its uncalled-for scrupulousness, those business-like +instincts which a careful Providence has implanted in our breasts. And, +apart from that just cause of discontent, it is obvious that a solution +by rejection must always present a certain lack of finality, especially +startling when contrasted with the usual methods of solution by rewards +and punishments, by crowned love, by fortune, by a broken leg or a sudden +death. Why the reading public which, as a body, has never laid upon a +story-teller the command to be an artist, should demand from him this +sham of Divine Omnipotence, is utterly incomprehensible. But so it is; +and these solutions are legitimate inasmuch as they satisfy the desire +for finality, for which our hearts yearn with a longing greater than the +longing for the loaves and fishes of this earth. Perhaps the only true +desire of mankind, coming thus to light in its hours of leisure, is to be +set at rest. One is never set at rest by Mr. Henry James's novels. His +books end as an episode in life ends. You remain with the sense of the +life still going on; and even the subtle presence of the dead is felt in +that silence that comes upon the artist-creation when the last word has +been read. It is eminently satisfying, but it is not final. Mr. Henry +James, great artist and faithful historian, never attempts the +impossible. + + + +ALPHONSE DAUDET--1898 + + +It is sweet to talk decorously of the dead who are part of our past, our +indisputable possession. One must admit regretfully that to-day is but a +scramble, that to-morrow may never come; it is only the precious +yesterday that cannot be taken away from us. A gift from the dead, great +and little, it makes life supportable, it almost makes one believe in a +benevolent scheme of creation. And some kind of belief is very +necessary. But the real knowledge of matters infinitely more profound +than any conceivable scheme of creation is with the dead alone. That is +why our talk about them should be as decorous as their silence. Their +generosity and their discretion deserve nothing less at our hands; and +they, who belong already to the unchangeable, would probably disdain to +claim more than this from a mankind that changes its loves and its hates +about every twenty-five years--at the coming of every new and wiser +generation. + +One of the most generous of the dead is Daudet, who, with a prodigality +approaching magnificence, gave himself up to us without reserve in his +work, with all his qualities and all his faults. Neither his qualities +nor his faults were great, though they were by no means imperceptible. It +is only his generosity that is out of the common. What strikes one most +in his work is the disinterestedness of the toiler. With more talent +than many bigger men, he did not preach about himself, he did not attempt +to persuade mankind into a belief of his own greatness. He never posed +as a scientist or as a seer, not even as a prophet; and he neglected his +interests to the point of never propounding a theory for the purpose of +giving a tremendous significance to his art, alone of all things, in a +world that, by some strange oversight, has not been supplied with an +obvious meaning. Neither did he affect a passive attitude before the +spectacle of life, an attitude which in gods--and in a rare mortal here +and there--may appear godlike, but assumed by some men, causes one, very +unwillingly, to think of the melancholy quietude of an ape. He was not +the wearisome expounder of this or that theory, here to-day and spurned +to-morrow. He was not a great artist, he was not an artist at all, if +you like--but he was Alphonse Daudet, a man as naively clear, honest, and +vibrating as the sunshine of his native land; that regrettably +undiscriminating sunshine which matures grapes and pumpkins alike, and +cannot, of course, obtain the commendation of the very select who look at +life from under a parasol. + +Naturally, being a man from the South, he had a rather outspoken belief +in himself, but his small distinction, worth many a greater, was in not +being in bondage to some vanishing creed. He was a worker who could not +compel the admiration of the few, but who deserved the affection of the +many; and he may be spoken of with tenderness and regret, for he is not +immortal--he is only dead. During his life the simple man whose business +it ought to have been to climb, in the name of Art, some elevation or +other, was content to remain below, on the plain, amongst his creations, +and take an eager part in those disasters, weaknesses, and joys which are +tragic enough in their droll way, but are by no means so momentous and +profound as some writers--probably for the sake of Art--would like to +make us believe. There is, when one thinks of it, a considerable want of +candour in the august view of life. Without doubt a cautious reticence +on the subject, or even a delicately false suggestion thrown out in that +direction is, in a way, praiseworthy, since it helps to uphold the +dignity of man--a matter of great importance, as anyone can see; still +one cannot help feeling that a certain amount of sincerity would not be +wholly blamable. To state, then, with studied moderation a belief that +in unfortunate moments of lucidity is irresistibly borne in upon most of +us--the blind agitation caused mostly by hunger and complicated by love +and ferocity does not deserve either by its beauty, or its morality, or +its possible results, the artistic fuss made over it. It may be +consoling--for human folly is very _bizarre_--but it is scarcely honest +to shout at those who struggle drowning in an insignificant pool: You are +indeed admirable and great to be the victims of such a profound, of such +a terrible ocean! + +And Daudet was honest; perhaps because he knew no better--but he was very +honest. If he saw only the surface of things it is for the reason that +most things have nothing but a surface. He did not pretend--perhaps +because he did not know how--he did not pretend to see any depths in a +life that is only a film of unsteady appearances stretched over regions +deep indeed, but which have nothing to do with the half-truths, +half-thoughts, and whole illusions of existence. The road to these +distant regions does not lie through the domain of Art or the domain of +Science where well-known voices quarrel noisily in a misty emptiness; it +is a path of toilsome silence upon which travel men simple and unknown, +with closed lips, or, maybe, whispering their pain softly--only to +themselves. + +But Daudet did not whisper; he spoke loudly, with animation, with a clear +felicity of tone--as a bird sings. He saw life around him with extreme +clearness, and he felt it as it is--thinner than air and more elusive +than a flash of lightning. He hastened to offer it his compassion, his +indignation, his wonder, his sympathy, without giving a moment of thought +to the momentous issues that are supposed to lurk in the logic of such +sentiments. He tolerated the little foibles, the small ruffianisms, the +grave mistakes; the only thing he distinctly would not forgive was +hardness of heart. This unpractical attitude would have been fatal to a +better man, but his readers have forgiven him. Withal he is chivalrous +to exiled queens and deformed sempstresses, he is pityingly tender to +broken-down actors, to ruined gentlemen, to stupid Academicians; he is +glad of the joys of the commonplace people in a commonplace way--and he +never makes a secret of all this. No, the man was not an artist. What +if his creations are illumined by the sunshine of his temperament so +vividly that they stand before us infinitely more real than the dingy +illusions surrounding our everyday existence? The misguided man is for +ever pottering amongst them, lifting up his voice, dotting his i's in the +wrong places. He takes Tartarin by the arm, he does not conceal his +interest in the Nabob's cheques, his sympathy for an honest Academician +_plus bete que nature_, his hate for an architect _plus mauvais que la +gale_; he is in the thick of it all. He feels with the Duc de Mora and +with Felicia Ruys--and he lets you see it. He does not sit on a pedestal +in the hieratic and imbecile pose of some cheap god whose greatness +consists in being too stupid to care. He cares immensely for his Nabobs, +his kings, his book-keepers, his Colettes, and his Saphos. He vibrates +together with his universe, and with lamentable simplicity follows M. de +Montpavon on that last walk along the Boulevards. + +"Monsieur de Montpavon marche a la mort," and the creator of that unlucky +_gentilhomme_ follows with stealthy footsteps, with wide eyes, with an +impressively pointing finger. And who wouldn't look? But it is hard; it +is sometimes very hard to forgive him the dotted i's, the pointing +finger, this making plain of obvious mysteries. "Monsieur de Montpavon +marche a la mort," and presently, on the crowded pavement, takes off his +hat with punctilious courtesy to the doctor's wife, who, elegant and +unhappy, is bound on the same pilgrimage. This is too much! We feel we +cannot forgive him such meetings, the constant whisper of his presence. +We feel we cannot, till suddenly the very _naivete_ of it all touches us +with the revealed suggestion of a truth. Then we see that the man is not +false; all this is done in transparent good faith. The man is not +melodramatic; he is only picturesque. He may not be an artist, but he +comes as near the truth as some of the greatest. His creations are seen; +you can look into their very eyes, and these are as thoughtless as the +eyes of any wise generation that has in its hands the fame of writers. +Yes, they are _seen_, and the man who is not an artist is seen also +commiserating, indignant, joyous, human and alive in their very midst. +Inevitably they _marchent a la mort_--and they are very near the truth of +our common destiny: their fate is poignant, it is intensely interesting, +and of not the slightest consequence. + + + +GUY DE MAUPASSANT--1904 {1} + + +To introduce Maupassant to English readers with apologetic explanations +as though his art were recondite and the tendency of his work immoral +would be a gratuitous impertinence. + +Maupassant's conception of his art is such as one would expect from a +practical and resolute mind; but in the consummate simplicity of his +technique it ceases to be perceptible. This is one of its greatest +qualities, and like all the great virtues it is based primarily on self- +denial. + +To pronounce a judgment upon the general tendency of an author is a +difficult task. One could not depend upon reason alone, nor yet trust +solely to one's emotions. Used together, they would in many cases +traverse each other, because emotions have their own unanswerable logic. +Our capacity for emotion is limited, and the field of our intelligence is +restricted. Responsiveness to every feeling, combined with the +penetration of every intellectual subterfuge, would end, not in judgment, +but in universal absolution. _Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner_. And +in this benevolent neutrality towards the warring errors of human nature +all light would go out from art and from life. + +We are at liberty then to quarrel with Maupassant's attitude towards our +world in which, like the rest of us, he has that share which his senses +are able to give him. But we need not quarrel with him violently. If +our feelings (which are tender) happen to be hurt because his talent is +not exercised for the praise and consolation of mankind, our intelligence +(which is great) should let us see that he is a very splendid sinner, +like all those who in this valley of compromises err by over-devotion to +the truth that is in them. His determinism, barren of praise, blame and +consolation, has all the merit of his conscientious art. The worth of +every conviction consists precisely in the steadfastness with which it is +held. + +Except for his philosophy, which in the case of so consummate an artist +does not matter (unless to the solemn and naive mind), Maupassant of all +writers of fiction demands least forgiveness from his readers. He does +not require forgiveness because he is never dull. + +The interest of a reader in a work of imagination is either ethical or +that of simple curiosity. Both are perfectly legitimate, since there is +both a moral and an excitement to be found in a faithful rendering of +life. And in Maupassant's work there is the interest of curiosity and +the moral of a point of view consistently preserved and never obtruded +for the end of personal gratification. The spectacle of this immense +talent served by exceptional faculties and triumphing over the most +thankless subjects by an unswerving singleness of purpose is in itself an +admirable lesson in the power of artistic honesty, one may say of +artistic virtue. The inherent greatness of the man consists in this, +that he will let none of the fascinations that beset a writer working in +loneliness turn him away from the straight path, from the vouchsafed +vision of excellence. He will not be led into perdition by the +seductions of sentiment, of eloquence, of humour, of pathos; of all that +splendid pageant of faults that pass between the writer and his probity +on the blank sheet of paper, like the glittering cortege of deadly sins +before the austere anchorite in the desert air of Thebaide. This is not +to say that Maupassant's austerity has never faltered; but the fact +remains that no tempting demon has ever succeeded in hurling him down +from his high, if narrow, pedestal. + +It is the austerity of his talent, of course, that is in question. Let +the discriminating reader, who at times may well spare a moment or two to +the consideration and enjoyment of artistic excellence, be asked to +reflect a little upon the texture of two stories included in this volume: +"A Piece of String," and "A Sale." How many openings the last offers for +the gratuitous display of the author's wit or clever buffoonery, the +first for an unmeasured display of sentiment! And both sentiment and +buffoonery could have been made very good too, in a way accessible to the +meanest intelligence, at the cost of truth and honesty. Here it is where +Maupassant's austerity comes in. He refrains from setting his cleverness +against the eloquence of the facts. There is humour and pathos in these +stories; but such is the greatness of his talent, the refinement of his +artistic conscience, that all his high qualities appear inherent in the +very things of which he speaks, as if they had been altogether +independent of his presentation. Facts, and again facts are his unique +concern. That is why he is not always properly understood. His facts +are so perfectly rendered that, like the actualities of life itself, they +demand from the reader the faculty of observation which is rare, the +power of appreciation which is generally wanting in most of us who are +guided mainly by empty phrases requiring no effort, demanding from us no +qualities except a vague susceptibility to emotion. Nobody has ever +gained the vast applause of a crowd by the simple and clear exposition of +vital facts. Words alone strung upon a convention have fascinated us as +worthless glass beads strung on a thread have charmed at all times our +brothers the unsophisticated savages of the islands. Now, Maupassant, of +whom it has been said that he is the master of the _mot juste_, has never +been a dealer in words. His wares have been, not glass beads, but +polished gems; not the most rare and precious, perhaps, but of the very +first water of their kind. + +That he took trouble with his gems, taking them up in the rough and +polishing each facet patiently, the publication of the two posthumous +volumes of short stories proves abundantly. I think it proves also the +assertion made here that he was by no means a dealer in words. On +looking at the first feeble drafts from which so many perfect stories +have been fashioned, one discovers that what has been matured, improved, +brought to perfection by unwearied endeavour is not the diction of the +tale, but the vision of its true shape and detail. Those first attempts +are not faltering or uncertain in expression. It is the conception which +is at fault. The subjects have not yet been adequately seen. His +proceeding was not to group expressive words, that mean nothing, around +misty and mysterious shapes dear to muddled intellects and belonging +neither to earth nor to heaven. His vision by a more scrupulous, +prolonged and devoted attention to the aspects of the visible world +discovered at last the right words as if miraculously impressed for him +upon the face of things and events. This was the particular shape taken +by his inspiration; it came to him directly, honestly in the light of his +day, not on the tortuous, dark roads of meditation. His realities came +to him from a genuine source, from this universe of vain appearances +wherein we men have found everything to make us proud, sorry, exalted, +and humble. + +Maupassant's renown is universal, but his popularity is restricted. It +is not difficult to perceive why. Maupassant is an intensely national +writer. He is so intensely national in his logic, in his clearness, in +his aesthetic and moral conceptions, that he has been accepted by his +countrymen without having had to pay the tribute of flattery either to +the nation as a whole, or to any class, sphere or division of the nation. +The truth of his art tells with an irresistible force; and he stands +excused from the duty of patriotic posturing. He is a Frenchman of +Frenchmen beyond question or cavil, and with that he is simple enough to +be universally comprehensible. What is wanting to his universal success +is the mediocrity of an obvious and appealing tenderness. He neglects to +qualify his truth with the drop of facile sweetness; he forgets to strew +paper roses over the tombs. The disregard of these common decencies lays +him open to the charges of cruelty, cynicism, hardness. And yet it can +be safely affirmed that this man wrote from the fulness of a +compassionate heart. He is merciless and yet gentle with his mankind; he +does not rail at their prudent fears and their small artifices; he does +not despise their labours. It seems to me that he looks with an eye of +profound pity upon their troubles, deceptions and misery. But he looks +at them all. He sees--and does not turn away his head. As a matter of +fact he is courageous. + +Courage and justice are not popular virtues. The practice of strict +justice is shocking to the multitude who always (perhaps from an obscure +sense of guilt) attach to it the meaning of mercy. In the majority of +us, who want to be left alone with our illusions, courage inspires a +vague alarm. This is what is felt about Maupassant. His qualities, to +use the charming and popular phrase, are not lovable. Courage being a +force will not masquerade in the robes of affected delicacy and +restraint. But if his courage is not of a chivalrous stamp, it cannot be +denied that it is never brutal for the sake of effect. The writer of +these few reflections, inspired by a long and intimate acquaintance with +the work of the man, has been struck by the appreciation of Maupassant +manifested by many women gifted with tenderness and intelligence. Their +more delicate and audacious souls are good judges of courage. Their +finer penetration has discovered his genuine masculinity without display, +his virility without a pose. They have discerned in his faithful +dealings with the world that enterprising and fearless temperament, poor +in ideas but rich in power, which appeals most to the feminine mind. + +It cannot be denied that he thinks very little. In him extreme energy of +perception achieves great results, as in men of action the energy of +force and desire. His view of intellectual problems is perhaps more +simple than their nature warrants; still a man who has written _Yvette_ +cannot be accused of want of subtlety. But one cannot insist enough upon +this, that his subtlety, his humour, his grimness, though no doubt they +are his own, are never presented otherwise but as belonging to our life, +as found in nature, whose beauties and cruelties alike breathe the spirit +of serene unconsciousness. + +Maupassant's philosophy of life is more temperamental than rational. He +expects nothing from gods or men. He trusts his senses for information +and his instinct for deductions. It may seem that he has made but little +use of his mind. But let me be clearly understood. His sensibility is +really very great; and it is impossible to be sensible, unless one thinks +vividly, unless one thinks correctly, starting from intelligible premises +to an unsophisticated conclusion. + +This is literary honesty. It may be remarked that it does not differ +very greatly from the ideal honesty of the respectable majority, from the +honesty of law-givers, of warriors, of kings, of bricklayers, of all +those who express their fundamental sentiment in the ordinary course of +their activities, by the work of their hands. + +The work of Maupassant's hands is honest. He thinks sufficiently to +concrete his fearless conclusions in illuminative instances. He renders +them with that exact knowledge of the means and that absolute devotion to +the aim of creating a true effect--which is art. He is the most +accomplished of narrators. + +It is evident that Maupassant looked upon his mankind in another spirit +than those writers who make haste to submerge the difficulties of our +holding-place in the universe under a flood of false and sentimental +assumptions. Maupassant was a true and dutiful lover of our earth. He +says himself in one of his descriptive passages: "Nous autres que seduit +la terre . . ." It was true. The earth had for him a compelling charm. +He looks upon her august and furrowed face with the fierce insight of +real passion. His is the power of detecting the one immutable quality +that matters in the changing aspects of nature and under the +ever-shifting surface of life. To say that he could not embrace in his +glance all its magnificence and all its misery is only to say that he was +human. He lays claim to nothing that his matchless vision has not made +his own. This creative artist has the true imagination; he never +condescends to invent anything; he sets up no empty pretences. And he +stoops to no littleness in his art--least of all to the miserable vanity +of a catching phrase. + + + +ANATOLE FRANCE--1904 + + +I.--"CRAINQUEBILLE" + + +The latest volume of M. Anatole France purports, by the declaration of +its title-page, to contain several profitable narratives. The story of +Crainquebille's encounter with human justice stands at the head of them; +a tale of a well-bestowed charity closes the book with the touch of +playful irony characteristic of the writer on whom the most distinguished +amongst his literary countrymen have conferred the rank of Prince of +Prose. + +Never has a dignity been better borne. M. Anatole France is a good +prince. He knows nothing of tyranny but much of compassion. The +detachment of his mind from common errors and current superstitions +befits the exalted rank he holds in the Commonwealth of Literature. It +is just to suppose that the clamour of the tribes in the forum had little +to do with his elevation. Their elect are of another stamp. They are +such as their need of precipitate action requires. He is the Elect of +the Senate--the Senate of Letters--whose Conscript Fathers have +recognised him as _primus inter pares_; a post of pure honour and of no +privilege. + +It is a good choice. First, because it is just, and next, because it is +safe. The dignity will suffer no diminution in M. Anatole France's +hands. He is worthy of a great tradition, learned in the lessons of the +past, concerned with the present, and as earnest as to the future as a +good prince should be in his public action. It is a Republican dignity. +And M. Anatole France, with his sceptical insight into an forms of +government, is a good Republican. He is indulgent to the weaknesses of +the people, and perceives that political institutions, whether contrived +by the wisdom of the few or the ignorance of the many, are incapable of +securing the happiness of mankind. He perceives this truth in the +serenity of his soul and in the elevation of his mind. He expresses his +convictions with measure, restraint and harmony, which are indeed +princely qualities. He is a great analyst of illusions. He searches and +probes their innermost recesses as if they were realities made of an +eternal substance. And therein consists his humanity; this is the +expression of his profound and unalterable compassion. He will flatter +no tribe no section in the forum or in the market-place. His lucid +thought is not beguiled into false pity or into the common weakness of +affection. He feels that men born in ignorance as in the house of an +enemy, and condemned to struggle with error and passions through endless +centuries, should be spared the supreme cruelty of a hope for ever +deferred. He knows that our best hopes are irrealisable; that it is the +almost incredible misfortune of mankind, but also its highest privilege, +to aspire towards the impossible; that men have never failed to defeat +their highest aims by the very strength of their humanity which can +conceive the most gigantic tasks but leaves them disarmed before their +irremediable littleness. He knows this well because he is an artist and +a master; but he knows, too, that only in the continuity of effort there +is a refuge from despair for minds less clear-seeing and philosophic than +his own. Therefore he wishes us to believe and to hope, preserving in +our activity the consoling illusion of power and intelligent purpose. He +is a good and politic prince. + +"The majesty of justice is contained entire in each sentence pronounced +by the judge in the name of the sovereign people. Jerome Crainquebille, +hawker of vegetables, became aware of the august aspect of the law as he +stood indicted before the tribunal of the higher Police Court on a charge +of insulting a constable of the force." With this exposition begins the +first tale of M. Anatole France's latest volume. + +The bust of the Republic and the image of the Crucified Christ appear +side by side above the bench occupied by the President Bourriche and his +two Assessors; all the laws divine and human are suspended over the head +of Crainquebille. + +From the first visual impression of the accused and of the court the +author passes by a characteristic and natural turn to the historical and +moral significance of those two emblems of State and Religion whose +accord is only possible to the confused reasoning of an average man. But +the reasoning of M. Anatole France is never confused. His reasoning is +clear and informed by a profound erudition. Such is not the case of +Crainquebille, a street hawker, charged with insulting the constituted +power of society in the person of a policeman. The charge is not true, +nothing was further from his thoughts; but, amazed by the novelty of his +position, he does not reflect that the Cross on the wall perpetuates the +memory of a sentence which for nineteen hundred years all the Christian +peoples have looked upon as a grave miscarriage of justice. He might +well have challenged the President to pronounce any sort of sentence, if +it were merely to forty-eight hours of simple imprisonment, in the name +of the Crucified Redeemer. + +He might have done so. But Crainquebille, who has lived pushing every +day for half a century his hand-barrow loaded with vegetables through the +streets of Paris, has not a philosophic mind. Truth to say he has +nothing. He is one of the disinherited. Properly speaking, he has no +existence at all, or, to be strictly truthful, he had no existence till +M. Anatole France's philosophic mind and human sympathy have called him +up from his nothingness for our pleasure, and, as the title-page of the +book has it, no doubt for our profit also. + +Therefore we behold him in the dock, a stranger to all historical, +political or social considerations which can be brought to bear upon his +case. He remains lost in astonishment. Penetrated with respect, +overwhelmed with awe, he is ready to trust the judge upon the question of +his transgression. In his conscience he does not think himself culpable; +but M. Anatole France's philosophical mind discovers for us that he feels +all the insignificance of such a thing as the conscience of a mere street- +hawker in the face of the symbols of the law and before the ministers of +social repression. Crainquebille is innocent; but already the young +advocate, his defender, has half persuaded him of his guilt. + +On this phrase practically ends the introductory chapter of the story +which, as the author's dedication states, has inspired an admirable +draughtsman and a skilful dramatist, each in his art, to a vision of +tragic grandeur. And this opening chapter without a name--consisting of +two and a half pages, some four hundred words at most--is a masterpiece +of insight and simplicity, resumed in M. Anatole France's distinction of +thought and in his princely command of words. + +It is followed by six more short chapters, concise and full, delicate and +complete like the petals of a flower, presenting to us the Adventure of +Crainquebille--Crainquebille before the justice--An Apology for the +President of the Tribunal--Of the Submission of Crainquebille to the Laws +of the Republic--Of his Attitude before the Public Opinion, and so on to +the chapter of the Last Consequences. We see, created for us in his +outward form and innermost perplexity, the old man degraded from his high +estate of a law-abiding street-hawker and driven to insult, really this +time, the majesty of the social order in the person of another police- +constable. It is not an act of revolt, and still less of revenge. +Crainquebille is too old, too resigned, too weary, too guileless to raise +the black standard of insurrection. He is cold and homeless and +starving. He remembers the warmth and the food of the prison. He +perceives the means to get back there. Since he has been locked up, he +argues with himself, for uttering words which, as a matter of fact he did +not say, he will go forth now, and to the first policeman he meets will +say those very words in order to be imprisoned again. Thus reasons +Crainquebille with simplicity and confidence. He accepts facts. Nothing +surprises him. But all the phenomena of social organisation and of his +own life remain for him mysterious to the end. The description of the +policeman in his short cape and hood, who stands quite still, under the +light of a street lamp at the edge of the pavement shining with the wet +of a rainy autumn evening along the whole extent of a long and deserted +thoroughfare, is a perfect piece of imaginative precision. From under +the edge of the hood his eyes look upon Crainquebille, who has just +uttered in an uncertain voice the sacramental, insulting phrase of the +popular slang--_Mort aux vaches_! They look upon him shining in the deep +shadow of the hood with an expression of sadness, vigilance, and +contempt. + +He does not move. Crainquebille, in a feeble and hesitating voice, +repeats once more the insulting words. But this policeman is full of +philosophic superiority, disdain, and indulgence. He refuses to take in +charge the old and miserable vagabond who stands before him shivering and +ragged in the drizzle. And the ruined Crainquebille, victim of a +ridiculous miscarriage of justice, appalled at this magnanimity, passes +on hopelessly down the street full of shadows where the lamps gleam each +in a ruddy halo of falling mist. + +M. Anatole France can speak for the people. This prince of the Senate is +invested with the tribunitian power. M. Anatole France is something of a +Socialist; and in that respect he seems to depart from his sceptical +philosophy. But as an illustrious statesman, now no more, a great prince +too, with an ironic mind and a literary gift, has sarcastically remarked +in one of his public speeches: "We are all Socialists now." And in the +sense in which it may be said that we all in Europe are Christians that +is true enough. To many of us Socialism is merely an emotion. An +emotion is much and is also less than nothing. It is the initial +impulse. The real Socialism of to-day is a religion. It has its dogmas. +The value of the dogma does not consist in its truthfulness, and M. +Anatole France, who loves truth, does not love dogma. Only, unlike +religion, the cohesive strength of Socialism lies not in its dogmas but +in its ideal. It is perhaps a too materialistic ideal, and the mind of +M. Anatole France may not find in it either comfort or consolation. It +is not to be doubted that he suspects this himself; but there is +something reposeful in the finality of popular conceptions. M. Anatole +France, a good prince and a good Republican, will succeed no doubt in +being a good Socialist. He will disregard the stupidity of the dogma and +the unlovely form of the ideal. His art will find its own beauty in the +imaginative presentation of wrongs, of errors, and miseries that call +aloud for redress. M. Anatole France is humane. He is also human. He +may be able to discard his philosophy; to forget that the evils are many +and the remedies are few, that there is no universal panacea, that +fatality is invincible, that there is an implacable menace of death in +the triumph of the humanitarian idea. He may forget all that because +love is stronger than truth. + +Besides "Crainquebille" this volume contains sixteen other stories and +sketches. To define them it is enough to say that they are written in M. +Anatole France's prose. One sketch entitled "Riquet" may be found +incorporated in the volume of _Monsieur Bergeret a Paris_. "Putois" is a +remarkable little tale, significant, humorous, amusing, and symbolic. It +concerns the career of a man born in the utterance of a hasty and +untruthful excuse made by a lady at a loss how to decline without offence +a very pressing invitation to dinner from a very tyrannical aunt. This +happens in a provincial town, and the lady says in effect: "Impossible, +my dear aunt. To-morrow I am expecting the gardener." And the garden +she glances at is a poor garden; it is a wild garden; its extent is +insignificant and its neglect seems beyond remedy. "A gardener! What +for?" asks the aunt. "To work in the garden." And the poor lady is +abashed at the transparence of her evasion. But the lie is told, it is +believed, and she sticks to it. When the masterful old aunt inquires, +"What is the man's name, my dear?" she answers brazenly, "His name is +Putois." "Where does he live?" "Oh, I don't know; anywhere. He won't +give his address. One leaves a message for him here and there." "Oh! I +see," says the other; "he is a sort of ne'er do well, an idler, a +vagabond. I advise you, my dear, to be careful how you let such a +creature into your grounds; but I have a large garden, and when you do +not want his services I shall find him some work to do, and see he does +it too. Tell your Putois to come and see me." And thereupon Putois is +born; he stalks abroad, invisible, upon his career of vagabondage and +crime, stealing melons from gardens and tea-spoons from pantries, +indulging his licentious proclivities; becoming the talk of the town and +of the countryside; seen simultaneously in far-distant places; pursued by +gendarmes, whose brigadier assures the uneasy householders that he "knows +that scamp very well, and won't be long in laying his hands upon him." A +detailed description of his person collected from the information +furnished by various people appears in the columns of a local newspaper. +Putois lives in his strength and malevolence. He lives after the manner +of legendary heroes, of the gods of Olympus. He is the creation of the +popular mind. There comes a time when even the innocent originator of +that mysterious and potent evil-doer is induced to believe for a moment +that he may have a real and tangible presence. All this is told with the +wit and the art and the philosophy which is familiar to M. Anatole +France's readers and admirers. For it is difficult to read M. Anatole +France without admiring him. He has the princely gift of arousing a +spontaneous loyalty, but with this difference, that the consent of our +reason has its place by the side of our enthusiasm. He is an artist. As +an artist he awakens emotion. The quality of his art remains, as an +inspiration, fascinating and inscrutable; but the proceedings of his +thought compel our intellectual admiration. + +In this volume the trifle called "The Military Manoeuvres at Montil," +apart from its far-reaching irony, embodies incidentally the very spirit +of automobilism. Somehow or other, how you cannot tell, the flight over +the country in a motor-car, its sensations, its fatigue, its vast +topographical range, its incidents down to the bursting of a tyre, are +brought home to you with all the force of high imaginative perception. It +would be out of place to analyse here the means by which the true +impression is conveyed so that the absurd rushing about of General +Decuir, in a 30-horse-power car, in search of his cavalry brigade, +becomes to you a more real experience than any day-and-night run you may +ever have taken yourself. Suffice it to say that M. Anatole France had +thought the thing worth doing and that it becomes, in virtue of his art, +a distinct achievement. And there are other sketches in this book, more +or less slight, but all worthy of regard--the childhood's recollections +of Professor Bergeret and his sister Zoe; the dialogue of the two upright +judges and the conversation of their horses; the dream of M. Jean +Marteau, aimless, extravagant, apocalyptic, and of all the dreams one +ever dreamt, the most essentially dreamlike. The vision of M. Anatole +France, the Prince of Prose, ranges over all the extent of his realm, +indulgent and penetrating, disillusioned and curious, finding treasures +of truth and beauty concealed from less gifted magicians. Contemplating +the exactness of his images and the justice of his judgment, the freedom +of his fancy and the fidelity of his purpose, one becomes aware of the +futility of literary watchwords and the vanity of all the schools of +fiction. Not that M. Anatole France is a wild and untrammelled genius. +He is not that. Issued legitimately from the past, he is mindful of his +high descent. He has a critical temperament joined to creative power. He +surveys his vast domain in a spirit of princely moderation that knows +nothing of excesses but much of restraint. + + +II.--"L'ILE DES PINGOUINS" + + +M. Anatole France, historian and adventurer, has given us many profitable +histories of saints and sinners, of Roman procurators and of officials of +the Third Republic, of _grandes dames_ and of dames not so very grand, of +ornate Latinists and of inarticulate street hawkers, of priests and +generals--in fact, the history of all humanity as it appears to his +penetrating eye, serving a mind marvellously incisive in its scepticism, +and a heart that, of all contemporary hearts gifted with a voice, +contains the greatest treasure of charitable irony. As to M. Anatole +France's adventures, these are well-known. They lie open to this +prodigal world in the four volumes of the _Vie Litteraire_, describing +the adventures of a choice soul amongst masterpieces. For such is the +romantic view M. Anatole France takes of the life of a literary critic. +History and adventure, then, seem to be the chosen fields for the +magnificent evolutions of M. Anatole France's prose; but no material +limits can stand in the way of a genius. The latest book from his +pen--which may be called golden, as the lips of an eloquent saint once +upon a time were acclaimed golden by the faithful--this latest book is, +up to a certain point, a book of travel. + +I would not mislead a public whose confidence I court. The book is not a +record of globe-trotting. I regret it. It would have been a joy to +watch M. Anatole France pouring the clear elixir compounded of his +Pyrrhonic philosophy, his Benedictine erudition, his gentle wit and most +humane irony into such an unpromising and opaque vessel. He would have +attempted it in a spirit of benevolence towards his fellow men and of +compassion for that life of the earth which is but a vain and transitory +illusion. M. Anatole France is a great magician, yet there seem to be +tasks which he dare not face. For he is also a sage. + +It is a book of ocean travel--not, however, as understood by Herr Ballin +of Hamburg, the Machiavel of the Atlantic. It is a book of exploration +and discovery--not, however, as conceived by an enterprising journal and +a shrewdly philanthropic king of the nineteenth century. It is nothing +so recent as that. It dates much further back; long, long before the +dark age when Krupp of Essen wrought at his steel plates and a German +Emperor condescendingly suggested the last improvements in ships' dining- +tables. The best idea of the inconceivable antiquity of that enterprise +I can give you is by stating the nature of the explorer's ship. It was a +trough of stone, a vessel of hollowed granite. + +The explorer was St. Mael, a saint of Armorica. I had never heard of him +before, but I believe now in his arduous existence with a faith which is +a tribute to M. Anatole France's pious earnestness and delicate irony. +St. Mael existed. It is distinctly stated of him that his life was a +progress in virtue. Thus it seems that there may be saints that are not +progressively virtuous. St. Mael was not of that kind. He was +industrious. He evangelised the heathen. He erected two hundred and +eighteen chapels and seventy-four abbeys. Indefatigable navigator of the +faith, he drifted casually in the miraculous trough of stone from coast +to coast and from island to island along the northern seas. At the age +of eighty-four his high stature was bowed by his long labours, but his +sinewy arms preserved their vigour and his rude eloquence had lost +nothing of its force. + +A nautical devil tempting him by the worldly suggestion of fitting out +his desultory, miraculous trough with mast, sail, and rudder for swifter +progression (the idea of haste has sprung from the pride of Satan), the +simple old saint lent his ear to the subtle arguments of the progressive +enemy of mankind. + +The venerable St. Mael fell away from grace by not perceiving at once +that a gift of heaven cannot be improved by the contrivances of human +ingenuity. His punishment was adequate. A terrific tempest snatched the +rigged ship of stone in its whirlwinds, and, to be brief, the dazed St. +Mael was stranded violently on the Island of Penguins. + +The saint wandered away from the shore. It was a flat, round island +whence rose in the centre a conical mountain capped with clouds. The +rain was falling incessantly--a gentle, soft rain which caused the simple +saint to exclaim in great delight: "This is the island of tears, the +island of contrition!" + +Meantime the inhabitants had flocked in their tens of thousands to an +amphitheatre of rocks; they were penguins; but the holy man, rendered +deaf and purblind by his years, mistook excusably the multitude of silly, +erect, and self-important birds for a human crowd. At once he began to +preach to them the doctrine of salvation. Having finished his discourse +he lost no time in administering to his interesting congregation the +sacrament of baptism. + +If you are at all a theologian you will see that it was no mean adventure +to happen to a well-meaning and zealous saint. Pray reflect on the +magnitude of the issues! It is easy to believe what M. Anatole France +says, that, when the baptism of the Penguins became known in Paradise, it +caused there neither joy nor sorrow, but a profound sensation. + +M. Anatole France is no mean theologian himself. He reports with great +casuistical erudition the debates in the saintly council assembled in +Heaven for the consideration of an event so disturbing to the economy of +religious mysteries. Ultimately the baptised Penguins had to be turned +into human beings; and together with the privilege of sublime hopes these +innocent birds received the curse of original sin, with the labours, the +miseries, the passions, and the weaknesses attached to the fallen +condition of humanity. + +At this point M. Anatole France is again an historian. From being the +Hakluyt of a saintly adventurer he turns (but more concisely) into the +Gibbon of Imperial Penguins. Tracing the development of their +civilisation, the absurdity of their desires, the pathos of their folly +and the ridiculous littleness of their quarrels, his golden pen lightens +by relevant but unpuritanical anecdotes the austerity of a work devoted +to a subject so grave as the Polity of Penguins. It is a very admirable +treatment, and I hasten to congratulate all men of receptive mind on the +feast of wisdom which is theirs for the mere plucking of a book from a +shelf. + + + +TURGENEV {2}--1917 + + +Dear Edward, + +I am glad to hear that you are about to publish a study of Turgenev, that +fortunate artist who has found so much in life for us and no doubt for +himself, with the exception of bare justice. Perhaps that will come to +him, too, in time. Your study may help the consummation. For his luck +persists after his death. What greater luck an artist like Turgenev +could wish for than to find in the English-speaking world a translator +who has missed none of the most delicate, most simple beauties of his +work, and a critic who has known how to analyse and point out its high +qualities with perfect sympathy and insight. + +After twenty odd years of friendship (and my first literary friendship +too) I may well permit myself to make that statement, while thinking of +your wonderful Prefaces as they appeared from time to time in the volumes +of Turgenev's complete edition, the last of which came into the light of +public indifference in the ninety-ninth year of the nineteenth century. + +With that year one may say, with some justice, that the age of Turgenev +had come to an end too; yet work so simple and human, so independent of +the transitory formulas and theories of art, belongs as you point out in +the Preface to _Smoke_ "to all time." + +Turgenev's creative activity covers about thirty years. Since it came to +an end the social and political events in Russia have moved at an +accelerated pace, but the deep origins of them, in the moral and +intellectual unrest of the souls, are recorded in the whole body of his +work with the unerring lucidity of a great national writer. The first +stirrings, the first gleams of the great forces can be seen almost in +every page of the novels, of the short stories and of _A Sportsman's +Sketches_--those marvellous landscapes peopled by unforgettable figures. + +Those will never grow old. Fashions in monsters do change, but the truth +of humanity goes on for ever, unchangeable and inexhaustible in the +variety of its disclosures. Whether Turgenev's art, which has captured +it with such mastery and such gentleness, is for "all time" it is hard to +say. Since, as you say yourself, he brings all his problems and +characters to the test of love, we may hope that it will endure at least +till the infinite emotions of love are replaced by the exact simplicity +of perfected Eugenics. But even by then, I think, women would not have +changed much; and the women of Turgenev who understood them so tenderly, +so reverently and so passionately--they, at least, are certainly for all +time. + +Women are, one may say, the foundation of his art. They are Russian of +course. Never was a writer so profoundly, so whole-souledly national. +But for non-Russian readers, Turgenev's Russia is but a canvas on which +the incomparable artist of humanity lays his colours and his forms in the +great light and the free air of the world. Had he invented them all and +also every stick and stone, brook and hill and field in which they move, +his personages would have been just as true and as poignant in their +perplexed lives. They are his own and also universal. Any one can +accept them with no more question than one accepts the Italians of +Shakespeare. + +In the larger, non-Russian view, what should make Turgenev sympathetic +and welcome to the English-speaking world, is his essential humanity. All +his creations, fortunate and unfortunate, oppressed and oppressors, are +human beings, not strange beasts in a menagerie or damned souls knocking +themselves to pieces in the stuffy darkness of mystical contradictions. +They are human beings, fit to live, fit to suffer, fit to struggle, fit +to win, fit to lose, in the endless and inspiring game of pursuing from +day to day the ever-receding future. + +I began by calling him lucky, and he was, in a sense. But one ends by +having some doubts. To be so great without the slightest parade and so +fine without any tricks of "cleverness" must be fatal to any man's +influence with his contemporaries. + +Frankly, I don't want to appear as qualified to judge of things Russian. +It wouldn't be true. I know nothing of them. But I am aware of a few +general truths, such as, for instance, that no man, whatever may be the +loftiness of his character, the purity of his motives and the peace of +his conscience--no man, I say, likes to be beaten with sticks during the +greater part of his existence. From what one knows of his history it +appears clearly that in Russia almost any stick was good enough to beat +Turgenev with in his latter years. When he died the characteristically +chicken-hearted Autocracy hastened to stuff his mortal envelope into the +tomb it refused to honour, while the sensitive Revolutionists went on for +a time flinging after his shade those jeers and curses from which that +impartial lover of _all_ his countrymen had suffered so much in his +lifetime. For he, too, was sensitive. Every page of his writing bears +its testimony to the fatal absence of callousness in the man. + +And now he suffers a little from other things. In truth it is not the +convulsed terror-haunted Dostoievski but the serene Turgenev who is under +a curse. For only think! Every gift has been heaped on his cradle: +absolute sanity and the deepest sensibility, the clearest vision and the +quickest responsiveness, penetrating insight and unfailing generosity of +judgment, an exquisite perception of the visible world and an unerring +instinct for the significant, for the essential in the life of men and +women, the clearest mind, the warmest heart, the largest sympathy--and +all that in perfect measure. There's enough there to ruin the prospects +of any writer. For you know very well, my dear Edward, that if you had +Antinous himself in a booth of the world's fair, and killed yourself in +protesting that his soul was as perfect as his body, you wouldn't get one +per cent. of the crowd struggling next door for a sight of the Double- +headed Nightingale or of some weak-kneed giant grinning through a horse +collar. + +J. C. + + + +STEPHEN CRANE--A NOTE WITHOUT DATES--1919 + + +My acquaintance with Stephen Crane was brought about by Mr. Pawling, +partner in the publishing firm of Mr. William Heinemann. + +One day Mr. Pawling said to me: "Stephen Crane has arrived in England. I +asked him if there was anybody he wanted to meet and he mentioned two +names. One of them was yours." I had then just been reading, like the +rest of the world, Crane's _Red Badge of Courage_. The subject of that +story was war, from the point of view of an individual soldier's +emotions. That individual (he remains nameless throughout) was +interesting enough in himself, but on turning over the pages of that +little book which had for the moment secured such a noisy recognition I +had been even more interested in the personality of the writer. The +picture of a simple and untried youth becoming through the needs of his +country part of a great fighting machine was presented with an +earnestness of purpose, a sense of tragic issues, and an imaginative +force of expression which struck me as quite uncommon and altogether +worthy of admiration. + +Apparently Stephen Crane had received a favourable impression from the +reading of the _Nigger of the Narcissus_, a book of mine which had also +been published lately. I was truly pleased to hear this. + +On my next visit to town we met at a lunch. I saw a young man of medium +stature and slender build, with very steady, penetrating blue eyes, the +eyes of a being who not only sees visions but can brood over them to some +purpose. + +He had indeed a wonderful power of vision, which he applied to the things +of this earth and of our mortal humanity with a penetrating force that +seemed to reach, within life's appearances and forms, the very spirit of +life's truth. His ignorance of the world at large--he had seen very +little of it--did not stand in the way of his imaginative grasp of facts, +events, and picturesque men. + +His manner was very quiet, his personality at first sight interesting, +and he talked slowly with an intonation which on some people, mainly +Americans, had, I believe, a jarring effect. But not on me. Whatever he +said had a personal note, and he expressed himself with a graphic +simplicity which was extremely engaging. He knew little of literature, +either of his own country or of any other, but he was himself a wonderful +artist in words whenever he took a pen into his hand. Then his gift came +out--and it was seen then to be much more than mere felicity of language. +His impressionism of phrase went really deeper than the surface. In his +writing he was very sure of his effects. I don't think he was ever in +doubt about what he could do. Yet it often seemed to me that he was but +half aware of the exceptional quality of his achievement. + +This achievement was curtailed by his early death. It was a great loss +to his friends, but perhaps not so much to literature. I think that he +had given his measure fully in the few books he had the time to write. +Let me not be misunderstood: the loss was great, but it was the loss of +the delight his art could give, not the loss of any further possible +revelation. As to himself, who can say how much he gained or lost by +quitting so early this world of the living, which he knew how to set +before us in the terms of his own artistic vision? Perhaps he did not +lose a great deal. The recognition he was accorded was rather languid +and given him grudgingly. The worthiest welcome he secured for his tales +in this country was from Mr. W. Henley in the _New Review_ and later, +towards the end of his life, from the late Mr. William Blackwood in his +magazine. For the rest I must say that during his sojourn in England he +had the misfortune to be, as the French say, _mal entoure_. He was beset +by people who understood not the quality of his genius and were +antagonistic to the deeper fineness of his nature. Some of them have +died since, but dead or alive they are not worth speaking about now. I +don't think he had any illusions about them himself: yet there was a +strain of good-nature and perhaps of weakness in his character which +prevented him from shaking himself free from their worthless and +patronising attentions, which in those days caused me much secret +irritation whenever I stayed with him in either of his English homes. My +wife and I like best to remember him riding to meet us at the gate of the +Park at Brede. Born master of his sincere impressions, he was also a +born horseman. He never appeared so happy or so much to advantage as on +the back of a horse. He had formed the project of teaching my eldest boy +to ride, and meantime, when the child was about two years old, presented +him with his first dog. + +I saw Stephen Crane a few days after his arrival in London. I saw him +for the last time on his last day in England. It was in Dover, in a big +hotel, in a bedroom with a large window looking on to the sea. He had +been very ill and Mrs. Crane was taking him to some place in Germany, but +one glance at that wasted face was enough to tell me that it was the most +forlorn of all hopes. The last words he breathed out to me were: "I am +tired. Give my love to your wife and child." When I stopped at the door +for another look I saw that he had turned his head on the pillow and was +staring wistfully out of the window at the sails of a cutter yacht that +glided slowly across the frame, like a dim shadow against the grey sky. + +Those who have read his little tale, "Horses," and the story, "The Open +Boat," in the volume of that name, know with what fine understanding he +loved horses and the sea. And his passage on this earth was like that of +a horseman riding swiftly in the dawn of a day fated to be short and +without sunshine. + + + +TALES OF THE SEA--1898 + + +It is by his irresistible power to reach the adventurous side in the +character, not only of his own, but of all nations, that Marryat is +largely human. He is the enslaver of youth, not by the literary +artifices of presentation, but by the natural glamour of his own +temperament. To his young heroes the beginning of life is a splendid and +warlike lark, ending at last in inheritance and marriage. His novels are +not the outcome of his art, but of his character, like the deeds that +make up his record of naval service. To the artist his work is +interesting as a completely successful expression of an unartistic +nature. It is absolutely amazing to us, as the disclosure of the spirit +animating the stirring time when the nineteenth century was young. There +is an air of fable about it. Its loss would be irreparable, like the +curtailment of national story or the loss of an historical document. It +is the beginning and the embodiment of an inspiring tradition. + +To this writer of the sea the sea was not an element. It was a stage, +where was displayed an exhibition of valour, and of such achievement as +the world had never seen before. The greatness of that achievement +cannot be pronounced imaginary, since its reality has affected the +destinies of nations; nevertheless, in its grandeur it has all the +remoteness of an ideal. History preserves the skeleton of facts and, +here and there, a figure or a name; but it is in Marryat's novels that we +find the mass of the nameless, that we see them in the flesh, that we +obtain a glimpse of the everyday life and an insight into the spirit +animating the crowd of obscure men who knew how to build for their +country such a shining monument of memories. + +Marryat is really a writer of the Service. What sets him apart is his +fidelity. His pen serves his country as well as did his professional +skill and his renowned courage. His figures move about between water and +sky, and the water and the sky are there only to frame the deeds of the +Service. His novels, like amphibious creatures, live on the sea and +frequent the shore, where they flounder deplorably. The loves and the +hates of his boys are as primitive as their virtues and their vices. His +women, from the beautiful Agnes to the witch-like mother of Lieutenant +Vanslyperken, are, with the exception of the sailors' wives, like the +shadows of what has never been. His Silvas, his Ribieras, his Shriftens, +his Delmars remind us of people we have heard of somewhere, many times, +without ever believing in their existence. His morality is honourable +and conventional. There is cruelty in his fun and he can invent puns in +the midst of carnage. His naiveties are perpetrated in a lurid light. +There is an endless variety of types, all surface, with hard edges, with +memorable eccentricities of outline, with a childish and heroic effect in +the drawing. They do not belong to life; they belong exclusively to the +Service. And yet they live; there is a truth in them, the truth of their +time; a headlong, reckless audacity, an intimacy with violence, an +unthinking fearlessness, and an exuberance of vitality which only years +of war and victories can give. His adventures are enthralling; the +rapidity of his action fascinates; his method is crude, his +sentimentality, obviously incidental, is often factitious. His greatness +is undeniable. + +It is undeniable. To a multitude of readers the navy of to-day is +Marryat's navy still. He has created a priceless legend. If he be not +immortal, yet he will last long enough for the highest ambition, because +he has dealt manfully with an inspiring phase in the history of that +Service on which the life of his country depends. The tradition of the +great past he has fixed in his pages will be cherished for ever as the +guarantee of the future. He loved his country first, the Service next, +the sea perhaps not at all. But the sea loved him without reserve. It +gave him his professional distinction and his author's fame--a fame such +as not often falls to the lot of a true artist. + +At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic, another man wrote of +the sea with true artistic instinct. He is not invincibly young and +heroic; he is mature and human, though for him also the stress of +adventure and endeavour must end fatally in inheritance and marriage. For +James Fenimore Cooper nature was not the frame-work, it was an essential +part of existence. He could hear its voice, he could understand its +silence, and he could interpret both for us in his prose with all that +felicity and sureness of effect that belong to a poetical conception +alone. His fame, as wide but less brilliant than that of his +contemporary, rests mostly on a novel which is not of the sea. But he +loved the sea and looked at it with consummate understanding. In his sea +tales the sea inter-penetrates with life; it is in a subtle way a factor +in the problem of existence, and, for all its greatness, it is always in +touch with the men, who, bound on errands of war or gain, traverse its +immense solitudes. His descriptions have the magistral ampleness of a +gesture indicating the sweep of a vast horizon. They embrace the colours +of sunset, the peace of starlight, the aspects of calm and storm, the +great loneliness of the waters, the stillness of watchful coasts, and the +alert readiness which marks men who live face to face with the promise +and the menace of the sea. + +He knows the men and he knows the sea. His method may be often faulty, +but his art is genuine. The truth is within him. The road to legitimate +realism is through poetical feeling, and he possesses that--only it is +expressed in the leisurely manner of his time. He has the knowledge of +simple hearts. Long Tom Coffin is a monumental seaman with the +individuality of life and the significance of a type. It is hard to +believe that Manual and Borroughcliffe, Mr. Marble of Marble-Head, +Captain Tuck of the packet-ship _Montauk_, or Daggett, the tenacious +commander of the _Sea Lion_ of Martha's Vineyard, must pass away some day +and be utterly forgotten. His sympathy is large, and his humour is as +genuine--and as perfectly unaffected--as is his art. In certain passages +he reaches, very simply, the heights of inspired vision. + +He wrote before the great American language was born, and he wrote as +well as any novelist of his time. If he pitches upon episodes redounding +to the glory of the young republic, surely England has glory enough to +forgive him, for the sake of his excellence, the patriotic bias at her +expense. The interest of his tales is convincing and unflagging; and +there runs through his work a steady vein of friendliness for the old +country which the succeeding generations of his compatriots have replaced +by a less definite sentiment. + +Perhaps no two authors of fiction influenced so many lives and gave to so +many the initial impulse towards a glorious or a useful career. Through +the distances of space and time those two men of another race have shaped +also the life of the writer of this appreciation. Life is life, and art +is art--and truth is hard to find in either. Yet in testimony to the +achievement of both these authors it may be said that, in the case of the +writer at least, the youthful glamour, the headlong vitality of the one +and the profound sympathy, the artistic insight of the other--to which he +had surrendered--have withstood the brutal shock of facts and the wear of +laborious years. He has never regretted his surrender. + + + +AN OBSERVER IN MALAYA {3}--1898 + + +In his new volume, Mr. Hugh Clifford, at the beginning of the sketch +entitled "At the Heels of the White Man," expresses his anxiety as to the +state of England's account in the Day-Book of the Recording Angel "for +the good and the bad we have done--both with the most excellent +intentions." The intentions will, no doubt, count for something, though, +of course, every nation's conquests are paved with good intentions; or it +may be that the Recording Angel, looking compassionately at the strife of +hearts, may disdain to enter into the Eternal Book the facts of a +struggle which has the reward of its righteousness even on this earth--in +victory and lasting greatness, or in defeat and humiliation. + +And, also, love will count for much. If the opinion of a looker-on from +afar is worth anything, Mr. Hugh Clifford's anxiety about his country's +record is needless. To the Malays whom he governs, instructs, and guides +he is the embodiment of the intentions, of the conscience and might of +his race. And of all the nations conquering distant territories in the +name of the most excellent intentions, England alone sends out men who, +with such a transparent sincerity of feeling, can speak, as Mr. Hugh +Clifford does, of the place of toil and exile as "the land which is very +dear to me, where the best years of my life have been spent"--and where +(I would stake my right hand on it) his name is pronounced with respect +and affection by those brown men about whom he writes. + +All these studies are on a high level of interest, though not all on the +same level. The descriptive chapters, results of personal observation, +seem to me the most interesting. And, indeed, in a book of this kind it +is the author's personality which awakens the greatest interest; it +shapes itself before one in the ring of sentences, it is seen between the +lines--like the progress of a traveller in the jungle that may be traced +by the sound of the _parang_ chopping the swaying creepers, while the man +himself is glimpsed, now and then, indistinct and passing between the +trees. Thus in his very vagueness of appearance, the writer seen through +the leaves of his book becomes a fascinating companion in a land of +fascination. + +It is when dealing with the aspects of nature that Mr. Hugh Clifford is +most convincing. He looks upon them lovingly, for the land is "very dear +to him," and he records his cherished impressions so that the forest, the +great flood, the jungle, the rapid river, and the menacing rock dwell in +the memory of the reader long after the book is closed. He does not say +anything, in so many words, of his affection for those who live amid the +scenes he describes so well, but his humanity is large enough to pardon +us if we suspect him of such a rare weakness. In his preface he +expresses the regret at not having the gifts (whatever they may be) of +the kailyard school, or--looking up to a very different plane--the genius +of Mr. Barrie. He has, however, gifts of his own, and his genius has +served his country and his fortunes in another direction. Yet it is when +attempting what he professes himself unable to do, in telling us the +simple story of Umat, the punkah-puller, with unaffected simplicity and +half-concealed tenderness, that he comes nearest to artistic achievement. + +Each study in this volume presents some idea, illustrated by a fact told +without artifice, but with an elective sureness of knowledge. The story +of Tukang Burok's love, related in the old man's own words, conveys the +very breath of Malay thought and speech. In "His Little Bill," the +coolie, Lim Teng Wah, facing his debtor, stands very distinct before us, +an insignificant and tragic victim of fate with whom he had quarrelled to +the death over a matter of seven dollars and sixty-eight cents. The +story of "The Schooner with a Past" may be heard, from the Straits +eastward, with many variations. Out in the Pacific the schooner becomes +a cutter, and the pearl-divers are replaced by the Black-birds of the +Labour Trade. But Mr. Hugh Clifford's variation is very good. There is +a passage in it--a trifle--just the diver as seen coming up from the +depths, that in its dozen lines or so attains to distinct artistic value. +And, scattered through the book, there are many other passages of almost +equal descriptive excellence. + +Nevertheless, to apply artistic standards to this book would be a +fundamental error in appreciation. Like faith, enthusiasm, or heroism, +art veils part of the truth of life to make the rest appear more +splendid, inspiring, or sinister. And this book is only truth, +interesting and futile, truth unadorned, simple and straightforward. The +Resident of Pahang has the devoted friendship of Umat, the punkah-puller, +he has an individual faculty of vision, a large sympathy, and the +scrupulous consciousness of the good and evil in his hands. He may as +well rest content with such gifts. One cannot expect to be, at the same +time, a ruler of men and an irreproachable player on the flute. + + + +A HAPPY WANDERER--1910 + + +Converts are interesting people. Most of us, if you will pardon me for +betraying the universal secret, have, at some time or other, discovered +in ourselves a readiness to stray far, ever so far, on the wrong road. +And what did we do in our pride and our cowardice? Casting fearful +glances and waiting for a dark moment, we buried our discovery +discreetly, and kept on in the old direction, on that old, beaten track +we have not had courage enough to leave, and which we perceive now more +clearly than before to be but the arid way of the grave. + +The convert, the man capable of grace (I am speaking here in a secular +sense), is not discreet. His pride is of another kind; he jumps gladly +off the track--the touch of grace is mostly sudden--and facing about in a +new direction may even attain the illusion of having turned his back on +Death itself. + +Some converts have, indeed, earned immortality by their exquisite +indiscretion. The most illustrious example of a convert, that Flower of +chivalry, Don Quixote de la Mancha, remains for all the world the only +genuine immortal hidalgo. The delectable Knight of Spain became +converted, as you know, from the ways of a small country squire to an +imperative faith in a tender and sublime mission. Forthwith he was +beaten with sticks and in due course shut up in a wooden cage by the +Barber and the Priest, the fit ministers of a justly shocked social +order. I do not know if it has occurred to anybody yet to shut up Mr. +Luffmann in a wooden cage. {4} I do not raise the point because I wish +him any harm. Quite the contrary. I am a humane person. Let him take +it as the highest praise--but I must say that he richly deserves that +sort of attention. + +On the other hand I would not have him unduly puffed up with the pride of +the exalted association. The grave wisdom, the admirable amenity, the +serene grace of the secular patron-saint of all mortals converted to +noble visions are not his. Mr. Luffmann has no mission. He is no Knight +sublimely Errant. But he is an excellent Vagabond. He is full of merit. +That peripatetic guide, philosopher and friend of all nations, Mr. +Roosevelt, would promptly excommunicate him with a big stick. The truth +is that the ex-autocrat of all the States does not like rebels against +the sullen order of our universe. Make the best of it or perish--he +cries. A sane lineal successor of the Barber and the Priest, and a +sagacious political heir of the incomparable Sancho Panza (another great +Governor), that distinguished litterateur has no mercy for dreamers. And +our author happens to be a man of (you may trace them in his books) some +rather fine reveries. + +Every convert begins by being a rebel, and I do not see myself how any +mercy can possibly be extended to Mr. Luffmann. He is a convert from the +creed of strenuous life. For this renegade the body is of little +account; to him work appears criminal when it suppresses the demands of +the inner life; while he was young he did grind virtuously at the sacred +handle, and now, he says, he has fallen into disgrace with some people +because he believes no longer in toil without end. Certain respectable +folk hate him--so he says--because he dares to think that "poetry, +beauty, and the broad face of the world are the best things to be in love +with." He confesses to loving Spain on the ground that she is "the land +of to-morrow, and holds the gospel of never-mind." The universal +striving to push ahead he considers mere vulgar folly. Didn't I tell you +he was a fit subject for the cage? + +It is a relief (we are all humane, are we not?) to discover that this +desperate character is not altogether an outcast. Little girls seem to +like him. One of them, after listening to some of his tales, remarked to +her mother, "Wouldn't it be lovely if what he says were true!" Here you +have Woman! The charming creatures will neither strain at a camel nor +swallow a gnat. Not publicly. These operations, without which the world +they have such a large share in could not go on for ten minutes, are left +to us--men. And then we are chided for being coarse. This is a refined +objection but does not seem fair. Another little girl--or perhaps the +same little girl--wrote to him in Cordova, "I hope Poste-Restante is a +nice place, and that you are very comfortable." Woman again! I have in +my time told some stories which are (I hate false modesty) both true and +lovely. Yet no little girl ever wrote to me in kindly terms. And why? +Simply because I am not enough of a Vagabond. The dear despots of the +fireside have a weakness for lawless characters. This is amiable, but +does not seem rational. + +Being Quixotic, Mr. Luffmann is no Impressionist. He is far too earnest +in his heart, and not half sufficiently precise in his style to be that. +But he is an excellent narrator. More than any Vagabond I have ever met, +he knows what he is about. There is not one of his quiet days which is +dull. You will find in them a love-story not made up, the +_coup-de-foudre_, the lightning-stroke of Spanish love; and you will +marvel how a spell so sudden and vehement can be at the same time so +tragically delicate. You will find there landladies devoured with +jealousy, astute housekeepers, delightful boys, wise peasants, touchy +shopkeepers, all the _cosas de Espana_--and, in addition, the pale girl +Rosario. I recommend that pathetic and silent victim of fate to your +benevolent compassion. You will find in his pages the humours of +starving workers of the soil, the vision among the mountains of an +exulting mad spirit in a mighty body, and many other visions worthy of +attention. And they are exact visions, for this idealist is no +visionary. He is in sympathy with suffering mankind, and has a grasp on +real human affairs. I mean the great and pitiful affairs concerned with +bread, love, and the obscure, unexpressed needs which drive great crowds +to prayer in the holy places of the earth. + +But I like his conception of what a "quiet" life is like! His quiet days +require no fewer than forty-two of the forty-nine provinces of Spain to +take their ease in. For his unquiet days, I presume, the seven--or is it +nine?--crystal spheres of Alexandrian cosmogony would afford, but a +wretchedly straitened space. A most unconventional thing is his notion +of quietness. One would take it as a joke; only that, perchance, to the +author of _Quiet Days in Spain_ all days may seem quiet, because, a +courageous convert, he is now at peace with himself. + +How better can we take leave of this interesting Vagabond than with the +road salutation of passing wayfarers: "And on you be peace! . . . You +have chosen your ideal, and it is a good choice. There's nothing like +giving up one's life to an unselfish passion. Let the rich and the +powerful of this globe preach their sound gospel of palpable progress. +The part of the ideal you embrace is the better one, if only in its +illusions. No great passion can be barren. May a world of gracious and +poignant images attend the lofty solitude of your renunciation!" + + + +THE LIFE BEYOND--1910 + + +You have no doubt noticed that certain books produce a sort of physical +effect on one--mostly an audible effect. I am not alluding here to Blue +books or to books of statistics. The effect of these is simply +exasperating and no more. No! the books I have in mind are just the +common books of commerce you and I read when we have five minutes to +spare, the usual hired books published by ordinary publishers, printed by +ordinary printers, and censored (when they happen to be novels) by the +usual circulating libraries, the guardians of our firesides, whose names +are household words within the four seas. + +To see the fair and the brave of this free country surrendering +themselves with unbounded trust to the direction of the circulating +libraries is very touching. It is even, in a sense, a beautiful +spectacle, because, as you know, humility is a rare and fragrant virtue; +and what can be more humble than to surrender your morals and your +intellect to the judgment of one of your tradesmen? I suppose that there +are some very perfect people who allow the Army and Navy Stores to censor +their diet. So much merit, however, I imagine, is not frequently met +with here below. The flesh, alas! is weak, and--from a certain point of +view--so important! + +A superficial person might be rendered miserable by the simple question: +What would become of us if the circulating libraries ceased to exist? It +is a horrid and almost indelicate supposition, but let us be brave and +face the truth. On this earth of ours nothing lasts. _Tout passe, tout +casse, tout lasse_. Imagine the utter wreck overtaking the morals of our +beautiful country-houses should the circulating libraries suddenly die! +But pray do not shudder. There is no occasion. + +Their spirit shall survive. I declare this from inward conviction, and +also from scientific information received lately. For observe: the +circulating libraries are human institutions. I beg you to follow me +closely. They are human institutions, and being human, they are not +animal, and, therefore, they are spiritual. Thus, any man with enough +money to take a shop, stock his shelves, and pay for advertisements shall +be able to evoke the pure and censorious spectre of the circulating +libraries whenever his own commercial spirit moves him. + +For, and this is the information alluded to above, Science, having in its +infinite wanderings run up against various wonders and mysteries, is +apparently willing now to allow a spiritual quality to man and, I +conclude, to all his works as well. + +I do not know exactly what this "Science" may be; and I do not think that +anybody else knows; but that is the information stated shortly. It is +contained in a book reposing under my thoughtful eyes. {5} I know it is +not a censored book, because I can see for myself that it is not a novel. +The author, on his side, warns me that it is not philosophy, that it is +not metaphysics, that it is not natural science. After this +comprehensive warning, the definition of the book becomes, you will +admit, a pretty hard nut to crack. + +But meantime let us return for a moment to my opening remark about the +physical effect of some common, hired books. A few of them (not +necessarily books of verse) are melodious; the music some others make for +you as you read has the disagreeable emphasis of a barrel-organ; the +tinkling-cymbals book (it was not written by a humorist) I only met once. +But there is infinite variety in the noises books do make. I have now on +my shelves a book apparently of the most valuable kind which, before I +have read half-a-dozen lines, begins to make a noise like a buzz-saw. I +am inconsolable; I shall never, I fear, discover what it is all about, +for the buzzing covers the words, and at every try I am absolutely forced +to give it up ere the end of the page is reached. + +The book, however, which I have found so difficult to define, is by no +means noisy. As a mere piece of writing it may be described as being +breathless itself and taking the reader's breath away, not by the +magnitude of its message but by a sort of anxious volubility in the +delivery. The constantly elusive argument and the illustrative +quotations go on without a single reflective pause. For this reason +alone the reading of that work is a fatiguing process. + +The author himself (I use his own words) "suspects" that what he has +written "may be theology after all." It may be. It is not my place +either to allay or to confirm the author's suspicion of his own work. But +I will state its main thesis: "That science regarded in the gross +dictates the spirituality of man and strongly implies a spiritual destiny +for individual human beings." This means: Existence after Death--that +is, Immortality. + +To find out its value you must go to the book. But I will observe here +that an Immortality liable at any moment to betray itself fatuously by +the forcible incantations of Mr. Stead or Professor Crookes is scarcely +worth having. Can you imagine anything more squalid than an Immortality +at the beck and call of Eusapia Palladino? That woman lives on the top +floor of a Neapolitan house, and gets our poor, pitiful, august dead, +flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, spirit of our spirit, who have +loved, suffered and died, as we must love, suffer, and die--she gets them +to beat tambourines in a corner and protrude shadowy limbs through a +curtain. This is particularly horrible, because, if one had to put one's +faith in these things one could not even die safely from disgust, as one +would long to do. + +And to believe that these manifestations, which the author evidently +takes for modern miracles, will stay our tottering faith; to believe that +the new psychology has, only the other day, discovered man to be a +"spiritual mystery," is really carrying humility towards that universal +provider, Science, too far. + +* * * * * + +We moderns have complicated our old perplexities to the point of +absurdity; our perplexities older than religion itself. It is not for +nothing that for so many centuries the priest, mounting the steps of the +altar, murmurs, "Why art thou sad, my soul, and why dost thou trouble +me?" Since the day of Creation two veiled figures, Doubt and Melancholy, +are pacing endlessly in the sunshine of the world. What humanity needs +is not the promise of scientific immortality, but compassionate pity in +this life and infinite mercy on the Day of Judgment. + +And, for the rest, during this transient hour of our pilgrimage, we may +well be content to repeat the Invocation of Sar Peladan. Sar Peladan was +an occultist, a seer, a modern magician. He believed in astrology, in +the spirits of the air, in elves; he was marvellously and deliciously +absurd. Incidentally he wrote some incomprehensible poems and a few +pages of harmonious prose, for, you must know, "a magician is nothing +else but a great harmonist." Here are some eight lines of the +magnificent Invocation. Let me, however, warn you, strictly between +ourselves, that my translation is execrable. I am sorry to say I am no +magician. + +"O Nature, indulgent Mother, forgive! Open your arms to the son, +prodigal and weary. + +"I have attempted to tear asunder the veil you have hung to conceal from +us the pain of life, and I have been wounded by the mystery. . . . +OEdipus, half way to finding the word of the enigma, young Faust, +regretting already the simple life, the life of the heart, I come back to +you repentant, reconciled, O gentle deceiver!" + + + +THE ASCENDING EFFORT--1910 + + +Much good paper has been lamentably wasted to prove that science has +destroyed, that it is destroying, or, some day, may destroy poetry. +Meantime, unblushing, unseen, and often unheard, the guileless poets have +gone on singing in a sweet strain. How they dare do the impossible and +virtually forbidden thing is a cause for wonder but not for legislation. +Not yet. We are at present too busy reforming the silent burglar and +planning concerts to soothe the savage breast of the yelling hooligan. As +somebody--perhaps a publisher--said lately: "Poetry is of no account now- +a-days." + +But it is not totally neglected. Those persons with gold-rimmed +spectacles whose usual occupation is to spy upon the obvious have +remarked audibly (on several occasions) that poetry has so far not given +to science any acknowledgment worthy of its distinguished position in the +popular mind. Except that Tennyson looked down the throat of a foxglove, +that Erasmus Darwin wrote _The Loves of the Plants_ and a scoffer _The +Loves of the Triangles_, poets have been supposed to be indecorously +blind to the progress of science. What tribute, for instance, has poetry +paid to electricity? All I can remember on the spur of the moment is Mr. +Arthur Symons' line about arc lamps: "Hung with the globes of some +unnatural fruit." + +Commerce and Manufacture praise on every hand in their not mute but +inarticulate way the glories of science. Poetry does not play its part. +Behold John Keats, skilful with the surgeon's knife; but when he writes +poetry his inspiration is not from the operating table. Here I am +reminded, though, of a modern instance to the contrary in prose. Mr. H. +G. Wells, who, as far as I know, has never written a line of verse, was +inspired a few years ago to write a short story, _Under the Knife_. Out +of a clock-dial, a brass rod, and a whiff of chloroform, he has conjured +for us a sensation of space and eternity, evoked the face of the +Unknowable, and an awesome, august voice, like the voice of the Judgment +Day; a great voice, perhaps the voice of science itself, uttering the +words: "There shall be no more pain!" I advise you to look up that +story, so human and so intimate, because Mr. Wells, the writer of prose +whose amazing inventiveness we all know, remains a poet even in his most +perverse moments of scorn for things as they are. His poetic imagination +is sometimes even greater than his inventiveness, I am not afraid to say. +But, indeed, imaginative faculty would make any man a poet--were he born +without tongue for speech and without hands to seize his fancy and fasten +her down to a wretched piece of paper. + +* * * * * + +The book {6} which in the course of the last few days I have opened and +shut several times is not imaginative. But, on the other hand, it is not +a dumb book, as some are. It has even a sort of sober and serious +eloquence, reminding us that not poetry alone is at fault in this matter. +Mr. Bourne begins his _Ascending Effort_ with a remark by Sir Francis +Galton upon Eugenics that "if the principles he was advocating were to +become effective they must be introduced into the national conscience, +like a new religion." "Introduced" suggests compulsory vaccination. Mr. +Bourne, who is not a theologian, wishes to league together not science +and religion, but science and the arts. "The intoxicating power of art," +he thinks, is the very thing needed to give the desired effect to the +doctrines of science. In uninspired phrase he points to the arts playing +once upon a time a part in "popularising the Christian tenets." With +painstaking fervour as great as the fervour of prophets, but not so +persuasive, he foresees the arts some day popularising science. Until +that day dawns, science will continue to be lame and poetry blind. He +himself cannot smooth or even point out the way, though he thinks that "a +really prudent people would be greedy of beauty," and their public +authorities "as careful of the sense of comfort as of sanitation." + +As the writer of those remarkable rustic note-books, _The Bettesworth +Book_ and _Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer_, the author has a claim upon our +attention. But his seriousness, his patience, his almost touching +sincerity, can only command the respect of his readers and nothing more. +He is obsessed by science, haunted and shadowed by it, until he has been +bewildered into awe. He knows, indeed, that art owes its triumphs and +its subtle influence to the fact that it issues straight from our organic +vitality, and is a movement of life-cells with their matchless +unintellectual knowledge. But the fact that poetry does not seem +obviously in love with science has never made him doubt whether it may +not be an argument against his haste to see the marriage ceremony +performed amid public rejoicings. + +Many a man has heard or read and believes that the earth goes round the +sun; one small blob of mud among several others, spinning ridiculously +with a waggling motion like a top about to fall. This is the Copernican +system, and the man believes in the system without often knowing as much +about it as its name. But while watching a sunset he sheds his belief; +he sees the sun as a small and useful object, the servant of his needs +and the witness of his ascending effort, sinking slowly behind a range of +mountains, and then he holds the system of Ptolemy. He holds it without +knowing it. In the same way a poet hears, reads, and believes a thousand +undeniable truths which have not yet got into his blood, nor will do +after reading Mr. Bourne's book; he writes, therefore, as if neither +truths nor book existed. Life and the arts follow dark courses, and will +not turn aside to the brilliant arc-lights of science. Some day, without +a doubt,--and it may be a consolation to Mr. Bourne to know it--fully +informed critics will point out that Mr. Davies's poem on a dark woman +combing her hair must have been written after the invasion of +appendicitis, and that Mr. Yeats's "Had I the heaven's embroidered +cloths" came before radium was quite unnecessarily dragged out of its +respectable obscurity in pitchblende to upset the venerable (and +comparatively naive) chemistry of our young days. + +There are times when the tyranny of science and the cant of science are +alarming, but there are other times when they are entertaining--and this +is one of them. "Many a man prides himself" says Mr. Bourne, "on his +piety or his views of art, whose whole range of ideas, could they be +investigated, would be found ordinary, if not base, because they have +been adopted in compliance with some external persuasion or to serve some +timid purpose instead of proceeding authoritatively from the living +selection of his hereditary taste." This extract is a fair sample of the +book's thought and of its style. But Mr. Bourne seems to forget that +"persuasion" is a vain thing. The appreciation of great art comes from +within. + +It is but the merest justice to say that the transparent honesty of Mr. +Bourne's purpose is undeniable. But the whole book is simply an earnest +expression of a pious wish; and, like the generality of pious wishes, +this one seems of little dynamic value--besides being impracticable. + +Yes, indeed. Art has served Religion; artists have found the most +exalted inspiration in Christianity; but the light of Transfiguration +which has illuminated the profoundest mysteries of our sinful souls is +not the light of the generating stations, which exposes the depths of our +infatuation where our mere cleverness is permitted for a while to grope +for the unessential among invincible shadows. + + + +THE CENSOR OF PLAYS--AN APPRECIATION--1907 + + +A couple of years ago I was moved to write a one-act play--and I lived +long enough to accomplish the task. We live and learn. When the play +was finished I was informed that it had to be licensed for performance. +Thus I learned of the existence of the Censor of Plays. I may say +without vanity that I am intelligent enough to have been astonished by +that piece of information: for facts must stand in some relation to time +and space, and I was aware of being in England--in the twentieth-century +England. The fact did not fit the date and the place. That was my first +thought. It was, in short, an improper fact. I beg you to believe that +I am writing in all seriousness and am weighing my words scrupulously. + +Therefore I don't say inappropriate. I say improper--that is: something +to be ashamed of. And at first this impression was confirmed by the +obscurity in which the figure embodying this after all considerable fact +had its being. The Censor of Plays! His name was not in the mouths of +all men. Far from it. He seemed stealthy and remote. There was about +that figure the scent of the far East, like the peculiar atmosphere of a +Mandarin's back yard, and the mustiness of the Middle Ages, that epoch +when mankind tried to stand still in a monstrous illusion of final +certitude attained in morals, intellect and conscience. + +It was a disagreeable impression. But I reflected that probably the +censorship of plays was an inactive monstrosity; not exactly a survival, +since it seemed obviously at variance with the genius of the people, but +an heirloom of past ages, a bizarre and imported curiosity preserved +because of that weakness one has for one's old possessions apart from any +intrinsic value; one more object of exotic _virtu_, an Oriental +_potiche_, a _magot chinois_ conceived by a childish and extravagant +imagination, but allowed to stand in stolid impotence in the twilight of +the upper shelf. + +Thus I quieted my uneasy mind. Its uneasiness had nothing to do with the +fate of my one-act play. The play was duly produced, and an +exceptionally intelligent audience stared it coldly off the boards. It +ceased to exist. It was a fair and open execution. But having survived +the freezing atmosphere of that auditorium I continued to exist, +labouring under no sense of wrong. I was not pleased, but I was content. +I was content to accept the verdict of a free and independent public, +judging after its conscience the work of its free, independent and +conscientious servant--the artist. + +Only thus can the dignity of artistic servitude be preserved--not to +speak of the bare existence of the artist and the self-respect of the +man. I shall say nothing of the self-respect of the public. To the self- +respect of the public the present appeal against the censorship is being +made and I join in it with all my heart. + +For I have lived long enough to learn that the monstrous and outlandish +figure, the _magot chinois_ whom I believed to be but a memorial of our +forefathers' mental aberration, that grotesque _potiche_, works! The +absurd and hollow creature of clay seems to be alive with a sort of +(surely) unconscious life worthy of its traditions. It heaves its +stomach, it rolls its eyes, it brandishes a monstrous arm: and with the +censorship, like a Bravo of old Venice with a more carnal weapon, stabs +its victim from behind in the twilight of its upper shelf. Less +picturesque than the Venetian in cloak and mask, less estimable, too, in +this, that the assassin plied his moral trade at his own risk deriving no +countenance from the powers of the Republic, it stands more malevolent, +inasmuch that the Bravo striking in the dusk killed but the body, whereas +the grotesque thing nodding its mandarin head may in its absurd +unconsciousness strike down at any time the spirit of an honest, of an +artistic, perhaps of a sublime creation. + +This Chinese monstrosity, disguised in the trousers of the Western +Barbarian and provided by the State with the immortal Mr. Stiggins's plug +hat and umbrella, is with us. It is an office. An office of trust. And +from time to time there is found an official to fill it. He is a public +man. The least prominent of public men, the most unobtrusive, the most +obscure if not the most modest. + +But however obscure, a public man may be told the truth if only once in +his life. His office flourishes in the shade; not in the rustic shade +beloved of the violet but in the muddled twilight of mind, where tyranny +of every sort flourishes. Its holder need not have either brain or +heart, no sight, no taste, no imagination, not even bowels of compassion. +He needs not these things. He has power. He can kill thought, and +incidentally truth, and incidentally beauty, providing they seek to live +in a dramatic form. He can do it, without seeing, without understanding, +without feeling anything; out of mere stupid suspicion, as an +irresponsible Roman Caesar could kill a senator. He can do that and +there is no one to say him nay. He may call his cook (Moliere used to do +that) from below and give her five acts to judge every morning as a +matter of constant practice and still remain the unquestioned destroyer +of men's honest work. He may have a glass too much. This accident has +happened to persons of unimpeachable morality--to gentlemen. He may +suffer from spells of imbecility like Clodius. He may . . . what might +he not do! I tell you he is the Caesar of the dramatic world. There has +been since the Roman Principate nothing in the way of irresponsible power +to compare with the office of the Censor of Plays. + +Looked at in this way it has some grandeur, something colossal in the +odious and the absurd. This figure in whose power it is to suppress an +intellectual conception--to kill thought (a dream for a mad brain, my +masters!)--seems designed in a spirit of bitter comedy to bring out the +greatness of a Philistine's conceit and his moral cowardice. + +But this is England in the twentieth century, and one wonders that there +can be found a man courageous enough to occupy the post. It is a matter +for meditation. Having given it a few minutes I come to the conclusion +in the serenity of my heart and the peace of my conscience that he must +be either an extreme megalomaniac or an utterly unconscious being. + +He must be unconscious. It is one of the qualifications for his +magistracy. Other qualifications are equally easy. He must have done +nothing, expressed nothing, imagined nothing. He must be obscure, +insignificant and mediocre--in thought, act, speech and sympathy. He +must know nothing of art, of life--and of himself. For if he did he +would not dare to be what he is. Like that much questioned and +mysterious bird, the phoenix, he sits amongst the cold ashes of his +predecessor upon the altar of morality, alone of his kind in the sight of +wondering generations. + +And I will end with a quotation reproducing not perhaps the exact words +but the true spirit of a lofty conscience. + +"Often when sitting down to write the notice of a play, especially when I +felt it antagonistic to my canons of art, to my tastes or my convictions, +I hesitated in the fear lest my conscientious blame might check the +development of a great talent, my sincere judgment condemn a worthy mind. +With the pen poised in my hand I hesitated, whispering to myself 'What if +I were perchance doing my part in killing a masterpiece.'" + +Such were the lofty scruples of M. Jules Lemaitre--dramatist and dramatic +critic, a great citizen and a high magistrate in the Republic of Letters; +a Censor of Plays exercising his august office openly in the light of +day, with the authority of a European reputation. But then M. Jules +Lemaitre is a man possessed of wisdom, of great fame, of a fine +conscience--not an obscure hollow Chinese monstrosity ornamented with Mr. +Stiggins's plug hat and cotton umbrella by its anxious grandmother--the +State. + +Frankly, is it not time to knock the improper object off its shelf? It +has stood too long there. Hatched in Pekin (I should say) by some Board +of Respectable Rites, the little caravan monster has come to us by way of +Moscow--I suppose. It is outlandish. It is not venerable. It does not +belong here. Is it not time to knock it off its dark shelf with some +implement appropriate to its worth and status? With an old broom handle +for instance. + + + + +PART II--LIFE + + +AUTOCRACY AND WAR--1905 + + +From the firing of the first shot on the banks of the Sha-ho, the fate of +the great battle of the Russo-Japanese war hung in the balance for more +than a fortnight. The famous three-day battles, for which history has +reserved the recognition of special pages, sink into insignificance +before the struggles in Manchuria engaging half a million men on fronts +of sixty miles, struggles lasting for weeks, flaming up fiercely and +dying away from sheer exhaustion, to flame up again in desperate +persistence, and end--as we have seen them end more than once--not from +the victor obtaining a crushing advantage, but through the mortal +weariness of the combatants. + +We have seen these things, though we have seen them only in the cold, +silent, colourless print of books and newspapers. In stigmatising the +printed word as cold, silent and colourless, I have no intention of +putting a slight upon the fidelity and the talents of men who have +provided us with words to read about the battles in Manchuria. I only +wished to suggest that in the nature of things, the war in the Far East +has been made known to us, so far, in a grey reflection of its terrible +and monotonous phases of pain, death, sickness; a reflection seen in the +perspective of thousands of miles, in the dim atmosphere of official +reticence, through the veil of inadequate words. Inadequate, I say, +because what had to be reproduced is beyond the common experience of war, +and our imagination, luckily for our peace of mind, has remained a +slumbering faculty, notwithstanding the din of humanitarian talk and the +real progress of humanitarian ideas. Direct vision of the fact, or the +stimulus of a great art, can alone make it turn and open its eyes heavy +with blessed sleep; and even there, as against the testimony of the +senses and the stirring up of emotion, that saving callousness which +reconciles us to the conditions of our existence, will assert itself +under the guise of assent to fatal necessity, or in the enthusiasm of a +purely aesthetic admiration of the rendering. In this age of knowledge +our sympathetic imagination, to which alone we can look for the ultimate +triumph of concord and justice, remains strangely impervious to +information, however correctly and even picturesquely conveyed. As to +the vaunted eloquence of a serried array of figures, it has all the +futility of precision without force. It is the exploded superstition of +enthusiastic statisticians. An over-worked horse falling in front of our +windows, a man writhing under a cart-wheel in the streets awaken more +genuine emotion, more horror, pity, and indignation than the stream of +reports, appalling in their monotony, of tens of thousands of decaying +bodies tainting the air of the Manchurian plains, of other tens of +thousands of maimed bodies groaning in ditches, crawling on the frozen +ground, filling the field hospitals; of the hundreds of thousands of +survivors no less pathetic and even more tragic in being left alive by +fate to the wretched exhaustion of their pitiful toil. + +An early Victorian, or perhaps a pre-Victorian, sentimentalist, looking +out of an upstairs window, I believe, at a street--perhaps Fleet Street +itself--full of people, is reported, by an admiring friend, to have wept +for joy at seeing so much life. These arcadian tears, this facile +emotion worthy of the golden age, comes to us from the past, with solemn +approval, after the close of the Napoleonic wars and before the series of +sanguinary surprises held in reserve by the nineteenth century for our +hopeful grandfathers. We may well envy them their optimism of which this +anecdote of an amiable wit and sentimentalist presents an extreme +instance, but still, a true instance, and worthy of regard in the +spontaneous testimony to that trust in the life of the earth, triumphant +at last in the felicity of her children. Moreover, the psychology of +individuals, even in the most extreme instances, reflects the general +effect of the fears and hopes of its time. Wept for joy! I should think +that now, after eighty years, the emotion would be of a sterner sort. One +could not imagine anybody shedding tears of joy at the sight of much life +in a street, unless, perhaps, he were an enthusiastic officer of a +general staff or a popular politician, with a career yet to make. And +hardly even that. In the case of the first tears would be +unprofessional, and a stern repression of all signs of joy at the +provision of so much food for powder more in accord with the rules of +prudence; the joy of the second would be checked before it found issue in +weeping by anxious doubts as to the soundness of these electors' views +upon the question of the hour, and the fear of missing the consensus of +their votes. + +No! It seems that such a tender joy would be misplaced now as much as +ever during the last hundred years, to go no further back. The end of +the eighteenth century was, too, a time of optimism and of dismal +mediocrity in which the French Revolution exploded like a bombshell. In +its lurid blaze the insufficiency of Europe, the inferiority of minds, of +military and administrative systems, stood exposed with pitiless +vividness. And there is but little courage in saying at this time of the +day that the glorified French Revolution itself, except for its +destructive force, was in essentials a mediocre phenomenon. The +parentage of that great social and political upheaval was intellectual, +the idea was elevated; but it is the bitter fate of any idea to lose its +royal form and power, to lose its "virtue" the moment it descends from +its solitary throne to work its will among the people. It is a king +whose destiny is never to know the obedience of his subjects except at +the cost of degradation. The degradation of the ideas of freedom and +justice at the root of the French Revolution is made manifest in the +person of its heir; a personality without law or faith, whom it has been +the fashion to represent as an eagle, but who was, in truth, more like a +sort of vulture preying upon the body of a Europe which did, indeed, for +some dozen of years, very much resemble a corpse. The subtle and +manifold influence for evil of the Napoleonic episode as a school of +violence, as a sower of national hatreds, as the direct provocator of +obscurantism and reaction, of political tyranny and injustice, cannot +well be exaggerated. + +The nineteenth century began with wars which were the issue of a +corrupted revolution. It may be said that the twentieth begins with a +war which is like the explosive ferment of a moral grave, whence may yet +emerge a new political organism to take the place of a gigantic and +dreaded phantom. For a hundred years the ghost of Russian might, +overshadowing with its fantastic bulk the councils of Central and Western +Europe, sat upon the gravestone of autocracy, cutting off from air, from +light, from all knowledge of themselves and of the world, the buried +millions of Russian people. Not the most determined cockney +sentimentalist could have had the heart to weep for joy at the thought of +its teeming numbers! And yet they were living, they are alive yet, +since, through the mist of print, we have seen their blood freezing +crimson upon the snow of the squares and streets of St. Petersburg; since +their generations born in the grave are yet alive enough to fill the +ditches and cover the fields of Manchuria with their torn limbs; to send +up from the frozen ground of battlefields a chorus of groans calling for +vengeance from Heaven; to kill and retreat, or kill and advance, without +intermission or rest for twenty hours, for fifty hours, for whole weeks +of fatigue, hunger, cold, and murder--till their ghastly labour, worthy +of a place amongst the punishments of Dante's Inferno, passing through +the stages of courage, of fury, of hopelessness, sinks into the night of +crazy despair. + +It seems that in both armies many men are driven beyond the bounds of +sanity by the stress of moral and physical misery. Great numbers of +soldiers and regimental officers go mad as if by way of protest against +the peculiar sanity of a state of war: mostly among the Russians, of +course. The Japanese have in their favour the tonic effect of success; +and the innate gentleness of their character stands them in good stead. +But the Japanese grand army has yet another advantage in this +nerve-destroying contest, which for endless, arduous toil of killing +surpasses all the wars of history. It has a base for its operations; a +base of a nature beyond the concern of the many books written upon the so- +called art of war, which, considered by itself, purely as an exercise of +human ingenuity, is at best only a thing of well-worn, simple artifices. +The Japanese army has for its base a reasoned conviction; it has behind +it the profound belief in the right of a logical necessity to be appeased +at the cost of so much blood and treasure. And in that belief, whether +well or ill founded, that army stands on the high ground of conscious +assent, shouldering deliberately the burden of a long-tried faithfulness. +The other people (since each people is an army nowadays), torn out from a +miserable quietude resembling death itself, hurled across space, amazed, +without starting-point of its own or knowledge of the aim, can feel +nothing but a horror-stricken consciousness of having mysteriously become +the plaything of a black and merciless fate. + +The profound, the instructive nature of this war is resumed by the +memorable difference in the spiritual state of the two armies; the one +forlorn and dazed on being driven out from an abyss of mental darkness +into the red light of a conflagration, the other with a full knowledge of +its past and its future, "finding itself" as it were at every step of the +trying war before the eyes of an astonished world. The greatness of the +lesson has been dwarfed for most of us by an often half-conscious +prejudice of race-difference. The West having managed to lodge its hasty +foot on the neck of the East, is prone to forget that it is from the East +that the wonders of patience and wisdom have come to a world of men who +set the value of life in the power to act rather than in the faculty of +meditation. It has been dwarfed by this, and it has been obscured by a +cloud of considerations with whose shaping wisdom and meditation had +little or nothing to do; by the weary platitudes on the military +situation which (apart from geographical conditions) is the same +everlasting situation that has prevailed since the times of Hannibal and +Scipio, and further back yet, since the beginning of historical +record--since prehistoric times, for that matter; by the conventional +expressions of horror at the tale of maiming and killing; by the rumours +of peace with guesses more or less plausible as to its conditions. All +this is made legitimate by the consecrated custom of writers in such time +as this--the time of a great war. More legitimate in view of the +situation created in Europe are the speculations as to the course of +events after the war. More legitimate, but hardly more wise than the +irresponsible talk of strategy that never changes, and of terms of peace +that do not matter. + +And above it all--unaccountably persistent--the decrepit, old, hundred +years old, spectre of Russia's might still faces Europe from across the +teeming graves of Russian people. This dreaded and strange apparition, +bristling with bayonets, armed with chains, hung over with holy images; +that something not of this world, partaking of a ravenous ghoul, of a +blind Djinn grown up from a cloud, and of the Old Man of the Sea, still +faces us with its old stupidity, with its strange mystical arrogance, +stamping its shadowy feet upon the gravestone of autocracy already +cracked beyond repair by the torpedoes of Togo and the guns of Oyama, +already heaving in the blood-soaked ground with the first stirrings of a +resurrection. + +Never before had the Western world the opportunity to look so deep into +the black abyss which separates a soulless autocracy posing as, and even +believing itself to be, the arbiter of Europe, from the benighted, +starved souls of its people. This is the real object-lesson of this war, +its unforgettable information. And this war's true mission, disengaged +from the economic origins of that contest, from doors open or shut, from +the fields of Korea for Russian wheat or Japanese rice, from the +ownership of ice-free ports and the command of the waters of the East--its +true mission was to lay a ghost. It has accomplished it. Whether +Kuropatkin was incapable or unlucky, whether or not Russia issuing next +year, or the year after next, from behind a rampart of piled-up corpses +will win or lose a fresh campaign, are minor considerations. The task of +Japan is done, the mission accomplished; the ghost of Russia's might is +laid. Only Europe, accustomed so long to the presence of that portent, +seems unable to comprehend that, as in the fables of our childhood, the +twelve strokes of the hour have rung, the cock has crowed, the apparition +has vanished--never to haunt again this world which has been used to gaze +at it with vague dread and many misgivings. + +It was a fascination. And the hallucination still lasts as inexplicable +in its persistence as in its duration. It seems so unaccountable, that +the doubt arises as to the sincerity of all that talk as to what Russia +will or will not do, whether it will raise or not another army, whether +it will bury the Japanese in Manchuria under seventy millions of +sacrificed peasants' caps (as her Press boasted a little more than a year +ago) or give up to Japan that jewel of her crown, Saghalien, together +with some other things; whether, perchance, as an interesting +alternative, it will make peace on the Amur in order to make war beyond +the Oxus. + +All these speculations (with many others) have appeared gravely in print; +and if they have been gravely considered by only one reader out of each +hundred, there must be something subtly noxious to the human brain in the +composition of newspaper ink; or else it is that the large page, the +columns of words, the leaded headings, exalt the mind into a state of +feverish credulity. The printed page of the Press makes a sort of still +uproar, taking from men both the power to reflect and the faculty of +genuine feeling; leaving them only the artificially created need of +having something exciting to talk about. + +The truth is that the Russia of our fathers, of our childhood, of our +middle-age; the testamentary Russia of Peter the Great--who imagined that +all the nations were delivered into the hand of Tsardom--can do nothing. +It can do nothing because it does not exist. It has vanished for ever at +last, and as yet there is no new Russia to take the place of that ill- +omened creation, which, being a fantasy of a madman's brain, could in +reality be nothing else than a figure out of a nightmare seated upon a +monument of fear and oppression. + +The true greatness of a State does not spring from such a contemptible +source. It is a matter of logical growth, of faith and courage. Its +inspiration springs from the constructive instinct of the people, +governed by the strong hand of a collective conscience and voiced in the +wisdom and counsel of men who seldom reap the reward of gratitude. Many +States have been powerful, but, perhaps, none have been truly great--as +yet. That the position of a State in reference to the moral methods of +its development can be seen only historically, is true. Perhaps mankind +has not lived long enough for a comprehensive view of any particular +case. Perhaps no one will ever live long enough; and perhaps this earth +shared out amongst our clashing ambitions by the anxious arrangements of +statesmen will come to an end before we attain the felicity of greeting +with unanimous applause the perfect fruition of a great State. It is +even possible that we are destined for another sort of bliss altogether: +that sort which consists in being perpetually duped by false appearances. +But whatever political illusion the future may hold out to our fear or +our admiration, there will be none, it is safe to say, which in the +magnitude of anti-humanitarian effect will equal that phantom now driven +out of the world by the thunder of thousands of guns; none that in its +retreat will cling with an equally shameless sincerity to more unworthy +supports: to the moral corruption and mental darkness of slavery, to the +mere brute force of numbers. + +This very ignominy of infatuation should make clear to men's feelings and +reason that the downfall of Russia's might is unavoidable. Spectral it +lived and spectral it disappears without leaving a memory of a single +generous deed, of a single service rendered--even involuntarily--to the +polity of nations. Other despotisms there have been, but none whose +origin was so grimly fantastic in its baseness, and the beginning of +whose end was so gruesomely ignoble. What is amazing is the myth of its +irresistible strength which is dying so hard. + +* * * * * + +Considered historically, Russia's influence in Europe seems the most +baseless thing in the world; a sort of convention invented by +diplomatists for some dark purpose of their own, one would suspect, if +the lack of grasp upon the realities of any given situation were not the +main characteristic of the management of international relations. A +glance back at the last hundred years shows the invariable, one may say +the logical, powerlessness of Russia. As a military power it has never +achieved by itself a single great thing. It has been indeed able to +repel an ill-considered invasion, but only by having recourse to the +extreme methods of desperation. In its attacks upon its specially +selected victim this giant always struck as if with a withered right +hand. All the campaigns against Turkey prove this, from Potemkin's time +to the last Eastern war in 1878, entered upon with every advantage of a +well-nursed prestige and a carefully fostered fanaticism. Even the half- +armed were always too much for the might of Russia, or, rather, of the +Tsardom. It was victorious only against the practically disarmed, as, in +regard to its ideal of territorial expansion, a glance at a map will +prove sufficiently. As an ally, Russia has been always unprofitable, +taking her share in the defeats rather than in the victories of her +friends, but always pushing her own claims with the arrogance of an +arbiter of military success. She has been unable to help to any purpose +a single principle to hold its own, not even the principle of authority +and legitimism which Nicholas the First had declared so haughtily to rest +under his special protection; just as Nicholas the Second has tried to +make the maintenance of peace on earth his own exclusive affair. And the +first Nicholas was a good Russian; he held the belief in the sacredness +of his realm with such an intensity of faith that he could not survive +the first shock of doubt. Rightly envisaged, the Crimean war was the end +of what remained of absolutism and legitimism in Europe. It threw the +way open for the liberation of Italy. The war in Manchuria makes an end +of absolutism in Russia, whoever has got to perish from the shock behind +a rampart of dead ukases, manifestoes, and rescripts. In the space of +fifty years the self-appointed Apostle of Absolutism and the +self-appointed Apostle of Peace, the Augustus and the Augustulus of the +_regime_ that was wont to speak contemptuously to European Foreign +Offices in the beautiful French phrases of Prince Gorchakov, have fallen +victims, each after his kind, to their shadowy and dreadful familiar, to +the phantom, part ghoul, part Djinn, part Old Man of the Sea, with beak +and claws and a double head, looking greedily both east and west on the +confines of two continents. + +That nobody through all that time penetrated the true nature of the +monster it is impossible to believe. But of the many who must have seen, +all were either too modest, too cautious, perhaps too discreet, to speak; +or else were too insignificant to be heard or believed. Yet not all. + +In the very early sixties, Prince Bismarck, then about to leave his post +of Prussian Minister in St. Petersburg, called--so the story goes--upon +another distinguished diplomatist. After some talk upon the general +situation, the future Chancellor of the German Empire remarked that it +was his practice to resume the impressions he had carried out of every +country where he had made a long stay, in a short sentence, which he +caused to be engraved upon some trinket. "I am leaving this country now, +and this is what I bring away from it," he continued, taking off his +finger a new ring to show to his colleague the inscription inside: "La +Russie, c'est le neant." + +Prince Bismarck had the truth of the matter and was neither too modest +nor too discreet to speak out. Certainly he was not afraid of not being +believed. Yet he did not shout his knowledge from the house-tops. He +meant to have the phantom as his accomplice in an enterprise which has +set the clock of peace back for many a year. + +He had his way. The German Empire has been an accomplished fact for more +than a third of a century--a great and dreadful legacy left to the world +by the ill-omened phantom of Russia's might. + +It is that phantom which is disappearing now--unexpectedly, +astonishingly, as if by a touch of that wonderful magic for which the +East has always been famous. The pretence of belief in its existence +will no longer answer anybody's purposes (now Prince Bismarck is dead) +unless the purposes of the writers of sensational paragraphs as to this +_Neant_ making an armed descent upon the plains of India. That sort of +folly would be beneath notice if it did not distract attention from the +real problem created for Europe by a war in the Far East. + +For good or evil in the working out of her destiny, Russia is bound to +remain a _Neant_ for many long years, in a more even than a Bismarckian +sense. The very fear of this spectre being gone, it behoves us to +consider its legacy--the fact (no phantom that) accomplished in Central +Europe by its help and connivance. + +The German Empire may feel at bottom the loss of an old accomplice always +amenable to the confidential whispers of a bargain; but in the first +instance it cannot but rejoice at the fundamental weakening of a possible +obstacle to its instincts of territorial expansion. There is a removal +of that latent feeling of restraint which the presence of a powerful +neighbour, however implicated with you in a sense of common guilt, is +bound to inspire. The common guilt of the two Empires is defined +precisely by their frontier line running through the Polish provinces. +Without indulging in excessive feelings of indignation at that country's +partition, or going so far as to believe--with a late French +politician--in the "immanente justice des choses," it is clear that a +material situation, based upon an essentially immoral transaction, +contains the germ of fatal differences in the temperament of the two +partners in iniquity--whatever the iniquity is. Germany has been the +evil counsellor of Russia on all the questions of her Polish problem. +Always urging the adoption of the most repressive measures with a +perfectly logical duplicity, Prince Bismarck's Empire has taken care to +couple the neighbourly offers of military assistance with merciless +advice. The thought of the Polish provinces accepting a frank +reconciliation with a humanised Russia and bringing the weight of +homogeneous loyalty within a few miles of Berlin, has been always +intensely distasteful to the arrogant Germanising tendencies of the other +partner in iniquity. And, besides, the way to the Baltic provinces leads +over the Niemen and over the Vistula. + +And now, when there is a possibility of serious internal disturbances +destroying the sort of order autocracy has kept in Russia, the road over +these rivers is seen wearing a more inviting aspect. At any moment the +pretext of armed intervention may be found in a revolutionary outbreak +provoked by Socialists, perhaps--but at any rate by the political +immaturity of the enlightened classes and by the political barbarism of +the Russian people. The throes of Russian resurrection will be long and +painful. This is not the place to speculate upon the nature of these +convulsions, but there must be some violent break-up of the lamentable +tradition, a shattering of the social, of the administrative--certainly +of the territorial--unity. + +Voices have been heard saying that the time for reforms in Russia is +already past. This is the superficial view of the more profound truth +that for Russia there has never been such a time within the memory of +mankind. It is impossible to initiate a rational scheme of reform upon a +phase of blind absolutism; and in Russia there has never been anything +else to which the faintest tradition could, after ages of error, go back +as to a parting of ways. + +In Europe the old monarchical principle stands justified in its +historical struggle with the growth of political liberty by the evolution +of the idea of nationality as we see it concreted at the present time; by +the inception of that wider solidarity grouping together around the +standard of monarchical power these larger, agglomerations of mankind. +This service of unification, creating close-knit communities possessing +the ability, the will, and the power to pursue a common ideal, has +prepared the ground for the advent of a still larger understanding: for +the solidarity of Europeanism, which must be the next step towards the +advent of Concord and Justice; an advent that, however delayed by the +fatal worship of force and the errors of national selfishness, has been, +and remains, the only possible goal of our progress. + +The conceptions of legality, of larger patriotism, of national duties and +aspirations have grown under the shadow of the old monarchies of Europe, +which were the creations of historical necessity. There were seeds of +wisdom in their very mistakes and abuses. They had a past and a future; +they were human. But under the shadow of Russian autocracy nothing could +grow. Russian autocracy succeeded to nothing; it had no historical past, +and it cannot hope for a historical future. It can only end. By no +industry of investigation, by no fantastic stretch of benevolence, can it +be presented as a phase of development through which a Society, a State, +must pass on the way to the full consciousness of its destiny. It lies +outside the stream of progress. This despotism has been utterly +un-European. Neither has it been Asiatic in its nature. Oriental +despotisms belong to the history of mankind; they have left their trace +on our minds and our imagination by their splendour, by their culture, by +their art, by the exploits of great conquerors. The record of their rise +and decay has an intellectual value; they are in their origins and their +course the manifestations of human needs, the instruments of racial +temperament, of catastrophic force, of faith and fanaticism. The Russian +autocracy as we see it now is a thing apart. It is impossible to assign +to it any rational origin in the vices, the misfortunes, the necessities, +or the aspirations of mankind. That despotism has neither an European +nor an Oriental parentage; more, it seems to have no root either in the +institutions or the follies of this earth. What strikes one with a sort +of awe is just this something inhuman in its character. It is like a +visitation, like a curse from Heaven falling in the darkness of ages upon +the immense plains of forest and steppe lying dumbly on the confines of +two continents: a true desert harbouring no Spirit either of the East or +of the West. + +This pitiful fate of a country held by an evil spell, suffering from an +awful visitation for which the responsibility cannot be traced either to +her sins or her follies, has made Russia as a nation so difficult to +understand by Europe. From the very first ghastly dawn of her existence +as a State she had to breathe the atmosphere of despotism; she found +nothing but the arbitrary will of an obscure autocrat at the beginning +and end of her organisation. Hence arises her impenetrability to +whatever is true in Western thought. Western thought, when it crosses +her frontier, falls under the spell of her autocracy and becomes a +noxious parody of itself. Hence the contradictions, the riddles of her +national life, which are looked upon with such curiosity by the rest of +the world. The curse had entered her very soul; autocracy, and nothing +else in the world, has moulded her institutions, and with the poison of +slavery drugged the national temperament into the apathy of a hopeless +fatalism. It seems to have gone into the blood, tainting every mental +activity in its source by a half-mystical, insensate, fascinating +assertion of purity and holiness. The Government of Holy Russia, +arrogating to itself the supreme power to torment and slaughter the +bodies of its subjects like a God-sent scourge, has been most cruel to +those whom it allowed to live under the shadow of its dispensation. The +worst crime against humanity of that system we behold now crouching at +bay behind vast heaps of mangled corpses is the ruthless destruction of +innumerable minds. The greatest horror of the world--madness--walked +faithfully in its train. Some of the best intellects of Russia, after +struggling in vain against the spell, ended by throwing themselves at the +feet of that hopeless despotism as a giddy man leaps into an abyss. An +attentive survey of Russia's literature, of her Church, of her +administration and the cross-currents of her thought, must end in the +verdict that the Russia of to-day has not the right to give her voice on +a single question touching the future of humanity, because from the very +inception of her being the brutal destruction of dignity, of truth, of +rectitude, of all that is faithful in human nature has been made the +imperative condition of her existence. The great governmental secret of +that imperium which Prince Bismarck had the insight and the courage to +call _Le Neant_, has been the extirpation of every intellectual hope. To +pronounce in the face of such a past the word Evolution, which is +precisely the expression of the highest intellectual hope, is a gruesome +pleasantry. There can be no evolution out of a grave. Another word of +less scientific sound has been very much pronounced of late in connection +with Russia's future, a word of more vague import, a word of dread as +much as of hope--Revolution. + +In the face of the events of the last four months, this word has sprung +instinctively, as it were, on grave lips, and has been heard with solemn +forebodings. More or less consciously, Europe is preparing herself for a +spectacle of much violence and perhaps of an inspiring nobility of +greatness. And there will be nothing of what she expects. She will see +neither the anticipated character of the violence, nor yet any signs of +generous greatness. Her expectations, more or less vaguely expressed, +give the measure of her ignorance of that _Neant_ which for so many years +had remained hidden behind this phantom of invincible armies. + +_Neant_! In a way, yes! And yet perhaps Prince Bismarck has let himself +be led away by the seduction of a good phrase into the use of an inexact +form. The form of his judgment had to be pithy, striking, engraved +within a ring. If he erred, then, no doubt, he erred deliberately. The +saying was near enough the truth to serve, and perhaps he did not want to +destroy utterly by a more severe definition the prestige of the sham that +could not deceive his genius. Prince Bismarck has been really +complimentary to the useful phantom of the autocratic might. There is an +awe-inspiring idea of infinity conveyed in the word _Neant_--and in +Russia there is no idea. She is not a _Neant_, she is and has been +simply the negation of everything worth living for. She is not an empty +void, she is a yawning chasm open between East and West; a bottomless +abyss that has swallowed up every hope of mercy, every aspiration towards +personal dignity, towards freedom, towards knowledge, every ennobling +desire of the heart, every redeeming whisper of conscience. Those that +have peered into that abyss, where the dreams of Panslavism, of universal +conquest, mingled with the hate and contempt for Western ideas, drift +impotently like shapes of mist, know well that it is bottomless; that +there is in it no ground for anything that could in the remotest degree +serve even the lowest interests of mankind--and certainly no ground ready +for a revolution. The sin of the old European monarchies was not the +absolutism inherent in every form of government; it was the inability to +alter the forms of their legality, grown narrow and oppressive with the +march of time. Every form of legality is bound to degenerate into +oppression, and the legality in the forms of monarchical institutions +sooner, perhaps, than any other. It has not been the business of +monarchies to be adaptive from within. With the mission of uniting and +consolidating the particular ambitions and interests of feudalism in +favour of a larger conception of a State, of giving self-consciousness, +force and nationality to the scattered energies of thought and action, +they were fated to lag behind the march of ideas they had themselves set +in motion in a direction they could neither understand nor approve. Yet, +for all that, the thrones still remain, and what is more significant, +perhaps, some of the dynasties, too, have survived. The revolutions of +European States have never been in the nature of absolute protests _en +masse_ against the monarchical principle; they were the uprising of the +people against the oppressive degeneration of legality. But there never +has been any legality in Russia; she is a negation of that as of +everything else that has its root in reason or conscience. The ground of +every revolution had to be intellectually prepared. A revolution is a +short cut in the rational development of national needs in response to +the growth of world-wide ideals. It is conceivably possible for a +monarch of genius to put himself at the head of a revolution without +ceasing to be the king of his people. For the autocracy of Holy Russia +the only conceivable self-reform is--suicide. + +The same relentless fate holds in its grip the all-powerful ruler and his +helpless people. Wielders of a power purchased by an unspeakable +baseness of subjection to the Khans of the Tartar horde, the Princes of +Russia who, in their heart of hearts had come in time to regard +themselves as superior to every monarch of Europe, have never risen to be +the chiefs of a nation. Their authority has never been sanctioned by +popular tradition, by ideas of intelligent loyalty, of devotion, of +political necessity, of simple expediency, or even by the power of the +sword. In whatever form of upheaval autocratic Russia is to find her +end, it can never be a revolution fruitful of moral consequences to +mankind. It cannot be anything else but a rising of slaves. It is a +tragic circumstance that the only thing one can wish to that people who +had never seen face to face either law, order, justice, right, truth +about itself or the rest of the world; who had known nothing outside the +capricious will of its irresponsible masters, is that it should find in +the approaching hour of need, not an organiser or a law-giver, with the +wisdom of a Lycurgus or a Solon for their service, but at least the force +of energy and desperation in some as yet unknown Spartacus. + +A brand of hopeless mental and moral inferiority is set upon Russian +achievements; and the coming events of her internal changes, however +appalling they may be in their magnitude, will be nothing more impressive +than the convulsions of a colossal body. As her boasted military force +that, corrupt in its origin, has ever struck no other but faltering +blows, so her soul, kept benumbed by her temporal and spiritual master +with the poison of tyranny and superstition, will find itself on +awakening possessed of no language, a monstrous full-grown child having +first to learn the ways of living thought and articulate speech. It is +safe to say tyranny, assuming a thousand protean shapes, will remain +clinging to her struggles for a long time before her blind multitudes +succeed at last in trampling her out of existence under their millions of +bare feet. + +That would be the beginning. What is to come after? The conquest of +freedom to call your soul your own is only the first step on the road to +excellence. We, in Europe, have gone a step or two further, have had the +time to forget how little that freedom means. To Russia it must seem +everything. A prisoner shut up in a noisome dungeon concentrates all his +hope and desire on the moment of stepping out beyond the gates. It +appears to him pregnant with an immense and final importance; whereas +what is important is the spirit in which he will draw the first breath of +freedom, the counsels he will hear, the hands he may find extended, the +endless days of toil that must follow, wherein he will have to build his +future with no other material but what he can find within himself. + +It would be vain for Russia to hope for the support and counsel of +collective wisdom. Since 1870 (as a distinguished statesman of the old +tradition disconsolately exclaimed) "il n'y a plus d'Europe!" There is, +indeed, no Europe. The idea of a Europe united in the solidarity of her +dynasties, which for a moment seemed to dawn on the horizon of the Vienna +Congress through the subsiding dust of Napoleonic alarums and excursions, +has been extinguished by the larger glamour of less restraining ideals. +Instead of the doctrines of solidarity it was the doctrine of +nationalities much more favourable to spoliations that came to the front, +and since its greatest triumphs at Sadowa and Sedan there is no Europe. +Meanwhile till the time comes when there will be no frontiers, there are +alliances so shamelessly based upon the exigencies of suspicion and +mistrust that their cohesive force waxes and wanes with every year, +almost with the event of every passing month. This is the atmosphere +Russia will find when the last rampart of tyranny has been beaten down. +But what hands, what voices will she find on coming out into the light of +day? An ally she has yet who more than any other of Russia's allies has +found that it had parted with lots of solid substance in exchange for a +shadow. It is true that the shadow was indeed the mightiest, the darkest +that the modern world had ever known--and the most overbearing. But it +is fading now, and the tone of truest anxiety as to what is to take its +place will come, no doubt, from that and no other direction, and no +doubt, also, it will have that note of generosity which even in the +moments of greatest aberration is seldom wanting in the voice of the +French people. + +Two neighbours Russia will find at her door. Austria, traditionally +unaggressive whenever her hand is not forced, ruled by a dynasty of +uncertain future, weakened by her duality, can only speak to her in an +uncertain, bilingual phrase. Prussia, grown in something like forty +years from an almost pitiful dependant into a bullying friend and evil +counsellor of Russia's masters, may, indeed, hasten to extend a strong +hand to the weakness of her exhausted body, but if so it will be only +with the intention of tearing away the long-coveted part of her +substance. + +Pan-Germanism is by no means a shape of mists, and Germany is anything +but a _Neant_ where thought and effort are likely to lose themselves +without sound or trace. It is a powerful and voracious organisation, +full of unscrupulous self-confidence, whose appetite for aggrandisement +will only be limited by the power of helping itself to the severed +members of its friends and neighbours. The era of wars so eloquently +denounced by the old Republicans as the peculiar blood guilt of dynastic +ambitions is by no means over yet. They will be fought out differently, +with lesser frequency, with an increased bitterness and the savage tooth- +and-claw obstinacy of a struggle for existence. They will make us regret +the time of dynastic ambitions, with their human absurdity moderated by +prudence and even by shame, by the fear of personal responsibility and +the regard paid to certain forms of conventional decency. For, if the +monarchs of Europe have been derided for addressing each other as +"brother" in autograph communications, that relationship was at least as +effective as any form of brotherhood likely to be established between the +rival nations of this continent, which, we are assured on all hands, is +the heritage of democracy. In the ceremonial brotherhood of monarchs the +reality of blood-ties, for what little it is worth, acted often as a drag +on unscrupulous desires of glory or greed. Besides, there was always the +common danger of exasperated peoples, and some respect for each other's +divine right. No leader of a democracy, without other ancestry but the +sudden shout of a multitude, and debarred by the very condition of his +power from even thinking of a direct heir, will have any interest in +calling brother the leader of another democracy--a chief as fatherless +and heirless as himself. + +The war of 1870, brought about by the third Napoleon's half-generous, +half-selfish adoption of the principle of nationalities, was the first +war characterised by a special intensity of hate, by a new note in the +tune of an old song for which we may thank the Teutonic thoroughness. Was +it not that excellent bourgeoise, Princess Bismarck (to keep only to +great examples), who was so righteously anxious to see men, women and +children--emphatically the children, too--of the abominable French nation +massacred off the face of the earth? This illustration of the new war- +temper is artlessly revealed in the prattle of the amiable Busch, the +Chancellor's pet "reptile" of the Press. And this was supposed to be a +war for an idea! Too much, however, should not be made of that good +wife's and mother's sentiments any more than of the good First Emperor +William's tears, shed so abundantly after every battle, by letter, +telegram, and otherwise, during the course of the same war, before a dumb +and shamefaced continent. These were merely the expressions of the +simplicity of a nation which more than any other has a tendency to run +into the grotesque. There is worse to come. + +To-day, in the fierce grapple of two nations of different race, the short +era of national wars seems about to close. No war will be waged for an +idea. The "noxious idle aristocracies" of yesterday fought without +malice for an occupation, for the honour, for the fun of the thing. The +virtuous, industrious democratic States of to-morrow may yet be reduced +to fighting for a crust of dry bread, with all the hate, ferocity, and +fury that must attach to the vital importance of such an issue. The +dreams sanguine humanitarians raised almost to ecstasy about the year +fifty of the last century by the moving sight of the Crystal +Palace--crammed full with that variegated rubbish which it seems to be +the bizarre fate of humanity to produce for the benefit of a few +employers of labour--have vanished as quickly as they had arisen. The +golden hopes of peace have in a single night turned to dead leaves in +every drawer of every benevolent theorist's writing table. A swift +disenchantment overtook the incredible infatuation which could put its +trust in the peaceful nature of industrial and commercial competition. + +Industrialism and commercialism--wearing high-sounding names in many +languages (_Welt-politik_ may serve for one instance) picking up coins +behind the severe and disdainful figure of science whose giant strides +have widened for us the horizon of the universe by some few inches--stand +ready, almost eager, to appeal to the sword as soon as the globe of the +earth has shrunk beneath our growing numbers by another ell or so. And +democracy, which has elected to pin its faith to the supremacy of +material interests, will have to fight their battles to the bitter end, +on a mere pittance--unless, indeed, some statesman of exceptional ability +and overwhelming prestige succeeds in carrying through an international +understanding for the delimitation of spheres of trade all over the +earth, on the model of the territorial spheres of influence marked in +Africa to keep the competitors for the privilege of improving the nigger +(as a buying machine) from flying prematurely at each other's throats. + +This seems the only expedient at hand for the temporary maintenance of +European peace, with its alliances based on mutual distrust, preparedness +for war as its ideal, and the fear of wounds, luckily stronger, so far, +than the pinch of hunger, its only guarantee. The true peace of the +world will be a place of refuge much less like a beleaguered fortress and +more, let us hope, in the nature of an Inviolable Temple. It will be +built on less perishable foundations than those of material interests. +But it must be confessed that the architectural aspect of the universal +city remains as yet inconceivable--that the very ground for its erection +has not been cleared of the jungle. + +Never before in history has the right of war been more fully admitted in +the rounded periods of public speeches, in books, in public prints, in +all the public works of peace, culminating in the establishment of the +Hague Tribunal--that solemnly official recognition of the Earth as a +House of Strife. To him whose indignation is qualified by a measure of +hope and affection, the efforts of mankind to work its own salvation +present a sight of alarming comicality. After clinging for ages to the +steps of the heavenly throne, they are now, without much modifying their +attitude, trying with touching ingenuity to steal one by one the +thunderbolts of their Jupiter. They have removed war from the list of +Heaven-sent visitations that could only be prayed against; they have +erased its name from the supplication against the wrath of war, +pestilence, and famine, as it is found in the litanies of the Roman +Catholic Church; they have dragged the scourge down from the skies and +have made it into a calm and regulated institution. At first sight the +change does not seem for the better. Jove's thunderbolt looks a most +dangerous plaything in the hands of the people. But a solemnly +established institution begins to grow old at once in the discussion, +abuse, worship, and execration of men. It grows obsolete, odious, and +intolerable; it stands fatally condemned to an unhonoured old age. + +Therein lies the best hope of advanced thought, and the best way to help +its prospects is to provide in the fullest, frankest way for the +conditions of the present day. War is one of its conditions; it is its +principal condition. It lies at the heart of every question agitating +the fears and hopes of a humanity divided against itself. The succeeding +ages have changed nothing except the watchwords of the armies. The +intellectual stage of mankind being as yet in its infancy, and States, +like most individuals, having but a feeble and imperfect consciousness of +the worth and force of the inner life, the need of making their existence +manifest to themselves is determined in the direction of physical +activity. The idea of ceasing to grow in territory, in strength, in +wealth, in influence--in anything but wisdom and self-knowledge--is +odious to them as the omen of the end. Action, in which is to be found +the illusion of a mastered destiny, can alone satisfy our uneasy vanity +and lay to rest the haunting fear of the future--a sentiment concealed, +indeed, but proving its existence by the force it has, when invoked, to +stir the passions of a nation. It will be long before we have learned +that in the great darkness before us there is nothing that we need fear. +Let us act lest we perish--is the cry. And the only form of action open +to a State can be of no other than aggressive nature. + +There are many kinds of aggressions, though the sanction of them is one +and the same--the magazine rifle of the latest pattern. In preparation +for or against that form of action the States of Europe are spending now +such moments of uneasy leisure as they can snatch from the labours of +factory and counting-house. + +Never before has war received so much homage at the lips of men, and +reigned with less disputed sway in their minds. It has harnessed science +to its gun-carriages, it has enriched a few respectable manufacturers, +scattered doles of food and raiment amongst a few thousand skilled +workmen, devoured the first youth of whole generations, and reaped its +harvest of countless corpses. It has perverted the intelligence of men, +women, and children, and has made the speeches of Emperors, Kings, +Presidents, and Ministers monotonous with ardent protestations of +fidelity to peace. Indeed, war has made peace altogether its own, it has +modelled it on its own image: a martial, overbearing, war-lord sort of +peace, with a mailed fist, and turned-up moustaches, ringing with the din +of grand manoeuvres, eloquent with allusions to glorious feats of arms; +it has made peace so magnificent as to be almost as expensive to keep up +as itself. It has sent out apostles of its own, who at one time went +about (mostly in newspapers) preaching the gospel of the mystic sanctity +of its sacrifices, and the regenerating power of spilt blood, to the poor +in mind--whose name is legion. + +It has been observed that in the course of earthly greatness a day of +culminating triumph is often paid for by a morrow of sudden extinction. +Let us hope it is so. Yet the dawn of that day of retribution may be a +long time breaking above a dark horizon. War is with us now; and, +whether this one ends soon or late, war will be with us again. And it is +the way of true wisdom for men and States to take account of things as +they are. + +Civilisation has done its little best by our sensibilities for whose +growth it is responsible. It has managed to remove the sights and sounds +of battlefields away from our doorsteps. But it cannot be expected to +achieve the feat always and under every variety of circumstance. Some +day it must fail, and we shall have then a wealth of appallingly +unpleasant sensations brought home to us with painful intimacy. It is +not absurd to suppose that whatever war comes to us next it will _not_ be +a distant war waged by Russia either beyond the Amur or beyond the Oxus. + +The Japanese armies have laid that ghost for ever, because the Russia of +the future will not, for the reasons explained above, be the Russia of to- +day. It will not have the same thoughts, resentments and aims. It is +even a question whether it will preserve its gigantic frame unaltered and +unbroken. All speculation loses itself in the magnitude of the events +made possible by the defeat of an autocracy whose only shadow of a title +to existence was the invincible power of military conquest. That +autocratic Russia will have a miserable end in harmony with its base +origin and inglorious life does not seem open to doubt. The problem of +the immediate future is posed not by the eventual manner but by the +approaching fact of its disappearance. + +The Japanese armies, in laying the oppressive ghost, have not only +accomplished what will be recognised historically as an important mission +in the world's struggle against all forms of evil, but have also created +a situation. They have created a situation in the East which they are +competent to manage by themselves; and in doing this they have brought +about a change in the condition of the West with which Europe is not well +prepared to deal. The common ground of concord, good faith and justice +is not sufficient to establish an action upon; since the conscience of +but very few men amongst us, and of no single Western nation as yet, will +brook the restraint of abstract ideas as against the fascination of a +material advantage. And eagle-eyed wisdom alone cannot take the lead of +human action, which in its nature must for ever remain short-sighted. The +trouble of the civilised world is the want of a common conservative +principle abstract enough to give the impulse, practical enough to form +the rallying point of international action tending towards the restraint +of particular ambitions. Peace tribunals instituted for the greater +glory of war will not replace it. Whether such a principle exists--who +can say? If it does not, then it ought to be invented. A sage with a +sense of humour and a heart of compassion should set about it without +loss of time, and a solemn prophet full of words and fire ought to be +given the task of preparing the minds. So far there is no trace of such +a principle anywhere in sight; even its plausible imitations (never very +effective) have disappeared long ago before the doctrine of national +aspirations. _Il n'y a plus d'Europe_--there is only an armed and +trading continent, the home of slowly maturing economical contests for +life and death and of loudly proclaimed world-wide ambitions. There are +also other ambitions not so loud, but deeply rooted in the envious +acquisitive temperament of the last corner amongst the great Powers of +the Continent, whose feet are not exactly in the ocean--not yet--and +whose head is very high up--in Pomerania, the breeding place of such +precious Grenadiers that Prince Bismarck (whom it is a pleasure to quote) +would not have given the bones of one of them for the settlement of the +old Eastern Question. But times have changed, since, by way of keeping +up, I suppose, some old barbaric German rite, the faithful servant of the +Hohenzollerns was buried alive to celebrate the accession of a new +Emperor. + +Already the voice of surmises has been heard hinting tentatively at a +possible re-grouping of European Powers. The alliance of the three +Empires is supposed possible. And it may be possible. The myth of +Russia's power is dying very hard--hard enough for that combination to +take place--such is the fascination that a discredited show of numbers +will still exercise upon the imagination of a people trained to the +worship of force. Germany may be willing to lend its support to a +tottering autocracy for the sake of an undisputed first place, and of a +preponderating voice in the settlement of every question in that south- +east of Europe which merges into Asia. No principle being involved in +such an alliance of mere expediency, it would never be allowed to stand +in the way of Germany's other ambitions. The fall of autocracy would +bring its restraint automatically to an end. Thus it may be believed +that the support Russian despotism may get from its once humble friend +and client will not be stamped by that thoroughness which is supposed to +be the mark of German superiority. Russia weakened down to the second +place, or Russia eclipsed altogether during the throes of her +regeneration, will answer equally well the plans of German policy--which +are many and various and often incredible, though the aim of them all is +the same: aggrandisement of territory and influence, with no regard to +right and justice, either in the East or in the West. For that and no +other is the true note of your _Welt-politik_ which desires to live. + +The German eagle with a Prussian head looks all round the horizon, not so +much for something to do that would count for good in the records of the +earth, as simply for something good to get. He gazes upon the land and +upon the sea with the same covetous steadiness, for he has become of late +a maritime eagle, and has learned to box the compass. He gazes north and +south, and east and west, and is inclined to look intemperately upon the +waters of the Mediterranean when they are blue. The disappearance of the +Russian phantom has given a foreboding of unwonted freedom to the _Welt- +politik_. According to the national tendency this assumption of Imperial +impulses would run into the grotesque were it not for the spikes of the +_pickelhaubes_ peeping out grimly from behind. Germany's attitude proves +that no peace for the earth can be found in the expansion of material +interests which she seems to have adopted exclusively as her only aim, +ideal, and watchword. For the use of those who gaze half-unbelieving at +the passing away of the Russian phantom, part Ghoul, part Djinn, part Old +Man of the Sea, and wait half-doubting for the birth of a nation's soul +in this age which knows no miracles, the once-famous saying of poor +Gambetta, tribune of the people (who was simple and believed in the +"immanent justice of things"), may be adapted in the shape of a warning +that, so far as a future of liberty, concord, and justice is concerned: +"Le Prussianisme--voila l'ennemi!" + + + +THE CRIME OF PARTITION--1919 + + +At the end of the eighteenth century, when the partition of Poland had +become an accomplished fact, the world qualified it at once as a crime. +This strong condemnation proceeded, of course, from the West of Europe; +the Powers of the Centre, Prussia and Austria, were not likely to admit +that this spoliation fell into the category of acts morally reprehensible +and carrying the taint of anti-social guilt. As to Russia, the third +party to the crime, and the originator of the scheme, she had no national +conscience at the time. The will of its rulers was always accepted by +the people as the expression of an omnipotence derived directly from God. +As an act of mere conquest the best excuse for the partition lay simply +in the fact that it happened to be possible; there was the plunder and +there was the opportunity to get hold of it. Catherine the Great looked +upon this extension of her dominions with a cynical satisfaction. Her +political argument that the destruction of Poland meant the repression of +revolutionary ideas and the checking of the spread of Jacobinism in +Europe was a characteristically impudent pretence. There may have been +minds here and there amongst the Russians that perceived, or perhaps only +felt, that by the annexation of the greater part of the Polish Republic, +Russia approached nearer to the comity of civilised nations and ceased, +at least territorially, to be an Asiatic Power. + +It was only after the partition of Poland that Russia began to play a +great part in Europe. To such statesmen as she had then that act of +brigandage must have appeared inspired by great political wisdom. The +King of Prussia, faithful to the ruling principle of his life, wished +simply to aggrandise his dominions at a much smaller cost and at much +less risk than he could have done in any other direction; for at that +time Poland was perfectly defenceless from a material point of view, and +more than ever, perhaps, inclined to put its faith in humanitarian +illusions. Morally, the Republic was in a state of ferment and +consequent weakness, which so often accompanies the period of social +reform. The strength arrayed against her was just then overwhelming; I +mean the comparatively honest (because open) strength of armed forces. +But, probably from innate inclination towards treachery, Frederick of +Prussia selected for himself the part of falsehood and deception. +Appearing on the scene in the character of a friend he entered +deliberately into a treaty of alliance with the Republic, and then, +before the ink was dry, tore it up in brazen defiance of the commonest +decency, which must have been extremely gratifying to his natural tastes. + +As to Austria, it shed diplomatic tears over the transaction. They +cannot be called crocodile tears, insomuch that they were in a measure +sincere. They arose from a vivid perception that Austria's allotted +share of the spoil could never compensate her for the accession of +strength and territory to the other two Powers. Austria did not really +want an extension of territory at the cost of Poland. She could not hope +to improve her frontier in that way, and economically she had no need of +Galicia, a province whose natural resources were undeveloped and whose +salt mines did not arouse her cupidity because she had salt mines of her +own. No doubt the democratic complexion of Polish institutions was very +distasteful to the conservative monarchy; Austrian statesmen did see at +the time that the real danger to the principle of autocracy was in the +West, in France, and that all the forces of Central Europe would be +needed for its suppression. But the movement towards a _partage_ on the +part of Russia and Prussia was too definite to be resisted, and Austria +had to follow their lead in the destruction of a State which she would +have preferred to preserve as a possible ally against Prussian and +Russian ambitions. It may be truly said that the destruction of Poland +secured the safety of the French Revolution. For when in 1795 the crime +was consummated, the Revolution had turned the corner and was in a state +to defend itself against the forces of reaction. + +In the second half of the eighteenth century there were two centres of +liberal ideas on the continent of Europe: France and Poland. On an +impartial survey one may say without exaggeration that then France was +relatively every bit as weak as Poland; even, perhaps, more so. But +France's geographical position made her much less vulnerable. She had no +powerful neighbours on her frontier; a decayed Spain in the south and a +conglomeration of small German Principalities on the east were her happy +lot. The only States which dreaded the contamination of the new +principles and had enough power to combat it were Prussia, Austria, and +Russia, and they had another centre of forbidden ideas to deal with in +defenceless Poland, unprotected by nature, and offering an immediate +satisfaction to their cupidity. They made their choice, and the untold +sufferings of a nation which would not die was the price exacted by fate +for the triumph of revolutionary ideals. + +Thus even a crime may become a moral agent by the lapse of time and the +course of history. Progress leaves its dead by the way, for progress is +only a great adventure as its leaders and chiefs know very well in their +hearts. It is a march into an undiscovered country; and in such an +enterprise the victims do not count. As an emotional outlet for the +oratory of freedom it was convenient enough to remember the Crime now and +then: the Crime being the murder of a State and the carving of its body +into three pieces. There was really nothing to do but to drop a few +tears and a few flowers of rhetoric upon the grave. But the spirit of +the nation refused to rest therein. It haunted the territories of the +Old Republic in the manner of a ghost haunting its ancestral mansion +where strangers are making themselves at home; a calumniated, ridiculed, +and pooh-pooh'd ghost, and yet never ceasing to inspire a sort of awe, a +strange uneasiness, in the hearts of the unlawful possessors. Poland +deprived of its independence, of its historical continuity, with its +religion and language persecuted and repressed, became a mere +geographical expression. And even that, itself, seemed strangely vague, +had lost its definite character, was rendered doubtful by the theories +and the claims of the spoliators who, by a strange effect of uneasy +conscience, while strenuously denying the moral guilt of the transaction, +were always trying to throw a veil of high rectitude over the Crime. What +was most annoying to their righteousness was the fact that the nation, +stabbed to the heart, refused to grow insensible and cold. That +persistent and almost uncanny vitality was sometimes very inconvenient to +the rest of Europe also. It would intrude its irresistible claim into +every problem of European politics, into the theory of European +equilibrium, into the question of the Near East, the Italian question, +the question of Schleswig-Holstein, and into the doctrine of +nationalities. That ghost, not content with making its ancestral halls +uncomfortable for the thieves, haunted also the Cabinets of Europe, waved +indecently its bloodstained robes in the solemn atmosphere of Council- +rooms, where congresses and conferences sit with closed windows. It +would not be exorcised by the brutal jeers of Bismarck and the fine +railleries of Gorchakov. + +As a Polish friend observed to me some years ago: "Till the year '48 the +Polish problem has been to a certain extent a convenient rallying-point +for all manifestations of liberalism. Since that time we have come to be +regarded simply as a nuisance. It's very disagreeable." + +I agreed that it was, and he continued: "What are we to do? We did not +create the situation by any outside action of ours. Through all the +centuries of its existence Poland has never been a menace to anybody, not +even to the Turks, to whom it has been merely an obstacle." + +Nothing could be more true. The spirit of aggressiveness was absolutely +foreign to the Polish temperament, to which the preservation of its +institutions and its liberties was much more precious than any ideas of +conquest. Polish wars were defensive, and they were mostly fought within +Poland's own borders. And that those territories were often invaded was +but a misfortune arising from its geographical position. Territorial +expansion was never the master-thought of Polish statesmen. The +consolidation of the territories of the _serenissime_ Republic, which +made of it a Power of the first rank for a time, was not accomplished by +force. It was not the consequence of successful aggression, but of a +long and successful defence against the raiding neighbours from the East. +The lands of Lithuanian and Ruthenian speech were never conquered by +Poland. These peoples were not compelled by a series of exhausting wars +to seek safety in annexation. It was not the will of a prince or a +political intrigue that brought about the union. Neither was it fear. +The slowly-matured view of the economical and social necessities and, +before all, the ripening moral sense of the masses were the motives that +induced the forty three representatives of Lithuanian and Ruthenian +provinces, led by their paramount prince, to enter into a political +combination unique in the history of the world, a spontaneous and +complete union of sovereign States choosing deliberately the way of +peace. Never was strict truth better expressed in a political instrument +than in the preamble of the first Union Treaty (1413). It begins with +the words: "This Union, being the outcome not of hatred, but of +love"--words that Poles have not heard addressed to them politically by +any nation for the last hundred and fifty years. + +This union being an organic, living thing capable of growth and +development was, later, modified and confirmed by two other treaties, +which guaranteed to all the parties in a just and eternal union all their +rights, liberties, and respective institutions. The Polish State offers +a singular instance of an extremely liberal administrative federalism +which, in its Parliamentary life as well as its international politics, +presented a complete unity of feeling and purpose. As an eminent French +diplomatist remarked many years ago: "It is a very remarkable fact in the +history of the Polish State, this invariable and unanimous consent of the +populations; the more so that, the King being looked upon simply as the +chief of the Republic, there was no monarchical bond, no dynastic +fidelity to control and guide the sentiment of the nations, and their +union remained as a pure affirmation of the national will." The Grand +Duchy of Lithuania and its Ruthenian Provinces retained their statutes, +their own administration, and their own political institutions. That +those institutions in the course of time tended to assimilation with the +Polish form was not the result of any pressure, but simply of the +superior character of Polish civilisation. + +Even after Poland lost its independence this alliance and this union +remained firm in spirit and fidelity. All the national movements towards +liberation were initiated in the name of the whole mass of people +inhabiting the limits of the old Republic, and all the Provinces took +part in them with complete devotion. It is only in the last generation +that efforts have been made to create a tendency towards separation, +which would indeed serve no one but Poland's common enemies. And, +strangely enough, it is the internationalists, men who professedly care +nothing for race or country, who have set themselves this task of +disruption, one can easily see for what sinister purpose. The ways of +the internationalists may be dark, but they are not inscrutable. + +From the same source no doubt there will flow in the future a poisoned +stream of hints of a reconstituted Poland being a danger to the races +once so closely associated within the territories of the Old Republic. +The old partners in "the Crime" are not likely to forgive their victim +its inconvenient and almost shocking obstinacy in keeping alive. They +had tried moral assassination before and with some small measure of +success, for, indeed, the Polish question, like all living reproaches, +had become a nuisance. Given the wrong, and the apparent impossibility +of righting it without running risks of a serious nature, some moral +alleviation may be found in the belief that the victim had brought its +misfortunes on its own head by its own sins. That theory, too, had been +advanced about Poland (as if other nations had known nothing of sin and +folly), and it made some way in the world at different times, simply +because good care was taken by the interested parties to stop the mouth +of the accused. But it has never carried much conviction to honest +minds. Somehow, in defiance of the cynical point of view as to the Force +of Lies and against all the power of falsified evidence, truth often +turns out to be stronger than calumny. With the course of years, +however, another danger sprang up, a danger arising naturally from the +new political alliances dividing Europe into two armed camps. It was the +danger of silence. Almost without exception the Press of Western Europe +in the twentieth century refused to touch the Polish question in any +shape or form whatever. Never was the fact of Polish vitality more +embarrassing to European diplomacy than on the eve of Poland's +resurrection. + +When the war broke out there was something gruesomely comic in the +proclamations of emperors and archdukes appealing to that invincible soul +of a nation whose existence or moral worth they had been so arrogantly +denying for more than a century. Perhaps in the whole record of human +transactions there have never been performances so brazen and so vile as +the manifestoes of the German Emperor and the Grand Duke Nicholas of +Russia; and, I imagine, no more bitter insult has been offered to human +heart and intelligence than the way in which those proclamations were +flung into the face of historical truth. It was like a scene in a +cynical and sinister farce, the absurdity of which became in some sort +unfathomable by the reflection that nobody in the world could possibly be +so abjectly stupid as to be deceived for a single moment. At that time, +and for the first two months of the war, I happened to be in Poland, and +I remember perfectly well that, when those precious documents came out, +the confidence in the moral turpitude of mankind they implied did not +even raise a scornful smile on the lips of men whose most sacred feelings +and dignity they outraged. They did not deign to waste their contempt on +them. In fact, the situation was too poignant and too involved for +either hot scorn or a coldly rational discussion. For the Poles it was +like being in a burning house of which all the issues were locked. There +was nothing but sheer anguish under the strange, as if stony, calmness +which in the utter absence of all hope falls on minds that are not +constitutionally prone to despair. Yet in this time of dismay the +irrepressible vitality of the nation would not accept a neutral attitude. +I was told that even if there were no issue it was absolutely necessary +for the Poles to affirm their national existence. Passivity, which could +be regarded as a craven acceptance of all the material and moral horrors +ready to fall upon the nation, was not to be thought of for a moment. +Therefore, it was explained to me, the Poles _must_ act. Whether this +was a counsel of wisdom or not it is very difficult to say, but there are +crises of the soul which are beyond the reach of wisdom. When there is +apparently no issue visible to the eyes of reason, sentiment may yet find +a way out, either towards salvation or to utter perdition, no one can +tell--and the sentiment does not even ask the question. Being there as a +stranger in that tense atmosphere, which was yet not unfamiliar to me, I +was not very anxious to parade my wisdom, especially after it had been +pointed out in answer to my cautious arguments that, if life has its +values worth fighting for, death, too, has that in it which can make it +worthy or unworthy. + +Out of the mental and moral trouble into which the grouping of the Powers +at the beginning of war had thrown the counsels of Poland there emerged +at last the decision that the Polish Legions, a peace organisation in +Galicia directed by Pilsudski (afterwards given the rank of General, and +now apparently the Chief of the Government in Warsaw), should take the +field against the Russians. In reality it did not matter against which +partner in the "Crime" Polish resentment should be directed. There was +little to choose between the methods of Russian barbarism, which were +both crude and rotten, and the cultivated brutality tinged with contempt +of Germany's superficial, grinding civilisation. There was nothing to +choose between them. Both were hateful, and the direction of the Polish +effort was naturally governed by Austria's tolerant attitude, which had +connived for years at the semi-secret organisation of the Polish Legions. +Besides, the material possibility pointed out the way. That Poland +should have turned at first against the ally of Western Powers, to whose +moral support she had been looking for so many years, is not a greater +monstrosity than that alliance with Russia which had been entered into by +England and France with rather less excuse and with a view to +eventualities which could perhaps have been avoided by a firmer policy +and by a greater resolution in the face of what plainly appeared +unavoidable. + +For let the truth be spoken. The action of Germany, however cruel, +sanguinary, and faithless, was nothing in the nature of a stab in the +dark. The Germanic Tribes had told the whole world in all possible tones +carrying conviction, the gently persuasive, the coldly logical; in tones +Hegelian, Nietzschean, warlike, pious, cynical, inspired, what they were +going to do to the inferior races of the earth, so full of sin and all +unworthiness. But with a strange similarity to the prophets of old (who +were also great moralists and invokers of might) they seemed to be crying +in a desert. Whatever might have been the secret searching of hearts, +the Worthless Ones would not take heed. It must also be admitted that +the conduct of the menaced Governments carried with it no suggestion of +resistance. It was no doubt, the effect of neither courage nor fear, but +of that prudence which causes the average man to stand very still in the +presence of a savage dog. It was not a very politic attitude, and the +more reprehensible in so far that it seemed to arise from the mistrust of +their own people's fortitude. On simple matters of life and death a +people is always better than its leaders, because a people cannot argue +itself as a whole into a sophisticated state of mind out of deference for +a mere doctrine or from an exaggerated sense of its own cleverness. I am +speaking now of democracies whose chiefs resemble the tyrant of Syracuse +in this, that their power is unlimited (for who can limit the will of a +voting people?) and who always see the domestic sword hanging by a hair +above their heads. + +Perhaps a different attitude would have checked German self-confidence, +and her overgrown militarism would have died from the excess of its own +strength. What would have been then the moral state of Europe it is +difficult to say. Some other excess would probably have taken its place, +excess of theory, or excess of sentiment, or an excess of the sense of +security leading to some other form of catastrophe; but it is certain +that in that case the Polish question would not have taken a concrete +form for ages. Perhaps it would never have taken form! In this world, +where everything is transient, even the most reproachful ghosts end by +vanishing out of old mansions, out of men's consciences. Progress of +enlightenment, or decay of faith? In the years before the war the Polish +ghost was becoming so thin that it was impossible to get for it the +slightest mention in the papers. A young Pole coming to me from Paris +was extremely indignant, but I, indulging in that detachment which is the +product of greater age, longer experience, and a habit of meditation, +refused to share that sentiment. He had gone begging for a word on +Poland to many influential people, and they had one and all told him that +they were going to do no such thing. They were all men of ideas and +therefore might have been called idealists, but the notion most strongly +anchored in their minds was the folly of touching a question which +certainly had no merit of actuality and would have had the appalling +effect of provoking the wrath of their old enemies and at the same time +offending the sensibilities of their new friends. It was an unanswerable +argument. I couldn't share my young friend's surprise and indignation. +My practice of reflection had also convinced me that there is nothing on +earth that turns quicker on its pivot than political idealism when +touched by the breath of practical politics. + +It would be good to remember that Polish independence as embodied in a +Polish State is not the gift of any kind of journalism, neither is it the +outcome even of some particularly benevolent idea or of any clearly +apprehended sense of guilt. I am speaking of what I know when I say that +the original and only formative idea in Europe was the idea of delivering +the fate of Poland into the hands of Russian Tsarism. And, let us +remember, it was assumed then to be a victorious Tsarism at that. It was +an idea talked of openly, entertained seriously, presented as a +benevolence, with a curious blindness to its grotesque and ghastly +character. It was the idea of delivering the victim with a kindly smile +and the confident assurance that "it would be all right" to a perfectly +unrepentant assassin, who, after sawing furiously at its throat for a +hundred years or so, was expected to make friends suddenly and kiss it on +both cheeks in the mystic Russian fashion. It was a singularly +nightmarish combination of international polity, and no whisper of any +other would have been officially tolerated. Indeed, I do not think in +the whole extent of Western Europe there was anybody who had the +slightest mind to whisper on that subject. Those were the days of the +dark future, when Benckendorf put down his name on the Committee for the +Relief of Polish Populations driven by the Russian armies into the heart +of Russia, when the Grand Duke Nicholas (the gentleman who advocated a +St. Bartholomew's Night for the suppression of Russian liberalism) was +displaying his "divine" (I have read the very word in an English +newspaper of standing) strategy in the great retreat, where Mr. Iswolsky +carried himself haughtily on the banks of the Seine; and it was beginning +to dawn upon certain people there that he was a greater nuisance even +than the Polish question. + +But there is no use in talking about all that. Some clever person has +said that it is always the unexpected that happens, and on a calm and +dispassionate survey the world does appear mainly to one as a scene of +miracles. Out of Germany's strength, in whose purpose so many people +refused to believe, came Poland's opportunity, in which nobody could have +been expected to believe. Out of Russia's collapse emerged that +forbidden thing, the Polish independence, not as a vengeful figure, the +retributive shadow of the crime, but as something much more solid and +more difficult to get rid of--a political necessity and a moral solution. +Directly it appeared its practical usefulness became undeniable, and also +the fact that, for better or worse, it was impossible to get rid of it +again except by the unthinkable way of another carving, of another +partition, of another crime. + +Therein lie the strength and the future of the thing so strictly +forbidden no farther back than two years or so, of the Polish +independence expressed in a Polish State. It comes into the world +morally free, not in virtue of its sufferings, but in virtue of its +miraculous rebirth and of its ancient claim for services rendered to +Europe. Not a single one of the combatants of all the fronts of the +world has died consciously for Poland's freedom. That supreme +opportunity was denied even to Poland's own children. And it is just as +well! Providence in its inscrutable way had been merciful, for had it +been otherwise the load of gratitude would have been too great, the sense +of obligation too crushing, the joy of deliverance too fearful for +mortals, common sinners with the rest of mankind before the eye of the +Most High. Those who died East and West, leaving so much anguish and so +much pride behind them, died neither for the creation of States, nor for +empty words, nor yet for the salvation of general ideas. They died +neither for democracy, nor leagues, nor systems, nor yet for abstract +justice, which is an unfathomable mystery. They died for something too +deep for words, too mighty for the common standards by which reason +measures the advantages of life and death, too sacred for the vain +discourses that come and go on the lips of dreamers, fanatics, +humanitarians, and statesmen. They died . . . . + +Poland's independence springs up from that great immolation, but Poland's +loyalty to Europe will not be rooted in anything so trenchant and +burdensome as the sense of an immeasurable indebtedness, of that +gratitude which in a worldly sense is sometimes called eternal, but which +lies always at the mercy of weariness and is fatally condemned by the +instability of human sentiments to end in negation. Polish loyalty will +be rooted in something much more solid and enduring, in something that +could never be called eternal, but which is, in fact, life-enduring. It +will be rooted in the national temperament, which is about the only thing +on earth that can be trusted. Men may deteriorate, they may improve too, +but they don't change. Misfortune is a hard school which may either +mature or spoil a national character, but it may be reasonably advanced +that the long course of adversity of the most cruel kind has not injured +the fundamental characteristics of the Polish nation which has proved its +vitality against the most demoralising odds. The various phases of the +Polish sense of self-preservation struggling amongst the menacing forces +and the no less threatening chaos of the neighbouring Powers should be +judged impartially. I suggest impartiality and not indulgence simply +because, when appraising the Polish question, it is not necessary to +invoke the softer emotions. A little calm reflection on the past and the +present is all that is necessary on the part of the Western world to +judge the movements of a community whose ideals are the same, but whose +situation is unique. This situation was brought vividly home to me in +the course of an argument more than eighteen months ago. "Don't forget," +I was told, "that Poland has got to live in contact with Germany and +Russia to the end of time. Do you understand the force of that +expression: 'To the end of time'? Facts must be taken into account, and +especially appalling facts, such as this, to which there is no possible +remedy on earth. For reasons which are, properly speaking, +physiological, a prospect of friendship with Germans or Russians even in +the most distant future is unthinkable. Any alliance of heart and mind +would be a monstrous thing, and monsters, as we all know, cannot live. +You can't base your conduct on a monstrous conception. We are either +worth or not worth preserving, but the horrible psychology of the +situation is enough to drive the national mind to distraction. Yet under +a destructive pressure, of which Western Europe can have no notion, +applied by forces that were not only crushing but corrupting, we have +preserved our sanity. Therefore there can be no fear of our losing our +minds simply because the pressure is removed. We have neither lost our +heads nor yet our moral sense. Oppression, not merely political, but +affecting social relations, family life, the deepest affections of human +nature, and the very fount of natural emotions, has never made us +vengeful. It is worthy of notice that with every incentive present in +our emotional reactions we had no recourse to political assassination. +Arms in hand, hopeless or hopefully, and always against immeasurable +odds, we did affirm ourselves and the justice of our cause; but wild +justice has never been a part of our conception of national manliness. In +all the history of Polish oppression there was only one shot fired which +was not in battle. Only one! And the man who fired it in Paris at the +Emperor Alexander II. was but an individual connected with no +organisation, representing no shade of Polish opinion. The only effect +in Poland was that of profound regret, not at the failure, but at the +mere fact of the attempt. The history of our captivity is free from that +stain; and whatever follies in the eyes of the world we may have +perpetrated, we have neither murdered our enemies nor acted treacherously +against them, nor yet have been reduced to the point of cursing each +other." + +I could not gainsay the truth of that discourse, I saw as clearly as my +interlocutor the impossibility of the faintest sympathetic bond between +Poland and her neighbours ever being formed in the future. The only +course that remains to a reconstituted Poland is the elaboration, +establishment, and preservation of the most correct method of political +relations with neighbours to whom Poland's existence is bound to be a +humiliation and an offence. Calmly considered it is an appalling task, +yet one may put one's trust in that national temperament which is so +completely free from aggressiveness and revenge. Therein lie the +foundations of all hope. The success of renewed life for that nation +whose fate is to remain in exile, ever isolated from the West, amongst +hostile surroundings, depends on the sympathetic understanding of its +problems by its distant friends, the Western Powers, which in their +democratic development must recognise the moral and intellectual kinship +of that distant outpost of their own type of civilisation, which was the +only basis of Polish culture. + +Whatever may be the future of Russia and the final organisation of +Germany, the old hostility must remain unappeased, the fundamental +antagonism must endure for years to come. The Crime of the Partition was +committed by autocratic Governments which were the Governments of their +time; but those Governments were characterised in the past, as they will +be in the future, by their people's national traits, which remain utterly +incompatible with the Polish mentality and Polish sentiment. Both the +German submissiveness (idealistic as it may be) and the Russian +lawlessness (fed on the corruption of all the virtues) are utterly +foreign to the Polish nation, whose qualities and defects are altogether +of another kind, tending to a certain exaggeration of individualism and, +perhaps, to an extreme belief in the Governing Power of Free Assent: the +one invariably vital principle in the internal government of the Old +Republic. There was never a history more free from political bloodshed +than the history of the Polish State, which never knew either feudal +institutions or feudal quarrels. At the time when heads were falling on +the scaffolds all over Europe there was only one political execution in +Poland--only one; and as to that there still exists a tradition that the +great Chancellor who democratised Polish institutions, and had to order +it in pursuance of his political purpose, could not settle that matter +with his conscience till the day of his death. Poland, too, had her +civil wars, but this can hardly be made a matter of reproach to her by +the rest of the world. Conducted with humanity, they left behind them no +animosities and no sense of repression, and certainly no legacy of +hatred. They were but a recognised argument in political discussion and +tended always towards conciliation. + +I cannot imagine, whatever form of democratic government Poland +elaborates for itself, that either the nation or its leaders would do +anything but welcome the closest scrutiny of their renewed political +existence. The difficulty of the problem of that existence will be so +great that some errors will be unavoidable, and one may be sure that they +will be taken advantage of by its neighbours to discredit that living +witness to a great historical crime. If not the actual frontiers, then +the moral integrity of the new State is sure to be assailed before the +eyes of Europe. Economical enmity will also come into play when the +world's work is resumed again and competition asserts its power. Charges +of aggression are certain to be made, especially as related to the small +States formed of the territories of the Old Republic. And everybody +knows the power of lies which go about clothed in coats of many colours, +whereas, as is well known, Truth has no such advantage, and for that +reason is often suppressed as not altogether proper for everyday +purposes. It is not often recognised, because it is not always fit to be +seen. + +Already there are innuendoes, threats, hints thrown out, and even awful +instances fabricated out of inadequate materials, but it is historically +unthinkable that the Poland of the future, with its sacred tradition of +freedom and its hereditary sense of respect for the rights of individuals +and States, should seek its prosperity in aggressive action or in moral +violence against that part of its once fellow-citizens who are Ruthenians +or Lithuanians. The only influence that cannot be restrained is simply +the influence of time, which disengages truth from all facts with a +merciless logic and prevails over the passing opinions, the changing +impulses of men. There can be no doubt that the moral impulses and the +material interests of the new nationalities, which seem to play now the +game of disintegration for the benefit of the world's enemies, will in +the end bring them nearer to the Poland of this war's creation, will +unite them sooner or later by a spontaneous movement towards the State +which had adopted and brought them up in the development of its own +humane culture--the offspring of the West. + + + +A NOTE ON THE POLISH PROBLEM--1916 + + +We must start from the assumption that promises made by proclamation at +the beginning of this war may be binding on the individuals who made them +under the stress of coming events, but cannot be regarded as binding the +Governments after the end of the war. + +Poland has been presented with three proclamations. Two of them were in +such contrast with the avowed principles and the historic action for the +last hundred years (since the Congress of Vienna) of the Powers +concerned, that they were more like cynical insults to the nation's +deepest feelings, its memory and its intelligence, than state papers of a +conciliatory nature. + +The German promises awoke nothing but indignant contempt; the Russian a +bitter incredulity of the most complete kind. The Austrian proclamation, +which made no promises and contented itself with pointing out the Austro- +Polish relations for the last forty-five years, was received in silence. +For it is a fact that in Austrian Poland alone Polish nationality was +recognised as an element of the Empire, and individuals could breathe the +air of freedom, of civil life, if not of political independence. + +But for Poles to be Germanophile is unthinkable. To be Russophile or +Austrophile is at best a counsel of despair in view of a European +situation which, because of the grouping of the powers, seems to shut +from them every hope, expressed or unexpressed, of a national future +nursed through more than a hundred years of suffering and oppression. + +Through most of these years, and especially since 1830, Poland (I use +this expression since Poland exists as a spiritual entity to-day as +definitely as it ever existed in her past) has put her faith in the +Western Powers. Politically it may have been nothing more than a +consoling illusion, and the nation had a half-consciousness of this. But +what Poland was looking for from the Western Powers without +discouragement and with unbroken confidence was moral support. + +This is a fact of the sentimental order. But such facts have their +positive value, for their idealism derives from perhaps the highest kind +of reality. A sentiment asserts its claim by its force, persistence and +universality. In Poland that sentimental attitude towards the Western +Powers is universal. It extends to all classes. The very children are +affected by it as soon as they begin to think. + +The political value of such a sentiment consists in this, that it is +based on profound resemblances. Therefore one can build on it as if it +were a material fact. For the same reason it would be unsafe to +disregard it if one proposed to build solidly. The Poles, whom +superficial or ill-informed theorists are trying to force into the social +and psychological formula of Slavonism, are in truth not Slavonic at all. +In temperament, in feeling, in mind, and even in unreason, they are +Western, with an absolute comprehension of all Western modes of thought, +even of those which are remote from their historical experience. + +That element of racial unity which may be called Polonism, remained +compressed between Prussian Germanism on one side and the Russian +Slavonism on the other. For Germanism it feels nothing but hatred. But +between Polonism and Slavonism there is not so much hatred as a complete +and ineradicable incompatibility. + +No political work of reconstructing Poland either as a matter of justice +or expediency could be sound which would leave the new creation in +dependence to Germanism or to Slavonism. + +The first need not be considered. The second must be--unless the Powers +elect to drop the Polish question either under the cover of vague +assurances or without any disguise whatever. + +But if it is considered it will be seen at once that the Slavonic +solution of the Polish Question can offer no guarantees of duration or +hold the promise of security for the peace of Europe. + +The only basis for it would be the Grand Duke's Manifesto. But that +Manifesto, signed by a personage now removed from Europe to Asia, and by +a man, moreover, who if true to himself, to his conception of patriotism +and to his family tradition could not have put his hand to it with any +sincerity of purpose, is now divested of all authority. The forcible +vagueness of its promises, its startling inconsistency with the hundred +years of ruthlessly denationalising oppression permit one to doubt +whether it was ever meant to have any authority. + +But in any case it could have had no effect. The very nature of things +would have brought to nought its professed intentions. + +It is impossible to suppose that a State of Russia's power and +antecedents would tolerate a privileged community (of, to Russia, +unnational complexion) within the body of the Empire. All history shows +that such an arrangement, however hedged in by the most solemn treaties +and declarations, cannot last. In this case it would lead to a tragic +issue. The absorption of Polonism is unthinkable. The last hundred +years of European History proves it undeniably. There remains then +extirpation, a process of blood and iron; and the last act of the Polish +drama would be played then before a Europe too weary to interfere, and to +the applause of Germany. + +It would not be just to say that the disappearance of Polonism would add +any strength to the Slavonic power of expansion. It would add no +strength, but it would remove a possibly effective barrier against the +surprises the future of Europe may hold in store for the Western Powers. + +Thus the question whether Polonism is worth saving presents itself as a +problem of politics with a practical bearing on the stability of European +peace--as a barrier or perhaps better (in view of its detached position) +as an outpost of the Western Powers placed between the great might of +Slavonism which has not yet made up its mind to anything, and the +organised Germanism which has spoken its mind with no uncertain voice, +before the world. + +Looked at in that light alone Polonism seems worth saving. That it has +lived so long on its trust in the moral support of the Western Powers may +give it another and even stronger claim, based on a truth of a more +profound kind. Polonism had resisted the utmost efforts of Germanism and +Slavonism for more than a hundred years. Why? Because of the strength +of its ideals conscious of their kinship with the West. Such a power of +resistance creates a moral obligation which it would be unsafe to +neglect. There is always a risk in throwing away a tool of proved +temper. + +In this profound conviction of the practical and ideal worth of Polonism +one approaches the problem of its preservation with a very vivid sense of +the practical difficulties derived from the grouping of the Powers. The +uncertainty of the extent and of the actual form of victory for the +Allies will increase the difficulty of formulating a plan of Polish +regeneration at the present moment. + +Poland, to strike its roots again into the soil of political Europe, will +require a guarantee of security for the healthy development and for the +untrammelled play of such institutions as she may be enabled to give to +herself. + +Those institutions will be animated by the spirit of Polonism, which, +having been a factor in the history of Europe and having proved its +vitality under oppression, has established its right to live. That +spirit, despised and hated by Germany and incompatible with Slavonism +because of moral differences, cannot avoid being (in its renewed +assertion) an object of dislike and mistrust. + +As an unavoidable consequence of the past Poland will have to begin its +existence in an atmosphere of enmities and suspicions. That advanced +outpost of Western civilisation will have to hold its ground in the midst +of hostile camps: always its historical fate. + +Against the menace of such a specially dangerous situation the paper and +ink of public Treaties cannot be an effective defence. Nothing but the +actual, living, active participation of the two Western Powers in the +establishment of the new Polish commonwealth, and in the first twenty +years of its existence, will give the Poles a sufficient guarantee of +security in the work of restoring their national life. + +An Anglo-French protectorate would be the ideal form of moral and +material support. But Russia, as an ally, must take her place in it on +such a footing as will allay to the fullest extent her possible +apprehensions and satisfy her national sentiment. That necessity will +have to be formally recognised. + +In reality Russia has ceased to care much for her Polish possessions. +Public recognition of a mistake in political morality and a voluntary +surrender of territory in the cause of European concord, cannot damage +the prestige of a powerful State. The new spheres of expansion in +regions more easily assimilable, will more than compensate Russia for the +loss of territory on the Western frontier of the Empire. + +The experience of Dual Controls and similar combinations has been so +unfortunate in the past that the suggestion of a Triple Protectorate may +well appear at first sight monstrous even to unprejudiced minds. But it +must be remembered that this is a unique case and a problem altogether +exceptional, justifying the employment of exceptional means for its +solution. To those who would doubt the possibility of even bringing such +a scheme into existence the answer may be made that there are +psychological moments when any measure tending towards the ends of +concord and justice may be brought into being. And it seems that the end +of the war would be the moment for bringing into being the political +scheme advocated in this note. + +Its success must depend on the singleness of purpose in the contracting +Powers, and on the wisdom, the tact, the abilities, the good-will of men +entrusted with its initiation and its further control. Finally it may be +pointed out that this plan is the only one offering serious guarantees to +all the parties occupying their respective positions within the scheme. + +If her existence as a state is admitted as just, expedient and necessary, +Poland has the moral right to receive her constitution not from the hand +of an old enemy, but from the Western Powers alone, though of course with +the fullest concurrence of Russia. + +This constitution, elaborated by a committee of Poles nominated by the +three Governments, will (after due discussion and amendment by the High +Commissioners of the Protecting Powers) be presented to Poland as the +initial document, the charter of her new life, freely offered and +unreservedly accepted. + +It should be as simple and short as a written constitution can +be--establishing the Polish Commonwealth, settling the lines of +representative institutions, the form of judicature, and leaving the +greatest measure possible of self-government to the provinces forming +part of the re-created Poland. + +This constitution will be promulgated immediately after the three Powers +had settled the frontiers of the new State, including the town of Danzic +(free port) and a proportion of seaboard. The legislature will then be +called together and a general treaty will regulate Poland's international +portion as a protected state, the status of the High Commissioners and +such-like matters. The legislature will ratify, thus making Poland, as +it were, a party in the establishment of the protectorate. A point of +importance. + +Other general treaties will define Poland's position in the Anglo-Franco- +Russian alliance, fix the numbers of the army, and settle the +participation of the Powers in its organisation and training. + + + +POLAND REVISITED--1915 + + +I. + + +I have never believed in political assassination as a means to an end, +and least of all in assassination of the dynastic order. I don't know +how far murder can ever approach the perfection of a fine art, but looked +upon with the cold eye of reason it seems but a crude expedient of +impatient hope or hurried despair. There are few men whose premature +death could influence human affairs more than on the surface. The deeper +stream of causes depends not on individuals who, like the mass of +mankind, are carried on by a destiny which no murder has ever been able +to placate, divert, or arrest. + +In July of last year I was a stranger in a strange city in the Midlands +and particularly out of touch with the world's politics. Never a very +diligent reader of newspapers, there were at that time reasons of a +private order which caused me to be even less informed than usual on +public affairs as presented from day to day in that necessarily +atmosphereless, perspectiveless manner of the daily papers, which +somehow, for a man possessed of some historic sense, robs them of all +real interest. I don't think I had looked at a daily for a month past. + +But though a stranger in a strange city I was not lonely, thanks to a +friend who had travelled there out of pure kindness to bear me company in +a conjuncture which, in a most private sense, was somewhat trying. + +It was this friend who, one morning at breakfast, informed me of the +murder of the Archduke Ferdinand. + +The impression was mediocre. I was barely aware that such a man existed. +I remembered only that not long before he had visited London. The +recollection was rather of a cloud of insignificant printed words his +presence in this country provoked. + +Various opinions had been expressed of him, but his importance was +Archducal, dynastic, purely accidental. Can there be in the world of +real men anything more shadowy than an Archduke? And now he was no more; +removed with an atrocity of circumstances which made one more sensible of +his humanity than when he was in life. I connected that crime with +Balkanic plots and aspirations so little that I had actually to ask where +it had happened. My friend told me it was in Serajevo, and wondered what +would be the consequences of that grave event. He asked me what I +thought would happen next. + +It was with perfect sincerity that I answered "Nothing," and having a +great repugnance to consider murder as a factor of politics, I dismissed +the subject. It fitted with my ethical sense that an act cruel and +absurd should be also useless. I had also the vision of a crowd of +shadowy Archdukes in the background, out of which one would step forward +to take the place of that dead man in the light of the European stage. +And then, to speak the whole truth, there was no man capable of forming a +judgment who attended so little to the march of events as I did at that +time. What for want of a more definite term I must call my mind was +fixed upon my own affairs, not because they were in a bad posture, but +because of their fascinating holiday-promising aspect. I had been +obtaining my information as to Europe at second hand, from friends good +enough to come down now and then to see us. They arrived with their +pockets full of crumpled newspapers, and answered my queries casually, +with gentle smiles of scepticism as to the reality of my interest. And +yet I was not indifferent; but the tension in the Balkans had become +chronic after the acute crisis, and one could not help being less +conscious of it. It had wearied out one's attention. Who could have +guessed that on that wild stage we had just been looking at a miniature +rehearsal of the great world-drama, the reduced model of the very +passions and violences of what the future held in store for the Powers of +the Old World? Here and there, perhaps, rare minds had a suspicion of +that possibility, while they watched Old Europe stage-managing fussily by +means of notes and conferences, the prophetic reproduction of its +awaiting fate. It was wonderfully exact in the spirit; same roar of +guns, same protestations of superiority, same words in the air; race, +liberation, justice--and the same mood of trivial demonstrations. One +could not take to-day a ticket for Petersburg. "You mean Petrograd," +would say the booking clerk. Shortly after the fall of Adrianople a +friend of mine passing through Sophia asked for some _cafe turc_ at the +end of his lunch. + +"Monsieur veut dire Cafe balkanique," the patriotic waiter corrected him +austerely. + +I will not say that I had not observed something of that instructive +aspect of the war of the Balkans both in its first and in its second +phase. But those with whom I touched upon that vision were pleased to +see in it the evidence of my alarmist cynicism. As to alarm, I pointed +out that fear is natural to man, and even salutary. It has done as much +as courage for the preservation of races and institutions. But from a +charge of cynicism I have always shrunk instinctively. It is like a +charge of being blind in one eye, a moral disablement, a sort of +disgraceful calamity that must he carried off with a jaunty bearing--a +sort of thing I am not capable of. Rather than be thought a mere jaunty +cripple I allowed myself to be blinded by the gross obviousness of the +usual arguments. It was pointed out to me that these Eastern nations +were not far removed from a savage state. Their economics were yet at +the stage of scratching the earth and feeding the pigs. The +highly-developed material civilisation of Europe could not allow itself +to be disturbed by a war. The industry and the finance could not allow +themselves to be disorganised by the ambitions of an idle class, or even +the aspirations, whatever they might be, of the masses. + +Very plausible all this sounded. War does not pay. There had been a +book written on that theme--an attempt to put pacificism on a material +basis. Nothing more solid in the way of argument could have been +advanced on this trading and manufacturing globe. War was "bad +business!" This was final. + +But, truth to say, on this July day I reflected but little on the +condition of the civilised world. Whatever sinister passions were +heaving under its splendid and complex surface, I was too agitated by a +simple and innocent desire of my own, to notice the signs or interpret +them correctly. The most innocent of passions will take the edge off +one's judgment. The desire which possessed me was simply the desire to +travel. And that being so it would have taken something very plain in +the way of symptoms to shake my simple trust in the stability of things +on the Continent. My sentiment and not my reason was engaged there. My +eyes were turned to the past, not to the future; the past that one cannot +suspect and mistrust, the shadowy and unquestionable moral possession the +darkest struggles of which wear a halo of glory and peace. + +In the preceding month of May we had received an invitation to spend some +weeks in Poland in a country house in the neighbourhood of Cracow, but +within the Russian frontier. The enterprise at first seemed to me +considerable. Since leaving the sea, to which I have been faithful for +so many years, I have discovered that there is in my composition very +little stuff from which travellers are made. I confess that my first +impulse about a projected journey is to leave it alone. But the +invitation received at first with a sort of dismay ended by rousing the +dormant energy of my feelings. Cracow is the town where I spent with my +father the last eighteen months of his life. It was in that old royal +and academical city that I ceased to be a child, became a boy, had known +the friendships, the admirations, the thoughts and the indignations of +that age. It was within those historical walls that I began to +understand things, form affections, lay up a store of memories and a fund +of sensations with which I was to break violently by throwing myself into +an unrelated existence. It was like the experience of another world. The +wings of time made a great dusk over all this, and I feared at first that +if I ventured bodily in there I would discover that I who have had to do +with a good many imaginary lives have been embracing mere shadows in my +youth. I feared. But fear in itself may become a fascination. Men have +gone, alone and trembling, into graveyards at midnight--just to see what +would happen. And this adventure was to be pursued in sunshine. Neither +would it be pursued alone. The invitation was extended to us all. This +journey would have something of a migratory character, the invasion of a +tribe. My present, all that gave solidity and value to it, at any rate, +would stand by me in this test of the reality of my past. I was pleased +with the idea of showing my companions what Polish country life was like; +to visit the town where I was at school before the boys by my side should +grow too old, and gaining an individual past of their own, should lose +their unsophisticated interest in mine. It is only in the short instants +of early youth that we have the faculty of coming out of ourselves to see +dimly the visions and share the emotions of another soul. For youth all +is reality in this world, and with justice, since it apprehends so +vividly its images behind which a longer life makes one doubt whether +there is any substance. I trusted to the fresh receptivity of these +young beings in whom, unless Heredity is an empty word, there should have +been a fibre which would answer to the sight, to the atmosphere, to the +memories of that corner of the earth where my own boyhood had received +its earliest independent impressions. + +The first days of the third week in July, while the telegraph wires +hummed with the words of enormous import which were to fill blue books, +yellow books, white books, and to arouse the wonder of mankind, passed +for us in light-hearted preparations for the journey. What was it but +just a rush through Germany, to get across as quickly as possible? + +Germany is the part of the earth's solid surface of which I know the +least. In all my life I had been across it only twice. I may well say +of it _vidi tantum_; and the very little I saw was through the window of +a railway carriage at express speed. Those journeys of mine had been +more like pilgrimages when one hurries on towards the goal for the +satisfaction of a deeper need than curiosity. In this last instance, +too, I was so incurious that I would have liked to have fallen asleep on +the shores of England and opened my eyes, if it were possible, only on +the other side of the Silesian frontier. Yet, in truth, as many others +have done, I had "sensed it"--that promised land of steel, of chemical +dyes, of method, of efficiency; that race planted in the middle of +Europe, assuming in grotesque vanity the attitude of Europeans amongst +effete Asiatics or barbarous niggers; and, with a consciousness of +superiority freeing their hands from all moral bonds, anxious to take up, +if I may express myself so, the "perfect man's burden." Meantime, in a +clearing of the Teutonic forest, their sages were rearing a Tree of +Cynical Wisdom, a sort of Upas tree, whose shade may be seen now lying +over the prostrate body of Belgium. It must be said that they laboured +openly enough, watering it with the most authentic sources of all +madness, and watching with their be-spectacled eyes the slow ripening of +the glorious blood-red fruit. The sincerest words of peace, words of +menace, and I verily believe words of abasement, even if there had been a +voice vile enough to utter them, would have been wasted on their ecstasy. +For when the fruit ripens on a branch it must fall. There is nothing on +earth that can prevent it. + + +II. + + +For reasons which at first seemed to me somewhat obscure, that one of my +companions whose wishes are law decided that our travels should begin in +an unusual way by the crossing of the North Sea. We should proceed from +Harwich to Hamburg. Besides being thirty-six times longer than the Dover- +Calais passage this rather unusual route had an air of adventure in +better keeping with the romantic feeling of this Polish journey which for +so many years had been before us in a state of a project full of colour +and promise, but always retreating, elusive like an enticing mirage. + +And, after all, it had turned out to be no mirage. No wonder they were +excited. It's no mean experience to lay your hands on a mirage. The day +of departure had come, the very hour had struck. The luggage was coming +downstairs. It was most convincing. Poland then, if erased from the +map, yet existed in reality; it was not a mere _pays du reve_, where you +can travel only in imagination. For no man, they argued, not even +father, an habitual pursuer of dreams, would push the love of the +novelist's art of make-believe to the point of burdening himself with +real trunks for a voyage _au pays du reve_. + +As we left the door of our house, nestling in, perhaps, the most peaceful +nook in Kent, the sky, after weeks of perfectly brazen serenity, veiled +its blue depths and started to weep fine tears for the refreshment of the +parched fields. A pearly blur settled over them, and a light sifted of +all glare, of everything unkindly and searching that dwells in the +splendour of unveiled skies. All unconscious of going towards the very +scenes of war, I carried off in my eye, this tiny fragment of Great +Britain; a few fields, a wooded rise; a clump of trees or two, with a +short stretch of road, and here and there a gleam of red wall and tiled +roof above the darkening hedges wrapped up in soft mist and peace. And I +felt that all this had a very strong hold on me as the embodiment of a +beneficent and gentle spirit; that it was dear to me not as an +inheritance, but as an acquisition, as a conquest in the sense in which a +woman is conquered--by love, which is a sort of surrender. + +These were strange, as if disproportionate thoughts to the matter in +hand, which was the simplest sort of a Continental holiday. And I am +certain that my companions, near as they are to me, felt no other trouble +but the suppressed excitement of pleasurable anticipation. The forms and +the spirit of the land before their eyes were their inheritance, not +their conquest--which is a thing precarious, and, therefore, the most +precious, possessing you if only by the fear of unworthiness rather than +possessed by you. Moreover, as we sat together in the same railway +carriage, they were looking forward to a voyage in space, whereas I felt +more and more plainly, that what I had started on was a journey in time, +into the past; a fearful enough prospect for the most consistent, but to +him who had not known how to preserve against his impulses the order and +continuity of his life--so that at times it presented itself to his +conscience as a series of betrayals--still more dreadful. + +I down here these thoughts so exclusively personal, to explain why there +was no room in my consciousness for the apprehension of a European war. I +don't mean to say that I ignored the possibility; I simply did not think +of it. And it made no difference; for if I had thought of it, it could +only have been in the lame and inconclusive way of the common uninitiated +mortals; and I am sure that nothing short of intellectual +certitude--obviously unattainable by the man in the street--could have +stayed me on that journey which now that I had started on it seemed an +irrevocable thing, a necessity of my self-respect. + +London, the London before the war, flaunting its enormous glare, as of a +monstrous conflagration up into the black sky--with its best Venice-like +aspect of rainy evenings, the wet asphalted streets lying with the sheen +of sleeping water in winding canals, and the great houses of the city +towering all dark, like empty palaces, above the reflected lights of the +glistening roadway. + +Everything in the subdued incomplete night-life around the Mansion House +went on normally with its fascinating air of a dead commercial city of +sombre walls through which the inextinguishable activity of its millions +streamed East and West in a brilliant flow of lighted vehicles. + +In Liverpool Street, as usual too, through the double gates, a continuous +line of taxi-cabs glided down the inclined approach and up again, like an +endless chain of dredger-buckets, pouring in the passengers, and dipping +them out of the great railway station under the inexorable pallid face of +the clock telling off the diminishing minutes of peace. It was the hour +of the boat-trains to Holland, to Hamburg, and there seemed to be no lack +of people, fearless, reckless, or ignorant, who wanted to go to these +places. The station was normally crowded, and if there was a great +flutter of evening papers in the multitude of hands there were no signs +of extraordinary emotion on that multitude of faces. There was nothing +in them to distract me from the thought that it was singularly +appropriate that I should start from this station on the retraced way of +my existence. For this was the station at which, thirty-seven years +before, I arrived on my first visit to London. Not the same building, +but the same spot. At nineteen years of age, after a period of probation +and training I had imposed upon myself as ordinary seaman on board a +North Sea coaster, I had come up from Lowestoft--my first long railway +journey in England--to "sign on" for an Antipodean voyage in a deep-water +ship. Straight from a railway carriage I had walked into the great city +with something of the feeling of a traveller penetrating into a vast and +unexplored wilderness. No explorer could have been more lonely. I did +not know a single soul of all these millions that all around me peopled +the mysterious distances of the streets. I cannot say I was free from a +little youthful awe, but at that age one's feelings are simple. I was +elated. I was pursuing a clear aim, I was carrying out a deliberate plan +of making out of myself, in the first place, a seaman worthy of the +service, good enough to work by the side of the men with whom I was to +live; and in the second place, I had to justify my existence to myself, +to redeem a tacit moral pledge. Both these aims were to be attained by +the same effort. How simple seemed the problem of life then, on that +hazy day of early September in the year 1878, when I entered London for +the first time. + +From that point of view--Youth and a straightforward scheme of conduct--it +was certainly a year of grace. All the help I had to get in touch with +the world I was invading was a piece of paper not much bigger than the +palm of my hand--in which I held it--torn out of a larger plan of London +for the greater facility of reference. It had been the object of careful +study for some days past. The fact that I could take a conveyance at the +station never occurred to my mind, no, not even when I got out into the +street, and stood, taking my anxious bearings, in the midst, so to speak, +of twenty thousand hansoms. A strange absence of mind or unconscious +conviction that one cannot approach an important moment of one's life by +means of a hired carriage? Yes, it would have been a preposterous +proceeding. And indeed I was to make an Australian voyage and encircle +the globe before ever entering a London hansom. + +Another document, a cutting from a newspaper, containing the address of +an obscure shipping agent, was in my pocket. And I needed not to take it +out. That address was as if graven deep in my brain. I muttered its +words to myself as I walked on, navigating the sea of London by the chart +concealed in the palm of my hand; for I had vowed to myself not to +inquire my way from anyone. Youth is the time of rash pledges. Had I +taken a wrong turning I would have been lost; and if faithful to my +pledge I might have remained lost for days, for weeks, have left perhaps +my bones to be discovered bleaching in some blind alley of the +Whitechapel district, as it had happened to lonely travellers lost in the +bush. But I walked on to my destination without hesitation or mistake, +showing there, for the first time, some of that faculty to absorb and +make my own the imaged topography of a chart, which in later years was to +help me in regions of intricate navigation to keep the ships entrusted to +me off the ground. The place I was bound to was not easy to find. It +was one of those courts hidden away from the charted and navigable +streets, lost among the thick growth of houses like a dark pool in the +depths of a forest, approached by an inconspicuous archway as if by +secret path; a Dickensian nook of London, that wonder city, the growth of +which bears no sign of intelligent design, but many traces of freakishly +sombre phantasy the Great Master knew so well how to bring out by the +magic of his understanding love. And the office I entered was Dickensian +too. The dust of the Waterloo year lay on the panes and frames of its +windows; early Georgian grime clung to its sombre wainscoting. + +It was one o'clock in the afternoon, but the day was gloomy. By the +light of a single gas-jet depending from the smoked ceiling I saw an +elderly man, in a long coat of black broadcloth. He had a grey beard, a +big nose, thick lips, and heavy shoulders. His curly white hair and the +general character of his head recalled vaguely a burly apostle in the +_barocco_ style of Italian art. Standing up at a tall, shabby, slanting +desk, his silver-rimmed spectacles pushed up high on his forehead, he was +eating a mutton-chop, which had been just brought to him from some +Dickensian eating-house round the corner. + +Without ceasing to eat he turned to me his florid, _barocco_ apostle's +face with an expression of inquiry. + +I produced elaborately a series of vocal sounds which must have borne +sufficient resemblance to the phonetics of English speech, for his face +broke into a smile of comprehension almost at once.--"Oh, it's you who +wrote a letter to me the other day from Lowestoft about getting a ship." + +I had written to him from Lowestoft. I can't remember a single word of +that letter now. It was my very first composition in the English +language. And he had understood it, evidently, for he spoke to the point +at once, explaining that his business, mainly, was to find good ships for +young gentlemen who wanted to go to sea as premium apprentices with a +view of being trained for officers. But he gathered that this was not my +object. I did not desire to be apprenticed. Was that the case? + +It was. He was good enough to say then, "Of course I see that you are a +gentleman. But your wish is to get a berth before the mast as an Able +Seaman if possible. Is that it?" + +It was certainly my wish; but he stated doubtfully that he feared he +could not help me much in this. There was an Act of Parliament which +made it penal to procure ships for sailors. "An Act-of-Parliament. A +law," he took pains to impress it again and again on my foreign +understanding, while I looked at him in consternation. + +I had not been half an hour in London before I had run my head against an +Act of Parliament! What a hopeless adventure! However, the _barocco_ +apostle was a resourceful person in his way, and we managed to get round +the hard letter of it without damage to its fine spirit. Yet, strictly +speaking, it was not the conduct of a good citizen; and in retrospect +there is an unfilial flavour about that early sin of mine. For this Act +of Parliament, the Merchant Shipping Act of the Victorian era, had been +in a manner of speaking a father and mother to me. For many years it had +regulated and disciplined my life, prescribed my food and the amount of +my breathing space, had looked after my health and tried as much as +possible to secure my personal safety in a risky calling. It isn't such +a bad thing to lead a life of hard toil and plain duty within the four +corners of an honest Act of Parliament. And I am glad to say that its +seventies have never been applied to me. + +In the year 1878, the year of "Peace with Honour," I had walked as lone +as any human being in the streets of London, out of Liverpool Street +Station, to surrender myself to its care. And now, in the year of the +war waged for honour and conscience more than for any other cause, I was +there again, no longer alone, but a man of infinitely dear and close ties +grown since that time, of work done, of words written, of friendships +secured. It was like the closing of a thirty-six-year cycle. + +All unaware of the War Angel already awaiting, with the trumpet at his +lips, the stroke of the fatal hour, I sat there, thinking that this life +of ours is neither long nor short, but that it can appear very wonderful, +entertaining, and pathetic, with symbolic images and bizarre associations +crowded into one half-hour of retrospective musing. + +I felt, too, that this journey, so suddenly entered upon, was bound to +take me away from daily life's actualities at every step. I felt it more +than ever when presently we steamed out into the North Sea, on a dark +night fitful with gusts of wind, and I lingered on deck, alone of all the +tale of the ship's passengers. That sea was to me something +unforgettable, something much more than a name. It had been for some +time the schoolroom of my trade. On it, I may safely say, I had learned, +too, my first words of English. A wild and stormy abode, sometimes, was +that confined, shallow-water academy of seamanship from which I launched +myself on the wide oceans. My teachers had been the sailors of the +Norfolk shore; coast men, with steady eyes, mighty limbs, and gentle +voice; men of very few words, which at least were never bare of meaning. +Honest, strong, steady men, sobered by domestic ties, one and all, as far +as I can remember. + +That is what years ago the North Sea I could hear growling in the dark +all round the ship had been for me. And I fancied that I must have been +carrying its voice in my ear ever since, for nothing could be more +familiar than those short, angry sounds I was listening to with a smile +of affectionate recognition. + +I could not guess that before many days my old schoolroom would be +desecrated by violence, littered with wrecks, with death walking its +waves, hiding under its waters. Perhaps while I am writing these words +the children, or maybe the grandchildren, of my pacific teachers are out +in trawlers, under the Naval flag, dredging for German submarine mines. + + +III. + + +I have said that the North Sea was my finishing school of seamanship +before I launched myself on the wider oceans. Confined as it is in +comparison with the vast stage of this water-girt globe, I did not know +it in all its parts. My class-room was the region of the English East +Coast which, in the year of Peace with Honour, had long forgotten the war +episodes belonging to its maritime history. It was a peaceful coast, +agricultural, industrial, the home of fishermen. At night the lights of +its many towns played on the clouds, or in clear weather lay still, here +and there, in brilliant pools above the ink-black outline of the land. On +many a night I have hauled at the braces under the shadow of that coast, +envying, as sailors will, the people on shore sleeping quietly in their +beds within sound of the sea. I imagine that not one head on those +envied pillows was made uneasy by the slightest premonition of the +realities of naval war the short lifetime of one generation was to bring +so close to their homes. + +Though far away from that region of kindly memories and traversing a part +of the North Sea much less known to me, I was deeply conscious of the +familiarity of my surroundings. It was a cloudy, nasty day: and the +aspects of Nature don't change, unless in the course of thousands of +years--or, perhaps, centuries. The Phoenicians, its first discoverers, +the Romans, the first imperial rulers of that sea, had experienced days +like this, so different in the wintry quality of the light, even on a +July afternoon, from anything they had ever known in their native +Mediterranean. For myself, a very late comer into that sea, and its +former pupil, I accorded amused recognition to the characteristic aspect +so well remembered from my days of training. The same old thing. A grey- +green expanse of smudgy waters grinning angrily at one with white foam- +ridges, and over all a cheerless, unglowing canopy, apparently made of +wet blotting-paper. From time to time a flurry of fine rain blew along +like a puff of smoke across the dots of distant fishing boats, very few, +very scattered, and tossing restlessly on an ever dissolving, ever re- +forming sky-line. + +Those flurries, and the steady rolling of the ship, accounted for the +emptiness of the decks, favouring my reminiscent mood. It might have +been a day of five and thirty years ago, when there were on this and +every other sea more sails and less smoke-stacks to be seen. Yet, thanks +to the unchangeable sea I could have given myself up to the illusion of a +revised past, had it not been for the periodical transit across my gaze +of a German passenger. He was marching round and round the boat deck +with characteristic determination. Two sturdy boys gambolled round him +in his progress like two disorderly satellites round their parent planet. +He was bringing them home, from their school in England, for their +holiday. What could have induced such a sound Teuton to entrust his +offspring to the unhealthy influences of that effete, corrupt, rotten and +criminal country I cannot imagine. It could hardly have been from +motives of economy. I did not speak to him. He trod the deck of that +decadent British ship with a scornful foot while his breast (and to a +large extent his stomach, too) appeared expanded by the consciousness of +a superior destiny. Later I could observe the same truculent bearing, +touched with the racial grotesqueness, in the men of the _Landwehr_ +corps, that passed through Cracow to reinforce the Austrian army in +Eastern Galicia. Indeed, the haughty passenger might very well have +been, most probably was, an officer of the _Landwehr_; and perhaps those +two fine active boys are orphans by now. Thus things acquire +significance by the lapse of time. A citizen, a father, a warrior, a +mote in the dust-cloud of six million fighting particles, an unconsidered +trifle for the jaws of war, his humanity was not consciously impressed on +my mind at the time. Mainly, for me, he was a sharp tapping of heels +round the corner of the deck-house, a white yachting cap and a green +overcoat getting periodically between my eyes and the shifting +cloud-horizon of the ashy-grey North Sea. He was but a shadowy intrusion +and a disregarded one, for, far away there to the West, in the direction +of the Dogger Bank, where fishermen go seeking their daily bread and +sometimes find their graves, I could behold an experience of my own in +the winter of '81, not of war, truly, but of a fairly lively contest with +the elements which were very angry indeed. + +There had been a troublesome week of it, including one hateful night--or +a night of hate (it isn't for nothing that the North Sea is also called +the German Ocean)--when all the fury stored in its heart seemed +concentrated on one ship which could do no better than float on her side +in an unnatural, disagreeable, precarious, and altogether intolerable +manner. There were on board, besides myself, seventeen men all good and +true, including a round enormous Dutchman who, in those hours between +sunset and sunrise, managed to lose his blown-out appearance somehow, +became as it were deflated, and thereafter for a good long time moved in +our midst wrinkled and slack all over like a half-collapsed balloon. The +whimpering of our deck-boy, a skinny, impressionable little scarecrow out +of a training-ship, for whom, because of the tender immaturity of his +nerves, this display of German Ocean frightfulness was too much (before +the year was out he developed into a sufficiently cheeky young ruffian), +his desolate whimpering, I say, heard between the gusts of that black, +savage night, was much more present to my mind and indeed to my senses +than the green overcoat and the white cap of the German passenger +circling the deck indefatigably, attended by his two gyrating children. + +"That's a very nice gentleman." This information, together with the fact +that he was a widower and a regular passenger twice a year by the ship, +was communicated to me suddenly by our captain. At intervals through the +day he would pop out of the chart-room and offer me short snatches of +conversation. He owned a simple soul and a not very entertaining mind, +and he was without malice and, I believe, quite unconsciously, a warm +Germanophil. And no wonder! As he told me himself, he had been fifteen +years on that run, and spent almost as much of his life in Hamburg as in +Harwich. + +"Wonderful people they are," he repeated from time to time, without +entering into particulars, but with many nods of sagacious obstinacy. +What he knew of them, I suppose, were a few commercial travellers and +small merchants, most likely. But I had observed long before that German +genius has a hypnotising power over half-baked souls and half-lighted +minds. There is an immense force of suggestion in highly organised +mediocrity. Had it not hypnotised half Europe? My man was very much +under the spell of German excellence. On the other hand, his contempt +for France was equally general and unbounded. I tried to advance some +arguments against this position, but I only succeeded in making him +hostile. "I believe you are a Frenchman yourself," he snarled at last, +giving me an intensely suspicious look; and forthwith broke off +communications with a man of such unsound sympathies. + +Hour by hour the blotting-paper sky and the great flat greenish smudge of +the sea had been taking on a darker tone, without any change in their +colouring and texture. Evening was coming on over the North Sea. Black +uninteresting hummocks of land appeared, dotting the duskiness of water +and clouds in the Eastern board: tops of islands fringing the German +shore. While I was looking at their antics amongst the waves--and for +all their solidity they were very elusive things in the failing +light--another passenger came out on deck. This one wore a dark overcoat +and a grey cap. The yellow leather strap of his binocular case crossed +his chest. His elderly red cheeks nourished but a very thin crop of +short white hairs, and the end of his nose was so perfectly round that it +determined the whole character of his physiognomy. Indeed nothing else +in it had the slightest chance to assert itself. His disposition, unlike +the widower's, appeared to be mild and humane. He offered me the loan of +his glasses. He had a wife and some small children concealed in the +depths of the ship, and he thought they were very well where they were. +His eldest son was about the decks somewhere. + +"We are Americans," he remarked weightily, but in a rather peculiar tone. +He spoke English with the accent of our captain's "wonderful people," and +proceeded to give me the history of the family's crossing the Atlantic in +a White Star liner. They remained in England just the time necessary for +a railway journey from Liverpool to Harwich. His people (those in the +depths of the ship) were naturally a little tired. + +At that moment a young man of about twenty, his son, rushed up to us from +the fore-deck in a state of intense elation. "Hurrah," he cried under +his breath. "The first German light! Hurrah!" + +And those two American citizens shook hands on it with the greatest +fervour, while I turned away and received full in the eyes the brilliant +wink of the Borkum lighthouse squatting low down in the darkness. The +shade of the night had settled on the North Sea. + +I do not think I have ever seen before a night so full of lights. The +great change of sea life since my time was brought home to me. I had +been conscious all day of an interminable procession of steamers. They +went on and on as if in chase of each other, the Baltic trade, the trade +of Scandinavia, of Denmark, of Germany, pitching heavily into a head sea +and bound for the gateway of Dover Straits. Singly, and in small +companies of two and three, they emerged from the dull, colourless, +sunless distances ahead as if the supply of rather roughly finished +mechanical toys were inexhaustible in some mysterious cheap store away +there, below the grey curve of the earth. Cargo steam vessels have +reached by this time a height of utilitarian ugliness which, when one +reflects that it is the product of human ingenuity, strikes hopeless awe +into one. These dismal creations look still uglier at sea than in port, +and with an added touch of the ridiculous. Their rolling waddle when +seen at a certain angle, their abrupt clockwork nodding in a sea-way, so +unlike the soaring lift and swing of a craft under sail, have in them +something caricatural, a suggestion of a low parody directed at noble +predecessors by an improved generation of dull, mechanical toilers, +conceited and without grace. + +When they switched on (each of these unlovely cargo tanks carried tame +lightning within its slab-sided body), when they switched on their lamps +they spangled the night with the cheap, electric, shop-glitter, here, +there, and everywhere, as of some High Street, broken up and washed out +to sea. Later, Heligoland cut into the overhead darkness with its +powerful beam, infinitely prolonged out of unfathomable night under the +clouds. + +I remained on deck until we stopped and a steam pilot-boat, so +overlighted amidships that one could not make out her complete shape, +glided across our bows and sent a pilot on board. I fear that the oar, +as a working implement, will become presently as obsolete as the sail. +The pilot boarded us in a motor-dinghy. More and more is mankind +reducing its physical activities to pulling levers and twirling little +wheels. Progress! Yet the older methods of meeting natural forces +demanded intelligence too; an equally fine readiness of wits. And +readiness of wits working in combination with the strength of muscles +made a more complete man. + +It was really a surprisingly small dinghy and it ran to and fro like a +water-insect fussing noisily down there with immense self-importance. +Within hail of us the hull of the Elbe lightship floated all dark and +silent under its enormous round, service lantern; a faithful black shadow +watching the broad estuary full of lights. + +Such was my first view of the Elbe approached under the wings of peace +ready for flight away from the luckless shores of Europe. Our visual +impressions remain with us so persistently that I find it extremely +difficult to hold fast to the rational belief that now everything is dark +over there, that the Elbe lightship has been towed away from its post of +duty, the triumphant beam of Heligoland extinguished, and the pilot-boat +laid up, or turned to warlike uses for lack of its proper work to do. And +obviously it must be so. + +Any trickle of oversea trade that passes yet that way must be creeping +along cautiously with the unlighted, war-blighted black coast close on +one hand, and sudden death on the other. For all the space we steamed +through that Sunday evening must now be one great minefield, sown thickly +with the seeds of hate; while submarines steal out to sea, over the very +spot perhaps where the insect-dinghy put a pilot on board of us with so +much fussy importance. Mines; Submarines. The last word in sea-warfare! +Progress--impressively disclosed by this war. + +There have been other wars! Wars not inferior in the greatness of the +stake and in the fierce animosity of feelings. During that one which was +finished a hundred years ago it happened that while the English Fleet was +keeping watch on Brest, an American, perhaps Fulton himself, offered to +the Maritime Prefect of the port and to the French Admiral, an invention +which would sink all the unsuspecting English ships one after another--or, +at any rate most of them. The offer was not even taken into +consideration; and the Prefect ends his report to the Minister in Paris +with a fine phrase of indignation: "It is not the sort of death one would +deal to brave men." + +And behold, before history had time to hatch another war of the like +proportions in the intensity of aroused passions and the greatness of +issues, the dead flavour of archaism descended on the manly sentiment of +those self-denying words. Mankind has been demoralised since by its own +mastery of mechanical appliances. Its spirit is apparently so weak now, +and its flesh has grown so strong, that it will face any deadly horror of +destruction and cannot resist the temptation to use any stealthy, +murderous contrivance. It has become the intoxicated slave of its own +detestable ingenuity. It is true, too, that since the Napoleonic time +another sort of war-doctrine has been inculcated in a nation, and held +out to the world. + + +IV. + + +On this journey of ours, which for me was essentially not a progress, but +a retracing of footsteps on the road of life, I had no beacons to look +for in Germany. I had never lingered in that land which, on the whole, +is so singularly barren of memorable manifestations of generous +sympathies and magnanimous impulses. An ineradicable, invincible, +provincialism of envy and vanity clings to the forms of its thought like +a frowsy garment. Even while yet very young I turned my eyes away from +it instinctively as from a threatening phantom. I believe that children +and dogs have, in their innocence, a special power of perception as far +as spectral apparitions and coming misfortunes are concerned. + +I let myself be carried through Germany as if it were pure space, without +sights, without sounds. No whispers of the war reached my voluntary +abstraction. And perhaps not so very voluntary after all! Each of us is +a fascinating spectacle to himself, and I had to watch my own personality +returning from another world, as it were, to revisit the glimpses of old +moons. Considering the condition of humanity, I am, perhaps, not so much +to blame for giving myself up to that occupation. We prize the sensation +of our continuity, and we can only capture it in that way. By watching. + +We arrived in Cracow late at night. After a scrambly supper, I said to +my eldest boy, "I can't go to bed. I am going out for a look round. +Coming?" + +He was ready enough. For him, all this was part of the interesting +adventure of the whole journey. We stepped out of the portal of the +hotel into an empty street, very silent and bright with moonlight. I +was, indeed, revisiting the glimpses of the moon. I felt so much like a +ghost that the discovery that I could remember such material things as +the right turn to take and the general direction of the street gave me a +moment of wistful surprise. + +The street, straight and narrow, ran into the great Market Square of the +town, the centre of its affairs and of the lighter side of its life. We +could see at the far end of the street a promising widening of space. At +the corner an unassuming (but armed) policeman, wearing ceremoniously at +midnight a pair of white gloves which made his big hands extremely +noticeable, turned his head to look at the grizzled foreigner holding +forth in a strange tongue to a youth on whose arm he leaned. + +The Square, immense in its solitude, was full to the brim of moonlight. +The garland of lights at the foot of the houses seemed to burn at the +bottom of a bluish pool. I noticed with infinite satisfaction that the +unnecessary trees the Municipality insisted upon sticking between the +stones had been steadily refusing to grow. They were not a bit bigger +than the poor victims I could remember. Also, the paving operations +seemed to be exactly at the same point at which I left them forty years +before. There were the dull, torn-up patches on that bright expanse, the +piles of paving material looking ominously black, like heads of rocks on +a silvery sea. Who was it that said that Time works wonders? What an +exploded superstition! As far as these trees and these paving stones +were concerned, it had worked nothing. The suspicion of the +unchangeableness of things already vaguely suggested to my senses by our +rapid drive from the railway station was agreeably strengthened within +me. + +"We are now on the line A.B.," I said to my companion, importantly. + +It was the name bestowed in my time on one of the sides of the Square by +the senior students of that town of classical learning and historical +relics. The common citizens knew nothing of it, and, even if they had, +would not have dreamed of taking it seriously. He who used it was of the +initiated, belonged to the Schools. We youngsters regarded that name as +a fine jest, the invention of a most excellent fancy. Even as I uttered +it to my boy I experienced again that sense of my privileged initiation. +And then, happening to look up at the wall, I saw in the light of the +corner lamp, a white, cast-iron tablet fixed thereon, bearing an +inscription in raised black letters, thus: "Line A.B." Heavens! The +name had been adopted officially! Any town urchin, any guttersnipe, any +herb-selling woman of the market-place, any wandering Boeotian, was free +to talk of the line A.B., to walk on the line A.B., to appoint to meet +his friends on the line A.B. It had become a mere name in a directory. I +was stunned by the extreme mutability of things. Time could work +wonders, and no mistake. A Municipality had stolen an invention of +excellent fancy, and a fine jest had turned into a horrid piece of cast- +iron. + +I proposed that we should walk to the other end of the line, using the +profaned name, not only without gusto, but with positive distaste. And +this, too, was one of the wonders of Time, for a bare minute had worked +that change. There was at the end of the line a certain street I wanted +to look at, I explained to my companion. + +To our right the unequal massive towers of St. Mary's Church soared aloft +into the ethereal radiance of the air, very black on their shaded sides, +glowing with a soft phosphorescent sheen on the others. In the distance +the Florian Gate, thick and squat under its pointed roof, barred the +street with the square shoulders of the old city wall. In the narrow, +brilliantly pale vista of bluish flagstones and silvery fronts of houses, +its black archway stood out small and very distinct. + +There was not a soul in sight, and not even the echo of a footstep for +our ears. Into this coldly illuminated and dumb emptiness there issued +out of my aroused memory, a small boy of eleven, wending his way, not +very fast, to a preparatory school for day-pupils on the second floor of +the third house down from the Florian Gate. It was in the winter months +of 1868. At eight o'clock of every morning that God made, sleet or +shine, I walked up Florian Street. But of that, my first school, I +remember very little. I believe that one of my co-sufferers there has +become a much appreciated editor of historical documents. But I didn't +suffer much from the various imperfections of my first school. I was +rather indifferent to school troubles. I had a private gnawing worm of +my own. This was the time of my father's last illness. Every evening at +seven, turning my back on the Florian Gate, I walked all the way to a big +old house in a quiet narrow street a good distance beyond the Great +Square. There, in a large drawing-room, panelled and bare, with heavy +cornices and a lofty ceiling, in a little oasis of light made by two +candles in a desert of dusk, I sat at a little table to worry and ink +myself all over till the task of my preparation was done. The table of +my toil faced a tall white door, which was kept closed; now and then it +would come ajar and a nun in a white coif would squeeze herself through +the crack, glide across the room, and disappear. There were two of these +noiseless nursing nuns. Their voices were seldom heard. For, indeed, +what could they have had to say? When they did speak to me it was with +their lips hardly moving, in a claustral, clear whisper. Our domestic +matters were ordered by the elderly housekeeper of our neighbour on the +second floor, a Canon of the Cathedral, lent for the emergency. She, +too, spoke but seldom. She wore a black dress with a cross hanging by a +chain on her ample bosom. And though when she spoke she moved her lips +more than the nuns, she never let her voice rise above a peacefully +murmuring note. The air around me was all piety, resignation, and +silence. + +I don't know what would have become of me if I had not been a reading +boy. My prep. finished I would have had nothing to do but sit and watch +the awful stillness of the sick room flow out through the closed door and +coldly enfold my scared heart. I suppose that in a futile childish way I +would have gone crazy. But I was a reading boy. There were many books +about, lying on consoles, on tables, and even on the floor, for we had +not had time to settle down. I read! What did I not read! Sometimes +the elder nun, gliding up and casting a mistrustful look on the open +pages, would lay her hand lightly on my head and suggest in a doubtful +whisper, "Perhaps it is not very good for you to read these books." I +would raise my eyes to her face mutely, and with a vague gesture of +giving it up she would glide away. + +Later in the evening, but not always, I would be permitted to tip-toe +into the sick room to say good-night to the figure prone on the bed, +which often could not acknowledge my presence but by a slow movement of +the eyes, put my lips dutifully to the nerveless hand lying on the +coverlet, and tip-toe out again. Then I would go to bed, in a room at +the end of the corridor, and often, not always, cry myself into a good +sound sleep. + +I looked forward to what was coming with an incredulous terror. I turned +my eyes from it sometimes with success, and yet all the time I had an +awful sensation of the inevitable. I had also moments of revolt which +stripped off me some of my simple trust in the government of the +universe. But when the inevitable entered the sick room and the white +door was thrown wide open, I don't think I found a single tear to shed. I +have a suspicion that the Canon's housekeeper looked on me as the most +callous little wretch on earth. + +The day of the funeral came in due course and all the generous "Youth of +the Schools," the grave Senate of the University, the delegations of the +Trade-guilds, might have obtained (if they cared) _de visu_ evidence of +the callousness of the little wretch. There was nothing in my aching +head but a few words, some such stupid sentences as, "It's done," or, +"It's accomplished" (in Polish it is much shorter), or something of the +sort, repeating itself endlessly. The long procession moved out of the +narrow street, down a long street, past the Gothic front of St. Mary's +under its unequal towers, towards the Florian Gate. + +In the moonlight-flooded silence of the old town of glorious tombs and +tragic memories, I could see again the small boy of that day following a +hearse; a space kept clear in which I walked alone, conscious of an +enormous following, the clumsy swaying of the tall black machine, the +chanting of the surpliced clergy at the head, the flames of tapers +passing under the low archway of the gate, the rows of bared heads on the +pavements with fixed, serious eyes. Half the population had turned out +on that fine May afternoon. They had not come to honour a great +achievement, or even some splendid failure. The dead and they were +victims alike of an unrelenting destiny which cut them off from every +path of merit and glory. They had come only to render homage to the +ardent fidelity of the man whose life had been a fearless confession in +word and deed of a creed which the simplest heart in that crowd could +feel and understand. + +It seemed to me that if I remained longer there in that narrow street I +should become the helpless prey of the Shadows I had called up. They +were crowding upon me, enigmatic and insistent in their clinging air of +the grave that tasted of dust and of the bitter vanity of old hopes. + +"Let's go back to the hotel, my boy," I said. "It's getting late." + +It will be easily understood that I neither thought nor dreamt that night +of a possible war. For the next two days I went about amongst my fellow +men, who welcomed me with the utmost consideration and friendliness, but +unanimously derided my fears of a war. They would not believe in it. It +was impossible. On the evening of the second day I was in the hotel's +smoking room, an irrationally private apartment, a sanctuary for a few +choice minds of the town, always pervaded by a dim religious light, and +more hushed than any club reading-room I have ever been in. Gathered +into a small knot, we were discussing the situation in subdued tones +suitable to the genius of the place. + +A gentleman with a fine head of white hair suddenly pointed an impatient +finger in my direction and apostrophised me. + +"What I want to know is whether, should there be war, England would come +in." + +The time to draw a breath, and I spoke out for the Cabinet without +faltering. + +"Most assuredly. I should think all Europe knows that by this time." + +He took hold of the lapel of my coat, and, giving it a slight jerk for +greater emphasis, said forcibly: + +"Then, if England will, as you say, and all the world knows it, there can +be no war. Germany won't be so mad as that." + +On the morrow by noon we read of the German ultimatum. The day after +came the declaration of war, and the Austrian mobilisation order. We +were fairly caught. All that remained for me to do was to get my party +out of the way of eventual shells. The best move which occurred to me +was to snatch them up instantly into the mountains to a Polish health +resort of great repute--which I did (at the rate of one hundred miles in +eleven hours) by the last civilian train permitted to leave Cracow for +the next three weeks. + +And there we remained amongst the Poles from all parts of Poland, not +officially interned, but simply unable to obtain the permission to travel +by train, or road. It was a wonderful, a poignant two months. This is +not the time, and, perhaps, not the place, to enlarge upon the tragic +character of the situation; a whole people seeing the culmination of its +misfortunes in a final catastrophe, unable to trust anyone, to appeal to +anyone, to look for help from any quarter; deprived of all hope and even +of its last illusions, and unable, in the trouble of minds and the unrest +of consciences, to take refuge in stoical acceptance. I have seen all +this. And I am glad I have not so many years left me to remember that +appalling feeling of inexorable fate, tangible, palpable, come after so +many cruel years, a figure of dread, murmuring with iron lips the final +words: Ruin--and Extinction. + +But enough of this. For our little band there was the awful anguish of +incertitude as to the real nature of events in the West. It is difficult +to give an idea how ugly and dangerous things looked to us over there. +Belgium knocked down and trampled out of existence, France giving in +under repeated blows, a military collapse like that of 1870, and England +involved in that disastrous alliance, her army sacrificed, her people in +a panic! Polish papers, of course, had no other but German sources of +information. Naturally, we did not believe all we read, but it was +sometimes excessively difficult to react with sufficient firmness. + +We used to shut our door, and there, away from everybody, we sat weighing +the news, hunting up discrepancies, scenting lies, finding reasons for +hopefulness, and generally cheering each other up. But it was a beastly +time. People used to come to me with very serious news and ask, "What do +you think of it?" And my invariable answer was: "Whatever has happened, +or is going to happen, whoever wants to make peace, you may be certain +that England will not make it, not for ten years, if necessary."' + +But enough of this, too. Through the unremitting efforts of Polish +friends we obtained at last the permission to travel to Vienna. Once +there, the wing of the American Eagle was extended over our uneasy heads. +We cannot be sufficiently grateful to the American Ambassador (who, all +along, interested himself in our fate) for his exertions on our behalf, +his invaluable assistance and the real friendliness of his reception in +Vienna. Owing to Mr. Penfield's action we obtained the permission to +leave Austria. And it was a near thing, for his Excellency has informed +my American publishers since that a week later orders were issued to have +us detained till the end of the war. However, we effected our hair's- +breadth escape into Italy; and, reaching Genoa, took passage in a Dutch +mail steamer, homeward-bound from Java with London as a port of call. + +On that sea-route I might have picked up a memory at every mile if the +past had not been eclipsed by the tremendous actuality. We saw the signs +of it in the emptiness of the Mediterranean, the aspect of Gibraltar, the +misty glimpse in the Bay of Biscay of an outward-bound convoy of +transports, in the presence of British submarines in the Channel. +Innumerable drifters flying the Naval flag dotted the narrow waters, and +two Naval officers coming on board off the South Foreland, piloted the +ship through the Downs. + +The Downs! There they were, thick with the memories of my sea-life. But +what were to me now the futilities of an individual past? As our ship's +head swung into the estuary of the Thames, a deep, yet faint, concussion +passed through the air, a shock rather than a sound, which missing my ear +found its way straight into my heart. Turning instinctively to look at +my boys, I happened to meet my wife's eyes. She also had felt +profoundly, coming from far away across the grey distances of the sea, +the faint boom of the big guns at work on the coast of Flanders--shaping +the future. + + + +FIRST NEWS--1918 + + +Four years ago, on the first day of August, in the town of Cracow, +Austrian Poland, nobody would believe that the war was coming. My +apprehensions were met by the words: "We have had these scares before." +This incredulity was so universal amongst people of intelligence and +information, that even I, who had accustomed myself to look at the +inevitable for years past, felt my conviction shaken. At that time, it +must be noted, the Austrian army was already partly mobilised, and as we +came through Austrian Silesia we had noticed all the bridges being +guarded by soldiers. + +"Austria will back down," was the opinion of all the well-informed men +with whom I talked on the first of August. The session of the University +was ended and the students were either all gone or going home to +different parts of Poland, but the professors had not all departed yet on +their respective holidays, and amongst them the tone of scepticism +prevailed generally. Upon the whole there was very little inclination to +talk about the possibility of a war. Nationally, the Poles felt that +from their point of view there was nothing to hope from it. "Whatever +happens," said a very distinguished man to me, "we may be certain that +it's our skins which will pay for it as usual." A well-known literary +critic and writer on economical subjects said to me: "War seems a +material impossibility, precisely because it would mean the complete ruin +of all material interests." + +He was wrong, as we know; but those who said that Austria as usual would +back down were, as a matter of fact perfectly right. Austria did back +down. What these men did not foresee was the interference of Germany. +And one cannot blame them very well; for who could guess that, when the +balance stood even, the German sword would be thrown into the scale with +nothing in the open political situation to justify that act, or rather +that crime--if crime can ever be justified? For, as the same intelligent +man said to me: "As it is, those people" (meaning Germans) "have very +nearly the whole world in their economic grip. Their prestige is even +greater than their actual strength. It can get for them practically +everything they want. Then why risk it?" And there was no apparent +answer to the question put in that way. I must also say that the Poles +had no illusions about the strength of Russia. Those illusions were the +monopoly of the Western world. + +Next day the librarian of the University invited me to come and have a +look at the library which I had not seen since I was fourteen years old. +It was from him that I learned that the greater part of my father's MSS. +was preserved there. He confessed that he had not looked them through +thoroughly yet, but he told me that there was a lot of very important +letters bearing on the epoch from '60 to '63, to and from many prominent +Poles of that time: and he added: "There is a bundle of correspondence +that will appeal to you personally. Those are letters written by your +father to an intimate friend in whose papers they were found. They +contain many references to yourself, though you couldn't have been more +than four years old at the time. Your father seems to have been +extremely interested in his son." That afternoon I went to the +University, taking with me _my_ eldest son. The attention of that young +Englishman was mainly attracted by some relics of Copernicus in a glass +case. I saw the bundle of letters and accepted the kind proposal of the +librarian that he should have them copied for me during the holidays. In +the range of the deserted vaulted rooms lined with books, full of august +memories, and in the passionless silence of all this enshrined wisdom, we +walked here and there talking of the past, the great historical past in +which lived the inextinguishable spark of national life; and all around +us the centuries-old buildings lay still and empty, composing themselves +to rest after a year of work on the minds of another generation. + +No echo of the German ultimatum to Russia penetrated that academical +peace. But the news had come. When we stepped into the street out of +the deserted main quadrangle, we three, I imagine, were the only people +in the town who did not know of it. My boy and I parted from the +librarian (who hurried home to pack up for his holiday) and walked on to +the hotel, where we found my wife actually in the car waiting for us to +take a run of some ten miles to the country house of an old school-friend +of mine. He had been my greatest chum. In my wanderings about the world +I had heard that his later career both at school and at the University +had been of extraordinary brilliance--in classics, I believe. But in +this, the iron-grey moustache period of his life, he informed me with +badly concealed pride that he had gained world fame as the Inventor--no, +Inventor is not the word--Producer, I believe would be the right term--of +a wonderful kind of beetroot seed. The beet grown from this seed +contained more sugar to the square inch--or was it to the square +root?--than any other kind of beet. He exported this seed, not only with +profit (and even to the United States), but with a certain amount of +glory which seemed to have gone slightly to his head. There is a +fundamental strain of agriculturalist in a Pole which no amount of +brilliance, even classical, can destroy. While we were having tea +outside, looking down the lovely slope of the gardens at the view of the +city in the distance, the possibilities of the war faded from our minds. +Suddenly my friend's wife came to us with a telegram in her hand and said +calmly: "General mobilisation, do you know?" We looked at her like men +aroused from a dream. "Yes," she insisted, "they are already taking the +horses out of the ploughs and carts." I said: "We had better go back to +town as quick as we can," and my friend assented with a troubled look: +"Yes, you had better." As we passed through villages on our way back we +saw mobs of horses assembled on the commons with soldiers guarding them, +and groups of villagers looking on silently at the officers with their +note-books checking deliveries and writing out receipts. Some old +peasant women were already weeping aloud. + +When our car drew up at the door of the hotel, the manager himself came +to help my wife out. In the first moment I did not quite recognise him. +His luxuriant black locks were gone, his head was closely cropped, and as +I glanced at it he smiled and said: "I shall sleep at the barracks to- +night." + +I cannot reproduce the atmosphere of that night, the first night after +mobilisation. The shops and the gateways of the houses were of course +closed, but all through the dark hours the town hummed with voices; the +echoes of distant shouts entered the open windows of our bedroom. Groups +of men talking noisily walked in the middle of the roadway escorted by +distressed women: men of all callings and of all classes going to report +themselves at the fortress. Now and then a military car tooting +furiously would whisk through the streets empty of wheeled traffic, like +an intensely black shadow under the great flood of electric lights on the +grey pavement. + +But what produced the greatest impression on my mind was a gathering at +night in the coffee-room of my hotel of a few men of mark whom I was +asked to join. It was about one o'clock in the morning. The shutters +were up. For some reason or other the electric light was not switched +on, and the big room was lit up only by a few tall candles, just enough +for us to see each other's faces by. I saw in those faces the awful +desolation of men whose country, torn in three, found itself engaged in +the contest with no will of its own, and not even the power to assert +itself at the cost of life. All the past was gone, and there was no +future, whatever happened; no road which did not seem to lead to moral +annihilation. I remember one of those men addressing me after a period +of mournful silence compounded of mental exhaustion and unexpressed +forebodings. + +"What do you think England will do? If there is a ray of hope anywhere +it is only there." + +I said: "I believe I know what England will do" (this was before the news +of the violation of Belgian neutrality arrived), "though I won't tell +you, for I am not absolutely certain. But I can tell you what I am +absolutely certain of. It is this: If England comes into the war, then, +no matter who may want to make peace at the end of six months at the cost +of right and justice, England will keep on fighting for years if +necessary. You may reckon on that." + +"What, even alone?" asked somebody across the room. + +I said: "Yes, even alone. But if things go so far as that England will +not be alone." + +I think that at that moment I must have been inspired. + + + +WELL DONE--1918 + + +I. + + +It can be safely said that for the last four years the seamen of Great +Britain have done well. I mean that every kind and sort of human being +classified as seaman, steward, foremast hand, fireman, lamp-trimmer, +mate, master, engineer, and also all through the innumerable ratings of +the Navy up to that of Admiral, has done well. I don't say marvellously +well or miraculously well or wonderfully well or even very well, because +these are simply over-statements of undisciplined minds. I don't deny +that a man may be a marvellous being, but this is not likely to be +discovered in his lifetime, and not always even after he is dead. Man's +marvellousness is a hidden thing, because the secrets of his heart are +not to be read by his fellows. As to a man's work, if it is done well it +is the very utmost that can be said. You can do well, and you can do no +more for people to see. In the Navy, where human values are thoroughly +understood, the highest signal of commendation complimenting a ship (that +is, a ship's company) on some achievements consists exactly of those two +simple words "Well done," followed by the name of the ship. Not +marvellously done, astonishingly done, wonderfully done--no, only just: + +"Well done, so-and-so." + +And to the men it is a matter of infinite pride that somebody should +judge it proper to mention aloud, as it were, that they have done well. +It is a memorable occurrence, for in the sea services you are expected +professionally and as a matter of course to do well, because nothing less +will do. And in sober speech no man can be expected to do more than +well. The superlatives are mere signs of uninformed wonder. Thus the +official signal which can express nothing but a delicate share of +appreciation becomes a great honour. + +Speaking now as a purely civil seaman (or, perhaps, I ought to say +civilian, because politeness is not what I have in my mind) I may say +that I have never expected the Merchant Service to do otherwise than well +during the war. There were people who obviously did not feel the same +confidence, nay, who even confidently expected to see the collapse of +merchant seamen's courage. I must admit that such pronouncements did +arrest my attention. In my time I have never been able to detect any +faint hearts in the ships' companies with whom I have served in various +capacities. But I reflected that I had left the sea in '94, twenty years +before the outbreak of the war that was to apply its severe test to the +quality of modern seamen. Perhaps they had deteriorated, I said +unwillingly to myself. I remembered also the alarmist articles I had +read about the great number of foreigners in the British Merchant +Service, and I didn't know how far these lamentations were justified. + +In my time the proportion of non-Britishers in the crews of the ships +flying the red ensign was rather under one-third, which, as a matter of +fact, was less than the proportion allowed under the very strict French +navigation laws for the crews of the ships of that nation. For the +strictest laws aiming at the preservation of national seamen had to +recognise the difficulties of manning merchant ships all over the world. +The one-third of the French law seemed to be the irreducible minimum. But +the British proportion was even less. Thus it may be said that up to the +date I have mentioned the crews of British merchant ships engaged in deep +water voyages to Australia, to the East Indies and round the Horn were +essentially British. The small proportion of foreigners which I remember +were mostly Scandinavians, and my general impression remains that those +men were good stuff. They appeared always able and ready to do their +duty by the flag under which they served. The majority were Norwegians, +whose courage and straightness of character are matters beyond doubt. I +remember also a couple of Finns, both carpenters, of course, and very +good craftsmen; a Swede, the most scientific sailmaker I ever met; +another Swede, a steward, who really might have been called a British +seaman since he had sailed out of London for over thirty years, a rather +superior person; one Italian, an everlastingly smiling but a pugnacious +character; one Frenchman, a most excellent sailor, tireless and +indomitable under very difficult circumstances; one Hollander, whose +placid manner of looking at the ship going to pieces under our feet I +shall never forget, and one young, colourless, muscularly very strong +German, of no particular character. Of non-European crews, lascars and +Kalashes, I have had very little experience, and that was only in one +steamship and for something less than a year. It was on the same +occasion that I had my only sight of Chinese firemen. Sight is the exact +word. One didn't speak to them. One saw them going along the decks, to +and fro, characteristic figures with rolled-up pigtails, very dirty when +coming off duty and very clean-faced when going on duty. They never +looked at anybody, and one never had occasion to address them directly. +Their appearances in the light of day were very regular, and yet somewhat +ghostlike in their detachment and silence. + +But of the white crews of British ships and almost exclusively British in +blood and descent, the immediate predecessors of the men whose worth the +nation has discovered for itself to-day, I have had a thorough +experience. At first amongst them, then with them, I have shared all the +conditions of their very special life. For it was very special. In my +early days, starting out on a voyage was like being launched into +Eternity. I say advisedly Eternity instead of Space, because of the +boundless silence which swallowed up one for eighty days--for one hundred +days--for even yet more days of an existence without echoes and whispers. +Like Eternity itself! For one can't conceive a vocal Eternity. An +enormous silence, in which there was nothing to connect one with the +Universe but the incessant wheeling about of the sun and other celestial +bodies, the alternation of light and shadow, eternally chasing each other +over the sky. The time of the earth, though most carefully recorded by +the half-hourly bells, did not count in reality. + +It was a special life, and the men were a very special kind of men. By +this I don't mean to say they were more complex than the generality of +mankind. Neither were they very much simpler. I have already admitted +that man is a marvellous creature, and no doubt those particular men were +marvellous enough in their way. But in their collective capacity they +can be best defined as men who lived under the command to do well, or +perish utterly. I have written of them with all the truth that was in +me, and with an the impartiality of which I was capable. Let me not be +misunderstood in this statement. Affection can be very exacting, and can +easily miss fairness on the critical side. I have looked upon them with +a jealous eye, expecting perhaps even more than it was strictly fair to +expect. And no wonder--since I had elected to be one of them very +deliberately, very completely, without any looking back or looking +elsewhere. The circumstances were such as to give me the feeling of +complete identification, a very vivid comprehension that if I wasn't one +of them I was nothing at all. But what was most difficult to detect was +the nature of the deep impulses which these men obeyed. What spirit was +it that inspired the unfailing manifestations of their simple fidelity? +No outward cohesive force of compulsion or discipline was holding them +together or had ever shaped their unexpressed standards. It was very +mysterious. At last I came to the conclusion that it must be something +in the nature of the life itself; the sea-life chosen blindly, embraced +for the most part accidentally by those men who appeared but a loose +agglomeration of individuals toiling for their living away from the eyes +of mankind. Who can tell how a tradition comes into the world? We are +children of the earth. It may be that the noblest tradition is but the +offspring of material conditions, of the hard necessities besetting men's +precarious lives. But once it has been born it becomes a spirit. Nothing +can extinguish its force then. Clouds of greedy selfishness, the subtle +dialectics of revolt or fear, may obscure it for a time, but in very +truth it remains an immortal ruler invested with the power of honour and +shame. + + +II. + + +The mysteriously born tradition of sea-craft commands unity in a body of +workers engaged in an occupation in which men have to depend upon each +other. It raises them, so to speak, above the frailties of their dead +selves. I don't wish to be suspected of lack of judgment and of blind +enthusiasm. I don't claim special morality or even special manliness for +the men who in my time really lived at sea, and at the present time live +at any rate mostly at sea. But in their qualities as well as in their +defects, in their weaknesses as well as in their "virtue," there was +indubitably something apart. They were never exactly of the earth +earthly. They couldn't be that. Chance or desire (mostly desire) had +set them apart, often in their very childhood; and what is to be remarked +is that from the very nature of things this early appeal, this early +desire, had to be of an imaginative kind. Thus their simple minds had a +sort of sweetness. They were in a way preserved. I am not alluding here +to the preserving qualities of the salt in the sea. The salt of the sea +is a very good thing in its way; it preserves for instance one from +catching a beastly cold while one remains wet for weeks together in the +"roaring forties." But in sober unpoetical truth the sea-salt never gets +much further than the seaman's skin, which in certain latitudes it takes +the opportunity to encrust very thoroughly. That and nothing more. And +then, what is this sea, the subject of so many apostrophes in verse and +prose addressed to its greatness and its mystery by men who had never +penetrated either the one or the other? The sea is uncertain, arbitrary, +featureless, and violent. Except when helped by the varied majesty of +the sky, there is something inane in its serenity and something stupid in +its wrath, which is endless, boundless, persistent, and futile--a grey, +hoary thing raging like an old ogre uncertain of its prey. Its very +immensity is wearisome. At any time within the navigating centuries +mankind might have addressed it with the words: "What are you, after all? +Oh, yes, we know. The greatest scene of potential terror, a devouring +enigma of space. Yes. But our lives have been nothing if not a +continuous defiance of what you can do and what you may hold; a spiritual +and material defiance carried on in our plucky cockleshells on and on +beyond the successive provocations of your unreadable horizons." + +Ah, but the charm of the sea! Oh, yes, charm enough. Or rather a sort +of unholy fascination as of an elusive nymph whose embrace is death, and +a Medusa's head whose stare is terror. That sort of charm is calculated +to keep men morally in order. But as to sea-salt, with its particular +bitterness like nothing else on earth, that, I am safe to say, penetrates +no further than the seamen's lips. With them the inner soundness is +caused by another kind of preservative of which (nobody will be surprised +to hear) the main ingredient is a certain kind of love that has nothing +to do with the futile smiles and the futile passions of the sea. + +Being love this feeling is naturally naive and imaginative. It has also +in it that strain of fantasy that is so often, nay almost invariably, to +be found in the temperament of a true seaman. But I repeat that I claim +no particular morality for seamen. I will admit without difficulty that +I have found amongst them the usual defects of mankind, characters not +quite straight, uncertain tempers, vacillating wills, capriciousness, +small meannesses; all this coming out mostly on the contact with the +shore; and all rather naive, peculiar, a little fantastic. I have even +had a downright thief in my experience. One. + +This is indeed a minute proportion, but it might have been my luck; and +since I am writing in eulogy of seamen I feel irresistibly tempted to +talk about this unique specimen; not indeed to offer him as an example of +morality, but to bring out certain characteristics and set out a certain +point of view. He was a large, strong man with a guileless countenance, +not very communicative with his shipmates, but when drawn into any sort +of conversation displaying a very painstaking earnestness. He was fair +and candid-eyed, of a very satisfactory smartness, and, from the officer- +of-the-watch point of view,--altogether dependable. Then, suddenly, he +went and stole. And he didn't go away from his honourable kind to do +that thing to somebody on shore; he stole right there on the spot, in +proximity to his shipmates, on board his own ship, with complete +disregard for old Brown, our night watchman (whose fame for +trustworthiness was utterly blasted for the rest of the voyage) and in +such a way as to bring the profoundest possible trouble to all the +blameless souls animating that ship. He stole eleven golden sovereigns, +and a gold pocket chronometer and chain. I am really in doubt whether +the crime should not be entered under the category of sacrilege rather +than theft. Those things belonged to the captain! There was certainly +something in the nature of the violation of a sanctuary, and of a +particularly impudent kind, too, because he got his plunder out of the +captain's state-room while the captain was asleep there. But look, now, +at the fantasy of the man! After going through the pockets of the +clothes, he did not hasten to retreat. No. He went deliberately into +the saloon and removed from the sideboard two big heavy, silver-plated +lamps, which he carried to the fore-end of the ship and stood +symmetrically on the knight-heads. This, I must explain, means that he +took them away as far as possible from the place where they belonged. +These were the deeds of darkness. In the morning the bo'sun came along +dragging after him a hose to wash the foc'sle head, and, beholding the +shiny cabin lamps, resplendent in the morning light, one on each side of +the bowsprit, he was paralysed with awe. He dropped the nozzle from his +nerveless hands--and such hands, too! I happened along, and he said to +me in a distracted whisper: "Look at that, sir, look." "Take them back +aft at once yourself," I said, very amazed, too. As we approached the +quarterdeck we perceived the steward, a prey to a sort of sacred horror, +holding up before us the captain's trousers. + +Bronzed men with brooms and buckets in their hands stood about with open +mouths. "I have found them lying in the passage outside the captain's +door," the steward declared faintly. The additional statement that the +captain's watch was gone from its hook by the bedside raised the painful +sensation to the highest pitch. We knew then we had a thief amongst us. +Our thief! Behold the solidarity of a ship's company. He couldn't be to +us like any other thief. We all had to live under the shadow of his +crime for days; but the police kept on investigating, and one morning a +young woman appeared on board swinging a parasol, attended by two +policemen, and identified the culprit. She was a barmaid of some bar +near the Circular Quay, and knew really nothing of our man except that he +looked like a respectable sailor. She had seen him only twice in her +life. On the second occasion he begged her nicely as a great favour to +take care for him of a small solidly tied-up paper parcel for a day or +two. But he never came near her again. At the end of three weeks she +opened it, and, of course, seeing the contents, was much alarmed, and +went to the nearest police-station for advice. The police took her at +once on board our ship, where all hands were mustered on the quarterdeck. +She stared wildly at all our faces, pointed suddenly a finger with a +shriek, "That's the man," and incontinently went off into a fit of +hysterics in front of thirty-six seamen. I must say that never in my +life did I see a ship's company look so frightened. Yes, in this tale of +guilt, there was a curious absence of mere criminality, and a touch of +that fantasy which is often a part of a seaman's character. It wasn't +greed that moved him, I think. It was something much less simple: +boredom, perhaps, or a bet, or the pleasure of defiance. + +And now for the point of view. It was given to me by a short, +black-bearded A.B. of the crew, who on sea passages washed my flannel +shirts, mended my clothes and, generally, looked after my room. He was +an excellent needleman and washerman, and a very good sailor. Standing +in this peculiar relation to me, he considered himself privileged to open +his mind on the matter one evening when he brought back to my cabin three +clean and neatly folded shirts. He was profoundly pained. He said: +"What a ship's company! Never seen such a crowd! Liars, cheats, +thieves. . . " + +It was a needlessly jaundiced view. There were in that ship's company +three or four fellows who dealt in tall yarns, and I knew that on the +passage out there had been a dispute over a game in the foc'sle once or +twice of a rather acute kind, so that all card-playing had to be +abandoned. In regard to thieves, as we know, there was only one, and he, +I am convinced, came out of his reserve to perform an exploit rather than +to commit a crime. But my black-bearded friend's indignation had its +special morality, for he added, with a burst of passion: "And on board +our ship, too--a ship like this. . ." + +Therein lies the secret of the seamen's special character as a body. The +ship, this ship, our ship, the ship we serve, is the moral symbol of our +life. A ship has to be respected, actually and ideally; her merit, her +innocence, are sacred things. Of all the creations of man she is the +closest partner of his toil and courage. From every point of view it is +imperative that you should do well by her. And, as always in the case of +true love, all you can do for her adds only to the tale of her merits in +your heart. Mute and compelling, she claims not only your fidelity, but +your respect. And the supreme "Well done!" which you may earn is made +over to her. + + +III. + + +It is my deep conviction, or, perhaps, I ought to say my deep feeling +born from personal experience, that it is not the sea but the ships of +the sea that guide and command that spirit of adventure which some say is +the second nature of British men. I don't want to provoke a controversy +(for intellectually I am rather a Quietist) but I venture to affirm that +the main characteristic of the British men spread all over the world, is +not the spirit of adventure so much as the spirit of service. I think +that this could be demonstrated from the history of great voyages and the +general activity of the race. That the British man has always liked his +service to be adventurous rather than otherwise cannot be denied, for +each British man began by being young in his time when all risk has a +glamour. Afterwards, with the course of years, risk became a part of his +daily work; he would have missed it from his side as one misses a loved +companion. + +The mere love of adventure is no saving grace. It is no grace at all. It +lays a man under no obligation of faithfulness to an idea and even to his +own self. Roughly speaking, an adventurer may be expected to have +courage, or at any rate may be said to need it. But courage in itself is +not an ideal. A successful highwayman showed courage of a sort, and +pirate crews have been known to fight with courage or perhaps only with +reckless desperation in the manner of cornered rats. There is nothing in +the world to prevent a mere lover or pursuer of adventure from running at +any moment. There is his own self, his mere taste for excitement, the +prospect of some sort of gain, but there is no sort of loyalty to bind +him in honour to consistent conduct. I have noticed that the majority of +mere lovers of adventure are mightily careful of their skins; and the +proof of it is that so many of them manage to keep it whole to an +advanced age. You find them in mysterious nooks of islands and +continents, mostly red-nosed and watery-eyed, and not even amusingly +boastful. There is nothing more futile under the sun than a mere +adventurer. He might have loved at one time--which would have been a +saving grace. I mean loved adventure for itself. But if so, he was +bound to lose this grace very soon. Adventure by itself is but a +phantom, a dubious shape without a heart. Yes, there is nothing more +futile than an adventurer; but nobody can say that the adventurous +activities of the British race are stamped with the futility of a chase +after mere emotions. + +The successive generations that went out to sea from these Isles went out +to toil desperately in adventurous conditions. A man is a worker. If he +is not that he is nothing. Just nothing--like a mere adventurer. Those +men understood the nature of their work, but more or less dimly, in +various degrees of imperfection. The best and greatest of their leaders +even had never seen it clearly, because of its magnitude and the +remoteness of its end. This is the common fate of mankind, whose most +positive achievements are born from dreams and visions followed loyally +to an unknown destination. And it doesn't matter. For the great mass of +mankind the only saving grace that is needed is steady fidelity to what +is nearest to hand and heart in the short moment of each human effort. In +other and in greater words, what is needed is a sense of immediate duty, +and a feeling of impalpable constraint. Indeed, seamen and duty are all +the time inseparable companions. It has been suggested to me that this +sense of duty is not a patriotic sense or a religious sense, or even a +social sense in a seaman. I don't know. It seems to me that a seaman's +duty may be an unconscious compound of these three, something perhaps +smaller than either, but something much more definite for the simple mind +and more adapted to the humbleness of the seaman's task. It has been +suggested also to me that the impalpable constraint is put upon the +nature of a seaman by the Spirit of the Sea, which he serves with a dumb +and dogged devotion. + +Those are fine words conveying a fine idea. But this I do know, that it +is very difficult to display a dogged devotion to a mere spirit, however +great. In everyday life ordinary men require something much more +material, effective, definite and symbolic on which to concentrate their +love and their devotion. And then, what is it, this Spirit of the Sea? +It is too great and too elusive to be embraced and taken to a human +breast. All that a guileless or guileful seaman knows of it is its +hostility, its exaction of toil as endless as its ever-renewed horizons. +No. What awakens the seaman's sense of duty, what lays that impalpable +constraint upon the strength of his manliness, what commands his not +always dumb if always dogged devotion, is not the spirit of the sea but +something that in his eyes has a body, a character, a fascination, and +almost a soul--it is his ship. + +There is not a day that has passed for many centuries now without the sun +seeing scattered over all the seas groups of British men whose material +and moral existence is conditioned by their loyalty to each other and +their faithful devotion to a ship. + +Each age has sent its contingent, not of sons (for the great mass of +seamen have always been a childless lot) but of loyal and obscure +successors taking up the modest but spiritual inheritance of a hard life +and simple duties; of duties so simple that nothing ever could shake the +traditional attitude born from the physical conditions of the service. It +was always the ship, bound on any possible errand in the service of the +nation, that has been the stage for the exercise of seamen's primitive +virtues. The dimness of great distances and the obscurity of lives +protected them from the nation's admiring gaze. Those scattered distant +ships' companies seemed to the eyes of the earth only one degree removed +(on the right side, I suppose) from the other strange monsters of the +deep. If spoken of at all they were spoken of in tones of +half-contemptuous indulgence. A good many years ago it was my lot to +write about one of those ships' companies on a certain sea, under certain +circumstances, in a book of no particular length. + +That small group of men whom I tried to limn with loving care, but +sparing none of their weaknesses, was characterised by a friendly +reviewer as a lot of engaging ruffians. This gave me some food for +thought. Was it, then, in that guise that they appeared through the +mists of the sea, distant, perplexed, and simple-minded? And what on +earth is an "engaging ruffian"? He must be a creature of literary +imagination, I thought, for the two words don't match in my personal +experience. It has happened to me to meet a few ruffians here and there, +but I never found one of them "engaging." I consoled myself, however, by +the reflection that the friendly reviewer must have been talking like a +parrot, which so often seems to understand what it says. + +Yes, in the mists of the sea, and in their remoteness from the rest of +the race, the shapes of those men appeared distorted, uncouth and +faint--so faint as to be almost invisible. It needed the lurid light of +the engines of war to bring them out into full view, very simple, without +worldly graces, organised now into a body of workers by the genius of one +of themselves, who gave them a place and a voice in the social scheme; +but in the main still apart in their homeless, childless generations, +scattered in loyal groups over all the seas, giving faithful care to +their ships and serving the nation, which, since they are seamen, can +give them no reward but the supreme "Well Done." + + + +TRADITION--1918 + + +"Work is the law. Like iron that lying idle degenerates into a mass of +useless rust, like water that in an unruffled pool sickens into a +stagnant and corrupt state, so without action the spirit of men turns to +a dead thing, loses its force, ceases prompting us to leave some trace of +ourselves on this earth." The sense of the above lines does not belong +to me. It may be found in the note-books of one of the greatest artists +that ever lived, Leonardo da Vinci. It has a simplicity and a truth +which no amount of subtle comment can destroy. + +The Master who had meditated so deeply on the rebirth of arts and +sciences, on the inward beauty of all things,--ships' lines, women's +faces--and on the visible aspects of nature was profoundly right in his +pronouncement on the work that is done on the earth. From the hard work +of men are born the sympathetic consciousness of a common destiny, the +fidelity to right practice which makes great craftsmen, the sense of +right conduct which we may call honour, the devotion to our calling and +the idealism which is not a misty, winged angel without eyes, but a +divine figure of terrestrial aspect with a clear glance and with its feet +resting firmly on the earth on which it was born. + +And work will overcome all evil, except ignorance, which is the condition +of humanity and, like the ambient air, fills the space between the +various sorts and conditions of men, which breeds hatred, fear, and +contempt between the masses of mankind, and puts on men's lips, on their +innocent lips, words that are thoughtless and vain. + +Thoughtless, for instance, were the words that (in all innocence, I +believe) came on the lips of a prominent statesman making in the House of +Commons an eulogistic reference to the British Merchant Service. In this +name I include men of diverse status and origin, who live on and by the +sea, by it exclusively, outside all professional pretensions and social +formulas, men for whom not only their daily bread but their collective +character, their personal achievement and their individual merit come +from the sea. Those words of the statesman were meant kindly; but, after +all, this is not a complete excuse. Rightly or wrongly, we expect from a +man of national importance a larger and at the same time a more +scrupulous precision of speech, for it is possible that it may go echoing +down the ages. His words were: + +"It is right when thinking of the Navy not to forget the men of the +Merchant Service, who have shown--and it is more surprising because they +have had no traditions towards it--courage as great," etc., etc. + +And then he went on talking of the execution of Captain Fryatt, an event +of undying memory, but less connected with the permanent, unchangeable +conditions of sea service than with the wrong view German minds delight +in taking of Englishmen's psychology. The enemy, he said, meant by this +atrocity to frighten our sailors away from the sea. + +"What has happened?" he goes on to ask. "Never at any time in peace have +sailors stayed so short a time ashore or shown such a readiness to step +again into a ship." + +Which means, in other words, that they answered to the call. I should +like to know at what time of history the English Merchant Service, the +great body of merchant seamen, had failed to answer the call. Noticed or +unnoticed, ignored or commanded, they have answered invariably the call +to do their work, the very conditions of which made them what they are. +They have always served the nation's needs through their own invariable +fidelity to the demands of their special life; but with the development +and complexity of material civilisation they grew less prominent to the +nation's eye among all the vast schemes of national industry. Never was +the need greater and the call to the services more urgent than to-day. +And those inconspicuous workers on whose qualities depends so much of the +national welfare have answered it without dismay, facing risk without +glory, in the perfect faithfulness to that tradition which the speech of +the statesman denies to them at the very moment when he thinks fit to +praise their courage . . . and mention his surprise! + +The hour of opportunity has struck--not for the first time--for the +Merchant Service; and if I associate myself with all my heart in the +admiration and the praise which is the greatest reward of brave men I +must be excused from joining in any sentiment of surprise. It is perhaps +because I have not been born to the inheritance of that tradition, which +has yet fashioned the fundamental part of my character in my young days, +that I am so consciously aware of it and venture to vindicate its +existence in this outspoken manner. + +Merchant seamen have always been what they are now, from their earliest +days, before the Royal Navy had been fashioned out of the material they +furnished for the hands of kings and statesmen. Their work has made +them, as work undertaken with single-minded devotion makes men, giving to +their achievements that vitality and continuity in which their souls are +expressed, tempered and matured through the succeeding generations. In +its simplest definition the work of merchant seamen has been to take +ships entrusted to their care from port to port across the seas; and, +from the highest to the lowest, to watch and labour with devotion for the +safety of the property and the lives committed to their skill and +fortitude through the hazards of innumerable voyages. + +That was always the clear task, the single aim, the simple ideal, the +only problem for an unselfish solution. The terms of it have changed +with the years, its risks have worn different aspects from time to time. +There are no longer any unexplored seas. Human ingenuity has devised +better means to meet the dangers of natural forces. But it is always the +same problem. The youngsters who were growing up at sea at the end of my +service are commanding ships now. At least I have heard of some of them +who do. And whatever the shape and power of their ships the character of +the duty remains the same. A mine or a torpedo that strikes your ship is +not so very different from a sharp, uncharted rock tearing her life out +of her in another way. At a greater cost of vital energy, under the well- +nigh intolerable stress of vigilance and resolution, they are doing +steadily the work of their professional forefathers in the midst of +multiplied dangers. They go to and fro across the oceans on their +everlasting task: the same men, the same stout hearts, the same fidelity +to an exacting tradition created by simple toilers who in their time knew +how to live and die at sea. + +Allowed to share in this work and in this tradition for something like +twenty years, I am bold enough to think that perhaps I am not altogether +unworthy to speak of it. It was the sphere not only of my activity but, +I may safely say, also of my affections; but after such a close +connection it is very difficult to avoid bringing in one's own +personality. Without looking at all at the aspects of the Labour +problem, I can safely affirm that I have never, never seen British seamen +refuse any risk, any exertion, any effort of spirit or body up to the +extremest demands of their calling. Years ago--it seems ages ago--I have +seen the crew of a British ship fight the fire in the cargo for a whole +sleepless week and then, with her decks blown up, I have seen them still +continue the fight to save the floating shell. And at last I have seen +them refuse to be taken off by a vessel standing by, and this only in +order "to see the last of our ship," at the word, at the simple word, of +a man who commanded them, a worthy soul indeed, but of no heroic aspect. +I have seen that. I have shared their days in small boats. Hard days. +Ages ago. And now let me mention a story of to-day. + +I will try to relate it here mainly in the words of the chief engineer of +a certain steamship which, after bunkering, left Lerwick, bound for +Iceland. The weather was cold, the sea pretty rough, with a stiff head +wind. All went well till next day, about 1.30 p.m., then the captain +sighted a suspicious object far away to starboard. Speed was increased +at once to close in with the Faroes and good lookouts were set fore and +aft. Nothing further was seen of the suspicious object, but about half- +past three without any warning the ship was struck amidships by a torpedo +which exploded in the bunkers. None of the crew was injured by the +explosion, and all hands, without exception, behaved admirably. + +The chief officer with his watch managed to lower the No. 3 boat. Two +other boats had been shattered by the explosion, and though another +lifeboat was cleared and ready, there was no time to lower it, and "some +of us jumped while others were washed overboard. Meantime the captain +had been busy handing lifebelts to the men and cheering them up with +words and smiles, with no thought of his own safety." The ship went down +in less than four minutes. The captain was the last man on board, going +down with her, and was sucked under. On coming up he was caught under an +upturned boat to which five hands were clinging. "One lifeboat," says +the chief engineer, "which was floating empty in the distance was +cleverly manoeuvred to our assistance by the steward, who swam off to her +pluckily. Our next endeavour was to release the captain, who was +entangled under the boat. As it was impossible to right her, we set-to +to split her side open with the boat hook, because by awful bad luck the +head of the axe we had flew off at the first blow and was lost. The +rescue took thirty minutes, and the extricated captain was in a pitiable +condition, being badly bruised and having swallowed a lot of salt water. +He was unconscious. While at that work the submarine came to the surface +quite close and made a complete circle round us, the seven men that we +counted on the conning tower laughing at our efforts. + +"There were eighteen of us saved. I deeply regret the loss of the chief +officer, a fine fellow and a kind shipmate showing splendid promise. The +other men lost--one A.B., one greaser, and two firemen--were quiet, +conscientious, good fellows." + +With no restoratives in the boat, they endeavoured to bring the captain +round by means of massage. Meantime the oars were got out in order to +reach the Faroes, which were about thirty miles dead to windward, but +after about nine hours' hard work they had to desist, and, putting out a +sea-anchor, they took shelter under the canvas boat-cover from the cold +wind and torrential rain. Says the narrator: "We were all very wet and +miserable, and decided to have two biscuits all round. The effects of +this and being under the shelter of the canvas warmed us up and made us +feel pretty well contented. At about sunrise the captain showed signs of +recovery, and by the time the sun was up he was looking a lot better, +much to our relief." + +After being informed of what had been done the revived captain "dropped a +bombshell in our midst," by proposing to make for the Shetlands, which +were _only_ one hundred and fifty miles off. "The wind is in our +favour," he said. "I promise to take you there. Are you all willing?" +This--comments the chief engineer--"from a man who but a few hours +previously had been hauled back from the grave!" The captain's confident +manner inspired the men, and they all agreed. Under the best possible +conditions a boat-run of one hundred and fifty miles in the North +Atlantic and in winter weather would have been a feat of no mean merit, +but in the circumstances it required uncommon nerve and skill to carry +out such a promise. With an oar for a mast and the boat-cover cut down +for a sail they started on their dangerous journey, with the boat compass +and the stars for their guide. The captain's undaunted serenity buoyed +them all up against despondency. He told them what point he was making +for. It was Ronas Hill, "and we struck it as straight as a die." + +The chief engineer commends also the ship steward for the manner in which +he made the little food they had last, the cheery spirit he manifested, +and the great help he was to the captain by keeping the men in good +humour. That trusty man had "his hands cruelly chafed with the rowing, +but it never damped his spirits." + +They made Ronas Hill (as straight as a die), and the chief engineer +cannot express their feelings of gratitude and relief when they set their +feet on the shore. He praises the unbounded kindness of the people in +Hillswick. "It seemed to us all like Paradise regained," he says, +concluding his letter with the words: + +"And there was our captain, just his usual self, as if nothing had +happened, as if bringing the boat that hazardous journey and being the +means of saving eighteen souls was to him an everyday occurrence." + +Such is the chief engineer's testimony to the continuity of the old +tradition of the sea, which made by the work of men has in its turn +created for them their simple ideal of conduct. + + + +CONFIDENCE--1919 + + +I. + + +The seamen hold up the Edifice. They have been holding it up in the past +and they will hold it up in the future, whatever this future may contain +of logical development, of unforeseen new shapes, of great promises and +of dangers still unknown. + +It is not an unpardonable stretching of the truth to say that the British +Empire rests on transportation. I am speaking now naturally of the sea, +as a man who has lived on it for many years, at a time, too, when on +sighting a vessel on the horizon of any of the great oceans it was +perfectly safe to bet any reasonable odds on her being a British +ship--with the certitude of making a pretty good thing of it at the end +of the voyage. + +I have tried to convey here in popular terms the strong impression +remembered from my young days. The Red Ensign prevailed on the high seas +to such an extent that one always experienced a slight shock on seeing +some other combination of colours blow out at the peak or flag-pole of +any chance encounter in deep water. In the long run the persistence of +the visual fact forced upon the mind a half-unconscious sense of its +inner significance. We have all heard of the well-known view that trade +follows the flag. And that is not always true. There is also this truth +that the flag, in normal conditions, represents commerce to the eye and +understanding of the average man. This is a truth, but it is not the +whole truth. In its numbers and in its unfailing ubiquity, the British +Red Ensign, under which naval actions too have been fought, adventures +entered upon and sacrifices offered, represented in fact something more +than the prestige of a great trade. + +The flutter of that piece of red bunting showered sentiment on the +nations of the earth. I will not venture to say that in every case that +sentiment was of a friendly nature. Of hatred, half concealed or +concealed not at all, this is not the place to speak; and indeed the +little I have seen of it about the world was tainted with stupidity and +seemed to confess in its very violence the extreme poorness of its case. +But generally it was more in the nature of envious wonder qualified by a +half-concealed admiration. + +That flag, which but for the Union Jack in the corner might have been +adopted by the most radical of revolutions, affirmed in its numbers the +stability of purpose, the continuity of effort and the greatness of +Britain's opportunity pursued steadily in the order and peace of the +world: that world which for twenty-five years or so after 1870 may be +said to have been living in holy calm and hushed silence with only now +and then a slight clink of metal, as if in some distant part of mankind's +habitation some restless body had stumbled over a heap of old armour. + + +II. + + +We who have learned by now what a world-war is like may be excused for +considering the disturbances of that period as insignificant brawls, mere +hole-and-corner scuffles. In the world, which memory depicts as so +wonderfully tranquil all over, it was the sea yet that was the safest +place. And the Red Ensign, commercial, industrial, historic, pervaded +the sea! Assertive only by its numbers, highly significant, and, under +its character of a trade--emblem, nationally expressive, it was symbolic +of old and new ideas, of conservatism and progress, of routine and +enterprise, of drudgery and adventure--and of a certain easy-going +optimism that would have appeared the Father of Sloth itself if it had +not been so stubbornly, so everlastingly active. + +The unimaginative, hard-working men, great and small, who served this +flag afloat and ashore, nursed dumbly a mysterious sense of its +greatness. It sheltered magnificently their vagabond labours under the +sleepless eye of the sun. It held up the Edifice. But it crowned it +too. This is not the extravagance of a mixed metaphor. It is the sober +expression of a not very complex truth. Within that double function the +national life that flag represented so well went on in safety, assured of +its daily crust of bread for which we all pray and without which we would +have to give up faith, hope and charity, the intellectual conquests of +our minds and the sanctified strength of our labouring arms. I may +permit myself to speak of it in these terms because as a matter of fact +it was on that very symbol that I had founded my life and (as I have said +elsewhere in a moment of outspoken gratitude) had known for many years no +other roof above my head. + +In those days that symbol was not particularly regarded. Superficially +and definitely it represented but one of the forms of national activity +rather remote from the close-knit organisations of other industries, a +kind of toil not immediately under the public eye. It was of its Navy +that the nation, looking out of the windows of its world-wide Edifice, +was proudly aware. And that was but fair. The Navy is the armed man at +the gate. An existence depending upon the sea must be guarded with a +jealous, sleepless vigilance, for the sea is but a fickle friend. + +It had provoked conflicts, encouraged ambitions, and had lured some +nations to destruction--as we know. He--man or people--who, boasting of +long years of familiarity with the sea, neglects the strength and cunning +of his right hand is a fool. The pride and trust of the nation in its +Navy so strangely mingled with moments of neglect, caused by a +particularly thick-headed idealism, is perfectly justified. It is also +very proper: for it is good for a body of men conscious of a great +responsibility to feel themselves recognised, if only in that fallible, +imperfect and often irritating way in which recognition is sometimes +offered to the deserving. + +But the Merchant Service had never to suffer from that sort of +irritation. No recognition was thrust on it offensively, and, truth to +say, it did not seem to concern itself unduly with the claims of its own +obscure merit. It had no consciousness. It had no words. It had no +time. To these busy men their work was but the ordinary labour of +earning a living; their duties in their ever-recurring round had, like +the sun itself, the commonness of daily things; their individual fidelity +was not so much united as merely co-ordinated by an aim that shone with +no spiritual lustre. They were everyday men. They were that, eminently. +When the great opportunity came to them to link arms in response to a +supreme call they received it with characteristic simplicity, +incorporating self-sacrifice into the texture of their common task, and, +as far as emotion went, framing the horror of mankind's catastrophic time +within the rigid rules of their professional conscience. And who can say +that they could have done better than this? + +Such was their past both remote and near. It has been stubbornly +consistent, and as this consistency was based upon the character of men +fashioned by a very old tradition, there is no doubt that it will endure. +Such changes as came into the sea life have been for the main part +mechanical and affecting only the material conditions of that inbred +consistency. That men don't change is a profound truth. They don't +change because it is not necessary for them to change even if they could +accomplish that miracle. It is enough for them to be infinitely +adaptable--as the last four years have abundantly proved. + + +III. + + +Thus one may await the future without undue excitement and with unshaken +confidence. Whether the hues of sunrise are angry or benign, gorgeous or +sinister, we shall always have the same sky over our heads. Yet by a +kindly dispensation of Providence the human faculty of astonishment will +never lack food. What could be more surprising for instance, than the +calm invitation to Great Britain to discard the force and protection of +its Navy? It has been suggested, it has been proposed--I don't know +whether it has been pressed. Probably not much. For if the excursions +of audacious folly have no bounds that human eye can see, reason has the +habit of never straying very far away from its throne. + +It is not the first time in history that excited voices have been heard +urging the warrior still panting from the fray to fling his tried weapons +on the altar of peace, for they would be needed no more! And such voices +have been, in undying hope or extreme weariness, listened to sometimes. +But not for long. After all every sort of shouting is a transitory +thing. It is the grim silence of facts that remains. + +The British Merchant Service has been challenged in its supremacy before. +It will be challenged again. It may be even asked menacingly in the name +of some humanitarian doctrine or some empty ideal to step down +voluntarily from that place which it has managed to keep for so many +years. But I imagine that it will take more than words of brotherly love +or brotherly anger (which, as is well known, is the worst kind of anger) +to drive British seamen, armed or unarmed, from the seas. Firm in this +indestructible if not easily explained conviction, I can allow myself to +think placidly of that long, long future which I shall not see. + +My confidence rests on the hearts of men who do not change, though they +may forget many things for a time and even forget to be themselves in a +moment of false enthusiasm. But of that I am not afraid. It will not be +for long. I know the men. Through the kindness of the Admiralty (which, +let me confess here in a white sheet, I repaid by the basest ingratitude) +I was permitted during the war to renew my contact with the British +seamen of the merchant service. It is to their generosity in recognising +me under the shore rust of twenty-five years as one of themselves that I +owe one of the deepest emotions of my life. Never for a moment did I +feel among them like an idle, wandering ghost from a distant past. They +talked to me seriously, openly, and with professional precision, of +facts, of events, of implements, I had never heard of in my time; but the +hands I grasped were like the hands of the generation which had trained +my youth and is now no more. I recognised the character of their +glances, the accent of their voices. Their moving tales of modern +instances were presented to me with that peculiar turn of mind flavoured +by the inherited humour and sagacity of the sea. I don't know what the +seaman of the future will be like. He may have to live all his days with +a telephone tied up to his head and bristle all over with scientific +antennae like a figure in a fantastic tale. But he will always be the +man revealed to us lately, immutable in his slight variations like the +closed path of this planet of ours on which he must find his exact +position once, at the very least, in every twenty-four hours. + +The greatest desideratum of a sailor's life is to be "certain of his +position." It is a source of great worry at times, but I don't think +that it need be so at this time. Yet even the best position has its +dangers on account of the fickleness of the elements. But I think that, +left untrammelled to the individual effort of its creators and to the +collective spirit of its servants, the British Merchant Service will +manage to maintain its position on this restless and watery globe. + + + +FLIGHT--1917 + + +To begin at the end, I will say that the "landing" surprised me by a +slight and very characteristically "dead" sort of shock. + +I may fairly call myself an amphibious creature. A good half of my +active existence has been passed in familiar contact with salt water, and +I was aware, theoretically, that water is not an elastic body: but it was +only then that I acquired the absolute conviction of the fact. I +remember distinctly the thought flashing through my head: "By Jove! it +isn't elastic!" Such is the illuminating force of a particular +experience. + +This landing (on the water of the North Sea) was effected in a Short +biplane after one hour and twenty minutes in the air. I reckon every +minute like a miser counting his hoard, for, if what I've got is mine, I +am not likely now to increase the tale. That feeling is the effect of +age. It strikes me as I write that, when next time I leave the surface +of this globe, it won't be to soar bodily above it in the air. Quite the +contrary. And I am not thinking of a submarine either. . . . + +But let us drop this dismal strain and go back logically to the +beginning. I must confess that I started on that flight in a state--I +won't say of fury, but of a most intense irritation. I don't remember +ever feeling so annoyed in my life. + +It came about in this way. Two or three days before, I had been invited +to lunch at an R.N.A.S. station, and was made to feel very much at home +by the nicest lot of quietly interesting young men it had ever been my +good fortune to meet. Then I was taken into the sheds. I walked +respectfully round and round a lot of machines of all kinds, and the more +I looked at them the more I felt somehow that for all the effect they +produced on me they might have been so many land-vehicles of an eccentric +design. So I said to Commander O., who very kindly was conducting me: +"This is all very fine, but to realise what one is looking at, one must +have been up." + +He said at once: "I'll give you a flight to-morrow if you like." + +I postulated that it should be none of those "ten minutes in the air" +affairs. I wanted a real business flight. Commander O. assured me that +I would get "awfully bored," but I declared that I was willing to take +that risk. "Very well," he said. "Eleven o'clock to-morrow. Don't be +late." + +I am sorry to say I was about two minutes late, which was enough, +however, for Commander O. to greet me with a shout from a great distance: +"Oh! You are coming, then!" + +"Of course I am coming," I yelled indignantly. + +He hurried up to me. "All right. There's your machine, and here's your +pilot. Come along." + +A lot of officers closed round me, rushed me into a hut: two of them +began to button me into the coat, two more were ramming a cap on my head, +others stood around with goggles, with binoculars. . . I couldn't +understand the necessity of such haste. We weren't going to chase Fritz. +There was no sign of Fritz anywhere in the blue. Those dear boys did not +seem to notice my age--fifty-eight, if a day--nor my infirmities--a gouty +subject for years. This disregard was very flattering, and I tried to +live up to it, but the pace seemed to me terrific. They galloped me +across a vast expanse of open ground to the water's edge. + +The machine on its carriage seemed as big as a cottage, and much more +imposing. My young pilot went up like a bird. There was an idle, able- +bodied ladder loafing against a shed within fifteen feet of me, but as +nobody seemed to notice it, I recommended myself mentally to Heaven and +started climbing after the pilot. The close view of the real fragility +of that rigid structure startled me considerably, while Commander O. +discomposed me still more by shouting repeatedly: "Don't put your foot +there!" I didn't know where to put my foot. There was a slight crack; I +heard some swear-words below me, and then with a supreme effort I rolled +in and dropped into a basket-chair, absolutely winded. A small crowd of +mechanics and officers were looking up at me from the ground, and while I +gasped visibly I thought to myself that they would be sure to put it down +to sheer nervousness. But I hadn't breath enough in my body to stick my +head out and shout down to them: + +"You know, it isn't that at all!" + +Generally I try not to think of my age and infirmities. They are not a +cheerful subject. But I was never so angry and disgusted with them as +during that minute or so before the machine took the water. As to my +feelings in the air, those who will read these lines will know their own, +which are so much nearer the mind and the heart than any writings of an +unprofessional can be. At first all my faculties were absorbed and as if +neutralised by the sheer novelty of the situation. The first to emerge +was the sense of security so much more perfect than in any small boat +I've ever been in; the, as it were, material, stillness, and immobility +(though it was a bumpy day). I very soon ceased to hear the roar of the +wind and engines--unless, indeed, some cylinders missed, when I became +acutely aware of that. Within the rigid spread of the powerful planes, +so strangely motionless I had sometimes the illusion of sitting as if by +enchantment in a block of suspended marble. Even while looking over at +the aeroplane's shadow running prettily over land and sea, I had the +impression of extreme slowness. I imagine that had she suddenly nose- +dived out of control, I would have gone to the final smash without a +single additional heartbeat. I am sure I would not have known. It is +doubtless otherwise with the man in control. + +But there was no dive, and I returned to earth (after an hour and twenty +minutes) without having felt "bored" for a single second. I descended +(by the ladder) thinking that I would never go flying again. No, never +any more--lest its mysterious fascination, whose invisible wing had +brushed my heart up there, should change to unavailing regret in a man +too old for its glory. + + + +SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC--1912 + + +It is with a certain bitterness that one must admit to oneself that the +late _S.S. Titanic_ had a "good press." It is perhaps because I have no +great practice of daily newspapers (I have never seen so many of them +together lying about my room) that the white spaces and the big lettering +of the headlines have an incongruously festive air to my eyes, a +disagreeable effect of a feverish exploitation of a sensational God-send. +And if ever a loss at sea fell under the definition, in the terms of a +bill of lading, of Act of God, this one does, in its magnitude, +suddenness and severity; and in the chastening influence it should have +on the self-confidence of mankind. + +I say this with all the seriousness the occasion demands, though I have +neither the competence nor the wish to take a theological view of this +great misfortune, sending so many souls to their last account. It is but +a natural _reflection_. Another one flowing also from the phraseology of +bills of lading (a bill of lading is a shipping document limiting in +certain of its clauses the liability of the carrier) is that the "King's +Enemies" of a more or less overt sort are not altogether sorry that this +fatal mishap should strike the prestige of the greatest Merchant Service +of the world. I believe that not a thousand miles from these shores +certain public prints have betrayed in gothic letters their +satisfaction--to speak plainly--by rather ill-natured comments. + +In what light one is to look at the action of the American Senate is more +difficult to say. From a certain point of view the sight of the august +senators of a great Power rushing to New York and beginning to bully and +badger the luckless "Yamsi"--on the very quay-side so to speak--seems to +furnish the Shakespearian touch of the comic to the real tragedy of the +fatuous drowning of all these people who to the last moment put their +trust in mere bigness, in the reckless affirmations of commercial men and +mere technicians and in the irresponsible paragraphs of the newspapers +booming these ships! Yes, a grim touch of comedy. One asks oneself what +these men are after, with this very provincial display of authority. I +beg my friends in the United States pardon for calling these zealous +senators men. I don't wish to be disrespectful. They may be of the +stature of demi-gods for all I know, but at that great distance from the +shores of effete Europe and in the presence of so many guileless dead, +their size seems diminished from this side. What are they after? What +is there for them to find out? We know what had happened. The ship +scraped her side against a piece of ice, and sank after floating for two +hours and a half, taking a lot of people down with her. What more can +they find out from the unfair badgering of the unhappy "Yamsi," or the +ruffianly abuse of the same. + +"Yamsi," I should explain, is a mere code address, and I use it here +symbolically. I have seen commerce pretty close. I know what it is +worth, and I have no particular regard for commercial magnates, but one +must protest against these Bumble-like proceedings. Is it indignation at +the loss of so many lives which is at work here? Well, the American +railroads kill very many people during one single year, I dare say. Then +why don't these dignitaries come down on the presidents of their own +railroads, of which one can't say whether they are mere means of +transportation or a sort of gambling game for the use of American +plutocrats. Is it only an ardent and, upon the whole, praiseworthy +desire for information? But the reports of the inquiry tell us that the +august senators, though raising a lot of questions testifying to the +complete innocence and even blankness of their minds, are unable to +understand what the second officer is saying to them. We are so informed +by the press from the other side. Even such a simple expression as that +one of the look-out men was stationed in the "eyes of the ship" was too +much for the senators of the land of graphic expression. What it must +have been in the more recondite matters I won't even try to think, +because I have no mind for smiles just now. They were greatly exercised +about the sound of explosions heard when half the ship was under water +already. Was there one? Were there two? They seemed to be smelling a +rat there! Has not some charitable soul told them (what even schoolboys +who read sea stories know) that when a ship sinks from a leak like this, +a deck or two is always blown up; and that when a steamship goes down by +the head, the boilers may, and often do break adrift with a sound which +resembles the sound of an explosion? And they may, indeed, explode, for +all I know. In the only case I have seen of a steamship sinking there +was such a sound, but I didn't dive down after her to investigate. She +was not of 45,000 tons and declared unsinkable, but the sight was +impressive enough. I shall never forget the muffled, mysterious +detonation, the sudden agitation of the sea round the slowly raised +stern, and to this day I have in my eye the propeller, seen perfectly +still in its frame against a clear evening sky. + +But perhaps the second officer has explained to them by this time this +and a few other little facts. Though why an officer of the British +merchant service should answer the questions of any king, emperor, +autocrat, or senator of any foreign power (as to an event in which a +British ship alone was concerned, and which did not even take place in +the territorial waters of that power) passes my understanding. The only +authority he is bound to answer is the Board of Trade. But with what +face the Board of Trade, which, having made the regulations for 10,000 +ton ships, put its dear old bald head under its wing for ten years, took +it out only to shelve an important report, and with a dreary murmur, +"Unsinkable," put it back again, in the hope of not being disturbed for +another ten years, with what face it will be putting questions to that +man who has done his duty, as to the facts of this disaster and as to his +professional conduct in it--well, I don't know! I have the greatest +respect for our established authorities. I am a disciplined man, and I +have a natural indulgence for the weaknesses of human institutions; but I +will own that at times I have regretted their--how shall I say it?--their +imponderability. A Board of Trade--what is it? A Board of . . . I +believe the Speaker of the Irish Parliament is one of the members of it. +A ghost. Less than that; as yet a mere memory. An office with adequate +and no doubt comfortable furniture and a lot of perfectly irresponsible +gentlemen who exist packed in its equable atmosphere softly, as if in a +lot of cotton-wool, and with no care in the world; for there can be no +care without personal responsibility--such, for instance, as the seamen +have--those seamen from whose mouths this irresponsible institution can +take away the bread--as a disciplinary measure. Yes--it's all that. And +what more? The name of a politician--a party man! Less than nothing; a +mere void without as much as a shadow of responsibility cast into it from +that light in which move the masses of men who work, who deal in things +and face the realities--not the words--of this life. + +Years ago I remember overhearing two genuine shellbacks of the old type +commenting on a ship's officer, who, if not exactly incompetent, did not +commend himself to their severe judgment of accomplished sailor-men. Said +one, resuming and concluding the discussion in a funnily judicial tone: + +"The Board of Trade must have been drunk when they gave him his +certificate." + +I confess that this notion of the Board of Trade as an entity having a +brain which could be overcome by the fumes of strong liquor charmed me +exceedingly. For then it would have been unlike the limited companies of +which some exasperated wit has once said that they had no souls to be +saved and no bodies to be kicked, and thus were free in this world and +the next from all the effective sanctions of conscientious conduct. But, +unfortunately, the picturesque pronouncement overheard by me was only a +characteristic sally of an annoyed sailor. The Board of Trade is +composed of bloodless departments. It has no limbs and no physiognomy, +or else at the forthcoming inquiry it might have paid to the victims of +the _Titanic_ disaster the small tribute of a blush. I ask myself +whether the Marine Department of the Board of Trade did really believe, +when they decided to shelve the report on equipment for a time, that a +ship of 45,000 tons, that _any_ ship, could be made practically +indestructible by means of water-tight bulkheads? It seems incredible to +anybody who had ever reflected upon the properties of material, such as +wood or steel. You can't, let builders say what they like, make a ship +of such dimensions as strong proportionately as a much smaller one. The +shocks our old whalers had to stand amongst the heavy floes in Baffin's +Bay were perfectly staggering, notwithstanding the most skilful handling, +and yet they lasted for years. The _Titanic_, if one may believe the +last reports, has only scraped against a piece of ice which, I suspect, +was not an enormously bulky and comparatively easily seen berg, but the +low edge of a floe--and sank. Leisurely enough, God knows--and here the +advantage of bulkheads comes in--for time is a great friend, a good +helper--though in this lamentable case these bulkheads served only to +prolong the agony of the passengers who could not be saved. But she +sank, causing, apart from the sorrow and the pity of the loss of so many +lives, a sort of surprised consternation that such a thing should have +happened at all. Why? You build a 45,000 tons hotel of thin steel +plates to secure the patronage of, say, a couple of thousand rich people +(for if it had been for the emigrant trade alone, there would have been +no such exaggeration of mere size), you decorate it in the style of the +Pharaohs or in the Louis Quinze style--I don't know which--and to please +the aforesaid fatuous handful of individuals, who have more money than +they know what to do with, and to the applause of two continents, you +launch that mass with two thousand people on board at twenty-one knots +across the sea--a perfect exhibition of the modern blind trust in mere +material and appliances. And then this happens. General uproar. The +blind trust in material and appliances has received a terrible shock. I +will say nothing of the credulity which accepts any statement which +specialists, technicians and office-people are pleased to make, whether +for purposes of gain or glory. You stand there astonished and hurt in +your profoundest sensibilities. But what else under the circumstances +could you expect? + +For my part I could much sooner believe in an unsinkable ship of 3,000 +tons than in one of 40,000 tons. It is one of those things that stand to +reason. You can't increase the thickness of scantling and plates +indefinitely. And the mere weight of this bigness is an added +disadvantage. In reading the reports, the first reflection which occurs +to one is that, if that luckless ship had been a couple of hundred feet +shorter, she would have probably gone clear of the danger. But then, +perhaps, she could not have had a swimming bath and a French cafe. That, +of course, is a serious consideration. I am well aware that those +responsible for her short and fatal existence ask us in desolate accents +to believe that if she had hit end on she would have survived. Which, by +a sort of coy implication, seems to mean that it was all the fault of the +officer of the watch (he is dead now) for trying to avoid the obstacle. +We shall have presently, in deference to commercial and industrial +interests, a new kind of seamanship. A very new and "progressive" kind. +If you see anything in the way, by no means try to avoid it; smash at it +full tilt. And then--and then only you shall see the triumph of +material, of clever contrivances, of the whole box of engineering tricks +in fact, and cover with glory a commercial concern of the most +unmitigated sort, a great Trust, and a great ship-building yard, justly +famed for the super-excellence of its material and workmanship. +Unsinkable! See? I told you she was unsinkable, if only handled in +accordance with the new seamanship. Everything's in that. And, +doubtless, the Board of Trade, if properly approached, would consent to +give the needed instructions to its examiners of Masters and Mates. +Behold the examination-room of the future. Enter to the grizzled +examiner a young man of modest aspect: "Are you well up in modern +seamanship?" "I hope so, sir." "H'm, let's see. You are at night on +the bridge in charge of a 150,000 tons ship, with a motor track, organ- +loft, etc., etc., with a full cargo of passengers, a full crew of 1,500 +cafe waiters, two sailors and a boy, three collapsible boats as per Board +of Trade regulations, and going at your three-quarter speed of, say, +about forty knots. You perceive suddenly right ahead, and close to, +something that looks like a large ice-floe. What would you do?" "Put +the helm amidships." "Very well. Why?" "In order to hit end on." "On +what grounds should you endeavour to hit end on?" "Because we are taught +by our builders and masters that the heavier the smash, the smaller the +damage, and because the requirements of material should be attended to." + +And so on and so on. The new seamanship: when in doubt try to ram +fairly--whatever's before you. Very simple. If only the _Titanic_ had +rammed that piece of ice (which was not a monstrous berg) fairly, every +puffing paragraph would have been vindicated in the eyes of the credulous +public which pays. But would it have been? Well, I doubt it. I am well +aware that in the eighties the steamship Arizona, one of the "greyhounds +of the ocean" in the jargon of that day, did run bows on against a very +unmistakable iceberg, and managed to get into port on her collision +bulkhead. But the _Arizona_ was not, if I remember rightly, 5,000 tons +register, let alone 45,000, and she was not going at twenty knots per +hour. I can't be perfectly certain at this distance of time, but her sea- +speed could not have been more than fourteen at the outside. Both these +facts made for safety. And, even if she had been engined to go twenty +knots, there would not have been behind that speed the enormous mass, so +difficult to check in its impetus, the terrific weight of which is bound +to do damage to itself or others at the slightest contact. + +I assure you it is not for the vain pleasure of talking about my own poor +experiences, but only to illustrate my point, that I will relate here a +very unsensational little incident I witnessed now rather more than +twenty years ago in Sydney, N.S.W. Ships were beginning then to grow +bigger year after year, though, of course, the present dimensions were +not even dreamt of. I was standing on the Circular Quay with a Sydney +pilot watching a big mail steamship of one of our best-known companies +being brought alongside. We admired her lines, her noble appearance, and +were impressed by her size as well, though her length, I imagine, was +hardly half that of the _Titanic_. + +She came into the Cove (as that part of the harbour is called), of course +very slowly, and at some hundred feet or so short of the quay she lost +her way. That quay was then a wooden one, a fine structure of mighty +piles and stringers bearing a roadway--a thing of great strength. The +ship, as I have said before, stopped moving when some hundred feet from +it. Then her engines were rung on slow ahead, and immediately rung off +again. The propeller made just about five turns, I should say. She +began to move, stealing on, so to speak, without a ripple; coming +alongside with the utmost gentleness. I went on looking her over, very +much interested, but the man with me, the pilot, muttered under his +breath: "Too much, too much." His exercised judgment had warned him of +what I did not even suspect. But I believe that neither of us was +exactly prepared for what happened. There was a faint concussion of the +ground under our feet, a groaning of piles, a snapping of great iron +bolts, and with a sound of ripping and splintering, as when a tree is +blown down by the wind, a great strong piece of wood, a baulk of squared +timber, was displaced several feet as if by enchantment. I looked at my +companion in amazement. "I could not have believed it," I declared. +"No," he said. "You would not have thought she would have cracked an +egg--eh?" + +I certainly wouldn't have thought that. He shook his head, and added: +"Ah! These great, big things, they want some handling." + +Some months afterwards I was back in Sydney. The same pilot brought me +in from sea. And I found the same steamship, or else another as like her +as two peas, lying at anchor not far from us. The pilot told me she had +arrived the day before, and that he was to take her alongside to-morrow. +I reminded him jocularly of the damage to the quay. "Oh!" he said, "we +are not allowed now to bring them in under their own steam. We are using +tugs." + +A very wise regulation. And this is my point--that size is to a certain +extent an element of weakness. The bigger the ship, the more delicately +she must be handled. Here is a contact which, in the pilot's own words, +you wouldn't think could have cracked an egg; with the astonishing result +of something like eighty feet of good strong wooden quay shaken loose, +iron bolts snapped, a baulk of stout timber splintered. Now, suppose +that quay had been of granite (as surely it is now)--or, instead of the +quay, if there had been, say, a North Atlantic fog there, with a full- +grown iceberg in it awaiting the gentle contact of a ship groping its way +along blindfold? Something would have been hurt, but it would not have +been the iceberg. + +Apparently, there is a point in development when it ceases to be a true +progress--in trade, in games, in the marvellous handiwork of men, and +even in their demands and desires and aspirations of the moral and mental +kind. There is a point when progress, to remain a real advance, must +change slightly the direction of its line. But this is a wide question. +What I wanted to point out here is--that the old _Arizona_, the marvel of +her day, was proportionately stronger, handier, better equipped, than +this triumph of modern naval architecture, the loss of which, in common +parlance, will remain the sensation of this year. The clatter of the +presses has been worthy of the tonnage, of the preliminary paeans of +triumph round that vanished hull, of the reckless statements, and +elaborate descriptions of its ornate splendour. A great babble of news +(and what sort of news too, good heavens!) and eager comment has arisen +around this catastrophe, though it seems to me that a less strident note +would have been more becoming in the presence of so many victims left +struggling on the sea, of lives miserably thrown away for nothing, or +worse than nothing: for false standards of achievement, to satisfy a +vulgar demand of a few moneyed people for a banal hotel luxury--the only +one they can understand--and because the big ship pays, in one way or +another: in money or in advertising value. + +It is in more ways than one a very ugly business, and a mere scrape along +the ship's side, so slight that, if reports are to be believed, it did +not interrupt a card party in the gorgeously fitted (but in chaste style) +smoking-room--or was it in the delightful French cafe?--is enough to +bring on the exposure. All the people on board existed under a sense of +false security. How false, it has been sufficiently demonstrated. And +the fact which seems undoubted, that some of them actually were reluctant +to enter the boats when told to do so, shows the strength of that +falsehood. Incidentally, it shows also the sort of discipline on board +these ships, the sort of hold kept on the passengers in the face of the +unforgiving sea. These people seemed to imagine it an optional matter: +whereas the order to leave the ship should be an order of the sternest +character, to be obeyed unquestioningly and promptly by every one on +board, with men to enforce it at once, and to carry it out methodically +and swiftly. And it is no use to say it cannot be done, for it can. It +has been done. The only requisite is manageableness of the ship herself +and of the numbers she carries on board. That is the great thing which +makes for safety. A commander should be able to hold his ship and +everything on board of her in the hollow of his hand, as it were. But +with the modern foolish trust in material, and with those floating +hotels, this has become impossible. A man may do his best, but he cannot +succeed in a task which from greed, or more likely from sheer stupidity, +has been made too great for anybody's strength. + +The readers of _The English Review_, who cast a friendly eye nearly six +years ago on my Reminiscences, and know how much the merchant service, +ships and men, has been to me, will understand my indignation that those +men of whom (speaking in no sentimental phrase, but in the very truth of +feeling) I can't even now think otherwise than as brothers, have been put +by their commercial employers in the impossibility to perform efficiently +their plain duty; and this from motives which I shall not enumerate here, +but whose intrinsic unworthiness is plainly revealed by the greatness, +the miserable greatness, of that disaster. Some of them have perished. +To die for commerce is hard enough, but to go under that sea we have been +trained to combat, with a sense of failure in the supreme duty of one's +calling is indeed a bitter fate. Thus they are gone, and the +responsibility remains with the living who will have no difficulty in +replacing them by others, just as good, at the same wages. It was their +bitter fate. But I, who can look at some arduous years when their duty +was my duty too, and their feelings were my feelings, can remember some +of us who once upon a time were more fortunate. + +It is of them that I would talk a little, for my own comfort partly, and +also because I am sticking all the time to my subject to illustrate my +point, the point of manageableness which I have raised just now. Since +the memory of the lucky _Arizona_ has been evoked by others than myself, +and made use of by me for my own purpose, let me call up the ghost of +another ship of that distant day whose less lucky destiny inculcates +another lesson making for my argument. The _Douro_, a ship belonging to +the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, was rather less than one-tenth the +measurement of the _Titanic_. Yet, strange as it may appear to the +ineffable hotel exquisites who form the bulk of the first-class Cross- +Atlantic Passengers, people of position and wealth and refinement did not +consider it an intolerable hardship to travel in her, even all the way +from South America; this being the service she was engaged upon. Of her +speed I know nothing, but it must have been the average of the period, +and the decorations of her saloons were, I dare say, quite up to the +mark; but I doubt if her birth had been boastfully paragraphed all round +the Press, because that was not the fashion of the time. She was not a +mass of material gorgeously furnished and upholstered. She was a ship. +And she was not, in the apt words of an article by Commander C. +Crutchley, R.N.R., which I have just read, "run by a sort of hotel +syndicate composed of the Chief Engineer, the Purser, and the Captain," +as these monstrous Atlantic ferries are. She was really commanded, +manned, and equipped as a ship meant to keep the sea: a ship first and +last in the fullest meaning of the term, as the fact I am going to relate +will show. + +She was off the Spanish coast, homeward bound, and fairly full, just like +the _Titanic_; and further, the proportion of her crew to her passengers, +I remember quite well, was very much the same. The exact number of souls +on board I have forgotten. It might have been nearly three hundred, +certainly not more. The night was moonlit, but hazy, the weather fine +with a heavy swell running from the westward, which means that she must +have been rolling a great deal, and in that respect the conditions for +her were worse than in the case of the _Titanic_. Some time either just +before or just after midnight, to the best of my recollection, she was +run into amidships and at right angles by a large steamer which after the +blow backed out, and, herself apparently damaged, remained motionless at +some distance. + +My recollection is that the _Douro_ remained afloat after the collision +for fifteen minutes or thereabouts. It might have been twenty, but +certainly something under the half-hour. In that time the boats were +lowered, all the passengers put into them, and the lot shoved off. There +was no time to do anything more. All the crew of the _Douro_ went down +with her, literally without a murmur. When she went she plunged bodily +down like a stone. The only members of the ship's company who survived +were the third officer, who was from the first ordered to take charge of +the boats, and the seamen told off to man them, two in each. Nobody else +was picked up. A quartermaster, one of the saved in the way of duty, +with whom I talked a month or so afterwards, told me that they pulled up +to the spot, but could neither see a head nor hear the faintest cry. + +But I have forgotten. A passenger was drowned. She was a lady's maid +who, frenzied with terror, refused to leave the ship. One of the boats +waited near by till the chief officer, finding himself absolutely unable +to tear the girl away from the rail to which she dung with a frantic +grasp, ordered the boat away out of danger. My quartermaster told me +that he spoke over to them in his ordinary voice, and this was the last +sound heard before the ship sank. + +The rest is silence. I daresay there was the usual official inquiry, but +who cared for it? That sort of thing speaks for itself with no uncertain +voice; though the papers, I remember, gave the event no space to speak +of: no large headlines--no headlines at all. You see it was not the +fashion at the time. A seaman-like piece of work, of which one cherishes +the old memory at this juncture more than ever before. She was a ship +commanded, manned, equipped--not a sort of marine Ritz, proclaimed +unsinkable and sent adrift with its casual population upon the sea, +without enough boats, without enough seamen (but with a Parisian cafe and +four hundred of poor devils of waiters) to meet dangers which, let the +engineers say what they like, lurk always amongst the waves; sent with a +blind trust in mere material, light-heartedly, to a most miserable, most +fatuous disaster. + +And there are, too, many ugly developments about this tragedy. The rush +of the senatorial inquiry before the poor wretches escaped from the jaws +of death had time to draw breath, the vituperative abuse of a man no more +guilty than others in this matter, and the suspicion of this aimless fuss +being a political move to get home on the M.T. Company, into which, in +common parlance, the United States Government has got its knife, I don't +pretend to understand why, though with the rest of the world I am aware +of the fact. Perhaps there may be an excellent and worthy reason for it; +but I venture to suggest that to take advantage of so many pitiful +corpses, is not pretty. And the exploiting of the mere sensation on the +other side is not pretty in its wealth of heartless inventions. Neither +is the welter of Marconi lies which has not been sent vibrating without +some reason, for which it would be nauseous to inquire too closely. And +the calumnious, baseless, gratuitous, circumstantial lie charging poor +Captain Smith with desertion of his post by means of suicide is the +vilest and most ugly thing of all in this outburst of journalistic +enterprise, without feeling, without honour, without decency. + +But all this has its moral. And that other sinking which I have related +here and to the memory of which a seaman turns with relief and +thankfulness has its moral too. Yes, material may fail, and men, too, +may fail sometimes; but more often men, when they are given the chance, +will prove themselves truer than steel, that wonderful thin steel from +which the sides and the bulkheads of our modern sea-leviathans are made. + + + +CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE ADMIRABLE INQUIRY INTO THE LOSS OF THE +TITANIC--1912 + + +I have been taken to task by a friend of mine on the "other side" for my +strictures on Senator Smith's investigation into the loss of the +_Titanic_, in the number of _The English Review_ for May, 1912. I will +admit that the motives of the investigation may have been excellent, and +probably were; my criticism bore mainly on matters of form and also on +the point of efficiency. In that respect I have nothing to retract. The +Senators of the Commission had absolutely no knowledge and no practice to +guide them in the conduct of such an investigation; and this fact gave an +air of unreality to their zealous exertions. I think that even in the +United States there is some regret that this zeal of theirs was not +tempered by a large dose of wisdom. It is fitting that people who rush +with such ardour to the work of putting questions to men yet gasping from +a narrow escape should have, I wouldn't say a tincture of technical +information, but enough knowledge of the subject to direct the trend of +their inquiry. The newspapers of two continents have noted the remarks +of the President of the Senatorial Commission with comments which I will +not reproduce here, having a scant respect for the "organs of public +opinion," as they fondly believe themselves to be. The absolute value of +their remarks was about as great as the value of the investigation they +either mocked at or extolled. To the United States Senate I did not +intend to be disrespectful. I have for that body, of which one hears +mostly in connection with tariffs, as much reverence as the best of +Americans. To manifest more or less would be an impertinence in a +stranger. I have expressed myself with less reserve on our Board of +Trade. That was done under the influence of warm feelings. We were all +feeling warmly on the matter at that time. But, at any rate, our Board +of Trade Inquiry, conducted by an experienced President, discovered a +very interesting fact on the very second day of its sitting: the fact +that the water-tight doors in the bulkheads of that wonder of naval +architecture could be opened down below by any irresponsible person. Thus +the famous closing apparatus on the bridge, paraded as a device of +greater safety, with its attachments of warning bells, coloured lights, +and all these pretty-pretties, was, in the case of this ship, little +better than a technical farce. + +It is amusing, if anything connected with this stupid catastrophe can be +amusing, to see the secretly crestfallen attitude of technicians. They +are the high priests of the modern cult of perfected material and of +mechanical appliances, and would fain forbid the profane from inquiring +into its mysteries. We are the masters of progress, they say, and you +should remain respectfully silent. And they take refuge behind their +mathematics. I have the greatest regard for mathematics as an exercise +of mind. It is the only manner of thinking which approaches the Divine. +But mere calculations, of which these men make so much, when unassisted +by imagination and when they have gained mastery over common sense, are +the most deceptive exercises of intellect. Two and two are four, and two +are six. That is immutable; you may trust your soul to that; but you +must be certain first of your quantities. I know how the strength of +materials can be calculated away, and also the evidence of one's senses. +For it is by some sort of calculation involving weights and levels that +the technicians responsible for the _Titanic_ persuaded themselves that a +ship _not divided_ by water-tight compartments could be "unsinkable." +Because, you know, she was not divided. You and I, and our little boys, +when we want to divide, say, a box, take care to procure a piece of wood +which will reach from the bottom to the lid. We know that if it does not +reach all the way up, the box will not be divided into two compartments. +It will be only partly divided. The _Titanic_ was only partly divided. +She was just sufficiently divided to drown some poor devils like rats in +a trap. It is probable that they would have perished in any case, but it +is a particularly horrible fate to die boxed up like this. Yes, she was +sufficiently divided for that, but not sufficiently divided to prevent +the water flowing over. + +Therefore to a plain man who knows something of mathematics but is not +bemused by calculations, she was, from the point of view of +"unsinkability," not divided at all. What would you say of people who +would boast of a fireproof building, an hotel, for instance, saying, "Oh, +we have it divided by fireproof bulkheads which would localise any +outbreak," and if you were to discover on closer inspection that these +bulkheads closed no more than two-thirds of the openings they were meant +to close, leaving above an open space through which draught, smoke, and +fire could rush from one end of the building to the other? And, +furthermore, that those partitions, being too high to climb over, the +people confined in each menaced compartment had to stay there and become +asphyxiated or roasted, because no exits to the outside, say to the roof, +had been provided! What would you think of the intelligence or candour +of these advertising people? What would you think of them? And yet, +apart from the obvious difference in the action of fire and water, the +cases are essentially the same. + +It would strike you and me and our little boys (who are not engineers +yet) that to approach--I won't say attain--somewhere near absolute +safety, the divisions to keep out water should extend from the bottom +right up to the uppermost deck of _the hull_. I repeat, the _hull_, +because there are above the hull the decks of the superstructures of +which we need not take account. And further, as a provision of the +commonest humanity, that each of these compartments should have a +perfectly independent and free access to that uppermost deck: that is, +into the open. Nothing less will do. Division by bulkheads that really +divide, and free access to the deck from every water-tight compartment. +Then the responsible man in the moment of danger and in the exercise of +his judgment could close all the doors of these water-tight bulkheads by +whatever clever contrivance has been invented for the purpose, without a +qualm at the awful thought that he may be shutting up some of his fellow +creatures in a death-trap; that he may be sacrificing the lives of men +who, down there, are sticking to the posts of duty as the engine-room +staffs of the Merchant Service have never failed to do. I know very well +that the engineers of a ship in a moment of emergency are not quaking for +their lives, but, as far as I have known them, attend calmly to their +duty. We all must die; but, hang it all, a man ought to be given a +chance, if not for his life, then at least to die decently. It's bad +enough to have to stick down there when something disastrous is going on +and any moment may be your last; but to be drowned shut up under deck is +too bad. Some men of the _Titanic_ died like that, it is to be feared. +Compartmented, so to speak. Just think what it means! Nothing can +approach the horror of that fate except being buried alive in a cave, or +in a mine, or in your family vault. + +So, once more: continuous bulkheads--a clear way of escape to the deck +out of each water-tight compartment. Nothing less. And if specialists, +the precious specialists of the sort that builds "unsinkable ships," tell +you that it cannot be done, don't you believe them. It can be done, and +they are quite clever enough to do it too. The objections they will +raise, however disguised in the solemn mystery of technical phrases, will +not be technical, but commercial. I assure you that there is not much +mystery about a ship of that sort. She is a tank. She is a tank ribbed, +joisted, stayed, but she is no greater mystery than a tank. The +_Titanic_ was a tank eight hundred feet long, fitted as an hotel, with +corridors, bed-rooms, halls, and so on (not a very mysterious arrangement +truly), and for the hazards of her existence I should think about as +strong as a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin. I make this comparison +because Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tins, being almost a national +institution, are probably known to all my readers. Well, about that +strong, and perhaps not quite so strong. Just look at the side of such a +tin, and then think of a 50,000 ton ship, and try to imagine what the +thickness of her plates should be to approach anywhere the relative +solidity of that biscuit-tin. In my varied and adventurous career I have +been thrilled by the sight of a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin kicked by +a mule sky-high, as the saying is. It came back to earth smiling, with +only a sort of dimple on one of its cheeks. A proportionately severe +blow would have burst the side of the _Titanic_ or any other "triumph of +modern naval architecture" like brown paper--I am willing to bet. + +I am not saying this by way of disparagement. There is reason in things. +You can't make a 50,000 ton ship as strong as a Huntley and Palmer +biscuit-tin. But there is also reason in the way one accepts facts, and +I refuse to be awed by the size of a tank bigger than any other tank that +ever went afloat to its doom. The people responsible for her, though +disconcerted in their hearts by the exposure of that disaster, are giving +themselves airs of superiority--priests of an Oracle which has failed, +but still must remain the Oracle. The assumption is that they are +ministers of progress. But the mere increase of size is not progress. If +it were, elephantiasis, which causes a man's legs to become as large as +tree-trunks, would be a sort of progress, whereas it is nothing but a +very ugly disease. Yet directly this very disconcerting catastrophe +happened, the servants of the silly Oracle began to cry: "It's no use! +You can't resist progress. The big ship has come to stay." Well, let +her stay on, then, in God's name! But she isn't a servant of progress in +any sense. She is the servant of commercialism. For progress, if +dealing with the problems of a material world, has some sort of moral +aspect--if only, say, that of conquest, which has its distinct value +since man is a conquering animal. But bigness is mere exaggeration. The +men responsible for these big ships have been moved by considerations of +profit to be made by the questionable means of pandering to an absurd and +vulgar demand for banal luxury--the seaside hotel luxury. One even asks +oneself whether there was such a demand? It is inconceivable to think +that there are people who can't spend five days of their life without a +suite of apartments, cafes, bands, and such-like refined delights. I +suspect that the public is not so very guilty in this matter. These +things were pushed on to it in the usual course of trade competition. If +to-morrow you were to take all these luxuries away, the public would +still travel. I don't despair of mankind. I believe that if, by some +catastrophic miracle all ships of every kind were to disappear off the +face of the waters, together with the means of replacing them, there +would be found, before the end of the week, men (millionaires, perhaps) +cheerfully putting out to sea in bath-tubs for a fresh start. We are all +like that. This sort of spirit lives in mankind still uncorrupted by the +so-called refinements, the ingenuity of tradesmen, who look always for +something new to sell, offers to the public. + +Let her stay,--I mean the big ship--since she has come to stay. I only +object to the attitude of the people, who, having called her into being +and having romanced (to speak politely) about her, assume a detached sort +of superiority, goodness only knows why, and raise difficulties in the +way of every suggestion--difficulties about boats, about bulkheads, about +discipline, about davits, all sorts of difficulties. To most of them the +only answer would be: "Where there's a will there's a way"--the most wise +of proverbs. But some of these objections are really too stupid for +anything. I shall try to give an instance of what I mean. + +This Inquiry is admirably conducted. I am not alluding to the lawyers +representing "various interests," who are trying to earn their fees by +casting all sorts of mean aspersions on the characters of all sorts of +people not a bit worse than themselves. It is honest to give value for +your wages; and the "bravos" of ancient Venice who kept their stilettos +in good order and never failed to deliver the stab bargained for with +their employers, considered themselves an honest body of professional +men, no doubt. But they don't compel my admiration, whereas the conduct +of this Inquiry does. And as it is pretty certain to be attacked, I take +this opportunity to deposit here my nickel of appreciation. Well, +lately, there came before it witnesses responsible for the designing of +the ship. One of them was asked whether it would not be advisable to +make each coal-bunker of the ship a water-tight compartment by means of a +suitable door. + +The answer to such a question should have been, "Certainly," for it is +obvious to the simplest intelligence that the more water-tight spaces you +provide in a ship (consistently with having her workable) the nearer you +approach safety. But instead of admitting the expediency of the +suggestion, this witness at once raised an objection as to the +possibility of closing tightly the door of a bunker on account of the +slope of coal. This with the true expert's attitude of "My dear man, you +don't know what you are talking about." + +Now would you believe that the objection put forward was absolutely +futile? I don't know whether the distinguished President of the Court +perceived this. Very likely he did, though I don't suppose he was ever +on terms of familiarity with a ship's bunker. But I have. I have been +inside; and you may take it that what I say of them is correct. I don't +wish to be wearisome to the benevolent reader, but I want to put his +finger, so to speak, on the inanity of the objection raised by the +expert. A bunker is an enclosed space for holding coals, generally +located against the ship's side, and having an opening, a doorway in +fact, into the stokehold. Men called trimmers go in there, and by means +of implements called slices make the coal run through that opening on to +the floor of the stokehold, where it is within reach of the stokers' +(firemen's) shovels. This being so, you will easily understand that +there is constantly a more or less thick layer of coal generally shaped +in a slope lying in that doorway. And the objection of the expert was: +that because of this obstruction it would be impossible to close the +water-tight door, and therefore that the thing could not be done. And +that objection was inane. A water-tight door in a bulkhead may be +defined as a metal plate which is made to close a given opening by some +mechanical means. And if there were a law of Medes and Persians that a +water-tight door should always slide downwards and never otherwise, the +objection would be to a great extent valid. But what is there to prevent +those doors to be fitted so as to move upwards, or horizontally, or +slantwise? In which case they would go through the obstructing layer of +coal as easily as a knife goes through butter. Anyone may convince +himself of it by experimenting with a light piece of board and a heap of +stones anywhere along our roads. Probably the joint of such a door would +weep a little--and there is no necessity for its being hermetically +tight--but the object of converting bunkers into spaces of safety would +be attained. You may take my word for it that this could be done without +any great effort of ingenuity. And that is why I have qualified the +expert's objection as inane. + +Of course, these doors must not be operated from the bridge because of +the risk of trapping the coal-trimmers inside the bunker; but on the +signal of all other water-tight doors in the ship being closed (as would +be done in case of a collision) they too could be closed on the order of +the engineer of the watch, who would see to the safety of the trimmers. +If the rent in the ship's side were within the bunker itself, that would +become manifest enough without any signal, and the rush of water into the +stokehold could be cut off directly the doorplate came into its place. +Say a minute at the very outside. Naturally, if the blow of a +right-angled collision, for instance, were heavy enough to smash through +the inner bulkhead of the bunker, why, there would be then nothing to do +but for the stokers and trimmers and everybody in there to clear out of +the stoke-room. But that does not mean that the precaution of having +water-tight doors to the bunkers is useless, superfluous, or impossible. +{7} + +And talking of stokeholds, firemen, and trimmers, men whose heavy labour +has not a single redeeming feature; which is unhealthy, uninspiring, +arduous, without the reward of personal pride in it; sheer, hard, +brutalising toil, belonging neither to earth nor sea, I greet with joy +the advent for marine purposes of the internal combustion engine. The +disappearance of the marine boiler will be a real progress, which anybody +in sympathy with his kind must welcome. Instead of the unthrifty, +unruly, nondescript crowd the boilers require, a crowd of men _in_ the +ship but not _of_ her, we shall have comparatively small crews of +disciplined, intelligent workers, able to steer the ship, handle anchors, +man boats, and at the same time competent to take their place at a bench +as fitters and repairers; the resourceful and skilled seamen--mechanics +of the future, the legitimate successors of these seamen--sailors of the +past, who had their own kind of skill, hardihood, and tradition, and +whose last days it has been my lot to share. + +One lives and learns and hears very surprising things--things that one +hardly knows how to take, whether seriously or jocularly, how to +meet--with indignation or with contempt? Things said by solemn experts, +by exalted directors, by glorified ticket-sellers, by officials of all +sorts. I suppose that one of the uses of such an inquiry is to give such +people enough rope to hang themselves with. And I hope that some of them +won't neglect to do so. One of them declared two days ago that there was +"nothing to learn from the catastrophe of the _Titanic_." That he had +been "giving his best consideration" to certain rules for ten years, and +had come to the conclusion that nothing ever happened at sea, and that +rules and regulations, boats and sailors, were unnecessary; that what was +really wrong with the _Titanic_ was that she carried too many boats. + +No; I am not joking. If you don't believe me, pray look back through the +reports and you will find it all there. I don't recollect the official's +name, but it ought to have been Pooh-Bah. Well, Pooh-Bah said all these +things, and when asked whether he really meant it, intimated his +readiness to give the subject more of "his best consideration"--for +another ten years or so apparently--but he believed, oh yes! he was +certain, that had there been fewer boats there would have been more +people saved. Really, when reading the report of this admirably +conducted inquiry one isn't certain at times whether it is an Admirable +Inquiry or a felicitous _opera-bouffe_ of the Gilbertian type--with a +rather grim subject, to be sure. + +Yes, rather grim--but the comic treatment never fails. My readers will +remember that in the number of _The English Review_ for May, 1912, I +quoted the old case of the _Arizona_, and went on from that to prophesy +the coming of a new seamanship (in a spirit of irony far removed from +fun) at the call of the sublime builders of unsinkable ships. I thought +that, as a small boy of my acquaintance says, I was "doing a sarcasm," +and regarded it as a rather wild sort of sarcasm at that. Well, I am +blessed (excuse the vulgarism) if a witness has not turned up who seems +to have been inspired by the same thought, and evidently longs in his +heart for the advent of the new seamanship. He is an expert, of course, +and I rather believe he's the same gentleman who did not see his way to +fit water-tight doors to bunkers. With ludicrous earnestness he assured +the Commission of his intense belief that had only the _Titanic_ struck +end-on she would have come into port all right. And in the whole tone of +his insistent statement there was suggested the regret that the officer +in charge (who is dead now, and mercifully outside the comic scope of +this inquiry) was so ill-advised as to try to pass clear of the ice. Thus +my sarcastic prophecy, that such a suggestion was sure to turn up, +receives an unexpected fulfilment. You will see yet that in deference to +the demands of "progress" the theory of the new seamanship will become +established: "Whatever you see in front of you--ram it fair. . ." The +new seamanship! Looks simple, doesn't it? But it will be a very exact +art indeed. The proper handling of an unsinkable ship, you see, will +demand that she should be made to hit the iceberg very accurately with +her nose, because should you perchance scrape the bluff of the bow +instead, she may, without ceasing to be as unsinkable as before, find her +way to the bottom. I congratulate the future Transatlantic passengers on +the new and vigorous sensations in store for them. They shall go +bounding across from iceberg to iceberg at twenty-five knots with +precision and safety, and a "cheerful bumpy sound"--as the immortal poem +has it. It will be a teeth-loosening, exhilarating experience. The +decorations will be Louis-Quinze, of course, and the cafe shall remain +open all night. But what about the priceless Sevres porcelain and the +Venetian glass provided for the service of Transatlantic passengers? +Well, I am afraid all that will have to be replaced by silver goblets and +plates. Nasty, common, cheap silver. But those who _will_ go to sea +must be prepared to put up with a certain amount of hardship. + +And there shall be no boats. Why should there be no boats? Because Pooh- +Bah has said that the fewer the boats, the more people can be saved; and +therefore with no boats at all, no one need be lost. But even if there +was a flaw in this argument, pray look at the other advantages the +absence of boats gives you. There can't be the annoyance of having to go +into them in the middle of the night, and the unpleasantness, after +saving your life by the skin of your teeth, of being hauled over the +coals by irreproachable members of the Bar with hints that you are no +better than a cowardly scoundrel and your wife a heartless monster. Less +Boats. No boats! Great should be the gratitude of passage-selling +Combines to Pooh-Bah; and they ought to cherish his memory when he dies. +But no fear of that. His kind never dies. All you have to do, O +Combine, is to knock at the door of the Marine Department, look in, and +beckon to the first man you see. That will be he, very much at your +service--prepared to affirm after "ten years of my best consideration" +and a bundle of statistics in hand, that: "There's no lesson to be +learned, and that there is nothing to be done!" + +On an earlier day there was another witness before the Court of Inquiry. +A mighty official of the White Star Line. The impression of his +testimony which the Report gave is of an almost scornful impatience with +all this fuss and pother. Boats! Of course we have crowded our decks +with them in answer to this ignorant clamour. Mere lumber! How can we +handle so many boats with our davits? Your people don't know the +conditions of the problem. We have given these matters our best +consideration, and we have done what we thought reasonable. We have done +more than our duty. We are wise, and good, and impeccable. And whoever +says otherwise is either ignorant or wicked. + +This is the gist of these scornful answers which disclose the psychology +of commercial undertakings. It is the same psychology which fifty or so +years ago, before Samuel Plimsoll uplifted his voice, sent overloaded +ships to sea. "Why shouldn't we cram in as much cargo as our ships will +hold? Look how few, how very few of them get lost, after all." + +Men don't change. Not very much. And the only answer to be given to +this manager who came out, impatient and indignant, from behind the plate- +glass windows of his shop to be discovered by this inquiry, and to tell +us that he, they, the whole three million (or thirty million, for all I +know) capital Organisation for selling passages has considered the +problem of boats--the only answer to give him is: that this is not a +problem of boats at all. It is the problem of decent behaviour. If you +can't carry or handle so many boats, then don't cram quite so many people +on board. It is as simple as that--this problem of right feeling and +right conduct, the real nature of which seems beyond the comprehension of +ticket-providers. Don't sell so many tickets, my virtuous dignitary. +After all, men and women (unless considered from a purely commercial +point of view) are not exactly the cattle of the Western-ocean trade, +that used some twenty years ago to be thrown overboard on an emergency +and left to swim round and round before they sank. If you can't get more +boats, then sell less tickets. Don't drown so many people on the finest, +calmest night that was ever known in the North Atlantic--even if you have +provided them with a little music to get drowned by. Sell less tickets! +That's the solution of the problem, your Mercantile Highness. + +But there would be a cry, "Oh! This requires consideration!" (Ten years +of it--eh?) Well, no! This does not require consideration. This is the +very first thing to do. At once. Limit the number of people by the +boats you can handle. That's honesty. And then you may go on fumbling +for years about these precious davits which are such a stumbling-block to +your humanity. These fascinating patent davits. These davits that +refuse to do three times as much work as they were meant to do. Oh! The +wickedness of these davits! + +One of the great discoveries of this admirable Inquiry is the fascination +of the davits. All these people positively can't get away from them. +They shuffle about and groan around their davits. Whereas the obvious +thing to do is to eliminate the man-handled davits altogether. Don't you +think that with all the mechanical contrivances, with all the generated +power on board these ships, it is about time to get rid of the hundred- +years-old, man-power appliances? Cranes are what is wanted; low, compact +cranes with adjustable heads, one to each set of six or nine boats. And +if people tell you of insuperable difficulties, if they tell you of the +swing and spin of spanned boats, don't you believe them. The heads of +the cranes need not be any higher than the heads of the davits. The lift +required would be only a couple of inches. As to the spin, there is a +way to prevent that if you have in each boat two men who know what they +are about. I have taken up on board a heavy ship's boat, in the open sea +(the ship rolling heavily), with a common cargo derrick. And a cargo +derrick is very much like a crane; but a crane devised _ad hoc_ would be +infinitely easier to work. We must remember that the loss of this ship +has altered the moral atmosphere. As long as the _Titanic_ is +remembered, an ugly rush for the boats may be feared in case of some +accident. You can't hope to drill into perfect discipline a casual mob +of six hundred firemen and waiters, but in a ship like the _Titanic_ you +can keep on a permanent trustworthy crew of one hundred intelligent +seamen and mechanics who would know their stations for abandoning ship +and would do the work efficiently. The boats could be lowered with +sufficient dispatch. One does not want to let rip one's boats by the run +all at the same time. With six boat-cranes, six boats would be +simultaneously swung, filled, and got away from the side; and if any sort +of order is kept, the ship could be cleared of the passengers in a quite +short time. For there must be boats enough for the passengers and crew, +whether you increase the number of boats or limit the number of +passengers, irrespective of the size of the ship. That is the only +honest course. Any other would be rather worse than putting sand in the +sugar, for which a tradesman gets fined or imprisoned. Do not let us +take a romantic view of the so-called progress. A company selling +passages is a tradesman; though from the way these people talk and behave +you would think they are benefactors of mankind in some mysterious way, +engaged in some lofty and amazing enterprise. + +All these boats should have a motor-engine in them. And, of course, the +glorified tradesman, the mummified official, the technicians, and all +these secretly disconcerted hangers-on to the enormous ticket-selling +enterprise, will raise objections to it with every air of superiority. +But don't believe them. Doesn't it strike you as absurd that in this age +of mechanical propulsion, of generated power, the boats of such ultra- +modern ships are fitted with oars and sails, implements more than three +thousand years old? Old as the siege of Troy. Older! . . . And I know +what I am talking about. Only six weeks ago I was on the river in an +ancient, rough, ship's boat, fitted with a two-cylinder motor-engine of +7.5 h.p. Just a common ship's boat, which the man who owns her uses for +taking the workmen and stevedores to and from the ships loading at the +buoys off Greenhithe. She would have carried some thirty people. No +doubt has carried as many daily for many months. And she can tow a +twenty-five ton water barge--which is also part of that man's business. + +It was a boisterous day, half a gale of wind against the flood tide. Two +fellows managed her. A youngster of seventeen was cox (and a first-rate +cox he was too); a fellow in a torn blue jersey, not much older, of the +usual riverside type, looked after the engine. I spent an hour and a +half in her, running up and down and across that reach. She handled +perfectly. With eight or twelve oars out she could not have done +anything like as well. These two youngsters at my request kept her +stationary for ten minutes, with a touch of engine and helm now and then, +within three feet of a big, ugly mooring buoy over which the water broke +and the spray flew in sheets, and which would have holed her if she had +bumped against it. But she kept her position, it seemed to me, to an +inch, without apparently any trouble to these boys. You could not have +done it with oars. And her engine did not take up the space of three +men, even on the assumption that you would pack people as tight as +sardines in a box. + +Not the room of three people, I tell you! But no one would want to pack +a boat like a sardine-box. There must be room enough to handle the oars. +But in that old ship's boat, even if she had been desperately +overcrowded, there was power (manageable by two riverside youngsters) to +get away quickly from a ship's side (very important for your safety and +to make room for other boats), the power to keep her easily head to sea, +the power to move at five to seven knots towards a rescuing ship, the +power to come safely alongside. And all that in an engine which did not +take up the room of three people. + +A poor boatman who had to scrape together painfully the few sovereigns of +the price had the idea of putting that engine into his boat. But all +these designers, directors, managers, constructors, and others whom we +may include in the generic name of Yamsi, never thought of it for the +boats of the biggest tank on earth, or rather on sea. And therefore they +assume an air of impatient superiority and make objections--however sick +at heart they may be. And I hope they are; at least, as much as a grocer +who has sold a tin of imperfect salmon which destroyed only half a dozen +people. And you know, the tinning of salmon was "progress" as much at +least as the building of the _Titanic_. More, in fact. I am not +attacking shipowners. I care neither more nor less for Lines, Companies, +Combines, and generally for Trade arrayed in purple and fine linen than +the Trade cares for me. But I am attacking foolish arrogance, which is +fair game; the offensive posture of superiority by which they hide the +sense of their guilt, while the echoes of the miserably hypocritical +cries along the alley-ways of that ship: "Any more women? Any more +women?" linger yet in our ears. + +I have been expecting from one or the other of them all bearing the +generic name of Yamsi, something, a sign of some sort, some sincere +utterance, in the course of this Admirable Inquiry, of manly, of genuine +compunction. In vain. All trade talk. Not a whisper--except for the +conventional expression of regret at the beginning of the yearly +report--which otherwise is a cheerful document. Dividends, you know. The +shop is doing well. + +And the Admirable Inquiry goes on, punctuated by idiotic laughter, by +paid-for cries of indignation from under legal wigs, bringing to light +the psychology of various commercial characters too stupid to know that +they are giving themselves away--an admirably laborious inquiry into +facts that speak, nay shout, for themselves. + +I am not a soft-headed, humanitarian faddist. I have been ordered in my +time to do dangerous work; I have ordered, others to do dangerous work; I +have never ordered a man to do any work I was not prepared to do myself. +I attach no exaggerated value to human life. But I know it has a value +for which the most generous contributions to the Mansion House and +"Heroes" funds cannot pay. And they cannot pay for it, because people, +even of the third class (excuse my plain speaking), are not cattle. Death +has its sting. If Yamsi's manager's head were forcibly held under the +water of his bath for some little time, he would soon discover that it +has. Some people can only learn from that sort of experience which comes +home to their own dear selves. + +I am not a sentimentalist; therefore it is not a great consolation to me +to see all these people breveted as "Heroes" by the penny and halfpenny +Press. It is no consolation at all. In extremity, in the worst +extremity, the majority of people, even of common people, will behave +decently. It's a fact of which only the journalists don't seem aware. +Hence their enthusiasm, I suppose. But I, who am not a sentimentalist, +think it would have been finer if the band of the _Titanic_ had been +quietly saved, instead of being drowned while playing--whatever tune they +were playing, the poor devils. I would rather they had been saved to +support their families than to see their families supported by the +magnificent generosity of the subscribers. I am not consoled by the +false, written-up, Drury Lane aspects of that event, which is neither +drama, nor melodrama, nor tragedy, but the exposure of arrogant folly. +There is nothing more heroic in being drowned very much against your +will, off a holed, helpless, big tank in which you bought your passage, +than in dying of colic caused by the imperfect salmon in the tin you +bought from your grocer. + +And that's the truth. The unsentimental truth stripped of the romantic +garment the Press has wrapped around this most unnecessary disaster. + + + +PROTECTION OF OCEAN LINERS {8}--1914 + + +The loss of the _Empress of Ireland_ awakens feelings somewhat different +from those the sinking of the _Titanic_ had called up on two continents. +The grief for the lost and the sympathy for the survivors and the +bereaved are the same; but there is not, and there cannot be, the same +undercurrent of indignation. The good ship that is gone (I remember +reading of her launch something like eight years ago) had not been +ushered in with beat of drum as the chief wonder of the world of waters. +The company who owned her had no agents, authorised or unauthorised, +giving boastful interviews about her unsinkability to newspaper reporters +ready to swallow any sort of trade statement if only sensational enough +for their readers--readers as ignorant as themselves of the nature of all +things outside the commonest experience of the man in the street. + +No; there was nothing of that in her case. The company was content to +have as fine, staunch, seaworthy a ship as the technical knowledge of +that time could make her. In fact, she was as safe a ship as nine +hundred and ninety-nine ships out of any thousand now afloat upon the +sea. No; whatever sorrow one can feel, one does not feel indignation. +This was not an accident of a very boastful marine transportation; this +was a real casualty of the sea. The indignation of the New South Wales +Premier flashed telegraphically to Canada is perfectly uncalled-for. That +statesman, whose sympathy for poor mates and seamen is so suspect to me +that I wouldn't take it at fifty per cent. discount, does not seem to +know that a British Court of Marine Inquiry, ordinary or extraordinary, +is not a contrivance for catching scapegoats. I, who have been seaman, +mate and master for twenty years, holding my certificate under the Board +of Trade, may safely say that none of us ever felt in danger of unfair +treatment from a Court of Inquiry. It is a perfectly impartial tribunal +which has never punished seamen for the faults of shipowners--as, indeed, +it could not do even if it wanted to. And there is another thing the +angry Premier of New South Wales does not know. It is this: that for a +ship to float for fifteen minutes after receiving such a blow by a bare +stem on her bare side is not so bad. + +She took a tremendous list which made the minutes of grace vouchsafed her +of not much use for the saving of lives. But for that neither her owners +nor her officers are responsible. It would have been wonderful if she +had not listed with such a hole in her side. Even the _Aquitania_ with +such an opening in her outer hull would be bound to take a list. I don't +say this with the intention of disparaging this latest "triumph of marine +architecture"--to use the consecrated phrase. The _Aquitania_ is a +magnificent ship. I believe she would bear her people unscathed through +ninety-nine per cent. of all possible accidents of the sea. But suppose +a collision out on the ocean involving damage as extensive as this one +was, and suppose then a gale of wind coming on. Even the _Aquitania_ +would not be quite seaworthy, for she would not be manageable. + +We have been accustoming ourselves to put our trust in material, +technical skill, invention, and scientific contrivances to such an extent +that we have come at last to believe that with these things we can +overcome the immortal gods themselves. Hence when a disaster like this +happens, there arises, besides the shock to our humane sentiments, a +feeling of irritation, such as the hon. gentleman at the head of the New +South Wales Government has discharged in a telegraphic flash upon the +world. + +But it is no use being angry and trying to hang a threat of penal +servitude over the heads of the directors of shipping companies. You +can't get the better of the immortal gods by the mere power of material +contrivances. There will be neither scapegoats in this matter nor yet +penal servitude for anyone. The Directors of the Canadian Pacific +Railway Company did not sell "safety at sea" to the people on board the +_Empress of Ireland_. They never in the slightest degree pretended to do +so. What they did was to sell them a sea-passage, giving very good value +for the money. Nothing more. As long as men will travel on the water, +the sea-gods will take their toll. They will catch good seamen napping, +or confuse their judgment by arts well known to those who go to sea, or +overcome them by the sheer brutality of elemental forces. It seems to me +that the resentful sea-gods never do sleep, and are never weary; wherein +the seamen who are mere mortals condemned to unending vigilance are no +match for them. + +And yet it is right that the responsibility should be fixed. It is the +fate of men that even in their contests with the immortal gods they must +render an account of their conduct. Life at sea is the life in which, +simple as it is, you can't afford to make mistakes. + +With whom the mistake lies here, is not for me to say. I see that Sir +Thomas Shaughnessy has expressed his opinion of Captain Kendall's +absolute innocence. This statement, premature as it is, does him honour, +for I don't suppose for a moment that the thought of the material issue +involved in the verdict of the Court of Inquiry influenced him in the +least. I don't suppose that he is more impressed by the writ of two +million dollars nailed (or more likely pasted) to the foremast of the +Norwegian than I am, who don't believe that the _Storstad_ is worth two +million shillings. This is merely a move of commercial law, and even the +whole majesty of the British Empire (so finely invoked by the Sheriff) +cannot squeeze more than a very moderate quantity of blood out of a +stone. Sir Thomas, in his confident pronouncement, stands loyally by a +loyal and distinguished servant of his company. + +This thing has to be investigated yet, and it is not proper for me to +express my opinion, though I have one, in this place and at this time. +But I need not conceal my sympathy with the vehement protestations of +Captain Andersen. A charge of neglect and indifference in the matter of +saving lives is the cruellest blow that can be aimed at the character of +a seaman worthy of the name. On the face of the facts as known up to now +the charge does not seem to be true. If upwards of three hundred people +have been, as stated in the last reports, saved by the _Storstad_, then +that ship must have been at hand and rendering all the assistance in her +power. + +As to the point which must come up for the decision of the Court of +Inquiry, it is as fine as a hair. The two ships saw each other plainly +enough before the fog closed on them. No one can question Captain +Kendall's prudence. He has been as prudent as ever he could be. There +is not a shadow of doubt as to that. + +But there is this question: Accepting the position of the two ships when +they saw each other as correctly described in the very latest newspaper +reports, it seems clear that it was the _Empress of Ireland's_ duty to +keep clear of the collier, and what the Court will have to decide is +whether the stopping of the liner was, under the circumstances, the best +way of keeping her clear of the other ship, which had the right to +proceed cautiously on an unchanged course. + +This, reduced to its simplest expression, is the question which the Court +will have to decide. + +And now, apart from all problems of manoeuvring, of rules of the road, of +the judgment of the men in command, away from their possible errors and +from the points the Court will have to decide, if we ask ourselves what +it was that was needed to avert this disaster costing so many lives, +spreading so much sorrow, and to a certain point shocking the public +conscience--if we ask that question, what is the answer to be? + +I hardly dare set it down. Yes; what was it that was needed, what +ingenious combinations of ship-building, what transverse bulkheads, what +skill, what genius--how much expense in money and trained thinking, what +learned contriving, to avert that disaster? + +To save that ship, all these lives, so much anguish for the dying, and so +much grief for the bereaved, all that was needed in this particular case +in the way of science, money, ingenuity, and seamanship was a man, and a +cork-fender. + +Yes; a man, a quartermaster, an able seaman that would know how to jump +to an order and was not an excitable fool. In my time at sea there was +no lack of men in British ships who could jump to an order and were not +excitable fools. As to the so-called cork-fender, it is a sort of soft +balloon made from a net of thick rope rather more than a foot in +diameter. It is such a long time since I have indented for cork-fenders +that I don't remember how much these things cost apiece. One of them, +hung judiciously over the side at the end of its lanyard by a man who +knew what he was about, might perhaps have saved from destruction the +ship and upwards of a thousand lives. + +Two men with a heavy rope-fender would have been better, but even the +other one might have made all the difference between a very damaging +accident and downright disaster. By the time the cork-fender had been +squeezed between the liner's side and the bluff of the _Storstad's_ bow, +the effect of the latter's reversed propeller would have been produced, +and the ships would have come apart with no more damage than bulged and +started plates. Wasn't there lying about on that liner's bridge, fitted +with all sorts of scientific contrivances, a couple of simple and +effective cork-fenders--or on board of that Norwegian either? There must +have been, since one ship was just out of a dock or harbour and the other +just arriving. That is the time, if ever, when cork-fenders are lying +about a ship's decks. And there was plenty of time to use them, and +exactly in the conditions in which such fenders are effectively used. The +water was as smooth as in any dock; one ship was motionless, the other +just moving at what may be called dock-speed when entering, leaving, or +shifting berths; and from the moment the collision was seen to be +unavoidable till the actual contact a whole minute elapsed. A minute,--an +age under the circumstances. And no one thought of the homely expedient +of dropping a simple, unpretending rope-fender between the destructive +stern and the defenceless side! + +I appeal confidently to all the seamen in the still United Kingdom, from +his Majesty the King (who has been really at sea) to the youngest +intelligent A.B. in any ship that will dock next tide in the ports of +this realm, whether there was not a chance there. I have followed the +sea for more than twenty years; I have seen collisions; I have been +involved in a collision myself; and I do believe that in the case under +consideration this little thing would have made all that enormous +difference--the difference between considerable damage and an appalling +disaster. + +Many letters have been written to the Press on the subject of collisions. +I have seen some. They contain many suggestions, valuable and otherwise; +but there is only one which hits the nail on the head. It is a letter to +the _Times_ from a retired Captain of the Royal Navy. It is printed in +small type, but it deserved to be printed in letters of gold and crimson. +The writer suggests that all steamers should be obliged by law to carry +hung over their stern what we at sea call a "pudding." + +This solution of the problem is as wonderful in its simplicity as the +celebrated trick of Columbus's egg, and infinitely more useful to +mankind. A "pudding" is a thing something like a bolster of stout rope- +net stuffed with old junk, but thicker in the middle than at the ends. It +can be seen on almost every tug working in our docks. It is, in fact, a +fixed rope-fender always in a position where presumably it would do most +good. Had the _Storstad_ carried such a "pudding" proportionate to her +size (say, two feet diameter in the thickest part) across her stern, and +hung above the level of her hawse-pipes, there would have been an +accident certainly, and some repair-work for the nearest ship-yard, but +there would have been no loss of life to deplore. + +It seems almost too simple to be true, but I assure you that the +statement is as true as anything can be. We shall see whether the lesson +will be taken to heart. We shall see. There is a Commission of learned +men sitting to consider the subject of saving life at sea. They are +discussing bulkheads, boats, davits, manning, navigation, but I am +willing to bet that not one of them has thought of the humble "pudding." +They can make what rules they like. We shall see if, with that disaster +calling aloud to them, they will make the rule that every steamship +should carry a permanent fender across her stern, from two to four feet +in diameter in its thickest part in proportion to the size of the ship. +But perhaps they may think the thing too rough and unsightly for this +scientific and aesthetic age. It certainly won't look very pretty but I +make bold to say it will save more lives at sea than any amount of the +Marconi installations which are being forced on the shipowners on that +very ground--the safety of lives at sea. + +We shall see! + +* * * * * + +To the Editor of the _Daily Express_. + +SIR, + +As I fully expected, this morning's post brought me not a few letters on +the subject of that article of mine in the _Illustrated London News_. And +they are very much what I expected them to be. + +I shall address my reply to Captain Littlehales, since obviously he can +speak with authority, and speaks in his own name, not under a pseudonym. +And also for the reason that it is no use talking to men who tell you to +shut your head for a confounded fool. They are not likely to listen to +you. + +But if there be in Liverpool anybody not too angry to listen, I want to +assure him or them that my exclamatory line, "Was there no one on board +either of these ships to think of dropping a fender--etc.," was not +uttered in the spirit of blame for anyone. I would not dream of blaming +a seaman for doing or omitting to do anything a person sitting in a +perfectly safe and unsinkable study may think of. All my sympathy goes +to the two captains; much the greater share of it to Captain Kendall, who +has lost his ship and whose load of responsibility was so much heavier! I +may not know a great deal, but I know how anxious and perplexing are +those nearly end-on approaches, so infinitely more trying to the men in +charge than a frank right-angle crossing. + +I may begin by reminding Captain Littlehales that I, as well as himself, +have had to form my opinion, or rather my vision, of the accident, from +printed statements, of which many must have been loose and inexact and +none could have been minutely circumstantial. I have read the reports of +the _Times_ and the _Daily Telegraph_, and no others. What stands in the +columns of these papers is responsible for my conclusion--or perhaps for +the state of my feelings when I wrote the _Illustrated London News_ +article. + +From these sober and unsensational reports, I derived the impression that +this collision was a collision of the slowest sort. I take it, of +course, that both the men in charge speak the strictest truth as to +preliminary facts. We know that the _Empress of Ireland_ was for a time +lying motionless. And if the captain of the _Storstad_ stopped his +engines directly the fog came on (as he says he did), then taking into +account the adverse current of the river, the _Storstad_, by the time the +two ships sighted each other again, must have been barely moving _over +the ground_. The "over the ground" speed is the only one that matters in +this discussion. In fact, I represented her to myself as just creeping +on ahead--no more. This, I contend, is an imaginative view (and we can +form no other) not utterly absurd for a seaman to adopt. + +So much for the imaginative view of the sad occurrence which caused me to +speak of the fender, and be chided for it in unmeasured terms. Not by +Captain Littlehales, however, and I wish to reply to what he says with +all possible deference. His illustration borrowed from boxing is very +apt, and in a certain sense makes for my contention. Yes. A blow +delivered with a boxing-glove will draw blood or knock a man out; but it +would not crush in his nose flat or break his jaw for him--at least, not +always. And this is exactly my point. + +Twice in my sea life I have had occasion to be impressed by the +preserving effect of a fender. Once I was myself the man who dropped it +over. Not because I was so very clever or smart, but simply because I +happened to be at hand. And I agree with Captain Littlehales that to see +a steamer's stern coming at you at the rate of only two knots is a +staggering experience. The thing seems to have power enough behind it to +cut half through the terrestrial globe. + +And perhaps Captain Littlehales is right? It may be that I am mistaken +in my appreciation of circumstances and possibilities in this case--or in +any such case. Perhaps what was really wanted there was an extraordinary +man and an extraordinary fender. I care nothing if possibly my deep +feeling has betrayed me into something which some people call absurdity. + +Absurd was the word applied to the proposal for carrying "enough boats +for all" on board the big liners. And my absurdity can affect no lives, +break no bones--need make no one angry. Why should I care, then, as long +as out of the discussion of my absurdity there will emerge the acceptance +of the suggestion of Captain F. Papillon, R.N., for the universal and +compulsory fitting of very heavy collision fenders on the stems of all +mechanically propelled ships? + +An extraordinary man we cannot always get from heaven on order, but an +extraordinary fender that will do its work is well within the power of a +committee of old boatswains to plan out, make, and place in position. I +beg to ask, not in a provocative spirit, but simply as to a matter of +fact which he is better qualified to judge than I am--Will Captain +Littlehales affirm that if the _Storstad_ had carried, slung securely +across the stem, even nothing thicker than a single bale of wool (an +ordinary, hand-pressed, Australian wool-bale), it would have made no +difference? + +If scientific men can invent an air cushion, a gas cushion, or even an +electricity cushion (with wires or without), to fit neatly round the +stems and bows of ships, then let them go to work, in God's name and +produce another "marvel of science" without loss of time. For something +like this has long been due--too long for the credit of that part of +mankind which is not absurd, and in which I include, among others, such +people as marine underwriters, for instance. + +Meanwhile, turning to materials I am familiar with, I would put my trust +in canvas, lots of big rope, and in large, very large quantities of old +junk. + +It sounds awfully primitive, but if it will mitigate the mischief in only +fifty per cent. of cases, is it not well worth trying? Most collisions +occur at slow speeds, and it ought to be remembered that in case of a big +liner's loss, involving many lives, she is generally sunk by a ship much +smaller than herself. + +JOSEPH CONRAD. + + + +A FRIENDLY PLACE + + +Eighteen years have passed since I last set foot in the London Sailors' +Home. I was not staying there then; I had gone in to try to find a man I +wanted to see. He was one of those able seamen who, in a watch, are a +perfect blessing to a young officer. I could perhaps remember here and +there among the shadows of my sea-life a more daring man, or a more agile +man, or a man more expert in some special branch of his calling--such as +wire splicing, for instance; but for all-round competence, he was +unequalled. As character he was sterling stuff. His name was Anderson. +He had a fine, quiet face, kindly eyes, and a voice which matched that +something attractive in the whole man. Though he looked yet in the prime +of life, shoulders, chest, limbs untouched by decay, and though his hair +and moustache were only iron-grey, he was on board ship generally called +Old Andy by his fellows. He accepted the name with some complacency. + +I made my enquiry at the highly-glazed entry office. The clerk on duty +opened an enormous ledger, and after running his finger down a page, +informed me that Anderson had gone to sea a week before, in a ship bound +round the Horn. Then, smiling at me, he added: "Old Andy. We know him +well, here. What a nice fellow!" + +I, who knew what a "good man," in a sailor sense, he was, assented +without reserve. Heaven only knows when, if ever, he came back from that +voyage, to the Sailors' Home of which he was a faithful client. + +I went out glad to know he was safely at sea, but sorry not to have seen +him; though, indeed, if I had, we would not have exchanged more than a +score of words, perhaps. He was not a talkative man, Old Andy, whose +affectionate ship-name clung to him even in that Sailors' Home, where the +staff understood and liked the sailors (those men without a home) and did +its duty by them with an unobtrusive tact, with a patient and humorous +sense of their idiosyncrasies, to which I hasten to testify now, when the +very existence of that institution is menaced after so many years of most +useful work. + +Walking away from it on that day eighteen years ago, I was far from +thinking it was for the last time. Great changes have come since, over +land and sea; and if I were to seek somebody who knew Old Andy it would +be (of all people in the world) Mr. John Galsworthy. For Mr. John +Galsworthy, Andy, and myself have been shipmates together in our +different stations, for some forty days in the Indian Ocean in the early +nineties. And, but for us two, Old Andy's very memory would be gone from +this changing earth. + +Yes, things have changed--the very sky, the atmosphere, the light of +judgment which falls on the labours of men, either splendid or obscure. +Having been asked to say a word to the public on behalf of the Sailors' +Home, I felt immensely flattered--and troubled. Flattered to have been +thought of in that connection; troubled to find myself in touch again +with that past so deeply rooted in my heart. And the illusion of +nearness is so great while I trace these lines that I feel as if I were +speaking in the name of that worthy Sailor-Shade of Old Andy, whose +faithfully hard life seems to my vision a thing of yesterday. + +* * * * * + +But though the past keeps firm hold on one, yet one feels with the same +warmth that the men and the institutions of to-day have their merit and +their claims. Others will know how to set forth before the public the +merit of the Sailors' Home in the eloquent terms of hard facts and some +few figures. For myself, I can only bring a personal note, give a +glimpse of the human side of the good work for sailors ashore, carried on +through so many decades with a perfect understanding of the end in view. +I have been in touch with the Sailors' Home for sixteen years of my life, +off and on; I have seen the changes in the staff and I have observed the +subtle alterations in the physiognomy of that stream of sailors passing +through it, in from the sea and out again to sea, between the years 1878 +and 1894. I have listened to the talk on the decks of ships in all +latitudes, when its name would turn up frequently, and if I had to +characterise its good work in one sentence, I would say that, for seamen, +the Well Street Home was a friendly place. + +It was essentially just that; quietly, unobtrusively, with a regard for +the independence of the men who sought its shelter ashore, and with no +ulterior aims behind that effective friendliness. No small merit this. +And its claim on the generosity of the public is derived from a long +record of valuable public service. Since we are all agreed that the men +of the merchant service are a national asset worthy of care and sympathy, +the public could express this sympathy no better than by enabling the +Sailors' Home, so useful in the past, to continue its friendly offices to +the seamen of future generations. + + + + +Footnotes + + +{1} Yvette and Other Stories. Translated by Ada Galsworthy. + +{2} _Turgenev_: A Study. By Edward Garnett. + +{3} _Studies in Brown Humanity_. By Hugh Clifford. + +{4} _Quiet Days in Spain_. By C. Bogue Luffmann. + +{5} Existence after Death Implied by Science. By Jasper B. Hunt, M.A. + +{6} _The Ascending Effort_. By George Bourne. + +{7} Since writing the above, I am told that such doors are fitted in the +bunkers of more than one ship in the Atlantic trade. + +{8} The loss of the _Empress of Ireland_. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS*** + + +******* This file should be named 1143.txt or 1143.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/4/1143 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Dent edition. + + + + + +Notes on Life & Letters +by Joseph Conrad + + + + + + +Contents: + + +Author's note +PART I--Letters +BOOKS--1905. +HENRY JAMES--AN APPRECIATION--1905 +ALPHONSE DAUDET--1898 +GUY DE MAUPASSANT--1904 +ANATOLE FRANCE--1904 +TURGENEV--1917 +STEPHEN CRANE--A NOTE WITHOUT DATES--1919 +TALES OF THE SEA--1898 +AN OBSERVER IN MALAYA--1898 +A HAPPY WANDERER--1910 +THE LIFE BEYOND--1910 +THE ASCENDING EFFORT--1910 +THE CENSOR OF PLAYS--AN APPRECIATION--1907 + +PART II--Life + +AUTOCRACY AND WAR--1905 +THE CRIME OF PARTITION--1919 +A NOTE ON THE POLISH PROBLEM--1916 +POLAND REVISITED--1915 +FIRST NEWS--1918 +WELL DONE--1918 +TRADITION--1918 +CONFIDENCE--1919 +FLIGHT--1917 +SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC--1912 +CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE ADMIRABLE INQUIRY INTO THE LOSS OF THE +TITANIC--1912 +PROTECTION OF OCEAN LINERS--1914 +A FRIENDLY PLACE + + + + +AUTHOR'S NOTE + + + +I don't know whether I ought to offer an apology for this +collection which has more to do with life than with letters. Its +appeal is made to orderly minds. This, to be frank about it, is a +process of tidying up, which, from the nature of things, cannot be +regarded as premature. The fact is that I wanted to do it myself +because of a feeling that had nothing to do with the considerations +of worthiness or unworthiness of the small (but unbroken) pieces +collected within the covers of this volume. Of course it may be +said that I might have taken up a broom and used it without saying +anything about it. That, certainly, is one way of tidying up. + +But it would have been too much to have expected me to treat all +this matter as removable rubbish. All those things had a place in +my life. Whether any of them deserve to have been picked up and +ranged on the shelf--this shelf--I cannot say, and, frankly, I have +not allowed my mind to dwell on the question. I was afraid of +thinking myself into a mood that would hurt my feelings; for those +pieces of writing, whatever may be the comment on their display, +appertain to the character of the man. + +And so here they are, dusted, which was but a decent thing to do, +but in no way polished, extending from the year '98 to the year +'20, a thin array (for such a stretch of time) of really innocent +attitudes: Conrad literary, Conrad political, Conrad reminiscent, +Conrad controversial. Well, yes! A one-man show--or is it merely +the show of one man? + +The only thing that will not be found amongst those Figures and +Things that have passed away, will be Conrad EN PANTOUFLES. It is +a constitutional inability. SCHLAFROCK UND PANTOFFELN! Not that! +Never! . . . I don't know whether I dare boast like a certain South +American general who used to say that no emergency of war or peace +had ever found him "with his boots off"; but I may say that +whenever the various periodicals mentioned in this book called on +me to come out and blow the trumpet of personal opinions or strike +the pensive lute that speaks of the past, I always tried to pull on +my boots first. I didn't want to do it, God knows! Their Editors, +to whom I beg to offer my thanks here, made me perform mainly by +kindness but partly by bribery. Well, yes! Bribery? What can you +expect? I never pretended to be better than the people in the next +street, or even in the same street. + +This volume (including these embarrassed introductory remarks) is +as near as I shall ever come to DESHABILLE in public; and perhaps +it will do something to help towards a better vision of the man, if +it gives no more than a partial view of a piece of his back, a +little dusty (after the process of tidying up), a little bowed, and +receding from the world not because of weariness or misanthropy but +for other reasons that cannot be helped: because the leaves fall, +the water flows, the clock ticks with that horrid pitiless +solemnity which you must have observed in the ticking of the hall +clock at home. For reasons like that. Yes! It recedes. And this +was the chance to afford one more view of it--even to my own eyes. + +The section within this volume called Letters explains itself, +though I do not pretend to say that it justifies its own existence. +It claims nothing in its defence except the right of speech which I +believe belongs to everybody outside a Trappist monastery. The +part I have ventured, for shortness' sake, to call Life, may +perhaps justify itself by the emotional sincerity of the feelings +to which the various papers included under that head owe their +origin. And as they relate to events of which everyone has a date, +they are in the nature of sign-posts pointing out the direction my +thoughts were compelled to take at the various cross-roads. If +anybody detects any sort of consistency in the choice, this will be +only proof positive that wisdom had nothing to do with it. Whether +right or wrong, instinct alone is invariable; a fact which only +adds a deeper shade to its inherent mystery. The appearance of +intellectuality these pieces may present at first sight is merely +the result of the arrangement of words. The logic that may be +found there is only the logic of the language. But I need not +labour the point. There will be plenty of people sagacious enough +to perceive the absence of all wisdom from these pages. But I +believe sufficiently in human sympathies to imagine that very few +will question their sincerity. Whatever delusions I may have +suffered from I have had no delusions as to the nature of the facts +commented on here. I may have misjudged their import: but that is +the sort of error for which one may expect a certain amount of +toleration. + +The only paper of this collection which has never been published +before is the Note on the Polish Problem. It was written at the +request of a friend to be shown privately, and its "Protectorate" +idea, sprung from a strong sense of the critical nature of the +situation, was shaped by the actual circumstances of the time. The +time was about a month before the entrance of Roumania into the +war, and though, honestly, I had seen already the shadow of coming +events I could not permit my misgivings to enter into and destroy +the structure of my plan. I still believe that there was some +sense in it. It may certainly be charged with the appearance of +lack of faith and it lays itself open to the throwing of many +stones; but my object was practical and I had to consider warily +the preconceived notions of the people to whom it was implicitly +addressed, and also their unjustifiable hopes. They were +unjustifiable, but who was to tell them that? I mean who was wise +enough and convincing enough to show them the inanity of their +mental attitude? The whole atmosphere was poisoned with visions +that were not so much false as simply impossible. They were also +the result of vague and unconfessed fears, and that made their +strength. For myself, with a very definite dread in my heart, I +was careful not to allude to their character because I did not want +the Note to be thrown away unread. And then I had to remember that +the impossible has sometimes the trick of coming to pass to the +confusion of minds and often to the crushing of hearts. + +Of the other papers I have nothing special to say. They are what +they are, and I am by now too hardened a sinner to feel ashamed of +insignificant indiscretions. And as to their appearance in this +form I claim that indulgence to which all sinners against +themselves are entitled. + +J. C. +1920. + + + + +PART I--LETTERS + + + + +BOOKS--1905. + + + +I. + + +"I have not read this author's books, and if I have read them I +have forgotten what they were about." + +These words are reported as having been uttered in our midst not a +hundred years ago, publicly, from the seat of justice, by a civic +magistrate. The words of our municipal rulers have a solemnity and +importance far above the words of other mortals, because our +municipal rulers more than any other variety of our governors and +masters represent the average wisdom, temperament, sense and virtue +of the community. This generalisation, it ought to be promptly +said in the interests of eternal justice (and recent friendship), +does not apply to the United States of America. There, if one may +believe the long and helpless indignations of their daily and +weekly Press, the majority of municipal rulers appear to be thieves +of a particularly irrepressible sort. But this by the way. My +concern is with a statement issuing from the average temperament +and the average wisdom of a great and wealthy community, and +uttered by a civic magistrate obviously without fear and without +reproach. + +I confess I am pleased with his temper, which is that of prudence. +"I have not read the books," he says, and immediately he adds, "and +if I have read them I have forgotten." This is excellent caution. +And I like his style: it is unartificial and bears the stamp of +manly sincerity. As a reported piece of prose this declaration is +easy to read and not difficult to believe. Many books have not +been read; still more have been forgotten. As a piece of civic +oratory this declaration is strikingly effective. Calculated to +fall in with the bent of the popular mind, so familiar with all +forms of forgetfulness, it has also the power to stir up a subtle +emotion while it starts a train of thought--and what greater force +can be expected from human speech? But it is in naturalness that +this declaration is perfectly delightful, for there is nothing more +natural than for a grave City Father to forget what the books he +has read once--long ago--in his giddy youth maybe--were about. + +And the books in question are novels, or, at any rate, were written +as novels. I proceed thus cautiously (following my illustrious +example) because being without fear and desiring to remain as far +as possible without reproach, I confess at once that I have not +read them. + +I have not; and of the million persons or more who are said to have +read them, I never met one yet with the talent of lucid exposition +sufficiently developed to give me a connected account of what they +are about. But they are books, part and parcel of humanity, and as +such, in their ever increasing, jostling multitude, they are worthy +of regard, admiration, and compassion. + +Especially of compassion. It has been said a long time ago that +books have their fate. They have, and it is very much like the +destiny of man. They share with us the great incertitude of +ignominy or glory--of severe justice and senseless persecution--of +calumny and misunderstanding--the shame of undeserved success. Of +all the inanimate objects, of all men's creations, books are the +nearest to us, for they contain our very thought, our ambitions, +our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to truth, and our +persistent leaning towards error. But most of all they resemble us +in their precarious hold on life. A bridge constructed according +to the rules of the art of bridge-building is certain of a long, +honourable and useful career. But a book as good in its way as the +bridge may perish obscurely on the very day of its birth. The art +of their creators is not sufficient to give them more than a moment +of life. Of the books born from the restlessness, the inspiration, +and the vanity of human minds, those that the Muses would love best +lie more than all others under the menace of an early death. +Sometimes their defects will save them. Sometimes a book fair to +see may--to use a lofty expression--have no individual soul. +Obviously a book of that sort cannot die. It can only crumble into +dust. But the best of books drawing sustenance from the sympathy +and memory of men have lived on the brink of destruction, for men's +memories are short, and their sympathy is, we must admit, a very +fluctuating, unprincipled emotion. + +No secret of eternal life for our books can be found amongst the +formulas of art, any more than for our bodies in a prescribed +combination of drugs. This is not because some books are not +worthy of enduring life, but because the formulas of art are +dependent on things variable, unstable and untrustworthy; on human +sympathies, on prejudices, on likes and dislikes, on the sense of +virtue and the sense of propriety, on beliefs and theories that, +indestructible in themselves, always change their form--often in +the lifetime of one fleeting generation. + + +II. + + +Of all books, novels, which the Muses should love, make a serious +claim on our compassion. The art of the novelist is simple. At +the same time it is the most elusive of all creative arts, the most +liable to be obscured by the scruples of its servants and votaries, +the one pre-eminently destined to bring trouble to the mind and the +heart of the artist. After all, the creation of a world is not a +small undertaking except perhaps to the divinely gifted. In truth +every novelist must begin by creating for himself a world, great or +little, in which he can honestly believe. This world cannot be +made otherwise than in his own image: it is fated to remain +individual and a little mysterious, and yet it must resemble +something already familiar to the experience, the thoughts and the +sensations of his readers. At the heart of fiction, even the least +worthy of the name, some sort of truth can be found--if only the +truth of a childish theatrical ardour in the game of life, as in +the novels of Dumas the father. But the fair truth of human +delicacy can be found in Mr. Henry James's novels; and the comical, +appalling truth of human rapacity let loose amongst the spoils of +existence lives in the monstrous world created by Balzac. The +pursuit of happiness by means lawful and unlawful, through +resignation or revolt, by the clever manipulation of conventions or +by solemn hanging on to the skirts of the latest scientific theory, +is the only theme that can be legitimately developed by the +novelist who is the chronicler of the adventures of mankind amongst +the dangers of the kingdom of the earth. And the kingdom of this +earth itself, the ground upon which his individualities stand, +stumble, or die, must enter into his scheme of faithful record. To +encompass all this in one harmonious conception is a great feat; +and even to attempt it deliberately with serious intention, not +from the senseless prompting of an ignorant heart, is an honourable +ambition. For it requires some courage to step in calmly where +fools may be eager to rush. As a distinguished and successful +French novelist once observed of fiction, "C'est un art TROP +difficile." + +It is natural that the novelist should doubt his ability to cope +with his task. He imagines it more gigantic than it is. And yet +literary creation being only one of the legitimate forms of human +activity has no value but on the condition of not excluding the +fullest recognition of all the more distinct forms of action. This +condition is sometimes forgotten by the man of letters, who often, +especially in his youth, is inclined to lay a claim of exclusive +superiority for his own amongst all the other tasks of the human +mind. The mass of verse and prose may glimmer here and there with +the glow of a divine spark, but in the sum of human effort it has +no special importance. There is no justificative formula for its +existence any more than for any other artistic achievement. With +the rest of them it is destined to be forgotten, without, perhaps, +leaving the faintest trace. Where a novelist has an advantage over +the workers in other fields of thought is in his privilege of +freedom--the freedom of expression and the freedom of confessing +his innermost beliefs--which should console him for the hard +slavery of the pen. + + +III. + + +Liberty of imagination should be the most precious possession of a +novelist. To try voluntarily to discover the fettering dogmas of +some romantic, realistic, or naturalistic creed in the free work of +its own inspiration, is a trick worthy of human perverseness which, +after inventing an absurdity, endeavours to find for it a pedigree +of distinguished ancestors. It is a weakness of inferior minds +when it is not the cunning device of those who, uncertain of their +talent, would seek to add lustre to it by the authority of a +school. Such, for instance, are the high priests who have +proclaimed Stendhal for a prophet of Naturalism. But Stendhal +himself would have accepted no limitation of his freedom. +Stendhal's mind was of the first order. His spirit above must be +raging with a peculiarly Stendhalesque scorn and indignation. For +the truth is that more than one kind of intellectual cowardice +hides behind the literary formulas. And Stendhal was pre-eminently +courageous. He wrote his two great novels, which so few people +have read, in a spirit of fearless liberty. + +It must not be supposed that I claim for the artist in fiction the +freedom of moral Nihilism. I would require from him many acts of +faith of which the first would be the cherishing of an undying +hope; and hope, it will not be contested, implies all the piety of +effort and renunciation. It is the God-sent form of trust in the +magic force and inspiration belonging to the life of this earth. +We are inclined to forget that the way of excellence is in the +intellectual, as distinguished from emotional, humility. What one +feels so hopelessly barren in declared pessimism is just its +arrogance. It seems as if the discovery made by many men at +various times that there is much evil in the world were a source of +proud and unholy joy unto some of the modern writers. That frame +of mind is not the proper one in which to approach seriously the +art of fiction. It gives an author--goodness only knows why--an +elated sense of his own superiority. And there is nothing more +dangerous than such an elation to that absolute loyalty towards his +feelings and sensations an author should keep hold of in his most +exalted moments of creation. + +To be hopeful in an artistic sense it is not necessary to think +that the world is good. It is enough to believe that there is no +impossibility of its being made so. If the flight of imaginative +thought may be allowed to rise superior to many moralities current +amongst mankind, a novelist who would think himself of a superior +essence to other men would miss the first condition of his calling. +To have the gift of words is no such great matter. A man furnished +with a long-range weapon does not become a hunter or a warrior by +the mere possession of a fire-arm; many other qualities of +character and temperament are necessary to make him either one or +the other. Of him from whose armoury of phrases one in a hundred +thousand may perhaps hit the far-distant and elusive mark of art I +would ask that in his dealings with mankind he should be capable of +giving a tender recognition to their obscure virtues. I would not +have him impatient with their small failings and scornful of their +errors. I would not have him expect too much gratitude from that +humanity whose fate, as illustrated in individuals, it is open to +him to depict as ridiculous or terrible. I would wish him to look +with a large forgiveness at men's ideas and prejudices, which are +by no means the outcome of malevolence, but depend on their +education, their social status, even their professions. The good +artist should expect no recognition of his toil and no admiration +of his genius, because his toil can with difficulty be appraised +and his genius cannot possibly mean anything to the illiterate who, +even from the dreadful wisdom of their evoked dead, have, so far, +culled nothing but inanities and platitudes. I would wish him to +enlarge his sympathies by patient and loving observation while he +grows in mental power. It is in the impartial practice of life, if +anywhere, that the promise of perfection for his art can be found, +rather than in the absurd formulas trying to prescribe this or that +particular method of technique or conception. Let him mature the +strength of his imagination amongst the things of this earth, which +it is his business to cherish and know, and refrain from calling +down his inspiration ready-made from some heaven of perfections of +which he knows nothing. And I would not grudge him the proud +illusion that will come sometimes to a writer: the illusion that +his achievement has almost equalled the greatness of his dream. +For what else could give him the serenity and the force to hug to +his breast as a thing delightful and human, the virtue, the +rectitude and sagacity of his own City, declaring with simple +eloquence through the mouth of a Conscript Father: "I have not +read this author's books, and if I have read them I have forgotten +. . ." + + + +HENRY JAMES--AN APPRECIATION--1905 + + + +The critical faculty hesitates before the magnitude of Mr. Henry +James's work. His books stand on my shelves in a place whose +accessibility proclaims the habit of frequent communion. But not +all his books. There is no collected edition to date, such as some +of "our masters" have been provided with; no neat rows of volumes +in buckram or half calf, putting forth a hasty claim to +completeness, and conveying to my mind a hint of finality, of a +surrender to fate of that field in which all these victories have +been won. Nothing of the sort has been done for Mr. Henry James's +victories in England. + +In a world such as ours, so painful with all sorts of wonders, one +would not exhaust oneself in barren marvelling over mere bindings, +had not the fact, or rather the absence of the material fact, +prominent in the case of other men whose writing counts, (for good +or evil)--had it not been, I say, expressive of a direct truth +spiritual and intellectual; an accident of--I suppose--the +publishing business acquiring a symbolic meaning from its negative +nature. Because, emphatically, in the body of Mr. Henry James's +work there is no suggestion of finality, nowhere a hint of +surrender, or even of probability of surrender, to his own +victorious achievement in that field where he is a master. +Happily, he will never be able to claim completeness; and, were he +to confess to it in a moment of self-ignorance, he would not be +believed by the very minds for whom such a confession naturally +would be meant. It is impossible to think of Mr. Henry James +becoming "complete" otherwise than by the brutality of our common +fate whose finality is meaningless--in the sense of its logic being +of a material order, the logic of a falling stone. + +I do not know into what brand of ink Mr. Henry James dips his pen; +indeed, I heard that of late he had been dictating; but I know that +his mind is steeped in the waters flowing from the fountain of +intellectual youth. The thing--a privilege--a miracle--what you +will--is not quite hidden from the meanest of us who run as we +read. To those who have the grace to stay their feet it is +manifest. After some twenty years of attentive acquaintance with +Mr. Henry James's work, it grows into absolute conviction which, +all personal feeling apart, brings a sense of happiness into one's +artistic existence. If gratitude, as someone defined it, is a +lively sense of favours to come, it becomes very easy to be +grateful to the author of The Ambassadors--to name the latest of +his works. The favours are sure to come; the spring of that +benevolence will never run dry. The stream of inspiration flows +brimful in a predetermined direction, unaffected by the periods of +drought, untroubled in its clearness by the storms of the land of +letters, without languor or violence in its force, never running +back upon itself, opening new visions at every turn of its course +through that richly inhabited country its fertility has created for +our delectation, for our judgment, for our exploring. It is, in +fact, a magic spring. + +With this phrase the metaphor of the perennial spring, of the +inextinguishable youth, of running waters, as applied to Mr. Henry +James's inspiration, may be dropped. In its volume and force the +body of his work may be compared rather to a majestic river. All +creative art is magic, is evocation of the unseen in forms +persuasive, enlightening, familiar and surprising, for the +edification of mankind, pinned down by the conditions of its +existence to the earnest consideration of the most insignificant +tides of reality. + +Action in its essence, the creative art of a writer of fiction may +be compared to rescue work carried out in darkness against cross +gusts of wind swaying the action of a great multitude. It is +rescue work, this snatching of vanishing phases of turbulence, +disguised in fair words, out of the native obscurity into a light +where the struggling forms may be seen, seized upon, endowed with +the only possible form of permanence in this world of relative +values--the permanence of memory. And the multitude feels it +obscurely too; since the demand of the individual to the artist is, +in effect, the cry, "Take me out of myself!" meaning really, out of +my perishable activity into the light of imperishable +consciousness. But everything is relative, and the light of +consciousness is only enduring, merely the most enduring of the +things of this earth, imperishable only as against the short-lived +work of our industrious hands. + +When the last aqueduct shall have crumbled to pieces, the last +airship fallen to the ground, the last blade of grass have died +upon a dying earth, man, indomitable by his training in resistance +to misery and pain, shall set this undiminished light of his eyes +against the feeble glow of the sun. The artistic faculty, of which +each of us has a minute grain, may find its voice in some +individual of that last group, gifted with a power of expression +and courageous enough to interpret the ultimate experience of +mankind in terms of his temperament, in terms of art. I do not +mean to say that he would attempt to beguile the last moments of +humanity by an ingenious tale. It would be too much to expect-- +from humanity. I doubt the heroism of the hearers. As to the +heroism of the artist, no doubt is necessary. There would be on +his part no heroism. The artist in his calling of interpreter +creates (the clearest form of demonstration) because he must. He +is so much of a voice that, for him, silence is like death; and the +postulate was, that there is a group alive, clustered on his +threshold to watch the last flicker of light on a black sky, to +hear the last word uttered in the stilled workshop of the earth. +It is safe to affirm that, if anybody, it will be the imaginative +man who would be moved to speak on the eve of that day without to- +morrow--whether in austere exhortation or in a phrase of sardonic +comment, who can guess? + +For my own part, from a short and cursory acquaintance with my +kind, I am inclined to think that the last utterance will +formulate, strange as it may appear, some hope now to us utterly +inconceivable. For mankind is delightful in its pride, its +assurance, and its indomitable tenacity. It will sleep on the +battlefield among its own dead, in the manner of an army having won +a barren victory. It will not know when it is beaten. And perhaps +it is right in that quality. The victories are not, perhaps, so +barren as it may appear from a purely strategical, utilitarian +point of view. Mr. Henry James seems to hold that belief. Nobody +has rendered better, perhaps, the tenacity of temper, or known how +to drape the robe of spiritual honour about the drooping form of a +victor in a barren strife. And the honour is always well won; for +the struggles Mr. Henry James chronicles with such subtle and +direct insight are, though only personal contests, desperate in +their silence, none the less heroic (in the modern sense) for the +absence of shouted watchwords, clash of arms and sound of trumpets. +Those are adventures in which only choice souls are ever involved. +And Mr. Henry James records them with a fearless and insistent +fidelity to the PERIPETIES of the contest, and the feelings of the +combatants. + +The fiercest excitements of a romance DE CAPE ET D'EPEE, the +romance of yard-arm and boarding pike so dear to youth, whose +knowledge of action (as of other things) is imperfect and limited, +are matched, for the quickening of our maturer years, by the tasks +set, by the difficulties presented, to the sense of truth, of +necessity--before all, of conduct--of Mr. Henry James's men and +women. His mankind is delightful. It is delightful in its +tenacity; it refuses to own itself beaten; it will sleep on the +battlefield. These warlike images come by themselves under the +pen; since from the duality of man's nature and the competition of +individuals, the life-history of the earth must in the last +instance be a history of a really very relentless warfare. Neither +his fellows, nor his gods, nor his passions will leave a man alone. +In virtue of these allies and enemies, he holds his precarious +dominion, he possesses his fleeting significance; and it is this +relation in all its manifestations, great and little, superficial +or profound, and this relation alone, that is commented upon, +interpreted, demonstrated by the art of the novelist in the only +possible way in which the task can be performed: by the +independent creation of circumstance and character, achieved +against all the difficulties of expression, in an imaginative +effort finding its inspiration from the reality of forms and +sensations. That a sacrifice must be made, that something has to +be given up, is the truth engraved in the innermost recesses of the +fair temple built for our edification by the masters of fiction. +There is no other secret behind the curtain. All adventure, all +love, every success is resumed in the supreme energy of an act of +renunciation. It is the uttermost limit of our power; it is the +most potent and effective force at our disposal on which rest the +labours of a solitary man in his study, the rock on which have been +built commonwealths whose might casts a dwarfing shadow upon two +oceans. Like a natural force which is obscured as much as +illuminated by the multiplicity of phenomena, the power of +renunciation is obscured by the mass of weaknesses, vacillations, +secondary motives and false steps and compromises which make up the +sum of our activity. But no man or woman worthy of the name can +pretend to anything more, to anything greater. And Mr. Henry +James's men and women are worthy of the name, within the limits his +art, so clear, so sure of itself, has drawn round their activities. +He would be the last to claim for them Titanic proportions. The +earth itself has grown smaller in the course of ages. But in every +sphere of human perplexities and emotions, there are more +greatnesses than one--not counting here the greatness of the artist +himself. Wherever he stands, at the beginning or the end of +things, a man has to sacrifice his gods to his passions, or his +passions to his gods. That is the problem, great enough, in all +truth, if approached in the spirit of sincerity and knowledge. + +In one of his critical studies, published some fifteen years ago, +Mr. Henry James claims for the novelist the standing of the +historian as the only adequate one, as for himself and before his +audience. I think that the claim cannot be contested, and that the +position is unassailable. Fiction is history, human history, or it +is nothing. But it is also more than that; it stands on firmer +ground, being based on the reality of forms and the observation of +social phenomena, whereas history is based on documents, and the +reading of print and handwriting--on second-hand impression. Thus +fiction is nearer truth. But let that pass. A historian may be an +artist too, and a novelist is a historian, the preserver, the +keeper, the expounder, of human experience. As is meet for a man +of his descent and tradition, Mr. Henry James is the historian of +fine consciences. + +Of course, this is a general statement; but I don't think its truth +will be, or can be questioned. Its fault is that it leaves so much +out; and, besides, Mr. Henry James is much too considerable to be +put into the nutshell of a phrase. The fact remains that he has +made his choice, and that his choice is justified up to the hilt by +the success of his art. He has taken for himself the greater part. +The range of a fine conscience covers more good and evil than the +range of conscience which may be called, roughly, not fine; a +conscience, less troubled by the nice discrimination of shades of +conduct. A fine conscience is more concerned with essentials; its +triumphs are more perfect, if less profitable, in a worldly sense. +There is, in short, more truth in its working for a historian to +detect and to show. It is a thing of infinite complication and +suggestion. None of these escapes the art of Mr. Henry James. He +has mastered the country, his domain, not wild indeed, but full of +romantic glimpses, of deep shadows and sunny places. There are no +secrets left within his range. He has disclosed them as they +should be disclosed--that is, beautifully. And, indeed, ugliness +has but little place in this world of his creation. Yet, it is +always felt in the truthfulness of his art; it is there, it +surrounds the scene, it presses close upon it. It is made visible, +tangible, in the struggles, in the contacts of the fine +consciences, in their perplexities, in the sophism of their +mistakes. For a fine conscience is naturally a virtuous one. What +is natural about it is just its fineness, an abiding sense of the +intangible, ever-present, right. It is most visible in their +ultimate triumph, in their emergence from miracle, through an +energetic act of renunciation. Energetic, not violent: the +distinction is wide, enormous, like that between substance and +shadow. + +Through it all Mr. Henry James keeps a firm hold of the substance, +of what is worth having, of what is worth holding. The contrary +opinion has been, if not absolutely affirmed, then at least +implied, with some frequency. To most of us, living willingly in a +sort of intellectual moonlight, in the faintly reflected light of +truth, the shadows so firmly renounced by Mr. Henry James's men and +women, stand out endowed with extraordinary value, with a value so +extraordinary that their rejection offends, by its uncalled-for +scrupulousness, those business-like instincts which a careful +Providence has implanted in our breasts. And, apart from that just +cause of discontent, it is obvious that a solution by rejection +must always present a certain lack of finality, especially +startling when contrasted with the usual methods of solution by +rewards and punishments, by crowned love, by fortune, by a broken +leg or a sudden death. Why the reading public which, as a body, +has never laid upon a story-teller the command to be an artist, +should demand from him this sham of Divine Omnipotence, is utterly +incomprehensible. But so it is; and these solutions are legitimate +inasmuch as they satisfy the desire for finality, for which our +hearts yearn with a longing greater than the longing for the loaves +and fishes of this earth. Perhaps the only true desire of mankind, +coming thus to light in its hours of leisure, is to be set at rest. +One is never set at rest by Mr. Henry James's novels. His books +end as an episode in life ends. You remain with the sense of the +life still going on; and even the subtle presence of the dead is +felt in that silence that comes upon the artist-creation when the +last word has been read. It is eminently satisfying, but it is not +final. Mr. Henry James, great artist and faithful historian, never +attempts the impossible. + + + +ALPHONSE DAUDET--1898 + + + +It is sweet to talk decorously of the dead who are part of our +past, our indisputable possession. One must admit regretfully that +to-day is but a scramble, that to-morrow may never come; it is only +the precious yesterday that cannot be taken away from us. A gift +from the dead, great and little, it makes life supportable, it +almost makes one believe in a benevolent scheme of creation. And +some kind of belief is very necessary. But the real knowledge of +matters infinitely more profound than any conceivable scheme of +creation is with the dead alone. That is why our talk about them +should be as decorous as their silence. Their generosity and their +discretion deserve nothing less at our hands; and they, who belong +already to the unchangeable, would probably disdain to claim more +than this from a mankind that changes its loves and its hates about +every twenty-five years--at the coming of every new and wiser +generation. + +One of the most generous of the dead is Daudet, who, with a +prodigality approaching magnificence, gave himself up to us without +reserve in his work, with all his qualities and all his faults. +Neither his qualities nor his faults were great, though they were +by no means imperceptible. It is only his generosity that is out +of the common. What strikes one most in his work is the +disinterestedness of the toiler. With more talent than many bigger +men, he did not preach about himself, he did not attempt to +persuade mankind into a belief of his own greatness. He never +posed as a scientist or as a seer, not even as a prophet; and he +neglected his interests to the point of never propounding a theory +for the purpose of giving a tremendous significance to his art, +alone of all things, in a world that, by some strange oversight, +has not been supplied with an obvious meaning. Neither did he +affect a passive attitude before the spectacle of life, an attitude +which in gods--and in a rare mortal here and there--may appear +godlike, but assumed by some men, causes one, very unwillingly, to +think of the melancholy quietude of an ape. He was not the +wearisome expounder of this or that theory, here to-day and spurned +to-morrow. He was not a great artist, he was not an artist at all, +if you like--but he was Alphonse Daudet, a man as naively clear, +honest, and vibrating as the sunshine of his native land; that +regrettably undiscriminating sunshine which matures grapes and +pumpkins alike, and cannot, of course, obtain the commendation of +the very select who look at life from under a parasol. + +Naturally, being a man from the South, he had a rather outspoken +belief in himself, but his small distinction, worth many a greater, +was in not being in bondage to some vanishing creed. He was a +worker who could not compel the admiration of the few, but who +deserved the affection of the many; and he may be spoken of with +tenderness and regret, for he is not immortal--he is only dead. +During his life the simple man whose business it ought to have been +to climb, in the name of Art, some elevation or other, was content +to remain below, on the plain, amongst his creations, and take an +eager part in those disasters, weaknesses, and joys which are +tragic enough in their droll way, but are by no means so momentous +and profound as some writers--probably for the sake of Art--would +like to make us believe. There is, when one thinks of it, a +considerable want of candour in the august view of life. Without +doubt a cautious reticence on the subject, or even a delicately +false suggestion thrown out in that direction is, in a way, +praiseworthy, since it helps to uphold the dignity of man--a matter +of great importance, as anyone can see; still one cannot help +feeling that a certain amount of sincerity would not be wholly +blamable. To state, then, with studied moderation a belief that in +unfortunate moments of lucidity is irresistibly borne in upon most +of us--the blind agitation caused mostly by hunger and complicated +by love and ferocity does not deserve either by its beauty, or its +morality, or its possible results, the artistic fuss made over it. +It may be consoling--for human folly is very BIZARRE--but it is +scarcely honest to shout at those who struggle drowning in an +insignificant pool: You are indeed admirable and great to be the +victims of such a profound, of such a terrible ocean! + +And Daudet was honest; perhaps because he knew no better--but he +was very honest. If he saw only the surface of things it is for +the reason that most things have nothing but a surface. He did not +pretend--perhaps because he did not know how--he did not pretend to +see any depths in a life that is only a film of unsteady +appearances stretched over regions deep indeed, but which have +nothing to do with the half-truths, half-thoughts, and whole +illusions of existence. The road to these distant regions does not +lie through the domain of Art or the domain of Science where well- +known voices quarrel noisily in a misty emptiness; it is a path of +toilsome silence upon which travel men simple and unknown, with +closed lips, or, maybe, whispering their pain softly--only to +themselves. + +But Daudet did not whisper; he spoke loudly, with animation, with a +clear felicity of tone--as a bird sings. He saw life around him +with extreme clearness, and he felt it as it is--thinner than air +and more elusive than a flash of lightning. He hastened to offer +it his compassion, his indignation, his wonder, his sympathy, +without giving a moment of thought to the momentous issues that are +supposed to lurk in the logic of such sentiments. He tolerated the +little foibles, the small ruffianisms, the grave mistakes; the only +thing he distinctly would not forgive was hardness of heart. This +unpractical attitude would have been fatal to a better man, but his +readers have forgiven him. Withal he is chivalrous to exiled +queens and deformed sempstresses, he is pityingly tender to broken- +down actors, to ruined gentlemen, to stupid Academicians; he is +glad of the joys of the commonplace people in a commonplace way-- +and he never makes a secret of all this. No, the man was not an +artist. What if his creations are illumined by the sunshine of his +temperament so vividly that they stand before us infinitely more +real than the dingy illusions surrounding our everyday existence? +The misguided man is for ever pottering amongst them, lifting up +his voice, dotting his i's in the wrong places. He takes Tartarin +by the arm, he does not conceal his interest in the Nabob's +cheques, his sympathy for an honest Academician PLUS BETE QUE +NATURE, his hate for an architect PLUS MAUVAIS QUE LA GALE; he is +in the thick of it all. He feels with the Duc de Mora and with +Felicia Ruys--and he lets you see it. He does not sit on a +pedestal in the hieratic and imbecile pose of some cheap god whose +greatness consists in being too stupid to care. He cares immensely +for his Nabobs, his kings, his book-keepers, his Colettes, and his +Saphos. He vibrates together with his universe, and with +lamentable simplicity follows M. de Montpavon on that last walk +along the Boulevards. + +"Monsieur de Montpavon marche e la mort," and the creator of that +unlucky GENTILHOMME follows with stealthy footsteps, with wide +eyes, with an impressively pointing finger. And who wouldn't look? +But it is hard; it is sometimes very hard to forgive him the dotted +i's, the pointing finger, this making plain of obvious mysteries. +"Monsieur de Montpavon marche e la mort," and presently, on the +crowded pavement, takes off his hat with punctilious courtesy to +the doctor's wife, who, elegant and unhappy, is bound on the same +pilgrimage. This is too much! We feel we cannot forgive him such +meetings, the constant whisper of his presence. We feel we cannot, +till suddenly the very NAIVETE of it all touches us with the +revealed suggestion of a truth. Then we see that the man is not +false; all this is done in transparent good faith. The man is not +melodramatic; he is only picturesque. He may not be an artist, but +he comes as near the truth as some of the greatest. His creations +are seen; you can look into their very eyes, and these are as +thoughtless as the eyes of any wise generation that has in its +hands the fame of writers. Yes, they are SEEN, and the man who is +not an artist is seen also commiserating, indignant, joyous, human +and alive in their very midst. Inevitably they MARCHENT E LA MORT- +-and they are very near the truth of our common destiny: their +fate is poignant, it is intensely interesting, and of not the +slightest consequence. + + + +GUY DE MAUPASSANT--1904 {1} + + + +To introduce Maupassant to English readers with apologetic +explanations as though his art were recondite and the tendency of +his work immoral would be a gratuitous impertinence. + +Maupassant's conception of his art is such as one would expect from +a practical and resolute mind; but in the consummate simplicity of +his technique it ceases to be perceptible. This is one of its +greatest qualities, and like all the great virtues it is based +primarily on self-denial. + +To pronounce a judgment upon the general tendency of an author is a +difficult task. One could not depend upon reason alone, nor yet +trust solely to one's emotions. Used together, they would in many +cases traverse each other, because emotions have their own +unanswerable logic. Our capacity for emotion is limited, and the +field of our intelligence is restricted. Responsiveness to every +feeling, combined with the penetration of every intellectual +subterfuge, would end, not in judgment, but in universal +absolution. TOUT COMPRENDRE C'EST TOUT PARDONNER. And in this +benevolent neutrality towards the warring errors of human nature +all light would go out from art and from life. + +We are at liberty then to quarrel with Maupassant's attitude +towards our world in which, like the rest of us, he has that share +which his senses are able to give him. But we need not quarrel +with him violently. If our feelings (which are tender) happen to +be hurt because his talent is not exercised for the praise and +consolation of mankind, our intelligence (which is great) should +let us see that he is a very splendid sinner, like all those who in +this valley of compromises err by over-devotion to the truth that +is in them. His determinism, barren of praise, blame and +consolation, has all the merit of his conscientious art. The worth +of every conviction consists precisely in the steadfastness with +which it is held. + +Except for his philosophy, which in the case of so consummate an +artist does not matter (unless to the solemn and naive mind), +Maupassant of all writers of fiction demands least forgiveness from +his readers. He does not require forgiveness because he is never +dull. + +The interest of a reader in a work of imagination is either ethical +or that of simple curiosity. Both are perfectly legitimate, since +there is both a moral and an excitement to be found in a faithful +rendering of life. And in Maupassant's work there is the interest +of curiosity and the moral of a point of view consistently +preserved and never obtruded for the end of personal gratification. +The spectacle of this immense talent served by exceptional +faculties and triumphing over the most thankless subjects by an +unswerving singleness of purpose is in itself an admirable lesson +in the power of artistic honesty, one may say of artistic virtue. +The inherent greatness of the man consists in this, that he will +let none of the fascinations that beset a writer working in +loneliness turn him away from the straight path, from the +vouchsafed vision of excellence. He will not be led into perdition +by the seductions of sentiment, of eloquence, of humour, of pathos; +of all that splendid pageant of faults that pass between the writer +and his probity on the blank sheet of paper, like the glittering +cortege of deadly sins before the austere anchorite in the desert +air of Thebaide. This is not to say that Maupassant's austerity +has never faltered; but the fact remains that no tempting demon has +ever succeeded in hurling him down from his high, if narrow, +pedestal. + +It is the austerity of his talent, of course, that is in question. +Let the discriminating reader, who at times may well spare a moment +or two to the consideration and enjoyment of artistic excellence, +be asked to reflect a little upon the texture of two stories +included in this volume: "A Piece of String," and "A Sale." How +many openings the last offers for the gratuitous display of the +author's wit or clever buffoonery, the first for an unmeasured +display of sentiment! And both sentiment and buffoonery could have +been made very good too, in a way accessible to the meanest +intelligence, at the cost of truth and honesty. Here it is where +Maupassant's austerity comes in. He refrains from setting his +cleverness against the eloquence of the facts. There is humour and +pathos in these stories; but such is the greatness of his talent, +the refinement of his artistic conscience, that all his high +qualities appear inherent in the very things of which he speaks, as +if they had been altogether independent of his presentation. +Facts, and again facts are his unique concern. That is why he is +not always properly understood. His facts are so perfectly +rendered that, like the actualities of life itself, they demand +from the reader the faculty of observation which is rare, the power +of appreciation which is generally wanting in most of us who are +guided mainly by empty phrases requiring no effort, demanding from +us no qualities except a vague susceptibility to emotion. Nobody +has ever gained the vast applause of a crowd by the simple and +clear exposition of vital facts. Words alone strung upon a +convention have fascinated us as worthless glass beads strung on a +thread have charmed at all times our brothers the unsophisticated +savages of the islands. Now, Maupassant, of whom it has been said +that he is the master of the MOT JUSTE, has never been a dealer in +words. His wares have been, not glass beads, but polished gems; +not the most rare and precious, perhaps, but of the very first +water of their kind. + +That he took trouble with his gems, taking them up in the rough and +polishing each facet patiently, the publication of the two +posthumous volumes of short stories proves abundantly. I think it +proves also the assertion made here that he was by no means a +dealer in words. On looking at the first feeble drafts from which +so many perfect stories have been fashioned, one discovers that +what has been matured, improved, brought to perfection by unwearied +endeavour is not the diction of the tale, but the vision of its +true shape and detail. Those first attempts are not faltering or +uncertain in expression. It is the conception which is at fault. +The subjects have not yet been adequately seen. His proceeding was +not to group expressive words, that mean nothing, around misty and +mysterious shapes dear to muddled intellects and belonging neither +to earth nor to heaven. His vision by a more scrupulous, prolonged +and devoted attention to the aspects of the visible world +discovered at last the right words as if miraculously impressed for +him upon the face of things and events. This was the particular +shape taken by his inspiration; it came to him directly, honestly +in the light of his day, not on the tortuous, dark roads of +meditation. His realities came to him from a genuine source, from +this universe of vain appearances wherein we men have found +everything to make us proud, sorry, exalted, and humble. + +Maupassant's renown is universal, but his popularity is restricted. +It is not difficult to perceive why. Maupassant is an intensely +national writer. He is so intensely national in his logic, in his +clearness, in his aesthetic and moral conceptions, that he has been +accepted by his countrymen without having had to pay the tribute of +flattery either to the nation as a whole, or to any class, sphere +or division of the nation. The truth of his art tells with an +irresistible force; and he stands excused from the duty of +patriotic posturing. He is a Frenchman of Frenchmen beyond +question or cavil, and with that he is simple enough to be +universally comprehensible. What is wanting to his universal +success is the mediocrity of an obvious and appealing tenderness. +He neglects to qualify his truth with the drop of facile sweetness; +he forgets to strew paper roses over the tombs. The disregard of +these common decencies lays him open to the charges of cruelty, +cynicism, hardness. And yet it can be safely affirmed that this +man wrote from the fulness of a compassionate heart. He is +merciless and yet gentle with his mankind; he does not rail at +their prudent fears and their small artifices; he does not despise +their labours. It seems to me that he looks with an eye of +profound pity upon their troubles, deceptions and misery. But he +looks at them all. He sees--and does not turn away his head. As a +matter of fact he is courageous. + +Courage and justice are not popular virtues. The practice of +strict justice is shocking to the multitude who always (perhaps +from an obscure sense of guilt) attach to it the meaning of mercy. +In the majority of us, who want to be left alone with our +illusions, courage inspires a vague alarm. This is what is felt +about Maupassant. His qualities, to use the charming and popular +phrase, are not lovable. Courage being a force will not masquerade +in the robes of affected delicacy and restraint. But if his +courage is not of a chivalrous stamp, it cannot be denied that it +is never brutal for the sake of effect. The writer of these few +reflections, inspired by a long and intimate acquaintance with the +work of the man, has been struck by the appreciation of Maupassant +manifested by many women gifted with tenderness and intelligence. +Their more delicate and audacious souls are good judges of courage. +Their finer penetration has discovered his genuine masculinity +without display, his virility without a pose. They have discerned +in his faithful dealings with the world that enterprising and +fearless temperament, poor in ideas but rich in power, which +appeals most to the feminine mind. + +It cannot be denied that he thinks very little. In him extreme +energy of perception achieves great results, as in men of action +the energy of force and desire. His view of intellectual problems +is perhaps more simple than their nature warrants; still a man who +has written YVETTE cannot be accused of want of subtlety. But one +cannot insist enough upon this, that his subtlety, his humour, his +grimness, though no doubt they are his own, are never presented +otherwise but as belonging to our life, as found in nature, whose +beauties and cruelties alike breathe the spirit of serene +unconsciousness. + +Maupassant's philosophy of life is more temperamental than +rational. He expects nothing from gods or men. He trusts his +senses for information and his instinct for deductions. It may +seem that he has made but little use of his mind. But let me be +clearly understood. His sensibility is really very great; and it +is impossible to be sensible, unless one thinks vividly, unless one +thinks correctly, starting from intelligible premises to an +unsophisticated conclusion. + +This is literary honesty. It may be remarked that it does not +differ very greatly from the ideal honesty of the respectable +majority, from the honesty of law-givers, of warriors, of kings, of +bricklayers, of all those who express their fundamental sentiment +in the ordinary course of their activities, by the work of their +hands. + +The work of Maupassant's hands is honest. He thinks sufficiently +to concrete his fearless conclusions in illuminative instances. He +renders them with that exact knowledge of the means and that +absolute devotion to the aim of creating a true effect--which is +art. He is the most accomplished of narrators. + +It is evident that Maupassant looked upon his mankind in another +spirit than those writers who make haste to submerge the +difficulties of our holding-place in the universe under a flood of +false and sentimental assumptions. Maupassant was a true and +dutiful lover of our earth. He says himself in one of his +descriptive passages: "Nous autres que seduit la terre . . ." It +was true. The earth had for him a compelling charm. He looks upon +her august and furrowed face with the fierce insight of real +passion. His is the power of detecting the one immutable quality +that matters in the changing aspects of nature and under the ever- +shifting surface of life. To say that he could not embrace in his +glance all its magnificence and all its misery is only to say that +he was human. He lays claim to nothing that his matchless vision +has not made his own. This creative artist has the true +imagination; he never condescends to invent anything; he sets up no +empty pretences. And he stoops to no littleness in his art--least +of all to the miserable vanity of a catching phrase. + + + +ANATOLE FRANCE--1904 + + + +I.--"CRAINQUEBILLE" + + +The latest volume of M. Anatole France purports, by the declaration +of its title-page, to contain several profitable narratives. The +story of Crainquebille's encounter with human justice stands at the +head of them; a tale of a well-bestowed charity closes the book +with the touch of playful irony characteristic of the writer on +whom the most distinguished amongst his literary countrymen have +conferred the rank of Prince of Prose. + +Never has a dignity been better borne. M. Anatole France is a good +prince. He knows nothing of tyranny but much of compassion. The +detachment of his mind from common errors and current superstitions +befits the exalted rank he holds in the Commonwealth of Literature. +It is just to suppose that the clamour of the tribes in the forum +had little to do with his elevation. Their elect are of another +stamp. They are such as their need of precipitate action requires. +He is the Elect of the Senate--the Senate of Letters--whose +Conscript Fathers have recognised him as PRIMUS INTER PARES; a post +of pure honour and of no privilege. + +It is a good choice. First, because it is just, and next, because +it is safe. The dignity will suffer no diminution in M. Anatole +France's hands. He is worthy of a great tradition, learned in the +lessons of the past, concerned with the present, and as earnest as +to the future as a good prince should be in his public action. It +is a Republican dignity. And M. Anatole France, with his sceptical +insight into an forms of government, is a good Republican. He is +indulgent to the weaknesses of the people, and perceives that +political institutions, whether contrived by the wisdom of the few +or the ignorance of the many, are incapable of securing the +happiness of mankind. He perceives this truth in the serenity of +his soul and in the elevation of his mind. He expresses his +convictions with measure, restraint and harmony, which are indeed +princely qualities. He is a great analyst of illusions. He +searches and probes their innermost recesses as if they were +realities made of an eternal substance. And therein consists his +humanity; this is the expression of his profound and unalterable +compassion. He will flatter no tribe no section in the forum or in +the market-place. His lucid thought is not beguiled into false +pity or into the common weakness of affection. He feels that men +born in ignorance as in the house of an enemy, and condemned to +struggle with error and passions through endless centuries, should +be spared the supreme cruelty of a hope for ever deferred. He +knows that our best hopes are irrealisable; that it is the almost +incredible misfortune of mankind, but also its highest privilege, +to aspire towards the impossible; that men have never failed to +defeat their highest aims by the very strength of their humanity +which can conceive the most gigantic tasks but leaves them disarmed +before their irremediable littleness. He knows this well because +he is an artist and a master; but he knows, too, that only in the +continuity of effort there is a refuge from despair for minds less +clear-seeing and philosophic than his own. Therefore he wishes us +to believe and to hope, preserving in our activity the consoling +illusion of power and intelligent purpose. He is a good and +politic prince. + +"The majesty of justice is contained entire in each sentence +pronounced by the judge in the name of the sovereign people. +Jerome Crainquebille, hawker of vegetables, became aware of the +august aspect of the law as he stood indicted before the tribunal +of the higher Police Court on a charge of insulting a constable of +the force." With this exposition begins the first tale of M. +Anatole France's latest volume. + +The bust of the Republic and the image of the Crucified Christ +appear side by side above the bench occupied by the President +Bourriche and his two Assessors; all the laws divine and human are +suspended over the head of Crainquebille. + +From the first visual impression of the accused and of the court +the author passes by a characteristic and natural turn to the +historical and moral significance of those two emblems of State and +Religion whose accord is only possible to the confused reasoning of +an average man. But the reasoning of M. Anatole France is never +confused. His reasoning is clear and informed by a profound +erudition. Such is not the case of Crainquebille, a street hawker, +charged with insulting the constituted power of society in the +person of a policeman. The charge is not true, nothing was further +from his thoughts; but, amazed by the novelty of his position, he +does not reflect that the Cross on the wall perpetuates the memory +of a sentence which for nineteen hundred years all the Christian +peoples have looked upon as a grave miscarriage of justice. He +might well have challenged the President to pronounce any sort of +sentence, if it were merely to forty-eight hours of simple +imprisonment, in the name of the Crucified Redeemer. + +He might have done so. But Crainquebille, who has lived pushing +every day for half a century his hand-barrow loaded with vegetables +through the streets of Paris, has not a philosophic mind. Truth to +say he has nothing. He is one of the disinherited. Properly +speaking, he has no existence at all, or, to be strictly truthful, +he had no existence till M. Anatole France's philosophic mind and +human sympathy have called him up from his nothingness for our +pleasure, and, as the title-page of the book has it, no doubt for +our profit also. + +Therefore we behold him in the dock, a stranger to all historical, +political or social considerations which can be brought to bear +upon his case. He remains lost in astonishment. Penetrated with +respect, overwhelmed with awe, he is ready to trust the judge upon +the question of his transgression. In his conscience he does not +think himself culpable; but M. Anatole France's philosophical mind +discovers for us that he feels all the insignificance of such a +thing as the conscience of a mere street-hawker in the face of the +symbols of the law and before the ministers of social repression. +Crainquebille is innocent; but already the young advocate, his +defender, has half persuaded him of his guilt. + +On this phrase practically ends the introductory chapter of the +story which, as the author's dedication states, has inspired an +admirable draughtsman and a skilful dramatist, each in his art, to +a vision of tragic grandeur. And this opening chapter without a +name--consisting of two and a half pages, some four hundred words +at most--is a masterpiece of insight and simplicity, resumed in M. +Anatole France's distinction of thought and in his princely command +of words. + +It is followed by six more short chapters, concise and full, +delicate and complete like the petals of a flower, presenting to us +the Adventure of Crainquebille--Crainquebille before the justice-- +An Apology for the President of the Tribunal--Of the Submission of +Crainquebille to the Laws of the Republic--Of his Attitude before +the Public Opinion, and so on to the chapter of the Last +Consequences. We see, created for us in his outward form and +innermost perplexity, the old man degraded from his high estate of +a law-abiding street-hawker and driven to insult, really this time, +the majesty of the social order in the person of another police- +constable. It is not an act of revolt, and still less of revenge. +Crainquebille is too old, too resigned, too weary, too guileless to +raise the black standard of insurrection. He is cold and homeless +and starving. He remembers the warmth and the food of the prison. +He perceives the means to get back there. Since he has been locked +up, he argues with himself, for uttering words which, as a matter +of fact he did not say, he will go forth now, and to the first +policeman he meets will say those very words in order to be +imprisoned again. Thus reasons Crainquebille with simplicity and +confidence. He accepts facts. Nothing surprises him. But all the +phenomena of social organisation and of his own life remain for him +mysterious to the end. The description of the policeman in his +short cape and hood, who stands quite still, under the light of a +street lamp at the edge of the pavement shining with the wet of a +rainy autumn evening along the whole extent of a long and deserted +thoroughfare, is a perfect piece of imaginative precision. From +under the edge of the hood his eyes look upon Crainquebille, who +has just uttered in an uncertain voice the sacramental, insulting +phrase of the popular slang--MORT AUX VACHES! They look upon him +shining in the deep shadow of the hood with an expression of +sadness, vigilance, and contempt. + +He does not move. Crainquebille, in a feeble and hesitating voice, +repeats once more the insulting words. But this policeman is full +of philosophic superiority, disdain, and indulgence. He refuses to +take in charge the old and miserable vagabond who stands before him +shivering and ragged in the drizzle. And the ruined Crainquebille, +victim of a ridiculous miscarriage of justice, appalled at this +magnanimity, passes on hopelessly down the street full of shadows +where the lamps gleam each in a ruddy halo of falling mist. + +M. Anatole France can speak for the people. This prince of the +Senate is invested with the tribunitian power. M. Anatole France +is something of a Socialist; and in that respect he seems to depart +from his sceptical philosophy. But as an illustrious statesman, +now no more, a great prince too, with an ironic mind and a literary +gift, has sarcastically remarked in one of his public speeches: +"We are all Socialists now." And in the sense in which it may be +said that we all in Europe are Christians that is true enough. To +many of us Socialism is merely an emotion. An emotion is much and +is also less than nothing. It is the initial impulse. The real +Socialism of to-day is a religion. It has its dogmas. The value +of the dogma does not consist in its truthfulness, and M. Anatole +France, who loves truth, does not love dogma. Only, unlike +religion, the cohesive strength of Socialism lies not in its dogmas +but in its ideal. It is perhaps a too materialistic ideal, and the +mind of M. Anatole France may not find in it either comfort or +consolation. It is not to be doubted that he suspects this +himself; but there is something reposeful in the finality of +popular conceptions. M. Anatole France, a good prince and a good +Republican, will succeed no doubt in being a good Socialist. He +will disregard the stupidity of the dogma and the unlovely form of +the ideal. His art will find its own beauty in the imaginative +presentation of wrongs, of errors, and miseries that call aloud for +redress. M. Anatole France is humane. He is also human. He may +be able to discard his philosophy; to forget that the evils are +many and the remedies are few, that there is no universal panacea, +that fatality is invincible, that there is an implacable menace of +death in the triumph of the humanitarian idea. He may forget all +that because love is stronger than truth. + +Besides "Crainquebille" this volume contains sixteen other stories +and sketches. To define them it is enough to say that they are +written in M. Anatole France's prose. One sketch entitled "Riquet" +may be found incorporated in the volume of MONSIEUR BERGERET E +PARIS. "Putois" is a remarkable little tale, significant, +humorous, amusing, and symbolic. It concerns the career of a man +born in the utterance of a hasty and untruthful excuse made by a +lady at a loss how to decline without offence a very pressing +invitation to dinner from a very tyrannical aunt. This happens in +a provincial town, and the lady says in effect: "Impossible, my +dear aunt. To-morrow I am expecting the gardener." And the garden +she glances at is a poor garden; it is a wild garden; its extent is +insignificant and its neglect seems beyond remedy. "A gardener! +What for?" asks the aunt. "To work in the garden." And the poor +lady is abashed at the transparence of her evasion. But the lie is +told, it is believed, and she sticks to it. When the masterful old +aunt inquires, "What is the man's name, my dear?" she answers +brazenly, "His name is Putois." "Where does he live?" "Oh, I +don't know; anywhere. He won't give his address. One leaves a +message for him here and there." "Oh! I see," says the other; "he +is a sort of ne'er do well, an idler, a vagabond. I advise you, my +dear, to be careful how you let such a creature into your grounds; +but I have a large garden, and when you do not want his services I +shall find him some work to do, and see he does it too. Tell your +Putois to come and see me." And thereupon Putois is born; he +stalks abroad, invisible, upon his career of vagabondage and crime, +stealing melons from gardens and tea-spoons from pantries, +indulging his licentious proclivities; becoming the talk of the +town and of the countryside; seen simultaneously in far-distant +places; pursued by gendarmes, whose brigadier assures the uneasy +householders that he "knows that scamp very well, and won't be long +in laying his hands upon him." A detailed description of his +person collected from the information furnished by various people +appears in the columns of a local newspaper. Putois lives in his +strength and malevolence. He lives after the manner of legendary +heroes, of the gods of Olympus. He is the creation of the popular +mind. There comes a time when even the innocent originator of that +mysterious and potent evil-doer is induced to believe for a moment +that he may have a real and tangible presence. All this is told +with the wit and the art and the philosophy which is familiar to M. +Anatole France's readers and admirers. For it is difficult to read +M. Anatole France without admiring him. He has the princely gift +of arousing a spontaneous loyalty, but with this difference, that +the consent of our reason has its place by the side of our +enthusiasm. He is an artist. As an artist he awakens emotion. +The quality of his art remains, as an inspiration, fascinating and +inscrutable; but the proceedings of his thought compel our +intellectual admiration. + +In this volume the trifle called "The Military Manoeuvres at +Montil," apart from its far-reaching irony, embodies incidentally +the very spirit of automobilism. Somehow or other, how you cannot +tell, the flight over the country in a motor-car, its sensations, +its fatigue, its vast topographical range, its incidents down to +the bursting of a tyre, are brought home to you with all the force +of high imaginative perception. It would be out of place to +analyse here the means by which the true impression is conveyed so +that the absurd rushing about of General Decuir, in a 30-horse- +power car, in search of his cavalry brigade, becomes to you a more +real experience than any day-and-night run you may ever have taken +yourself. Suffice it to say that M. Anatole France had thought the +thing worth doing and that it becomes, in virtue of his art, a +distinct achievement. And there are other sketches in this book, +more or less slight, but all worthy of regard--the childhood's +recollections of Professor Bergeret and his sister Zoe; the +dialogue of the two upright judges and the conversation of their +horses; the dream of M. Jean Marteau, aimless, extravagant, +apocalyptic, and of all the dreams one ever dreamt, the most +essentially dreamlike. The vision of M. Anatole France, the Prince +of Prose, ranges over all the extent of his realm, indulgent and +penetrating, disillusioned and curious, finding treasures of truth +and beauty concealed from less gifted magicians. Contemplating the +exactness of his images and the justice of his judgment, the +freedom of his fancy and the fidelity of his purpose, one becomes +aware of the futility of literary watch-words and the vanity of all +the schools of fiction. Not that M. Anatole France is a wild and +untrammelled genius. He is not that. Issued legitimately from the +past, he is mindful of his high descent. He has a critical +temperament joined to creative power. He surveys his vast domain +in a spirit of princely moderation that knows nothing of excesses +but much of restraint. + + +II.--"L'ILE DES PINGOUINS" + + +M. Anatole France, historian and adventurer, has given us many +profitable histories of saints and sinners, of Roman procurators +and of officials of the Third Republic, of GRANDES DAMES and of +dames not so very grand, of ornate Latinists and of inarticulate +street hawkers, of priests and generals--in fact, the history of +all humanity as it appears to his penetrating eye, serving a mind +marvellously incisive in its scepticism, and a heart that, of all +contemporary hearts gifted with a voice, contains the greatest +treasure of charitable irony. As to M. Anatole France's +adventures, these are well-known. They lie open to this prodigal +world in the four volumes of the VIE LITTERAIRE, describing the +adventures of a choice soul amongst masterpieces. For such is the +romantic view M. Anatole France takes of the life of a literary +critic. History and adventure, then, seem to be the chosen fields +for the magnificent evolutions of M. Anatole France's prose; but no +material limits can stand in the way of a genius. The latest book +from his pen--which may be called golden, as the lips of an +eloquent saint once upon a time were acclaimed golden by the +faithful--this latest book is, up to a certain point, a book of +travel. + +I would not mislead a public whose confidence I court. The book is +not a record of globe-trotting. I regret it. It would have been a +joy to watch M. Anatole France pouring the clear elixir compounded +of his Pyrrhonic philosophy, his Benedictine erudition, his gentle +wit and most humane irony into such an unpromising and opaque +vessel. He would have attempted it in a spirit of benevolence +towards his fellow men and of compassion for that life of the earth +which is but a vain and transitory illusion. M. Anatole France is +a great magician, yet there seem to be tasks which he dare not +face. For he is also a sage. + +It is a book of ocean travel--not, however, as understood by Herr +Ballin of Hamburg, the Machiavel of the Atlantic. It is a book of +exploration and discovery--not, however, as conceived by an +enterprising journal and a shrewdly philanthropic king of the +nineteenth century. It is nothing so recent as that. It dates +much further back; long, long before the dark age when Krupp of +Essen wrought at his steel plates and a German Emperor +condescendingly suggested the last improvements in ships' dining- +tables. The best idea of the inconceivable antiquity of that +enterprise I can give you is by stating the nature of the +explorer's ship. It was a trough of stone, a vessel of hollowed +granite. + +The explorer was St. Mael, a saint of Armorica. I had never heard +of him before, but I believe now in his arduous existence with a +faith which is a tribute to M. Anatole France's pious earnestness +and delicate irony. St. Mael existed. It is distinctly stated of +him that his life was a progress in virtue. Thus it seems that +there may be saints that are not progressively virtuous. St. Mael +was not of that kind. He was industrious. He evangelised the +heathen. He erected two hundred and eighteen chapels and seventy- +four abbeys. Indefatigable navigator of the faith, he drifted +casually in the miraculous trough of stone from coast to coast and +from island to island along the northern seas. At the age of +eighty-four his high stature was bowed by his long labours, but his +sinewy arms preserved their vigour and his rude eloquence had lost +nothing of its force. + +A nautical devil tempting him by the worldly suggestion of fitting +out his desultory, miraculous trough with mast, sail, and rudder +for swifter progression (the idea of haste has sprung from the +pride of Satan), the simple old saint lent his ear to the subtle +arguments of the progressive enemy of mankind. + +The venerable St. Mael fell away from grace by not perceiving at +once that a gift of heaven cannot be improved by the contrivances +of human ingenuity. His punishment was adequate. A terrific +tempest snatched the rigged ship of stone in its whirlwinds, and, +to be brief, the dazed St. Mael was stranded violently on the +Island of Penguins. + +The saint wandered away from the shore. It was a flat, round +island whence rose in the centre a conical mountain capped with +clouds. The rain was falling incessantly--a gentle, soft rain +which caused the simple saint to exclaim in great delight: "This +is the island of tears, the island of contrition!" + +Meantime the inhabitants had flocked in their tens of thousands to +an amphitheatre of rocks; they were penguins; but the holy man, +rendered deaf and purblind by his years, mistook excusably the +multitude of silly, erect, and self-important birds for a human +crowd. At once he began to preach to them the doctrine of +salvation. Having finished his discourse he lost no time in +administering to his interesting congregation the sacrament of +baptism. + +If you are at all a theologian you will see that it was no mean +adventure to happen to a well-meaning and zealous saint. Pray +reflect on the magnitude of the issues! It is easy to believe what +M. Anatole France says, that, when the baptism of the Penguins +became known in Paradise, it caused there neither joy nor sorrow, +but a profound sensation. + +M. Anatole France is no mean theologian himself. He reports with +great casuistical erudition the debates in the saintly council +assembled in Heaven for the consideration of an event so disturbing +to the economy of religious mysteries. Ultimately the baptised +Penguins had to be turned into human beings; and together with the +privilege of sublime hopes these innocent birds received the curse +of original sin, with the labours, the miseries, the passions, and +the weaknesses attached to the fallen condition of humanity. + +At this point M. Anatole France is again an historian. From being +the Hakluyt of a saintly adventurer he turns (but more concisely) +into the Gibbon of Imperial Penguins. Tracing the development of +their civilisation, the absurdity of their desires, the pathos of +their folly and the ridiculous littleness of their quarrels, his +golden pen lightens by relevant but unpuritanical anecdotes the +austerity of a work devoted to a subject so grave as the Polity of +Penguins. It is a very admirable treatment, and I hasten to +congratulate all men of receptive mind on the feast of wisdom which +is theirs for the mere plucking of a book from a shelf. + + + +TURGENEV {2}--1917 + + + +Dear Edward, + +I am glad to hear that you are about to publish a study of +Turgenev, that fortunate artist who has found so much in life for +us and no doubt for himself, with the exception of bare justice. +Perhaps that will come to him, too, in time. Your study may help +the consummation. For his luck persists after his death. What +greater luck an artist like Turgenev could wish for than to find in +the English-speaking world a translator who has missed none of the +most delicate, most simple beauties of his work, and a critic who +has known how to analyse and point out its high qualities with +perfect sympathy and insight. + +After twenty odd years of friendship (and my first literary +friendship too) I may well permit myself to make that statement, +while thinking of your wonderful Prefaces as they appeared from +time to time in the volumes of Turgenev's complete edition, the +last of which came into the light of public indifference in the +ninety-ninth year of the nineteenth century. + +With that year one may say, with some justice, that the age of +Turgenev had come to an end too; yet work so simple and human, so +independent of the transitory formulas and theories of art, belongs +as you point out in the Preface to SMOKE "to all time." + +Turgenev's creative activity covers about thirty years. Since it +came to an end the social and political events in Russia have moved +at an accelerated pace, but the deep origins of them, in the moral +and intellectual unrest of the souls, are recorded in the whole +body of his work with the unerring lucidity of a great national +writer. The first stirrings, the first gleams of the great forces +can be seen almost in every page of the novels, of the short +stories and of A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES--those marvellous landscapes +peopled by unforgettable figures. + +Those will never grow old. Fashions in monsters do change, but the +truth of humanity goes on for ever, unchangeable and inexhaustible +in the variety of its disclosures. Whether Turgenev's art, which +has captured it with such mastery and such gentleness, is for "all +time" it is hard to say. Since, as you say yourself, he brings all +his problems and characters to the test of love, we may hope that +it will endure at least till the infinite emotions of love are +replaced by the exact simplicity of perfected Eugenics. But even +by then, I think, women would not have changed much; and the women +of Turgenev who understood them so tenderly, so reverently and so +passionately--they, at least, are certainly for all time. + +Women are, one may say, the foundation of his art. They are +Russian of course. Never was a writer so profoundly, so whole- +souledly national. But for non-Russian readers, Turgenev's Russia +is but a canvas on which the incomparable artist of humanity lays +his colours and his forms in the great light and the free air of +the world. Had he invented them all and also every stick and +stone, brook and hill and field in which they move, his personages +would have been just as true and as poignant in their perplexed +lives. They are his own and also universal. Any one can accept +them with no more question than one accepts the Italians of +Shakespeare. + +In the larger, non-Russian view, what should make Turgenev +sympathetic and welcome to the English-speaking world, is his +essential humanity. All his creations, fortunate and unfortunate, +oppressed and oppressors, are human beings, not strange beasts in a +menagerie or damned souls knocking themselves to pieces in the +stuffy darkness of mystical contradictions. They are human beings, +fit to live, fit to suffer, fit to struggle, fit to win, fit to +lose, in the endless and inspiring game of pursuing from day to day +the ever-receding future. + +I began by calling him lucky, and he was, in a sense. But one ends +by having some doubts. To be so great without the slightest parade +and so fine without any tricks of "cleverness" must be fatal to any +man's influence with his contemporaries. + +Frankly, I don't want to appear as qualified to judge of things +Russian. It wouldn't be true. I know nothing of them. But I am +aware of a few general truths, such as, for instance, that no man, +whatever may be the loftiness of his character, the purity of his +motives and the peace of his conscience--no man, I say, likes to be +beaten with sticks during the greater part of his existence. From +what one knows of his history it appears clearly that in Russia +almost any stick was good enough to beat Turgenev with in his +latter years. When he died the characteristically chicken-hearted +Autocracy hastened to stuff his mortal envelope into the tomb it +refused to honour, while the sensitive Revolutionists went on for a +time flinging after his shade those jeers and curses from which +that impartial lover of ALL his countrymen had suffered so much in +his lifetime. For he, too, was sensitive. Every page of his +writing bears its testimony to the fatal absence of callousness in +the man. + +And now he suffers a little from other things. In truth it is not +the convulsed terror-haunted Dostoievski but the serene Turgenev +who is under a curse. For only think! Every gift has been heaped +on his cradle: absolute sanity and the deepest sensibility, the +clearest vision and the quickest responsiveness, penetrating +insight and unfailing generosity of judgment, an exquisite +perception of the visible world and an unerring instinct for the +significant, for the essential in the life of men and women, the +clearest mind, the warmest heart, the largest sympathy--and all +that in perfect measure. There's enough there to ruin the +prospects of any writer. For you know very well, my dear Edward, +that if you had Antinous himself in a booth of the world's fair, +and killed yourself in protesting that his soul was as perfect as +his body, you wouldn't get one per cent. of the crowd struggling +next door for a sight of the Double-headed Nightingale or of some +weak-kneed giant grinning through a horse collar. + +J. C. + + + +STEPHEN CRANE--A NOTE WITHOUT DATES--1919 + + + +My acquaintance with Stephen Crane was brought about by Mr. +Pawling, partner in the publishing firm of Mr. William Heinemann. + +One day Mr. Pawling said to me: "Stephen Crane has arrived in +England. I asked him if there was anybody he wanted to meet and he +mentioned two names. One of them was yours." I had then just been +reading, like the rest of the world, Crane's RED BADGE OF COURAGE. +The subject of that story was war, from the point of view of an +individual soldier's emotions. That individual (he remains +nameless throughout) was interesting enough in himself, but on +turning over the pages of that little book which had for the moment +secured such a noisy recognition I had been even more interested in +the personality of the writer. The picture of a simple and untried +youth becoming through the needs of his country part of a great +fighting machine was presented with an earnestness of purpose, a +sense of tragic issues, and an imaginative force of expression +which struck me as quite uncommon and altogether worthy of +admiration. + +Apparently Stephen Crane had received a favourable impression from +the reading of the NIGGER OF THE NARCISSUS, a book of mine which +had also been published lately. I was truly pleased to hear this. + +On my next visit to town we met at a lunch. I saw a young man of +medium stature and slender build, with very steady, penetrating +blue eyes, the eyes of a being who not only sees visions but can +brood over them to some purpose. + +He had indeed a wonderful power of vision, which he applied to the +things of this earth and of our mortal humanity with a penetrating +force that seemed to reach, within life's appearances and forms, +the very spirit of life's truth. His ignorance of the world at +large--he had seen very little of it--did not stand in the way of +his imaginative grasp of facts, events, and picturesque men. + +His manner was very quiet, his personality at first sight +interesting, and he talked slowly with an intonation which on some +people, mainly Americans, had, I believe, a jarring effect. But +not on me. Whatever he said had a personal note, and he expressed +himself with a graphic simplicity which was extremely engaging. He +knew little of literature, either of his own country or of any +other, but he was himself a wonderful artist in words whenever he +took a pen into his hand. Then his gift came out--and it was seen +then to be much more than mere felicity of language. His +impressionism of phrase went really deeper than the surface. In +his writing he was very sure of his effects. I don't think he was +ever in doubt about what he could do. Yet it often seemed to me +that he was but half aware of the exceptional quality of his +achievement. + +This achievement was curtailed by his early death. It was a great +loss to his friends, but perhaps not so much to literature. I +think that he had given his measure fully in the few books he had +the time to write. Let me not be misunderstood: the loss was +great, but it was the loss of the delight his art could give, not +the loss of any further possible revelation. As to himself, who +can say how much he gained or lost by quitting so early this world +of the living, which he knew how to set before us in the terms of +his own artistic vision? Perhaps he did not lose a great deal. +The recognition he was accorded was rather languid and given him +grudgingly. The worthiest welcome he secured for his tales in this +country was from Mr. W. Henley in the NEW REVIEW and later, towards +the end of his life, from the late Mr. William Blackwood in his +magazine. For the rest I must say that during his sojourn in +England he had the misfortune to be, as the French say, MAL +ENTOURE. He was beset by people who understood not the quality of +his genius and were antagonistic to the deeper fineness of his +nature. Some of them have died since, but dead or alive they are +not worth speaking about now. I don't think he had any illusions +about them himself: yet there was a strain of good-nature and +perhaps of weakness in his character which prevented him from +shaking himself free from their worthless and patronising +attentions, which in those days caused me much secret irritation +whenever I stayed with him in either of his English homes. My wife +and I like best to remember him riding to meet us at the gate of +the Park at Brede. Born master of his sincere impressions, he was +also a born horseman. He never appeared so happy or so much to +advantage as on the back of a horse. He had formed the project of +teaching my eldest boy to ride, and meantime, when the child was +about two years old, presented him with his first dog. + +I saw Stephen Crane a few days after his arrival in London. I saw +him for the last time on his last day in England. It was in Dover, +in a big hotel, in a bedroom with a large window looking on to the +sea. He had been very ill and Mrs. Crane was taking him to some +place in Germany, but one glance at that wasted face was enough to +tell me that it was the most forlorn of all hopes. The last words +he breathed out to me were: "I am tired. Give my love to your +wife and child." When I stopped at the door for another look I saw +that he had turned his head on the pillow and was staring wistfully +out of the window at the sails of a cutter yacht that glided slowly +across the frame, like a dim shadow against the grey sky. + +Those who have read his little tale, "Horses," and the story, "The +Open Boat," in the volume of that name, know with what fine +understanding he loved horses and the sea. And his passage on this +earth was like that of a horseman riding swiftly in the dawn of a +day fated to be short and without sunshine. + + + +TALES OF THE SEA--1898 + + + +It is by his irresistible power to reach the adventurous side in +the character, not only of his own, but of all nations, that +Marryat is largely human. He is the enslaver of youth, not by the +literary artifices of presentation, but by the natural glamour of +his own temperament. To his young heroes the beginning of life is +a splendid and warlike lark, ending at last in inheritance and +marriage. His novels are not the outcome of his art, but of his +character, like the deeds that make up his record of naval service. +To the artist his work is interesting as a completely successful +expression of an unartistic nature. It is absolutely amazing to +us, as the disclosure of the spirit animating the stirring time +when the nineteenth century was young. There is an air of fable +about it. Its loss would be irreparable, like the curtailment of +national story or the loss of an historical document. It is the +beginning and the embodiment of an inspiring tradition. + +To this writer of the sea the sea was not an element. It was a +stage, where was displayed an exhibition of valour, and of such +achievement as the world had never seen before. The greatness of +that achievement cannot be pronounced imaginary, since its reality +has affected the destinies of nations; nevertheless, in its +grandeur it has all the remoteness of an ideal. History preserves +the skeleton of facts and, here and there, a figure or a name; but +it is in Marryat's novels that we find the mass of the nameless, +that we see them in the flesh, that we obtain a glimpse of the +everyday life and an insight into the spirit animating the crowd of +obscure men who knew how to build for their country such a shining +monument of memories. + +Marryat is really a writer of the Service. What sets him apart is +his fidelity. His pen serves his country as well as did his +professional skill and his renowned courage. His figures move +about between water and sky, and the water and the sky are there +only to frame the deeds of the Service. His novels, like +amphibious creatures, live on the sea and frequent the shore, where +they flounder deplorably. The loves and the hates of his boys are +as primitive as their virtues and their vices. His women, from the +beautiful Agnes to the witch-like mother of Lieutenant +Vanslyperken, are, with the exception of the sailors' wives, like +the shadows of what has never been. His Silvas, his Ribieras, his +Shriftens, his Delmars remind us of people we have heard of +somewhere, many times, without ever believing in their existence. +His morality is honourable and conventional. There is cruelty in +his fun and he can invent puns in the midst of carnage. His +naiveties are perpetrated in a lurid light. There is an endless +variety of types, all surface, with hard edges, with memorable +eccentricities of outline, with a childish and heroic effect in the +drawing. They do not belong to life; they belong exclusively to +the Service. And yet they live; there is a truth in them, the +truth of their time; a headlong, reckless audacity, an intimacy +with violence, an unthinking fearlessness, and an exuberance of +vitality which only years of war and victories can give. His +adventures are enthralling; the rapidity of his action fascinates; +his method is crude, his sentimentality, obviously incidental, is +often factitious. His greatness is undeniable. + +It is undeniable. To a multitude of readers the navy of to-day is +Marryat's navy still. He has created a priceless legend. If he be +not immortal, yet he will last long enough for the highest +ambition, because he has dealt manfully with an inspiring phase in +the history of that Service on which the life of his country +depends. The tradition of the great past he has fixed in his pages +will be cherished for ever as the guarantee of the future. He +loved his country first, the Service next, the sea perhaps not at +all. But the sea loved him without reserve. It gave him his +professional distinction and his author's fame--a fame such as not +often falls to the lot of a true artist. + +At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic, another man +wrote of the sea with true artistic instinct. He is not invincibly +young and heroic; he is mature and human, though for him also the +stress of adventure and endeavour must end fatally in inheritance +and marriage. For James Fenimore Cooper nature was not the frame- +work, it was an essential part of existence. He could hear its +voice, he could understand its silence, and he could interpret both +for us in his prose with all that felicity and sureness of effect +that belong to a poetical conception alone. His fame, as wide but +less brilliant than that of his contemporary, rests mostly on a +novel which is not of the sea. But he loved the sea and looked at +it with consummate understanding. In his sea tales the sea inter- +penetrates with life; it is in a subtle way a factor in the problem +of existence, and, for all its greatness, it is always in touch +with the men, who, bound on errands of war or gain, traverse its +immense solitudes. His descriptions have the magistral ampleness +of a gesture indicating the sweep of a vast horizon. They embrace +the colours of sunset, the peace of starlight, the aspects of calm +and storm, the great loneliness of the waters, the stillness of +watchful coasts, and the alert readiness which marks men who live +face to face with the promise and the menace of the sea. + +He knows the men and he knows the sea. His method may be often +faulty, but his art is genuine. The truth is within him. The road +to legitimate realism is through poetical feeling, and he possesses +that--only it is expressed in the leisurely manner of his time. He +has the knowledge of simple hearts. Long Tom Coffin is a +monumental seaman with the individuality of life and the +significance of a type. It is hard to believe that Manual and +Borroughcliffe, Mr. Marble of Marble-Head, Captain Tuck of the +packet-ship MONTAUK, or Daggett, the tenacious commander of the SEA +LION of Martha's Vineyard, must pass away some day and be utterly +forgotten. His sympathy is large, and his humour is as genuine-- +and as perfectly unaffected--as is his art. In certain passages he +reaches, very simply, the heights of inspired vision. + +He wrote before the great American language was born, and he wrote +as well as any novelist of his time. If he pitches upon episodes +redounding to the glory of the young republic, surely England has +glory enough to forgive him, for the sake of his excellence, the +patriotic bias at her expense. The interest of his tales is +convincing and unflagging; and there runs through his work a steady +vein of friendliness for the old country which the succeeding +generations of his compatriots have replaced by a less definite +sentiment. + +Perhaps no two authors of fiction influenced so many lives and gave +to so many the initial impulse towards a glorious or a useful +career. Through the distances of space and time those two men of +another race have shaped also the life of the writer of this +appreciation. Life is life, and art is art--and truth is hard to +find in either. Yet in testimony to the achievement of both these +authors it may be said that, in the case of the writer at least, +the youthful glamour, the headlong vitality of the one and the +profound sympathy, the artistic insight of the other--to which he +had surrendered--have withstood the brutal shock of facts and the +wear of laborious years. He has never regretted his surrender. + + + +AN OBSERVER IN MALAYA {3}--1898 + + + +In his new volume, Mr. Hugh Clifford, at the beginning of the +sketch entitled "At the Heels of the White Man," expresses his +anxiety as to the state of England's account in the Day-Book of the +Recording Angel "for the good and the bad we have done--both with +the most excellent intentions." The intentions will, no doubt, +count for something, though, of course, every nation's conquests +are paved with good intentions; or it may be that the Recording +Angel, looking compassionately at the strife of hearts, may disdain +to enter into the Eternal Book the facts of a struggle which has +the reward of its righteousness even on this earth--in victory and +lasting greatness, or in defeat and humiliation. + +And, also, love will count for much. If the opinion of a looker-on +from afar is worth anything, Mr. Hugh Clifford's anxiety about his +country's record is needless. To the Malays whom he governs, +instructs, and guides he is the embodiment of the intentions, of +the conscience and might of his race. And of all the nations +conquering distant territories in the name of the most excellent +intentions, England alone sends out men who, with such a +transparent sincerity of feeling, can speak, as Mr. Hugh Clifford +does, of the place of toil and exile as "the land which is very +dear to me, where the best years of my life have been spent"--and +where (I would stake my right hand on it) his name is pronounced +with respect and affection by those brown men about whom he writes. + +All these studies are on a high level of interest, though not all +on the same level. The descriptive chapters, results of personal +observation, seem to me the most interesting. And, indeed, in a +book of this kind it is the author's personality which awakens the +greatest interest; it shapes itself before one in the ring of +sentences, it is seen between the lines--like the progress of a +traveller in the jungle that may be traced by the sound of the +PARANG chopping the swaying creepers, while the man himself is +glimpsed, now and then, indistinct and passing between the trees. +Thus in his very vagueness of appearance, the writer seen through +the leaves of his book becomes a fascinating companion in a land of +fascination. + +It is when dealing with the aspects of nature that Mr. Hugh +Clifford is most convincing. He looks upon them lovingly, for the +land is "very dear to him," and he records his cherished +impressions so that the forest, the great flood, the jungle, the +rapid river, and the menacing rock dwell in the memory of the +reader long after the book is closed. He does not say anything, in +so many words, of his affection for those who live amid the scenes +he describes so well, but his humanity is large enough to pardon us +if we suspect him of such a rare weakness. In his preface he +expresses the regret at not having the gifts (whatever they may be) +of the kailyard school, or--looking up to a very different plane-- +the genius of Mr. Barrie. He has, however, gifts of his own, and +his genius has served his country and his fortunes in another +direction. Yet it is when attempting what he professes himself +unable to do, in telling us the simple story of Umat, the punkah- +puller, with unaffected simplicity and half-concealed tenderness, +that he comes nearest to artistic achievement. + +Each study in this volume presents some idea, illustrated by a fact +told without artifice, but with an elective sureness of knowledge. +The story of Tukang Burok's love, related in the old man's own +words, conveys the very breath of Malay thought and speech. In +"His Little Bill," the coolie, Lim Teng Wah, facing his debtor, +stands very distinct before us, an insignificant and tragic victim +of fate with whom he had quarrelled to the death over a matter of +seven dollars and sixty-eight cents. The story of "The Schooner +with a Past" may be heard, from the Straits eastward, with many +variations. Out in the Pacific the schooner becomes a cutter, and +the pearl-divers are replaced by the Black-birds of the Labour +Trade. But Mr. Hugh Clifford's variation is very good. There is a +passage in it--a trifle--just the diver as seen coming up from the +depths, that in its dozen lines or so attains to distinct artistic +value. And, scattered through the book, there are many other +passages of almost equal descriptive excellence. + +Nevertheless, to apply artistic standards to this book would be a +fundamental error in appreciation. Like faith, enthusiasm, or +heroism, art veils part of the truth of life to make the rest +appear more splendid, inspiring, or sinister. And this book is +only truth, interesting and futile, truth unadorned, simple and +straightforward. The Resident of Pahang has the devoted friendship +of jmat, the punkah-puller, he has an individual faculty of vision, +a large sympathy, and the scrupulous consciousness of the good and +evil in his hands. He may as well rest content with such gifts. +One cannot expect to be, at the same time, a ruler of men and an +irreproachable player on the flute. + + + +A HAPPY WANDERER--1910 + + + +Converts are interesting people. Most of us, if you will pardon me +for betraying the universal secret, have, at some time or other, +discovered in ourselves a readiness to stray far, ever so far, on +the wrong road. And what did we do in our pride and our cowardice? +Casting fearful glances and waiting for a dark moment, we buried +our discovery discreetly, and kept on in the old direction, on that +old, beaten track we have not had courage enough to leave, and +which we perceive now more clearly than before to be but the arid +way of the grave. + +The convert, the man capable of grace (I am speaking here in a +secular sense), is not discreet. His pride is of another kind; he +jumps gladly off the track--the touch of grace is mostly sudden-- +and facing about in a new direction may even attain the illusion of +having turned his back on Death itself. + +Some converts have, indeed, earned immortality by their exquisite +indiscretion. The most illustrious example of a convert, that +Flower of chivalry, Don Quixote de la Mancha, remains for all the +world the only genuine immortal hidalgo. The delectable Knight of +Spain became converted, as you know, from the ways of a small +country squire to an imperative faith in a tender and sublime +mission. Forthwith he was beaten with sticks and in due course +shut up in a wooden cage by the Barber and the Priest, the fit +ministers of a justly shocked social order. I do not know if it +has occurred to anybody yet to shut up Mr. Luffmann in a wooden +cage. {4} I do not raise the point because I wish him any harm. +Quite the contrary. I am a humane person. Let him take it as the +highest praise--but I must say that he richly deserves that sort of +attention. + +On the other hand I would not have him unduly puffed up with the +pride of the exalted association. The grave wisdom, the admirable +amenity, the serene grace of the secular patron-saint of all +mortals converted to noble visions are not his. Mr. Luffmann has +no mission. He is no Knight sublimely Errant. But he is an +excellent Vagabond. He is full of merit. That peripatetic guide, +philosopher and friend of all nations, Mr. Roosevelt, would +promptly excommunicate him with a big stick. The truth is that the +ex-autocrat of all the States does not like rebels against the +sullen order of our universe. Make the best of it or perish--he +cries. A sane lineal successor of the Barber and the Priest, and a +sagacious political heir of the incomparable Sancho Panza (another +great Governor), that distinguished litterateur has no mercy for +dreamers. And our author happens to be a man of (you may trace +them in his books) some rather fine reveries. + +Every convert begins by being a rebel, and I do not see myself how +any mercy can possibly be extended to Mr. Luffmann. He is a +convert from the creed of strenuous life. For this renegade the +body is of little account; to him work appears criminal when it +suppresses the demands of the inner life; while he was young he did +grind virtuously at the sacred handle, and now, he says, he has +fallen into disgrace with some people because he believes no longer +in toil without end. Certain respectable folk hate him--so he +says--because he dares to think that "poetry, beauty, and the broad +face of the world are the best things to be in love with." He +confesses to loving Spain on the ground that she is "the land of +to-morrow, and holds the gospel of never-mind." The universal +striving to push ahead he considers mere vulgar folly. Didn't I +tell you he was a fit subject for the cage? + +It is a relief (we are all humane, are we not?) to discover that +this desperate character is not altogether an outcast. Little +girls seem to like him. One of them, after listening to some of +his tales, remarked to her mother, "Wouldn't it be lovely if what +he says were true!" Here you have Woman! The charming creatures +will neither strain at a camel nor swallow a gnat. Not publicly. +These operations, without which the world they have such a large +share in could not go on for ten minutes, are left to us--men. And +then we are chided for being coarse. This is a refined objection +but does not seem fair. Another little girl--or perhaps the same +little girl--wrote to him in Cordova, "I hope Poste-Restante is a +nice place, and that you are very comfortable." Woman again! I +have in my time told some stories which are (I hate false modesty) +both true and lovely. Yet no little girl ever wrote to me in +kindly terms. And why? Simply because I am not enough of a +Vagabond. The dear despots of the fireside have a weakness for +lawless characters. This is amiable, but does not seem rational. + +Being Quixotic, Mr. Luffmann is no Impressionist. He is far too +earnest in his heart, and not half sufficiently precise in his +style to be that. But he is an excellent narrator. More than any +Vagabond I have ever met, he knows what he is about. There is not +one of his quiet days which is dull. You will find in them a love- +story not made up, the COUP-DE-FOUDRE, the lightning-stroke of +Spanish love; and you will marvel how a spell so sudden and +vehement can be at the same time so tragically delicate. You will +find there landladies devoured with jealousy, astute housekeepers, +delightful boys, wise peasants, touchy shopkeepers, all the COSAS +DE ESPANA--and, in addition, the pale girl Rosario. I recommend +that pathetic and silent victim of fate to your benevolent +compassion. You will find in his pages the humours of starving +workers of the soil, the vision among the mountains of an exulting +mad spirit in a mighty body, and many other visions worthy of +attention. And they are exact visions, for this idealist is no +visionary. He is in sympathy with suffering mankind, and has a +grasp on real human affairs. I mean the great and pitiful affairs +concerned with bread, love, and the obscure, unexpressed needs +which drive great crowds to prayer in the holy places of the earth. + +But I like his conception of what a "quiet" life is like! His +quiet days require no fewer than forty-two of the forty-nine +provinces of Spain to take their ease in. For his unquiet days, I +presume, the seven--or is it nine?--crystal spheres of Alexandrian +cosmogony would afford, but a wretchedly straitened space. A most +unconventional thing is his notion of quietness. One would take it +as a joke; only that, perchance, to the author of QUIET DAYS IN +SPAIN all days may seem quiet, because, a courageous convert, he is +now at peace with himself. + +How better can we take leave of this interesting Vagabond than with +the road salutation of passing wayfarers: "And on you be peace! . +. . You have chosen your ideal, and it is a good choice. There's +nothing like giving up one's life to an unselfish passion. Let the +rich and the powerful of this globe preach their sound gospel of +palpable progress. The part of the ideal you embrace is the better +one, if only in its illusions. No great passion can be barren. +May a world of gracious and poignant images attend the lofty +solitude of your renunciation!" + + + +THE LIFE BEYOND--1910 + + + +You have no doubt noticed that certain books produce a sort of +physical effect on one--mostly an audible effect. I am not +alluding here to Blue books or to books of statistics. The effect +of these is simply exasperating and no more. No! the books I have +in mind are just the common books of commerce you and I read when +we have five minutes to spare, the usual hired books published by +ordinary publishers, printed by ordinary printers, and censored +(when they happen to be novels) by the usual circulating libraries, +the guardians of our firesides, whose names are household words +within the four seas. + +To see the fair and the brave of this free country surrendering +themselves with unbounded trust to the direction of the circulating +libraries is very touching. It is even, in a sense, a beautiful +spectacle, because, as you know, humility is a rare and fragrant +virtue; and what can be more humble than to surrender your morals +and your intellect to the judgment of one of your tradesmen? I +suppose that there are some very perfect people who allow the Army +and Navy Stores to censor their diet. So much merit, however, I +imagine, is not frequently met with here below. The flesh, alas! +is weak, and--from a certain point of view--so important! + +A superficial person might be rendered miserable by the simple +question: What would become of us if the circulating libraries +ceased to exist? It is a horrid and almost indelicate supposition, +but let us be brave and face the truth. On this earth of ours +nothing lasts. TOUT PASSE, TOUT CASSE, TOUT LASSE. Imagine the +utter wreck overtaking the morals of our beautiful country-houses +should the circulating libraries suddenly die! But pray do not +shudder. There is no occasion. + +Their spirit shall survive. I declare this from inward conviction, +and also from scientific information received lately. For observe: +the circulating libraries are human institutions. I beg you to +follow me closely. They are human institutions, and being human, +they are not animal, and, therefore, they are spiritual. Thus, any +man with enough money to take a shop, stock his shelves, and pay +for advertisements shall be able to evoke the pure and censorious +spectre of the circulating libraries whenever his own commercial +spirit moves him. + +For, and this is the information alluded to above, Science, having +in its infinite wanderings run up against various wonders and +mysteries, is apparently willing now to allow a spiritual quality +to man and, I conclude, to all his works as well. + +I do not know exactly what this "Science" may be; and I do not +think that anybody else knows; but that is the information stated +shortly. It is contained in a book reposing under my thoughtful +eyes. {5} I know it is not a censored book, because I can see for +myself that it is not a novel. The author, on his side, warns me +that it is not philosophy, that it is not metaphysics, that it is +not natural science. After this comprehensive warning, the +definition of the book becomes, you will admit, a pretty hard nut +to crack. + +But meantime let us return for a moment to my opening remark about +the physical effect of some common, hired books. A few of them +(not necessarily books of verse) are melodious; the music some +others make for you as you read has the disagreeable emphasis of a +barrel-organ; the tinkling-cymbals book (it was not written by a +humorist) I only met once. But there is infinite variety in the +noises books do make. I have now on my shelves a book apparently +of the most valuable kind which, before I have read half-a-dozen +lines, begins to make a noise like a buzz-saw. I am inconsolable; +I shall never, I fear, discover what it is all about, for the +buzzing covers the words, and at every try I am absolutely forced +to give it up ere the end of the page is reached. + +The book, however, which I have found so difficult to define, is by +no means noisy. As a mere piece of writing it may be described as +being breathless itself and taking the reader's breath away, not by +the magnitude of its message but by a sort of anxious volubility in +the delivery. The constantly elusive argument and the illustrative +quotations go on without a single reflective pause. For this +reason alone the reading of that work is a fatiguing process. + +The author himself (I use his own words) "suspects" that what he +has written "may be theology after all." It may be. It is not my +place either to allay or to confirm the author's suspicion of his +own work. But I will state its main thesis: "That science +regarded in the gross dictates the spirituality of man and strongly +implies a spiritual destiny for individual human beings." This +means: Existence after Death--that is, Immortality. + +To find out its value you must go to the book. But I will observe +here that an Immortality liable at any moment to betray itself +fatuously by the forcible incantations of Mr. Stead or Professor +Crookes is scarcely worth having. Can you imagine anything more +squalid than an Immortality at the beck and call of Eusapia +Palladino? That woman lives on the top floor of a Neapolitan +house, and gets our poor, pitiful, august dead, flesh of our flesh, +bone of our bone, spirit of our spirit, who have loved, suffered +and died, as we must love, suffer, and die--she gets them to beat +tambourines in a corner and protrude shadowy limbs through a +curtain. This is particularly horrible, because, if one had to put +one's faith in these things one could not even die safely from +disgust, as one would long to do. + +And to believe that these manifestations, which the author +evidently takes for modern miracles, will stay our tottering faith; +to believe that the new psychology has, only the other day, +discovered man to be a "spiritual mystery," is really carrying +humility towards that universal provider, Science, too far. + + +We moderns have complicated our old perplexities to the point of +absurdity; our perplexities older than religion itself. It is not +for nothing that for so many centuries the priest, mounting the +steps of the altar, murmurs, "Why art thou sad, my soul, and why +dost thou trouble me?" Since the day of Creation two veiled +figures, Doubt and Melancholy, are pacing endlessly in the sunshine +of the world. What humanity needs is not the promise of scientific +immortality, but compassionate pity in this life and infinite mercy +on the Day of Judgment. + +And, for the rest, during this transient hour of our pilgrimage, we +may well be content to repeat the Invocation of Sar Peladan. Sar +Peladan was an occultist, a seer, a modern magician. He believed +in astrology, in the spirits of the air, in elves; he was +marvellously and deliciously absurd. Incidentally he wrote some +incomprehensible poems and a few pages of harmonious prose, for, +you must know, "a magician is nothing else but a great harmonist." +Here are some eight lines of the magnificent Invocation. Let me, +however, warn you, strictly between ourselves, that my translation +is execrable. I am sorry to say I am no magician. + +"O Nature, indulgent Mother, forgive! Open your arms to the son, +prodigal and weary. + +"I have attempted to tear asunder the veil you have hung to conceal +from us the pain of life, and I have been wounded by the mystery. . +. . OEdipus, half way to finding the word of the enigma, young +Faust, regretting already the simple life, the life of the heart, I +come back to you repentant, reconciled, O gentle deceiver!" + + + +THE ASCENDING EFFORT--1910 + + + +Much good paper has been lamentably wasted to prove that science +has destroyed, that it is destroying, or, some day, may destroy +poetry. Meantime, unblushing, unseen, and often unheard, the +guileless poets have gone on singing in a sweet strain. How they +dare do the impossible and virtually forbidden thing is a cause for +wonder but not for legislation. Not yet. We are at present too +busy reforming the silent burglar and planning concerts to soothe +the savage breast of the yelling hooligan. As somebody--perhaps a +publisher--said lately: "Poetry is of no account now-a-days." + +But it is not totally neglected. Those persons with gold-rimmed +spectacles whose usual occupation is to spy upon the obvious have +remarked audibly (on several occasions) that poetry has so far not +given to science any acknowledgment worthy of its distinguished +position in the popular mind. Except that Tennyson looked down the +throat of a foxglove, that Erasmus Darwin wrote THE LOVES OF THE +PLANTS and a scoffer THE LOVES OF THE TRIANGLES, poets have been +supposed to be indecorously blind to the progress of science. What +tribute, for instance, has poetry paid to electricity? All I can +remember on the spur of the moment is Mr. Arthur Symons' line about +arc lamps: "Hung with the globes of some unnatural fruit." + +Commerce and Manufacture praise on every hand in their not mute but +inarticulate way the glories of science. Poetry does not play its +part. Behold John Keats, skilful with the surgeon's knife; but +when he writes poetry his inspiration is not from the operating +table. Here I am reminded, though, of a modern instance to the +contrary in prose. Mr. H. G. Wells, who, as far as I know, has +never written a line of verse, was inspired a few years ago to +write a short story, UNDER THE KNIFE. Out of a clock-dial, a brass +rod, and a whiff of chloroform, he has conjured for us a sensation +of space and eternity, evoked the face of the Unknowable, and an +awesome, august voice, like the voice of the Judgment Day; a great +voice, perhaps the voice of science itself, uttering the words: +"There shall be no more pain!" I advise you to look up that story, +so human and so intimate, because Mr. Wells, the writer of prose +whose amazing inventiveness we all know, remains a poet even in his +most perverse moments of scorn for things as they are. His poetic +imagination is sometimes even greater than his inventiveness, I am +not afraid to say. But, indeed, imaginative faculty would make any +man a poet--were he born without tongue for speech and without +hands to seize his fancy and fasten her down to a wretched piece of +paper. + + +The book {6} which in the course of the last few days I have opened +and shut several times is not imaginative. But, on the other hand, +it is not a dumb book, as some are. It has even a sort of sober +and serious eloquence, reminding us that not poetry alone is at +fault in this matter. Mr. Bourne begins his ASCENDING EFFORT with +a remark by Sir Francis Galton upon Eugenics that "if the +principles he was advocating were to become effective they must be +introduced into the national conscience, like a new religion." +"Introduced" suggests compulsory vaccination. Mr. Bourne, who is +not a theologian, wishes to league together not science and +religion, but science and the arts. "The intoxicating power of +art," he thinks, is the very thing needed to give the desired +effect to the doctrines of science. In uninspired phrase he points +to the arts playing once upon a time a part in "popularising the +Christian tenets." With painstaking fervour as great as the +fervour of prophets, but not so persuasive, he foresees the arts +some day popularising science. Until that day dawns, science will +continue to be lame and poetry blind. He himself cannot smooth or +even point out the way, though he thinks that "a really prudent +people would be greedy of beauty," and their public authorities "as +careful of the sense of comfort as of sanitation." + +As the writer of those remarkable rustic notebooks, THE BETTESWORTH +BOOK and MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER, the author has a claim upon +our attention. But his seriousness, his patience, his almost +touching sincerity, can only command the respect of his readers and +nothing more. He is obsessed by science, haunted and shadowed by +it, until he has been bewildered into awe. He knows, indeed, that +art owes its triumphs and its subtle influence to the fact that it +issues straight from our organic vitality, and is a movement of +life-cells with their matchless unintellectual knowledge. But the +fact that poetry does not seem obviously in love with science has +never made him doubt whether it may not be an argument against his +haste to see the marriage ceremony performed amid public +rejoicings. + +Many a man has heard or read and believes that the earth goes round +the sun; one small blob of mud among several others, spinning +ridiculously with a waggling motion like a top about to fall. This +is the Copernican system, and the man believes in the system +without often knowing as much about it as its name. But while +watching a sunset he sheds his belief; he sees the sun as a small +and useful object, the servant of his needs and the witness of his +ascending effort, sinking slowly behind a range of mountains, and +then he holds the system of Ptolemy. He holds it without knowing +it. In the same way a poet hears, reads, and believes a thousand +undeniable truths which have not yet got into his blood, nor will +do after reading Mr. Bourne's book; he writes, therefore, as if +neither truths nor book existed. Life and the arts follow dark +courses, and will not turn aside to the brilliant arc-lights of +science. Some day, without a doubt,--and it may be a consolation +to Mr. Bourne to know it--fully informed critics will point out +that Mr. Davies's poem on a dark woman combing her hair must have +been written after the invasion of appendicitis, and that Mr. +Yeats's "Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths" came before radium +was quite unnecessarily dragged out of its respectable obscurity in +pitchblende to upset the venerable (and comparatively naive) +chemistry of our young days. + +There are times when the tyranny of science and the cant of science +are alarming, but there are other times when they are entertaining- +-and this is one of them. "Many a man prides himself" says Mr. +Bourne, "on his piety or his views of art, whose whole range of +ideas, could they be investigated, would be found ordinary, if not +base, because they have been adopted in compliance with some +external persuasion or to serve some timid purpose instead of +proceeding authoritatively from the living selection of his +hereditary taste." This extract is a fair sample of the book's +thought and of its style. But Mr. Bourne seems to forget that +"persuasion" is a vain thing. The appreciation of great art comes +from within. + +It is but the merest justice to say that the transparent honesty of +Mr. Bourne's purpose is undeniable. But the whole book is simply +an earnest expression of a pious wish; and, like the generality of +pious wishes, this one seems of little dynamic value--besides being +impracticable. + +Yes, indeed. Art has served Religion; artists have found the most +exalted inspiration in Christianity; but the light of +Transfiguration which has illuminated the profoundest mysteries of +our sinful souls is not the light of the generating stations, which +exposes the depths of our infatuation where our mere cleverness is +permitted for a while to grope for the unessential among invincible +shadows. + + + +THE CENSOR OF PLAYS--AN APPRECIATION--1907 + + + +A couple of years ago I was moved to write a one-act play--and I +lived long enough to accomplish the task. We live and learn. When +the play was finished I was informed that it had to be licensed for +performance. Thus I learned of the existence of the Censor of +Plays. I may say without vanity that I am intelligent enough to +have been astonished by that piece of information: for facts must +stand in some relation to time and space, and I was aware of being +in England--in the twentieth-century England. The fact did not fit +the date and the place. That was my first thought. It was, in +short, an improper fact. I beg you to believe that I am writing in +all seriousness and am weighing my words scrupulously. + +Therefore I don't say inappropriate. I say improper--that is: +something to be ashamed of. And at first this impression was +confirmed by the obscurity in which the figure embodying this after +all considerable fact had its being. The Censor of Plays! His +name was not in the mouths of all men. Far from it. He seemed +stealthy and remote. There was about that figure the scent of the +far East, like the peculiar atmosphere of a Mandarin's back yard, +and the mustiness of the Middle Ages, that epoch when mankind tried +to stand still in a monstrous illusion of final certitude attained +in morals, intellect and conscience. + +It was a disagreeable impression. But I reflected that probably +the censorship of plays was an inactive monstrosity; not exactly a +survival, since it seemed obviously at variance with the genius of +the people, but an heirloom of past ages, a bizarre and imported +curiosity preserved because of that weakness one has for one's old +possessions apart from any intrinsic value; one more object of +exotic VIRTU, an Oriental POTICHE, a MAGOT CHINOIS conceived by a +childish and extravagant imagination, but allowed to stand in +stolid impotence in the twilight of the upper shelf. + +Thus I quieted my uneasy mind. Its uneasiness had nothing to do +with the fate of my one-act play. The play was duly produced, and +an exceptionally intelligent audience stared it coldly off the +boards. It ceased to exist. It was a fair and open execution. +But having survived the freezing atmosphere of that auditorium I +continued to exist, labouring under no sense of wrong. I was not +pleased, but I was content. I was content to accept the verdict of +a free and independent public, judging after its conscience the +work of its free, independent and conscientious servant--the +artist. + +Only thus can the dignity of artistic servitude be preserved--not +to speak of the bare existence of the artist and the self-respect +of the man. I shall say nothing of the self-respect of the public. +To the self-respect of the public the present appeal against the +censorship is being made and I join in it with all my heart. + +For I have lived long enough to learn that the monstrous and +outlandish figure, the MAGOT CHINOIS whom I believed to be but a +memorial of our forefathers' mental aberration, that grotesque +POTICHE, works! The absurd and hollow creature of clay seems to be +alive with a sort of (surely) unconscious life worthy of its +traditions. It heaves its stomach, it rolls its eyes, it +brandishes a monstrous arm: and with the censorship, like a Bravo +of old Venice with a more carnal weapon, stabs its victim from +behind in the twilight of its upper shelf. Less picturesque than +the Venetian in cloak and mask, less estimable, too, in this, that +the assassin plied his moral trade at his own risk deriving no +countenance from the powers of the Republic, it stands more +malevolent, inasmuch that the Bravo striking in the dusk killed but +the body, whereas the grotesque thing nodding its mandarin head may +in its absurd unconsciousness strike down at any time the spirit of +an honest, of an artistic, perhaps of a sublime creation. + +This Chinese monstrosity, disguised in the trousers of the Western +Barbarian and provided by the State with the immortal Mr. +Stiggins's plug hat and umbrella, is with us. It is an office. An +office of trust. And from time to time there is found an official +to fill it. He is a public man. The least prominent of public +men, the most unobtrusive, the most obscure if not the most modest. + +But however obscure, a public man may be told the truth if only +once in his life. His office flourishes in the shade; not in the +rustic shade beloved of the violet but in the muddled twilight of +mind, where tyranny of every sort flourishes. Its holder need not +have either brain or heart, no sight, no taste, no imagination, not +even bowels of compassion. He needs not these things. He has +power. He can kill thought, and incidentally truth, and +incidentally beauty, providing they seek to live in a dramatic +form. He can do it, without seeing, without understanding, without +feeling anything; out of mere stupid suspicion, as an irresponsible +Roman Caesar could kill a senator. He can do that and there is no +one to say him nay. He may call his cook (Moliere used to do that) +from below and give her five acts to judge every morning as a +matter of constant practice and still remain the unquestioned +destroyer of men's honest work. He may have a glass too much. +This accident has happened to persons of unimpeachable morality--to +gentlemen. He may suffer from spells of imbecility like Clodius. +He may . . . what might he not do! I tell you he is the Caesar of +the dramatic world. There has been since the Roman Principate +nothing in the way of irresponsible power to compare with the +office of the Censor of Plays. + +Looked at in this way it has some grandeur, something colossal in +the odious and the absurd. This figure in whose power it is to +suppress an intellectual conception--to kill thought (a dream for a +mad brain, my masters!)--seems designed in a spirit of bitter +comedy to bring out the greatness of a Philistine's conceit and his +moral cowardice. + +But this is England in the twentieth century, and one wonders that +there can be found a man courageous enough to occupy the post. It +is a matter for meditation. Having given it a few minutes I come +to the conclusion in the serenity of my heart and the peace of my +conscience that he must be either an extreme megalomaniac or an +utterly unconscious being. + +He must be unconscious. It is one of the qualifications for his +magistracy. Other qualifications are equally easy. He must have +done nothing, expressed nothing, imagined nothing. He must be +obscure, insignificant and mediocre--in thought, act, speech and +sympathy. He must know nothing of art, of life--and of himself. +For if he did he would not dare to be what he is. Like that much +questioned and mysterious bird, the phoenix, he sits amongst the +cold ashes of his predecessor upon the altar of morality, alone of +his kind in the sight of wondering generations. + +And I will end with a quotation reproducing not perhaps the exact +words but the true spirit of a lofty conscience. + +"Often when sitting down to write the notice of a play, especially +when I felt it antagonistic to my canons of art, to my tastes or my +convictions, I hesitated in the fear lest my conscientious blame +might check the development of a great talent, my sincere judgment +condemn a worthy mind. With the pen poised in my hand I hesitated, +whispering to myself 'What if I were perchance doing my part in +killing a masterpiece.'" + +Such were the lofty scruples of M. Jules Lemaitre--dramatist and +dramatic critic, a great citizen and a high magistrate in the +Republic of Letters; a Censor of Plays exercising his august office +openly in the light of day, with the authority of a European +reputation. But then M. Jules Lemaitre is a man possessed of +wisdom, of great fame, of a fine conscience--not an obscure hollow +Chinese monstrosity ornamented with Mr. Stiggins's plug hat and +cotton umbrella by its anxious grandmother--the State. + +Frankly, is it not time to knock the improper object off its shelf? +It has stood too long there. Hatched in Pekin (I should say) by +some Board of Respectable Rites, the little caravan monster has +come to us by way of Moscow--I suppose. It is outlandish. It is +not venerable. It does not belong here. Is it not time to knock +it off its dark shelf with some implement appropriate to its worth +and status? With an old broom handle for instance. + + + + +PART II--LIFE + + + + +AUTOCRACY AND WAR--1905 + + + +From the firing of the first shot on the banks of the Sha-ho, the +fate of the great battle of the Russo-Japanese war hung in the +balance for more than a fortnight. The famous three-day battles, +for which history has reserved the recognition of special pages, +sink into insignificance before the struggles in Manchuria engaging +half a million men on fronts of sixty miles, struggles lasting for +weeks, flaming up fiercely and dying away from sheer exhaustion, to +flame up again in desperate persistence, and end--as we have seen +them end more than once--not from the victor obtaining a crushing +advantage, but through the mortal weariness of the combatants. + +We have seen these things, though we have seen them only in the +cold, silent, colourless print of books and newspapers. In +stigmatising the printed word as cold, silent and colourless, I +have no intention of putting a slight upon the fidelity and the +talents of men who have provided us with words to read about the +battles in Manchuria. I only wished to suggest that in the nature +of things, the war in the Far East has been made known to us, so +far, in a grey reflection of its terrible and monotonous phases of +pain, death, sickness; a reflection seen in the perspective of +thousands of miles, in the dim atmosphere of official reticence, +through the veil of inadequate words. Inadequate, I say, because +what had to be reproduced is beyond the common experience of war, +and our imagination, luckily for our peace of mind, has remained a +slumbering faculty, notwithstanding the din of humanitarian talk +and the real progress of humanitarian ideas. Direct vision of the +fact, or the stimulus of a great art, can alone make it turn and +open its eyes heavy with blessed sleep; and even there, as against +the testimony of the senses and the stirring up of emotion, that +saving callousness which reconciles us to the conditions of our +existence, will assert itself under the guise of assent to fatal +necessity, or in the enthusiasm of a purely aesthetic admiration of +the rendering. In this age of knowledge our sympathetic +imagination, to which alone we can look for the ultimate triumph of +concord and justice, remains strangely impervious to information, +however correctly and even picturesquely conveyed. As to the +vaunted eloquence of a serried array of figures, it has all the +futility of precision without force. It is the exploded +superstition of enthusiastic statisticians. An over-worked horse +falling in front of our windows, a man writhing under a cart-wheel +in the streets awaken more genuine emotion, more horror, pity, and +indignation than the stream of reports, appalling in their +monotony, of tens of thousands of decaying bodies tainting the air +of the Manchurian plains, of other tens of thousands of maimed +bodies groaning in ditches, crawling on the frozen ground, filling +the field hospitals; of the hundreds of thousands of survivors no +less pathetic and even more tragic in being left alive by fate to +the wretched exhaustion of their pitiful toil. + +An early Victorian, or perhaps a pre-Victorian, sentimentalist, +looking out of an upstairs window, I believe, at a street--perhaps +Fleet Street itself--full of people, is reported, by an admiring +friend, to have wept for joy at seeing so much life. These +arcadian tears, this facile emotion worthy of the golden age, comes +to us from the past, with solemn approval, after the close of the +Napoleonic wars and before the series of sanguinary surprises held +in reserve by the nineteenth century for our hopeful grandfathers. +We may well envy them their optimism of which this anecdote of an +amiable wit and sentimentalist presents an extreme instance, but +still, a true instance, and worthy of regard in the spontaneous +testimony to that trust in the life of the earth, triumphant at +last in the felicity of her children. Moreover, the psychology of +individuals, even in the most extreme instances, reflects the +general effect of the fears and hopes of its time. Wept for joy! +I should think that now, after eighty years, the emotion would be +of a sterner sort. One could not imagine anybody shedding tears of +joy at the sight of much life in a street, unless, perhaps, he were +an enthusiastic officer of a general staff or a popular politician, +with a career yet to make. And hardly even that. In the case of +the first tears would be unprofessional, and a stern repression of +all signs of joy at the provision of so much food for powder more +in accord with the rules of prudence; the joy of the second would +be checked before it found issue in weeping by anxious doubts as to +the soundness of these electors' views upon the question of the +hour, and the fear of missing the consensus of their votes. + +No! It seems that such a tender joy would be misplaced now as much +as ever during the last hundred years, to go no further back. The +end of the eighteenth century was, too, a time of optimism and of +dismal mediocrity in which the French Revolution exploded like a +bomb-shell. In its lurid blaze the insufficiency of Europe, the +inferiority of minds, of military and administrative systems, stood +exposed with pitiless vividness. And there is but little courage +in saying at this time of the day that the glorified French +Revolution itself, except for its destructive force, was in +essentials a mediocre phenomenon. The parentage of that great +social and political upheaval was intellectual, the idea was +elevated; but it is the bitter fate of any idea to lose its royal +form and power, to lose its "virtue" the moment it descends from +its solitary throne to work its will among the people. It is a +king whose destiny is never to know the obedience of his subjects +except at the cost of degradation. The degradation of the ideas of +freedom and justice at the root of the French Revolution is made +manifest in the person of its heir; a personality without law or +faith, whom it has been the fashion to represent as an eagle, but +who was, in truth, more like a sort of vulture preying upon the +body of a Europe which did, indeed, for some dozen of years, very +much resemble a corpse. The subtle and manifold influence for evil +of the Napoleonic episode as a school of violence, as a sower of +national hatreds, as the direct provocator of obscurantism and +reaction, of political tyranny and injustice, cannot well be +exaggerated. + +The nineteenth century began with wars which were the issue of a +corrupted revolution. It may be said that the twentieth begins +with a war which is like the explosive ferment of a moral grave, +whence may yet emerge a new political organism to take the place of +a gigantic and dreaded phantom. For a hundred years the ghost of +Russian might, overshadowing with its fantastic bulk the councils +of Central and Western Europe, sat upon the gravestone of +autocracy, cutting off from air, from light, from all knowledge of +themselves and of the world, the buried millions of Russian people. +Not the most determined cockney sentimentalist could have had the +heart to weep for joy at the thought of its teeming numbers! And +yet they were living, they are alive yet, since, through the mist +of print, we have seen their blood freezing crimson upon the snow +of the squares and streets of St. Petersburg; since their +generations born in the grave are yet alive enough to fill the +ditches and cover the fields of Manchuria with their torn limbs; to +send up from the frozen ground of battlefields a chorus of groans +calling for vengeance from Heaven; to kill and retreat, or kill and +advance, without intermission or rest for twenty hours, for fifty +hours, for whole weeks of fatigue, hunger, cold, and murder--till +their ghastly labour, worthy of a place amongst the punishments of +Dante's Inferno, passing through the stages of courage, of fury, of +hopelessness, sinks into the night of crazy despair. + +It seems that in both armies many men are driven beyond the bounds +of sanity by the stress of moral and physical misery. Great +numbers of soldiers and regimental officers go mad as if by way of +protest against the peculiar sanity of a state of war: mostly +among the Russians, of course. The Japanese have in their favour +the tonic effect of success; and the innate gentleness of their +character stands them in good stead. But the Japanese grand army +has yet another advantage in this nerve-destroying contest, which +for endless, arduous toil of killing surpasses all the wars of +history. It has a base for its operations; a base of a nature +beyond the concern of the many books written upon the so-called art +of war, which, considered by itself, purely as an exercise of human +ingenuity, is at best only a thing of well-worn, simple artifices. +The Japanese army has for its base a reasoned conviction; it has +behind it the profound belief in the right of a logical necessity +to be appeased at the cost of so much blood and treasure. And in +that belief, whether well or ill founded, that army stands on the +high ground of conscious assent, shouldering deliberately the +burden of a long-tried faithfulness. The other people (since each +people is an army nowadays), torn out from a miserable quietude +resembling death itself, hurled across space, amazed, without +starting-point of its own or knowledge of the aim, can feel nothing +but a horror-stricken consciousness of having mysteriously become +the plaything of a black and merciless fate. + +The profound, the instructive nature of this war is resumed by the +memorable difference in the spiritual state of the two armies; the +one forlorn and dazed on being driven out from an abyss of mental +darkness into the red light of a conflagration, the other with a +full knowledge of its past and its future, "finding itself" as it +were at every step of the trying war before the eyes of an +astonished world. The greatness of the lesson has been dwarfed for +most of us by an often half-conscious prejudice of race-difference. +The West having managed to lodge its hasty foot on the neck of the +East, is prone to forget that it is from the East that the wonders +of patience and wisdom have come to a world of men who set the +value of life in the power to act rather than in the faculty of +meditation. It has been dwarfed by this, and it has been obscured +by a cloud of considerations with whose shaping wisdom and +meditation had little or nothing to do; by the weary platitudes on +the military situation which (apart from geographical conditions) +is the same everlasting situation that has prevailed since the +times of Hannibal and Scipio, and further back yet, since the +beginning of historical record--since prehistoric times, for that +matter; by the conventional expressions of horror at the tale of +maiming and killing; by the rumours of peace with guesses more or +less plausible as to its conditions. All this is made legitimate +by the consecrated custom of writers in such time as this--the time +of a great war. More legitimate in view of the situation created +in Europe are the speculations as to the course of events after the +war. More legitimate, but hardly more wise than the irresponsible +talk of strategy that never changes, and of terms of peace that do +not matter. + +And above it all--unaccountably persistent--the decrepit, old, +hundred years old, spectre of Russia's might still faces Europe +from across the teeming graves of Russian people. This dreaded and +strange apparition, bristling with bayonets, armed with chains, +hung over with holy images; that something not of this world, +partaking of a ravenous ghoul, of a blind Djinn grown up from a +cloud, and of the Old Man of the Sea, still faces us with its old +stupidity, with its strange mystical arrogance, stamping its +shadowy feet upon the gravestone of autocracy already cracked +beyond repair by the torpedoes of Togo and the guns of Oyama, +already heaving in the blood-soaked ground with the first stirrings +of a resurrection. + +Never before had the Western world the opportunity to look so deep +into the black abyss which separates a soulless autocracy posing +as, and even believing itself to be, the arbiter of Europe, from +the benighted, starved souls of its people. This is the real +object-lesson of this war, its unforgettable information. And this +war's true mission, disengaged from the economic origins of that +contest, from doors open or shut, from the fields of Korea for +Russian wheat or Japanese rice, from the ownership of ice-free +ports and the command of the waters of the East--its true mission +was to lay a ghost. It has accomplished it. Whether Kuropatkin +was incapable or unlucky, whether or not Russia issuing next year, +or the year after next, from behind a rampart of piled-up corpses +will win or lose a fresh campaign, are minor considerations. The +task of Japan is done, the mission accomplished; the ghost of +Russia's might is laid. Only Europe, accustomed so long to the +presence of that portent, seems unable to comprehend that, as in +the fables of our childhood, the twelve strokes of the hour have +rung, the cock has crowed, the apparition has vanished--never to +haunt again this world which has been used to gaze at it with vague +dread and many misgivings. + +It was a fascination. And the hallucination still lasts as +inexplicable in its persistence as in its duration. It seems so +unaccountable, that the doubt arises as to the sincerity of all +that talk as to what Russia will or will not do, whether it will +raise or not another army, whether it will bury the Japanese in +Manchuria under seventy millions of sacrificed peasants' caps (as +her Press boasted a little more than a year ago) or give up to +Japan that jewel of her crown, Saghalien, together with some other +things; whether, perchance, as an interesting alternative, it will +make peace on the Amur in order to make war beyond the Oxus. + +All these speculations (with many others) have appeared gravely in +print; and if they have been gravely considered by only one reader +out of each hundred, there must be something subtly noxious to the +human brain in the composition of newspaper ink; or else it is that +the large page, the columns of words, the leaded headings, exalt +the mind into a state of feverish credulity. The printed page of +the Press makes a sort of still uproar, taking from men both the +power to reflect and the faculty of genuine feeling; leaving them +only the artificially created need of having something exciting to +talk about. + +The truth is that the Russia of our fathers, of our childhood, of +our middle-age; the testamentary Russia of Peter the Great--who +imagined that all the nations were delivered into the hand of +Tsardom--can do nothing. It can do nothing because it does not +exist. It has vanished for ever at last, and as yet there is no +new Russia to take the place of that ill-omened creation, which, +being a fantasy of a madman's brain, could in reality be nothing +else than a figure out of a nightmare seated upon a monument of +fear and oppression. + +The true greatness of a State does not spring from such a +contemptible source. It is a matter of logical growth, of faith +and courage. Its inspiration springs from the constructive +instinct of the people, governed by the strong hand of a collective +conscience and voiced in the wisdom and counsel of men who seldom +reap the reward of gratitude. Many States have been powerful, but, +perhaps, none have been truly great--as yet. That the position of +a State in reference to the moral methods of its development can be +seen only historically, is true. Perhaps mankind has not lived +long enough for a comprehensive view of any particular case. +Perhaps no one will ever live long enough; and perhaps this earth +shared out amongst our clashing ambitions by the anxious +arrangements of statesmen will come to an end before we attain the +felicity of greeting with unanimous applause the perfect fruition +of a great State. It is even possible that we are destined for +another sort of bliss altogether: that sort which consists in +being perpetually duped by false appearances. But whatever +political illusion the future may hold out to our fear or our +admiration, there will be none, it is safe to say, which in the +magnitude of anti-humanitarian effect will equal that phantom now +driven out of the world by the thunder of thousands of guns; none +that in its retreat will cling with an equally shameless sincerity +to more unworthy supports: to the moral corruption and mental +darkness of slavery, to the mere brute force of numbers. + +This very ignominy of infatuation should make clear to men's +feelings and reason that the downfall of Russia's might is +unavoidable. Spectral it lived and spectral it disappears without +leaving a memory of a single generous deed, of a single service +rendered--even involuntarily--to the polity of nations. Other +despotisms there have been, but none whose origin was so grimly +fantastic in its baseness, and the beginning of whose end was so +gruesomely ignoble. What is amazing is the myth of its +irresistible strength which is dying so hard. + + +Considered historically, Russia's influence in Europe seems the +most baseless thing in the world; a sort of convention invented by +diplomatists for some dark purpose of their own, one would suspect, +if the lack of grasp upon the realities of any given situation were +not the main characteristic of the management of international +relations. A glance back at the last hundred years shows the +invariable, one may say the logical, powerlessness of Russia. As a +military power it has never achieved by itself a single great +thing. It has been indeed able to repel an ill-considered +invasion, but only by having recourse to the extreme methods of +desperation. In its attacks upon its specially selected victim +this giant always struck as if with a withered right hand. All the +campaigns against Turkey prove this, from Potemkin's time to the +last Eastern war in 1878, entered upon with every advantage of a +well-nursed prestige and a carefully fostered fanaticism. Even the +half-armed were always too much for the might of Russia, or, +rather, of the Tsardom. It was victorious only against the +practically disarmed, as, in regard to its ideal of territorial +expansion, a glance at a map will prove sufficiently. As an ally, +Russia has been always unprofitable, taking her share in the +defeats rather than in the victories of her friends, but always +pushing her own claims with the arrogance of an arbiter of military +success. She has been unable to help to any purpose a single +principle to hold its own, not even the principle of authority and +legitimism which Nicholas the First had declared so haughtily to +rest under his special protection; just as Nicholas the Second has +tried to make the maintenance of peace on earth his own exclusive +affair. And the first Nicholas was a good Russian; he held the +belief in the sacredness of his realm with such an intensity of +faith that he could not survive the first shock of doubt. Rightly +envisaged, the Crimean war was the end of what remained of +absolutism and legitimism in Europe. It threw the way open for the +liberation of Italy. The war in Manchuria makes an end of +absolutism in Russia, whoever has got to perish from the shock +behind a rampart of dead ukases, manifestoes, and rescripts. In +the space of fifty years the self-appointed Apostle of Absolutism +and the self-appointed Apostle of Peace, the Augustus and the +Augustulus of the REGIME that was wont to speak contemptuously to +European Foreign Offices in the beautiful French phrases of Prince +Gorchakov, have fallen victims, each after his kind, to their +shadowy and dreadful familiar, to the phantom, part ghoul, part +Djinn, part Old Man of the Sea, with beak and claws and a double +head, looking greedily both east and west on the confines of two +continents. + +That nobody through all that time penetrated the true nature of the +monster it is impossible to believe. But of the many who must have +seen, all were either too modest, too cautious, perhaps too +discreet, to speak; or else were too insignificant to be heard or +believed. Yet not all. + +In the very early sixties, Prince Bismarck, then about to leave his +post of Prussian Minister in St. Petersburg, called--so the story +goes--upon another distinguished diplomatist. After some talk upon +the general situation, the future Chancellor of the German Empire +remarked that it was his practice to resume the impressions he had +carried out of every country where he had made a long stay, in a +short sentence, which he caused to be engraved upon some trinket. +"I am leaving this country now, and this is what I bring away from +it," he continued, taking off his finger a new ring to show to his +colleague the inscription inside: "La Russie, c'est le neant." + +Prince Bismarck had the truth of the matter and was neither too +modest nor too discreet to speak out. Certainly he was not afraid +of not being believed. Yet he did not shout his knowledge from the +house-tops. He meant to have the phantom as his accomplice in an +enterprise which has set the clock of peace back for many a year. + +He had his way. The German Empire has been an accomplished fact +for more than a third of a century--a great and dreadful legacy +left to the world by the ill-omened phantom of Russia's might. + +It is that phantom which is disappearing now--unexpectedly, +astonishingly, as if by a touch of that wonderful magic for which +the East has always been famous. The pretence of belief in its +existence will no longer answer anybody's purposes (now Prince +Bismarck is dead) unless the purposes of the writers of sensational +paragraphs as to this NEANT making an armed descent upon the plains +of India. That sort of folly would be beneath notice if it did not +distract attention from the real problem created for Europe by a +war in the Far East. + +For good or evil in the working out of her destiny, Russia is bound +to remain a NEANT for many long years, in a more even than a +Bismarckian sense. The very fear of this spectre being gone, it +behoves us to consider its legacy--the fact (no phantom that) +accomplished in Central Europe by its help and connivance. + +The German Empire may feel at bottom the loss of an old accomplice +always amenable to the confidential whispers of a bargain; but in +the first instance it cannot but rejoice at the fundamental +weakening of a possible obstacle to its instincts of territorial +expansion. There is a removal of that latent feeling of restraint +which the presence of a powerful neighbour, however implicated with +you in a sense of common guilt, is bound to inspire. The common +guilt of the two Empires is defined precisely by their frontier +line running through the Polish provinces. Without indulging in +excessive feelings of indignation at that country's partition, or +going so far as to believe--with a late French politician--in the +"immanente justice des choses," it is clear that a material +situation, based upon an essentially immoral transaction, contains +the germ of fatal differences in the temperament of the two +partners in iniquity--whatever the iniquity is. Germany has been +the evil counsellor of Russia on all the questions of her Polish +problem. Always urging the adoption of the most repressive +measures with a perfectly logical duplicity, Prince Bismarck's +Empire has taken care to couple the neighbourly offers of military +assistance with merciless advice. The thought of the Polish +provinces accepting a frank reconciliation with a humanised Russia +and bringing the weight of homogeneous loyalty within a few miles +of Berlin, has been always intensely distasteful to the arrogant +Germanising tendencies of the other partner in iniquity. And, +besides, the way to the Baltic provinces leads over the Niemen and +over the Vistula. + +And now, when there is a possibility of serious internal +disturbances destroying the sort of order autocracy has kept in +Russia, the road over these rivers is seen wearing a more inviting +aspect. At any moment the pretext of armed intervention may be +found in a revolutionary outbreak provoked by Socialists, perhaps-- +but at any rate by the political immaturity of the enlightened +classes and by the political barbarism of the Russian people. The +throes of Russian resurrection will be long and painful. This is +not the place to speculate upon the nature of these convulsions, +but there must be some violent break-up of the lamentable +tradition, a shattering of the social, of the administrative-- +certainly of the territorial--unity. + +Voices have been heard saying that the time for reforms in Russia +is already past. This is the superficial view of the more profound +truth that for Russia there has never been such a time within the +memory of mankind. It is impossible to initiate a rational scheme +of reform upon a phase of blind absolutism; and in Russia there has +never been anything else to which the faintest tradition could, +after ages of error, go back as to a parting of ways. + +In Europe the old monarchical principle stands justified in its +historical struggle with the growth of political liberty by the +evolution of the idea of nationality as we see it concreted at the +present time; by the inception of that wider solidarity grouping +together around the standard of monarchical power these larger, +agglomerations of mankind. This service of unification, creating +close-knit communities possessing the ability, the will, and the +power to pursue a common ideal, has prepared the ground for the +advent of a still larger understanding: for the solidarity of +Europeanism, which must be the next step towards the advent of +Concord and Justice; an advent that, however delayed by the fatal +worship of force and the errors of national selfishness, has been, +and remains, the only possible goal of our progress. + +The conceptions of legality, of larger patriotism, of national +duties and aspirations have grown under the shadow of the old +monarchies of Europe, which were the creations of historical +necessity. There were seeds of wisdom in their very mistakes and +abuses. They had a past and a future; they were human. But under +the shadow of Russian autocracy nothing could grow. Russian +autocracy succeeded to nothing; it had no historical past, and it +cannot hope for a historical future. It can only end. By no +industry of investigation, by no fantastic stretch of benevolence, +can it be presented as a phase of development through which a +Society, a State, must pass on the way to the full consciousness of +its destiny. It lies outside the stream of progress. This +despotism has been utterly un-European. Neither has it been +Asiatic in its nature. Oriental despotisms belong to the history +of mankind; they have left their trace on our minds and our +imagination by their splendour, by their culture, by their art, by +the exploits of great conquerors. The record of their rise and +decay has an intellectual value; they are in their origins and +their course the manifestations of human needs, the instruments of +racial temperament, of catastrophic force, of faith and fanaticism. +The Russian autocracy as we see it now is a thing apart. It is +impossible to assign to it any rational origin in the vices, the +misfortunes, the necessities, or the aspirations of mankind. That +despotism has neither an European nor an Oriental parentage; more, +it seems to have no root either in the institutions or the follies +of this earth. What strikes one with a sort of awe is just this +something inhuman in its character. It is like a visitation, like +a curse from Heaven falling in the darkness of ages upon the +immense plains of forest and steppe lying dumbly on the confines of +two continents: a true desert harbouring no Spirit either of the +East or of the West. + +This pitiful fate of a country held by an evil spell, suffering +from an awful visitation for which the responsibility cannot be +traced either to her sins or her follies, has made Russia as a +nation so difficult to understand by Europe. From the very first +ghastly dawn of her existence as a State she had to breathe the +atmosphere of despotism; she found nothing but the arbitrary will +of an obscure autocrat at the beginning and end of her +organisation. Hence arises her impenetrability to whatever is true +in Western thought. Western thought, when it crosses her frontier, +falls under the spell of her autocracy and becomes a noxious parody +of itself. Hence the contradictions, the riddles of her national +life, which are looked upon with such curiosity by the rest of the +world. The curse had entered her very soul; autocracy, and nothing +else in the world, has moulded her institutions, and with the +poison of slavery drugged the national temperament into the apathy +of a hopeless fatalism. It seems to have gone into the blood, +tainting every mental activity in its source by a half-mystical, +insensate, fascinating assertion of purity and holiness. The +Government of Holy Russia, arrogating to itself the supreme power +to torment and slaughter the bodies of its subjects like a God-sent +scourge, has been most cruel to those whom it allowed to live under +the shadow of its dispensation. The worst crime against humanity +of that system we behold now crouching at bay behind vast heaps of +mangled corpses is the ruthless destruction of innumerable minds. +The greatest horror of the world--madness--walked faithfully in its +train. Some of the best intellects of Russia, after struggling in +vain against the spell, ended by throwing themselves at the feet of +that hopeless despotism as a giddy man leaps into an abyss. An +attentive survey of Russia's literature, of her Church, of her +administration and the cross-currents of her thought, must end in +the verdict that the Russia of to-day has not the right to give her +voice on a single question touching the future of humanity, because +from the very inception of her being the brutal destruction of +dignity, of truth, of rectitude, of all that is faithful in human +nature has been made the imperative condition of her existence. +The great governmental secret of that imperium which Prince +Bismarck had the insight and the courage to call LE NEANT, has been +the extirpation of every intellectual hope. To pronounce in the +face of such a past the word Evolution, which is precisely the +expression of the highest intellectual hope, is a gruesome +pleasantry. There can be no evolution out of a grave. Another +word of less scientific sound has been very much pronounced of late +in connection with Russia's future, a word of more vague import, a +word of dread as much as of hope--Revolution. + +In the face of the events of the last four months, this word has +sprung instinctively, as it were, on grave lips, and has been heard +with solemn forebodings. More or less consciously, Europe is +preparing herself for a spectacle of much violence and perhaps of +an inspiring nobility of greatness. And there will be nothing of +what she expects. She will see neither the anticipated character +of the violence, nor yet any signs of generous greatness. Her +expectations, more or less vaguely expressed, give the measure of +her ignorance of that NEANT which for so many years had remained +hidden behind this phantom of invincible armies. + +NEANT! In a way, yes! And yet perhaps Prince Bismarck has let +himself be led away by the seduction of a good phrase into the use +of an inexact form. The form of his judgment had to be pithy, +striking, engraved within a ring. If he erred, then, no doubt, he +erred deliberately. The saying was near enough the truth to serve, +and perhaps he did not want to destroy utterly by a more severe +definition the prestige of the sham that could not deceive his +genius. Prince Bismarck has been really complimentary to the +useful phantom of the autocratic might. There is an awe-inspiring +idea of infinity conveyed in the word NEANT--and in Russia there is +no idea. She is not a NEANT, she is and has been simply the +negation of everything worth living for. She is not an empty void, +she is a yawning chasm open between East and West; a bottomless +abyss that has swallowed up every hope of mercy, every aspiration +towards personal dignity, towards freedom, towards knowledge, every +ennobling desire of the heart, every redeeming whisper of +conscience. Those that have peered into that abyss, where the +dreams of Panslavism, of universal conquest, mingled with the hate +and contempt for Western ideas, drift impotently like shapes of +mist, know well that it is bottomless; that there is in it no +ground for anything that could in the remotest degree serve even +the lowest interests of mankind--and certainly no ground ready for +a revolution. The sin of the old European monarchies was not the +absolutism inherent in every form of government; it was the +inability to alter the forms of their legality, grown narrow and +oppressive with the march of time. Every form of legality is bound +to degenerate into oppression, and the legality in the forms of +monarchical institutions sooner, perhaps, than any other. It has +not been the business of monarchies to be adaptive from within. +With the mission of uniting and consolidating the particular +ambitions and interests of feudalism in favour of a larger +conception of a State, of giving self-consciousness, force and +nationality to the scattered energies of thought and action, they +were fated to lag behind the march of ideas they had themselves set +in motion in a direction they could neither understand nor approve. +Yet, for all that, the thrones still remain, and what is more +significant, perhaps, some of the dynasties, too, have survived. +The revolutions of European States have never been in the nature of +absolute protests EN MASSE against the monarchical principle; they +were the uprising of the people against the oppressive degeneration +of legality. But there never has been any legality in Russia; she +is a negation of that as of everything else that has its root in +reason or conscience. The ground of every revolution had to be +intellectually prepared. A revolution is a short cut in the +rational development of national needs in response to the growth of +world-wide ideals. It is conceivably possible for a monarch of +genius to put himself at the head of a revolution without ceasing +to be the king of his people. For the autocracy of Holy Russia the +only conceivable self-reform is--suicide. + +The same relentless fate holds in its grip the all-powerful ruler +and his helpless people. Wielders of a power purchased by an +unspeakable baseness of subjection to the Khans of the Tartar +horde, the Princes of Russia who, in their heart of hearts had come +in time to regard themselves as superior to every monarch of +Europe, have never risen to be the chiefs of a nation. Their +authority has never been sanctioned by popular tradition, by ideas +of intelligent loyalty, of devotion, of political necessity, of +simple expediency, or even by the power of the sword. In whatever +form of upheaval autocratic Russia is to find her end, it can never +be a revolution fruitful of moral consequences to mankind. It +cannot be anything else but a rising of slaves. It is a tragic +circumstance that the only thing one can wish to that people who +had never seen face to face either law, order, justice, right, +truth about itself or the rest of the world; who had known nothing +outside the capricious will of its irresponsible masters, is that +it should find in the approaching hour of need, not an organiser or +a law-giver, with the wisdom of a Lycurgus or a Solon for their +service, but at least the force of energy and desperation in some +as yet unknown Spartacus. + +A brand of hopeless mental and moral inferiority is set upon +Russian achievements; and the coming events of her internal +changes, however appalling they may be in their magnitude, will be +nothing more impressive than the convulsions of a colossal body. +As her boasted military force that, corrupt in its origin, has ever +struck no other but faltering blows, so her soul, kept benumbed by +her temporal and spiritual master with the poison of tyranny and +superstition, will find itself on awakening possessed of no +language, a monstrous full-grown child having first to learn the +ways of living thought and articulate speech. It is safe to say +tyranny, assuming a thousand protean shapes, will remain clinging +to her struggles for a long time before her blind multitudes +succeed at last in trampling her out of existence under their +millions of bare feet. + +That would be the beginning. What is to come after? The conquest +of freedom to call your soul your own is only the first step on the +road to excellence. We, in Europe, have gone a step or two +further, have had the time to forget how little that freedom means. +To Russia it must seem everything. A prisoner shut up in a noisome +dungeon concentrates all his hope and desire on the moment of +stepping out beyond the gates. It appears to him pregnant with an +immense and final importance; whereas what is important is the +spirit in which he will draw the first breath of freedom, the +counsels he will hear, the hands he may find extended, the endless +days of toil that must follow, wherein he will have to build his +future with no other material but what he can find within himself. + +It would be vain for Russia to hope for the support and counsel of +collective wisdom. Since 1870 (as a distinguished statesman of the +old tradition disconsolately exclaimed) "il n'y a plus d'Europe!" +There is, indeed, no Europe. The idea of a Europe united in the +solidarity of her dynasties, which for a moment seemed to dawn on +the horizon of the Vienna Congress through the subsiding dust of +Napoleonic alarums and excursions, has been extinguished by the +larger glamour of less restraining ideals. Instead of the +doctrines of solidarity it was the doctrine of nationalities much +more favourable to spoliations that came to the front, and since +its greatest triumphs at Sadowa and Sedan there is no Europe. +Meanwhile till the time comes when there will be no frontiers, +there are alliances so shamelessly based upon the exigencies of +suspicion and mistrust that their cohesive force waxes and wanes +with every year, almost with the event of every passing month. +This is the atmosphere Russia will find when the last rampart of +tyranny has been beaten down. But what hands, what voices will she +find on coming out into the light of day? An ally she has yet who +more than any other of Russia's allies has found that it had parted +with lots of solid substance in exchange for a shadow. It is true +that the shadow was indeed the mightiest, the darkest that the +modern world had ever known--and the most overbearing. But it is +fading now, and the tone of truest anxiety as to what is to take +its place will come, no doubt, from that and no other direction, +and no doubt, also, it will have that note of generosity which even +in the moments of greatest aberration is seldom wanting in the +voice of the French people. + +Two neighbours Russia will find at her door. Austria, +traditionally unaggressive whenever her hand is not forced, ruled +by a dynasty of uncertain future, weakened by her duality, can only +speak to her in an uncertain, bilingual phrase. Prussia, grown in +something like forty years from an almost pitiful dependant into a +bullying friend and evil counsellor of Russia's masters, may, +indeed, hasten to extend a strong hand to the weakness of her +exhausted body, but if so it will be only with the intention of +tearing away the long-coveted part of her substance. + +Pan-Germanism is by no means a shape of mists, and Germany is +anything but a NEANT where thought and effort are likely to lose +themselves without sound or trace. It is a powerful and voracious +organisation, full of unscrupulous self-confidence, whose appetite +for aggrandisement will only be limited by the power of helping +itself to the severed members of its friends and neighbours. The +era of wars so eloquently denounced by the old Republicans as the +peculiar blood guilt of dynastic ambitions is by no means over yet. +They will be fought out differently, with lesser frequency, with an +increased bitterness and the savage tooth-and-claw obstinacy of a +struggle for existence. They will make us regret the time of +dynastic ambitions, with their human absurdity moderated by +prudence and even by shame, by the fear of personal responsibility +and the regard paid to certain forms of conventional decency. For, +if the monarchs of Europe have been derided for addressing each +other as "brother" in autograph communications, that relationship +was at least as effective as any form of brotherhood likely to be +established between the rival nations of this continent, which, we +are assured on all hands, is the heritage of democracy. In the +ceremonial brotherhood of monarchs the reality of blood-ties, for +what little it is worth, acted often as a drag on unscrupulous +desires of glory or greed. Besides, there was always the common +danger of exasperated peoples, and some respect for each other's +divine right. No leader of a democracy, without other ancestry but +the sudden shout of a multitude, and debarred by the very condition +of his power from even thinking of a direct heir, will have any +interest in calling brother the leader of another democracy--a +chief as fatherless and heirless as himself. + +The war of 1870, brought about by the third Napoleon's half- +generous, half-selfish adoption of the principle of nationalities, +was the first war characterised by a special intensity of hate, by +a new note in the tune of an old song for which we may thank the +Teutonic thoroughness. Was it not that excellent bourgeoise, +Princess Bismarck (to keep only to great examples), who was so +righteously anxious to see men, women and children--emphatically +the children, too--of the abominable French nation massacred off +the face of the earth? This illustration of the new war-temper is +artlessly revealed in the prattle of the amiable Busch, the +Chancellor's pet "reptile" of the Press. And this was supposed to +be a war for an idea! Too much, however, should not be made of +that good wife's and mother's sentiments any more than of the good +First Emperor William's tears, shed so abundantly after every +battle, by letter, telegram, and otherwise, during the course of +the same war, before a dumb and shamefaced continent. These were +merely the expressions of the simplicity of a nation which more +than any other has a tendency to run into the grotesque. There is +worse to come. + +To-day, in the fierce grapple of two nations of different race, the +short era of national wars seems about to close. No war will be +waged for an idea. The "noxious idle aristocracies" of yesterday +fought without malice for an occupation, for the honour, for the +fun of the thing. The virtuous, industrious democratic States of +to-morrow may yet be reduced to fighting for a crust of dry bread, +with all the hate, ferocity, and fury that must attach to the vital +importance of such an issue. The dreams sanguine humanitarians +raised almost to ecstasy about the year fifty of the last century +by the moving sight of the Crystal Palace--crammed full with that +variegated rubbish which it seems to be the bizarre fate of +humanity to produce for the benefit of a few employers of labour-- +have vanished as quickly as they had arisen. The golden hopes of +peace have in a single night turned to dead leaves in every drawer +of every benevolent theorist's writing table. A swift +disenchantment overtook the incredible infatuation which could put +its trust in the peaceful nature of industrial and commercial +competition. + +Industrialism and commercialism--wearing high-sounding names in +many languages (WELT-POLITIK may serve for one instance) picking up +coins behind the severe and disdainful figure of science whose +giant strides have widened for us the horizon of the universe by +some few inches--stand ready, almost eager, to appeal to the sword +as soon as the globe of the earth has shrunk beneath our growing +numbers by another ell or so. And democracy, which has elected to +pin its faith to the supremacy of material interests, will have to +fight their battles to the bitter end, on a mere pittance--unless, +indeed, some statesman of exceptional ability and overwhelming +prestige succeeds in carrying through an international +understanding for the delimitation of spheres of trade all over the +earth, on the model of the territorial spheres of influence marked +in Africa to keep the competitors for the privilege of improving +the nigger (as a buying machine) from flying prematurely at each +other's throats. + +This seems the only expedient at hand for the temporary maintenance +of European peace, with its alliances based on mutual distrust, +preparedness for war as its ideal, and the fear of wounds, luckily +stronger, so far, than the pinch of hunger, its only guarantee. +The true peace of the world will be a place of refuge much less +like a beleaguered fortress and more, let us hope, in the nature of +an Inviolable Temple. It will be built on less perishable +foundations than those of material interests. But it must be +confessed that the architectural aspect of the universal city +remains as yet inconceivable--that the very ground for its erection +has not been cleared of the jungle. + +Never before in history has the right of war been more fully +admitted in the rounded periods of public speeches, in books, in +public prints, in all the public works of peace, culminating in the +establishment of the Hague Tribunal--that solemnly official +recognition of the Earth as a House of Strife. To him whose +indignation is qualified by a measure of hope and affection, the +efforts of mankind to work its own salvation present a sight of +alarming comicality. After clinging for ages to the steps of the +heavenly throne, they are now, without much modifying their +attitude, trying with touching ingenuity to steal one by one the +thunderbolts of their Jupiter. They have removed war from the list +of Heaven-sent visitations that could only be prayed against; they +have erased its name from the supplication against the wrath of +war, pestilence, and famine, as it is found in the litanies of the +Roman Catholic Church; they have dragged the scourge down from the +skies and have made it into a calm and regulated institution. At +first sight the change does not seem for the better. Jove's +thunderbolt looks a most dangerous plaything in the hands of the +people. But a solemnly established institution begins to grow old +at once in the discussion, abuse, worship, and execration of men. +It grows obsolete, odious, and intolerable; it stands fatally +condemned to an unhonoured old age. + +Therein lies the best hope of advanced thought, and the best way to +help its prospects is to provide in the fullest, frankest way for +the conditions of the present day. War is one of its conditions; +it is its principal condition. It lies at the heart of every +question agitating the fears and hopes of a humanity divided +against itself. The succeeding ages have changed nothing except +the watchwords of the armies. The intellectual stage of mankind +being as yet in its infancy, and States, like most individuals, +having but a feeble and imperfect consciousness of the worth and +force of the inner life, the need of making their existence +manifest to themselves is determined in the direction of physical +activity. The idea of ceasing to grow in territory, in strength, +in wealth, in influence--in anything but wisdom and self-knowledge- +-is odious to them as the omen of the end. Action, in which is to +be found the illusion of a mastered destiny, can alone satisfy our +uneasy vanity and lay to rest the haunting fear of the future--a +sentiment concealed, indeed, but proving its existence by the force +it has, when invoked, to stir the passions of a nation. It will be +long before we have learned that in the great darkness before us +there is nothing that we need fear. Let us act lest we perish--is +the cry. And the only form of action open to a State can be of no +other than aggressive nature. + +There are many kinds of aggressions, though the sanction of them is +one and the same--the magazine rifle of the latest pattern. In +preparation for or against that form of action the States of Europe +are spending now such moments of uneasy leisure as they can snatch +from the labours of factory and counting-house. + +Never before has war received so much homage at the lips of men, +and reigned with less disputed sway in their minds. It has +harnessed science to its gun-carriages, it has enriched a few +respectable manufacturers, scattered doles of food and raiment +amongst a few thousand skilled workmen, devoured the first youth of +whole generations, and reaped its harvest of countless corpses. It +has perverted the intelligence of men, women, and children, and has +made the speeches of Emperors, Kings, Presidents, and Ministers +monotonous with ardent protestations of fidelity to peace. Indeed, +war has made peace altogether its own, it has modelled it on its +own image: a martial, overbearing, war-lord sort of peace, with a +mailed fist, and turned-up moustaches, ringing with the din of +grand manoeuvres, eloquent with allusions to glorious feats of +arms; it has made peace so magnificent as to be almost as expensive +to keep up as itself. It has sent out apostles of its own, who at +one time went about (mostly in newspapers) preaching the gospel of +the mystic sanctity of its sacrifices, and the regenerating power +of spilt blood, to the poor in mind--whose name is legion. + +It has been observed that in the course of earthly greatness a day +of culminating triumph is often paid for by a morrow of sudden +extinction. Let us hope it is so. Yet the dawn of that day of +retribution may be a long time breaking above a dark horizon. War +is with us now; and, whether this one ends soon or late, war will +be with us again. And it is the way of true wisdom for men and +States to take account of things as they are. + +Civilisation has done its little best by our sensibilities for +whose growth it is responsible. It has managed to remove the +sights and sounds of battlefields away from our doorsteps. But it +cannot be expected to achieve the feat always and under every +variety of circumstance. Some day it must fail, and we shall have +then a wealth of appallingly unpleasant sensations brought home to +us with painful intimacy. It is not absurd to suppose that +whatever war comes to us next it will NOT be a distant war waged by +Russia either beyond the Amur or beyond the Oxus. + +The Japanese armies have laid that ghost for ever, because the +Russia of the future will not, for the reasons explained above, be +the Russia of to-day. It will not have the same thoughts, +resentments and aims. It is even a question whether it will +preserve its gigantic frame unaltered and unbroken. All +speculation loses itself in the magnitude of the events made +possible by the defeat of an autocracy whose only shadow of a title +to existence was the invincible power of military conquest. That +autocratic Russia will have a miserable end in harmony with its +base origin and inglorious life does not seem open to doubt. The +problem of the immediate future is posed not by the eventual manner +but by the approaching fact of its disappearance. + +The Japanese armies, in laying the oppressive ghost, have not only +accomplished what will be recognised historically as an important +mission in the world's struggle against all forms of evil, but have +also created a situation. They have created a situation in the +East which they are competent to manage by themselves; and in doing +this they have brought about a change in the condition of the West +with which Europe is not well prepared to deal. The common ground +of concord, good faith and justice is not sufficient to establish +an action upon; since the conscience of but very few men amongst +us, and of no single Western nation as yet, will brook the +restraint of abstract ideas as against the fascination of a +material advantage. And eagle-eyed wisdom alone cannot take the +lead of human action, which in its nature must for ever remain +short-sighted. The trouble of the civilised world is the want of a +common conservative principle abstract enough to give the impulse, +practical enough to form the rallying point of international action +tending towards the restraint of particular ambitions. Peace +tribunals instituted for the greater glory of war will not replace +it. Whether such a principle exists--who can say? If it does not, +then it ought to be invented. A sage with a sense of humour and a +heart of compassion should set about it without loss of time, and a +solemn prophet full of words and fire ought to be given the task of +preparing the minds. So far there is no trace of such a principle +anywhere in sight; even its plausible imitations (never very +effective) have disappeared long ago before the doctrine of +national aspirations. IL N'Y A PLUS D'EUROPE--there is only an +armed and trading continent, the home of slowly maturing economical +contests for life and death and of loudly proclaimed world-wide +ambitions. There are also other ambitions not so loud, but deeply +rooted in the envious acquisitive temperament of the last corner +amongst the great Powers of the Continent, whose feet are not +exactly in the ocean--not yet--and whose head is very high up--in +Pomerania, the breeding place of such precious Grenadiers that +Prince Bismarck (whom it is a pleasure to quote) would not have +given the bones of one of them for the settlement of the old +Eastern Question. But times have changed, since, by way of keeping +up, I suppose, some old barbaric German rite, the faithful servant +of the Hohenzollerns was buried alive to celebrate the accession of +a new Emperor. + +Already the voice of surmises has been heard hinting tentatively at +a possible re-grouping of European Powers. The alliance of the +three Empires is supposed possible. And it may be possible. The +myth of Russia's power is dying very hard--hard enough for that +combination to take place--such is the fascination that a +discredited show of numbers will still exercise upon the +imagination of a people trained to the worship of force. Germany +may be willing to lend its support to a tottering autocracy for the +sake of an undisputed first place, and of a preponderating voice in +the settlement of every question in that south-east of Europe which +merges into Asia. No principle being involved in such an alliance +of mere expediency, it would never be allowed to stand in the way +of Germany's other ambitions. The fall of autocracy would bring +its restraint automatically to an end. Thus it may be believed +that the support Russian despotism may get from its once humble +friend and client will not be stamped by that thoroughness which is +supposed to be the mark of German superiority. Russia weakened +down to the second place, or Russia eclipsed altogether during the +throes of her regeneration, will answer equally well the plans of +German policy--which are many and various and often incredible, +though the aim of them all is the same: aggrandisement of +territory and influence, with no regard to right and justice, +either in the East or in the West. For that and no other is the +true note of your WELT-POLITIK which desires to live. + +The German eagle with a Prussian head looks all round the horizon, +not so much for something to do that would count for good in the +records of the earth, as simply for something good to get. He +gazes upon the land and upon the sea with the same covetous +steadiness, for he has become of late a maritime eagle, and has +learned to box the compass. He gazes north and south, and east and +west, and is inclined to look intemperately upon the waters of the +Mediterranean when they are blue. The disappearance of the Russian +phantom has given a foreboding of unwonted freedom to the WELT- +POLITIK. According to the national tendency this assumption of +Imperial impulses would run into the grotesque were it not for the +spikes of the PICKELHAUBES peeping out grimly from behind. +Germany's attitude proves that no peace for the earth can be found +in the expansion of material interests which she seems to have +adopted exclusively as her only aim, ideal, and watchword. For the +use of those who gaze half-unbelieving at the passing away of the +Russian phantom, part Ghoul, part Djinn, part Old Man of the Sea, +and wait half-doubting for the birth of a nation's soul in this age +which knows no miracles, the once-famous saying of poor Gambetta, +tribune of the people (who was simple and believed in the "immanent +justice of things"), may be adapted in the shape of a warning that, +so far as a future of liberty, concord, and justice is concerned: +"Le Prussianisme--voile l'ennemi!" + + + +THE CRIME OF PARTITION--1919 + + + +At the end of the eighteenth century, when the partition of Poland +had become an accomplished fact, the world qualified it at once as +a crime. This strong condemnation proceeded, of course, from the +West of Europe; the Powers of the Centre, Prussia and Austria, were +not likely to admit that this spoliation fell into the category of +acts morally reprehensible and carrying the taint of anti-social +guilt. As to Russia, the third party to the crime, and the +originator of the scheme, she had no national conscience at the +time. The will of its rulers was always accepted by the people as +the expression of an omnipotence derived directly from God. As an +act of mere conquest the best excuse for the partition lay simply +in the fact that it happened to be possible; there was the plunder +and there was the opportunity to get hold of it. Catherine the +Great looked upon this extension of her dominions with a cynical +satisfaction. Her political argument that the destruction of +Poland meant the repression of revolutionary ideas and the checking +of the spread of Jacobinism in Europe was a characteristically +impudent pretence. There may have been minds here and there +amongst the Russians that perceived, or perhaps only felt, that by +the annexation of the greater part of the Polish Republic, Russia +approached nearer to the comity of civilised nations and ceased, at +least territorially, to be an Asiatic Power. + +It was only after the partition of Poland that Russia began to play +a great part in Europe. To such statesmen as she had then that act +of brigandage must have appeared inspired by great political +wisdom. The King of Prussia, faithful to the ruling principle of +his life, wished simply to aggrandise his dominions at a much +smaller cost and at much less risk than he could have done in any +other direction; for at that time Poland was perfectly defenceless +from a material point of view, and more than ever, perhaps, +inclined to put its faith in humanitarian illusions. Morally, the +Republic was in a state of ferment and consequent weakness, which +so often accompanies the period of social reform. The strength +arrayed against her was just then overwhelming; I mean the +comparatively honest (because open) strength of armed forces. But, +probably from innate inclination towards treachery, Frederick of +Prussia selected for himself the part of falsehood and deception. +Appearing on the scene in the character of a friend he entered +deliberately into a treaty of alliance with the Republic, and then, +before the ink was dry, tore it up in brazen defiance of the +commonest decency, which must have been extremely gratifying to his +natural tastes. + +As to Austria, it shed diplomatic tears over the transaction. They +cannot be called crocodile tears, insomuch that they were in a +measure sincere. They arose from a vivid perception that Austria's +allotted share of the spoil could never compensate her for the +accession of strength and territory to the other two Powers. +Austria did not really want an extension of territory at the cost +of Poland. She could not hope to improve her frontier in that way, +and economically she had no need of Galicia, a province whose +natural resources were undeveloped and whose salt mines did not +arouse her cupidity because she had salt mines of her own. No +doubt the democratic complexion of Polish institutions was very +distasteful to the conservative monarchy; Austrian statesmen did +see at the time that the real danger to the principle of autocracy +was in the West, in France, and that all the forces of Central +Europe would be needed for its suppression. But the movement +towards a PARTAGE on the part of Russia and Prussia was too +definite to be resisted, and Austria had to follow their lead in +the destruction of a State which she would have preferred to +preserve as a possible ally against Prussian and Russian ambitions. +It may be truly said that the destruction of Poland secured the +safety of the French Revolution. For when in 1795 the crime was +consummated, the Revolution had turned the corner and was in a +state to defend itself against the forces of reaction. + +In the second half of the eighteenth century there were two centres +of liberal ideas on the continent of Europe: France and Poland. +On an impartial survey one may say without exaggeration that then +France was relatively every bit as weak as Poland; even, perhaps, +more so. But France's geographical position made her much less +vulnerable. She had no powerful neighbours on her frontier; a +decayed Spain in the south and a conglomeration of small German +Principalities on the east were her happy lot. The only States +which dreaded the contamination of the new principles and had +enough power to combat it were Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and +they had another centre of forbidden ideas to deal with in +defenceless Poland, unprotected by nature, and offering an +immediate satisfaction to their cupidity. They made their choice, +and the untold sufferings of a nation which would not die was the +price exacted by fate for the triumph of revolutionary ideals. + +Thus even a crime may become a moral agent by the lapse of time and +the course of history. Progress leaves its dead by the way, for +progress is only a great adventure as its leaders and chiefs know +very well in their hearts. It is a march into an undiscovered +country; and in such an enterprise the victims do not count. As an +emotional outlet for the oratory of freedom it was convenient +enough to remember the Crime now and then: the Crime being the +murder of a State and the carving of its body into three pieces. +There was really nothing to do but to drop a few tears and a few +flowers of rhetoric upon the grave. But the spirit of the nation +refused to rest therein. It haunted the territories of the Old +Republic in the manner of a ghost haunting its ancestral mansion +where strangers are making themselves at home; a calumniated, +ridiculed, and pooh-pooh'd ghost, and yet never ceasing to inspire +a sort of awe, a strange uneasiness, in the hearts of the unlawful +possessors. Poland deprived of its independence, of its historical +continuity, with its religion and language persecuted and +repressed, became a mere geographical expression. And even that, +itself, seemed strangely vague, had lost its definite character, +was rendered doubtful by the theories and the claims of the +spoliators who, by a strange effect of uneasy conscience, while +strenuously denying the moral guilt of the transaction, were always +trying to throw a veil of high rectitude over the Crime. What was +most annoying to their righteousness was the fact that the nation, +stabbed to the heart, refused to grow insensible and cold. That +persistent and almost uncanny vitality was sometimes very +inconvenient to the rest of Europe also. It would intrude its +irresistible claim into every problem of European politics, into +the theory of European equilibrium, into the question of the Near +East, the Italian question, the question of Schleswig-Holstein, and +into the doctrine of nationalities. That ghost, not content with +making its ancestral halls uncomfortable for the thieves, haunted +also the Cabinets of Europe, waved indecently its bloodstained +robes in the solemn atmosphere of Council-rooms, where congresses +and conferences sit with closed windows. It would not be exorcised +by the brutal jeers of Bismarck and the fine railleries of +Gorchakov. + +As a Polish friend observed to me some years ago: "Till the year +'48 the Polish problem has been to a certain extent a convenient +rallying-point for all manifestations of liberalism. Since that +time we have come to be regarded simply as a nuisance. It's very +disagreeable." + +I agreed that it was, and he continued: "What are we to do? We +did not create the situation by any outside action of ours. +Through all the centuries of its existence Poland has never been a +menace to anybody, not even to the Turks, to whom it has been +merely an obstacle." + +Nothing could be more true. The spirit of aggressiveness was +absolutely foreign to the Polish temperament, to which the +preservation of its institutions and its liberties was much more +precious than any ideas of conquest. Polish wars were defensive, +and they were mostly fought within Poland's own borders. And that +those territories were often invaded was but a misfortune arising +from its geographical position. Territorial expansion was never +the master-thought of Polish statesmen. The consolidation of the +territories of the SERENISSIME Republic, which made of it a Power +of the first rank for a time, was not accomplished by force. It +was not the consequence of successful aggression, but of a long and +successful defence against the raiding neighbours from the East. +The lands of Lithuanian and Ruthenian speech were never conquered +by Poland. These peoples were not compelled by a series of +exhausting wars to seek safety in annexation. It was not the will +of a prince or a political intrigue that brought about the union. +Neither was it fear. The slowly-matured view of the economical and +social necessities and, before all, the ripening moral sense of the +masses were the motives that induced the forty three +representatives of Lithuanian and Ruthenian provinces, led by their +paramount prince, to enter into a political combination unique in +the history of the world, a spontaneous and complete union of +sovereign States choosing deliberately the way of peace. Never was +strict truth better expressed in a political instrument than in the +preamble of the first Union Treaty (1413). It begins with the +words: "This Union, being the outcome not of hatred, but of love"- +-words that Poles have not heard addressed to them politically by +any nation for the last hundred and fifty years. + +This union being an organic, living thing capable of growth and +development was, later, modified and confirmed by two other +treaties, which guaranteed to all the parties in a just and eternal +union all their rights, liberties, and respective institutions. +The Polish State offers a singular instance of an extremely liberal +administrative federalism which, in its Parliamentary life as well +as its international politics, presented a complete unity of +feeling and purpose. As an eminent French diplomatist remarked +many years ago: "It is a very remarkable fact in the history of +the Polish State, this invariable and unanimous consent of the +populations; the more so that, the King being looked upon simply as +the chief of the Republic, there was no monarchical bond, no +dynastic fidelity to control and guide the sentiment of the +nations, and their union remained as a pure affirmation of the +national will." The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its Ruthenian +Provinces retained their statutes, their own administration, and +their own political institutions. That those institutions in the +course of time tended to assimilation with the Polish form was not +the result of any pressure, but simply of the superior character of +Polish civilisation. + +Even after Poland lost its independence this alliance and this +union remained firm in spirit and fidelity. All the national +movements towards liberation were initiated in the name of the +whole mass of people inhabiting the limits of the old Republic, and +all the Provinces took part in them with complete devotion. It is +only in the last generation that efforts have been made to create a +tendency towards separation, which would indeed serve no one but +Poland's common enemies. And, strangely enough, it is the +internationalists, men who professedly care nothing for race or +country, who have set themselves this task of disruption, one can +easily see for what sinister purpose. The ways of the +internationalists may be dark, but they are not inscrutable. + +From the same source no doubt there will flow in the future a +poisoned stream of hints of a reconstituted Poland being a danger +to the races once so closely associated within the territories of +the Old Republic. The old partners in "the Crime" are not likely +to forgive their victim its inconvenient and almost shocking +obstinacy in keeping alive. They had tried moral assassination +before and with some small measure of success, for, indeed, the +Polish question, like all living reproaches, had become a nuisance. +Given the wrong, and the apparent impossibility of righting it +without running risks of a serious nature, some moral alleviation +may be found in the belief that the victim had brought its +misfortunes on its own head by its own sins. That theory, too, had +been advanced about Poland (as if other nations had known nothing +of sin and folly), and it made some way in the world at different +times, simply because good care was taken by the interested parties +to stop the mouth of the accused. But it has never carried much +conviction to honest minds. Somehow, in defiance of the cynical +point of view as to the Force of Lies and against all the power of +falsified evidence, truth often turns out to be stronger than +calumny. With the course of years, however, another danger sprang +up, a danger arising naturally from the new political alliances +dividing Europe into two armed camps. It was the danger of +silence. Almost without exception the Press of Western Europe in +the twentieth century refused to touch the Polish question in any +shape or form whatever. Never was the fact of Polish vitality more +embarrassing to European diplomacy than on the eve of Poland's +resurrection. + +When the war broke out there was something gruesomely comic in the +proclamations of emperors and archdukes appealing to that +invincible soul of a nation whose existence or moral worth they had +been so arrogantly denying for more than a century. Perhaps in the +whole record of human transactions there have never been +performances so brazen and so vile as the manifestoes of the German +Emperor and the Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia; and, I imagine, no +more bitter insult has been offered to human heart and intelligence +than the way in which those proclamations were flung into the face +of historical truth. It was like a scene in a cynical and sinister +farce, the absurdity of which became in some sort unfathomable by +the reflection that nobody in the world could possibly be so +abjectly stupid as to be deceived for a single moment. At that +time, and for the first two months of the war, I happened to be in +Poland, and I remember perfectly well that, when those precious +documents came out, the confidence in the moral turpitude of +mankind they implied did not even raise a scornful smile on the +lips of men whose most sacred feelings and dignity they outraged. +They did not deign to waste their contempt on them. In fact, the +situation was too poignant and too involved for either hot scorn or +a coldly rational discussion. For the Poles it was like being in a +burning house of which all the issues were locked. There was +nothing but sheer anguish under the strange, as if stony, calmness +which in the utter absence of all hope falls on minds that are not +constitutionally prone to despair. Yet in this time of dismay the +irrepressible vitality of the nation would not accept a neutral +attitude. I was told that even if there were no issue it was +absolutely necessary for the Poles to affirm their national +existence. Passivity, which could be regarded as a craven +acceptance of all the material and moral horrors ready to fall upon +the nation, was not to be thought of for a moment. Therefore, it +was explained to me, the Poles MUST act. Whether this was a +counsel of wisdom or not it is very difficult to say, but there are +crises of the soul which are beyond the reach of wisdom. When +there is apparently no issue visible to the eyes of reason, +sentiment may yet find a way out, either towards salvation or to +utter perdition, no one can tell--and the sentiment does not even +ask the question. Being there as a stranger in that tense +atmosphere, which was yet not unfamiliar to me, I was not very +anxious to parade my wisdom, especially after it had been pointed +out in answer to my cautious arguments that, if life has its values +worth fighting for, death, too, has that in it which can make it +worthy or unworthy. + +Out of the mental and moral trouble into which the grouping of the +Powers at the beginning of war had thrown the counsels of Poland +there emerged at last the decision that the Polish Legions, a peace +organisation in Galicia directed by Pilsudski (afterwards given the +rank of General, and now apparently the Chief of the Government in +Warsaw), should take the field against the Russians. In reality it +did not matter against which partner in the "Crime" Polish +resentment should be directed. There was little to choose between +the methods of Russian barbarism, which were both crude and rotten, +and the cultivated brutality tinged with contempt of Germany's +superficial, grinding civilisation. There was nothing to choose +between them. Both were hateful, and the direction of the Polish +effort was naturally governed by Austria's tolerant attitude, which +had connived for years at the semi-secret organisation of the +Polish Legions. Besides, the material possibility pointed out the +way. That Poland should have turned at first against the ally of +Western Powers, to whose moral support she had been looking for so +many years, is not a greater monstrosity than that alliance with +Russia which had been entered into by England and France with +rather less excuse and with a view to eventualities which could +perhaps have been avoided by a firmer policy and by a greater +resolution in the face of what plainly appeared unavoidable. + +For let the truth be spoken. The action of Germany, however cruel, +sanguinary, and faithless, was nothing in the nature of a stab in +the dark. The Germanic Tribes had told the whole world in all +possible tones carrying conviction, the gently persuasive, the +coldly logical; in tones Hegelian, Nietzschean, war-like, pious, +cynical, inspired, what they were going to do to the inferior races +of the earth, so full of sin and all unworthiness. But with a +strange similarity to the prophets of old (who were also great +moralists and invokers of might) they seemed to be crying in a +desert. Whatever might have been the secret searching of hearts, +the Worthless Ones would not take heed. It must also be admitted +that the conduct of the menaced Governments carried with it no +suggestion of resistance. It was no doubt, the effect of neither +courage nor fear, but of that prudence which causes the average man +to stand very still in the presence of a savage dog. It was not a +very politic attitude, and the more reprehensible in so far that it +seemed to arise from the mistrust of their own people's fortitude. +On simple matters of life and death a people is always better than +its leaders, because a people cannot argue itself as a whole into a +sophisticated state of mind out of deference for a mere doctrine or +from an exaggerated sense of its own cleverness. I am speaking now +of democracies whose chiefs resemble the tyrant of Syracuse in +this, that their power is unlimited (for who can limit the will of +a voting people?) and who always see the domestic sword hanging by +a hair above their heads. + +Perhaps a different attitude would have checked German self- +confidence, and her overgrown militarism would have died from the +excess of its own strength. What would have been then the moral +state of Europe it is difficult to say. Some other excess would +probably have taken its place, excess of theory, or excess of +sentiment, or an excess of the sense of security leading to some +other form of catastrophe; but it is certain that in that case the +Polish question would not have taken a concrete form for ages. +Perhaps it would never have taken form! In this world, where +everything is transient, even the most reproachful ghosts end by +vanishing out of old mansions, out of men's consciences. Progress +of enlightenment, or decay of faith? In the years before the war +the Polish ghost was becoming so thin that it was impossible to get +for it the slightest mention in the papers. A young Pole coming to +me from Paris was extremely indignant, but I, indulging in that +detachment which is the product of greater age, longer experience, +and a habit of meditation, refused to share that sentiment. He had +gone begging for a word on Poland to many influential people, and +they had one and all told him that they were going to do no such +thing. They were all men of ideas and therefore might have been +called idealists, but the notion most strongly anchored in their +minds was the folly of touching a question which certainly had no +merit of actuality and would have had the appalling effect of +provoking the wrath of their old enemies and at the same time +offending the sensibilities of their new friends. It was an +unanswerable argument. I couldn't share my young friend's surprise +and indignation. My practice of reflection had also convinced me +that there is nothing on earth that turns quicker on its pivot than +political idealism when touched by the breath of practical +politics. + +It would be good to remember that Polish independence as embodied +in a Polish State is not the gift of any kind of journalism, +neither is it the outcome even of some particularly benevolent idea +or of any clearly apprehended sense of guilt. I am speaking of +what I know when I say that the original and only formative idea in +Europe was the idea of delivering the fate of Poland into the hands +of Russian Tsarism. And, let us remember, it was assumed then to +be a victorious Tsarism at that. It was an idea talked of openly, +entertained seriously, presented as a benevolence, with a curious +blindness to its grotesque and ghastly character. It was the idea +of delivering the victim with a kindly smile and the confident +assurance that "it would be all right" to a perfectly unrepentant +assassin, who, after sawing furiously at its throat for a hundred +years or so, was expected to make friends suddenly and kiss it on +both cheeks in the mystic Russian fashion. It was a singularly +nightmarish combination of international polity, and no whisper of +any other would have been officially tolerated. Indeed, I do not +think in the whole extent of Western Europe there was anybody who +had the slightest mind to whisper on that subject. Those were the +days of the dark future, when Benckendorf put down his name on the +Committee for the Relief of Polish Populations driven by the +Russian armies into the heart of Russia, when the Grand Duke +Nicholas (the gentleman who advocated a St. Bartholomew's Night for +the suppression of Russian liberalism) was displaying his "divine" +(I have read the very word in an English newspaper of standing) +strategy in the great retreat, where Mr. Iswolsky carried himself +haughtily on the banks of the Seine; and it was beginning to dawn +upon certain people there that he was a greater nuisance even than +the Polish question. + +But there is no use in talking about all that. Some clever person +has said that it is always the unexpected that happens, and on a +calm and dispassionate survey the world does appear mainly to one +as a scene of miracles. Out of Germany's strength, in whose +purpose so many people refused to believe, came Poland's +opportunity, in which nobody could have been expected to believe. +Out of Russia's collapse emerged that forbidden thing, the Polish +independence, not as a vengeful figure, the retributive shadow of +the crime, but as something much more solid and more difficult to +get rid of--a political necessity and a moral solution. Directly +it appeared its practical usefulness became undeniable, and also +the fact that, for better or worse, it was impossible to get rid of +it again except by the unthinkable way of another carving, of +another partition, of another crime. + +Therein lie the strength and the future of the thing so strictly +forbidden no farther back than two years or so, of the Polish +independence expressed in a Polish State. It comes into the world +morally free, not in virtue of its sufferings, but in virtue of its +miraculous rebirth and of its ancient claim for services rendered +to Europe. Not a single one of the combatants of all the fronts of +the world has died consciously for Poland's freedom. That supreme +opportunity was denied even to Poland's own children. And it is +just as well! Providence in its inscrutable way had been merciful, +for had it been otherwise the load of gratitude would have been too +great, the sense of obligation too crushing, the joy of deliverance +too fearful for mortals, common sinners with the rest of mankind +before the eye of the Most High. Those who died East and West, +leaving so much anguish and so much pride behind them, died neither +for the creation of States, nor for empty words, nor yet for the +salvation of general ideas. They died neither for democracy, nor +leagues, nor systems, nor yet for abstract justice, which is an +unfathomable mystery. They died for something too deep for words, +too mighty for the common standards by which reason measures the +advantages of life and death, too sacred for the vain discourses +that come and go on the lips of dreamers, fanatics, humanitarians, +and statesmen. They died . . . . + +Poland's independence springs up from that great immolation, but +Poland's loyalty to Europe will not be rooted in anything so +trenchant and burdensome as the sense of an immeasurable +indebtedness, of that gratitude which in a worldly sense is +sometimes called eternal, but which lies always at the mercy of +weariness and is fatally condemned by the instability of human +sentiments to end in negation. Polish loyalty will be rooted in +something much more solid and enduring, in something that could +never be called eternal, but which is, in fact, life-enduring. It +will be rooted in the national temperament, which is about the only +thing on earth that can be trusted. Men may deteriorate, they may +improve too, but they don't change. Misfortune is a hard school +which may either mature or spoil a national character, but it may +be reasonably advanced that the long course of adversity of the +most cruel kind has not injured the fundamental characteristics of +the Polish nation which has proved its vitality against the most +demoralising odds. The various phases of the Polish sense of self- +preservation struggling amongst the menacing forces and the no less +threatening chaos of the neighbouring Powers should be judged +impartially. I suggest impartiality and not indulgence simply +because, when appraising the Polish question, it is not necessary +to invoke the softer emotions. A little calm reflection on the +past and the present is all that is necessary on the part of the +Western world to judge the movements of a community whose ideals +are the same, but whose situation is unique. This situation was +brought vividly home to me in the course of an argument more than +eighteen months ago. "Don't forget," I was told, "that Poland has +got to live in contact with Germany and Russia to the end of time. +Do you understand the force of that expression: 'To the end of +time'? Facts must be taken into account, and especially appalling +facts, such as this, to which there is no possible remedy on earth. +For reasons which are, properly speaking, physiological, a prospect +of friendship with Germans or Russians even in the most distant +future is unthinkable. Any alliance of heart and mind would be a +monstrous thing, and monsters, as we all know, cannot live. You +can't base your conduct on a monstrous conception. We are either +worth or not worth preserving, but the horrible psychology of the +situation is enough to drive the national mind to distraction. Yet +under a destructive pressure, of which Western Europe can have no +notion, applied by forces that were not only crushing but +corrupting, we have preserved our sanity. Therefore there can be +no fear of our losing our minds simply because the pressure is +removed. We have neither lost our heads nor yet our moral sense. +Oppression, not merely political, but affecting social relations, +family life, the deepest affections of human nature, and the very +fount of natural emotions, has never made us vengeful. It is +worthy of notice that with every incentive present in our emotional +reactions we had no recourse to political assassination. Arms in +hand, hopeless or hopefully, and always against immeasurable odds, +we did affirm ourselves and the justice of our cause; but wild +justice has never been a part of our conception of national +manliness. In all the history of Polish oppression there was only +one shot fired which was not in battle. Only one! And the man who +fired it in Paris at the Emperor Alexander II. was but an +individual connected with no organisation, representing no shade of +Polish opinion. The only effect in Poland was that of profound +regret, not at the failure, but at the mere fact of the attempt. +The history of our captivity is free from that stain; and whatever +follies in the eyes of the world we may have perpetrated, we have +neither murdered our enemies nor acted treacherously against them, +nor yet have been reduced to the point of cursing each other." + +I could not gainsay the truth of that discourse, I saw as clearly +as my interlocutor the impossibility of the faintest sympathetic +bond between Poland and her neighbours ever being formed in the +future. The only course that remains to a reconstituted Poland is +the elaboration, establishment, and preservation of the most +correct method of political relations with neighbours to whom +Poland's existence is bound to be a humiliation and an offence. +Calmly considered it is an appalling task, yet one may put one's +trust in that national temperament which is so completely free from +aggressiveness and revenge. Therein lie the foundations of all +hope. The success of renewed life for that nation whose fate is to +remain in exile, ever isolated from the West, amongst hostile +surroundings, depends on the sympathetic understanding of its +problems by its distant friends, the Western Powers, which in their +democratic development must recognise the moral and intellectual +kinship of that distant outpost of their own type of civilisation, +which was the only basis of Polish culture. + +Whatever may be the future of Russia and the final organisation of +Germany, the old hostility must remain unappeased, the fundamental +antagonism must endure for years to come. The Crime of the +Partition was committed by autocratic Governments which were the +Governments of their time; but those Governments were characterised +in the past, as they will be in the future, by their people's +national traits, which remain utterly incompatible with the Polish +mentality and Polish sentiment. Both the German submissiveness +(idealistic as it may be) and the Russian lawlessness (fed on the +corruption of all the virtues) are utterly foreign to the Polish +nation, whose qualities and defects are altogether of another kind, +tending to a certain exaggeration of individualism and, perhaps, to +an extreme belief in the Governing Power of Free Assent: the one +invariably vital principle in the internal government of the Old +Republic. There was never a history more free from political +bloodshed than the history of the Polish State, which never knew +either feudal institutions or feudal quarrels. At the time when +heads were falling on the scaffolds all over Europe there was only +one political execution in Poland--only one; and as to that there +still exists a tradition that the great Chancellor who democratised +Polish institutions, and had to order it in pursuance of his +political purpose, could not settle that matter with his conscience +till the day of his death. Poland, too, had her civil wars, but +this can hardly be made a matter of reproach to her by the rest of +the world. Conducted with humanity, they left behind them no +animosities and no sense of repression, and certainly no legacy of +hatred. They were but a recognised argument in political +discussion and tended always towards conciliation. + +I cannot imagine, whatever form of democratic government Poland +elaborates for itself, that either the nation or its leaders would +do anything but welcome the closest scrutiny of their renewed +political existence. The difficulty of the problem of that +existence will be so great that some errors will be unavoidable, +and one may be sure that they will be taken advantage of by its +neighbours to discredit that living witness to a great historical +crime. If not the actual frontiers, then the moral integrity of +the new State is sure to be assailed before the eyes of Europe. +Economical enmity will also come into play when the world's work is +resumed again and competition asserts its power. Charges of +aggression are certain to be made, especially as related to the +small States formed of the territories of the Old Republic. And +everybody knows the power of lies which go about clothed in coats +of many colours, whereas, as is well known, Truth has no such +advantage, and for that reason is often suppressed as not +altogether proper for everyday purposes. It is not often +recognised, because it is not always fit to be seen. + +Already there are innuendoes, threats, hints thrown out, and even +awful instances fabricated out of inadequate materials, but it is +historically unthinkable that the Poland of the future, with its +sacred tradition of freedom and its hereditary sense of respect for +the rights of individuals and States, should seek its prosperity in +aggressive action or in moral violence against that part of its +once fellow-citizens who are Ruthenians or Lithuanians. The only +influence that cannot be restrained is simply the influence of +time, which disengages truth from all facts with a merciless logic +and prevails over the passing opinions, the changing impulses of +men. There can be no doubt that the moral impulses and the +material interests of the new nationalities, which seem to play now +the game of disintegration for the benefit of the world's enemies, +will in the end bring them nearer to the Poland of this war's +creation, will unite them sooner or later by a spontaneous movement +towards the State which had adopted and brought them up in the +development of its own humane culture--the offspring of the West. + + + +A NOTE ON THE POLISH PROBLEM--1916 + + + +We must start from the assumption that promises made by +proclamation at the beginning of this war may be binding on the +individuals who made them under the stress of coming events, but +cannot be regarded as binding the Governments after the end of the +war. + +Poland has been presented with three proclamations. Two of them +were in such contrast with the avowed principles and the historic +action for the last hundred years (since the Congress of Vienna) of +the Powers concerned, that they were more like cynical insults to +the nation's deepest feelings, its memory and its intelligence, +than state papers of a conciliatory nature. + +The German promises awoke nothing but indignant contempt; the +Russian a bitter incredulity of the most complete kind. The +Austrian proclamation, which made no promises and contented itself +with pointing out the Austro-Polish relations for the last forty- +five years, was received in silence. For it is a fact that in +Austrian Poland alone Polish nationality was recognised as an +element of the Empire, and individuals could breathe the air of +freedom, of civil life, if not of political independence. + +But for Poles to be Germanophile is unthinkable. To be Russophile +or Austrophile is at best a counsel of despair in view of a +European situation which, because of the grouping of the powers, +seems to shut from them every hope, expressed or unexpressed, of a +national future nursed through more than a hundred years of +suffering and oppression. + +Through most of these years, and especially since 1830, Poland (I +use this expression since Poland exists as a spiritual entity today +as definitely as it ever existed in her past) has put her faith in +the Western Powers. Politically it may have been nothing more than +a consoling illusion, and the nation had a half-consciousness of +this. But what Poland was looking for from the Western Powers +without discouragement and with unbroken confidence was moral +support. + +This is a fact of the sentimental order. But such facts have their +positive value, for their idealism derives from perhaps the highest +kind of reality. A sentiment asserts its claim by its force, +persistence and universality. In Poland that sentimental attitude +towards the Western Powers is universal. It extends to all +classes. The very children are affected by it as soon as they +begin to think. + +The political value of such a sentiment consists in this, that it +is based on profound resemblances. Therefore one can build on it +as if it were a material fact. For the same reason it would be +unsafe to disregard it if one proposed to build solidly. The +Poles, whom superficial or ill-informed theorists are trying to +force into the social and psychological formula of Slavonism, are +in truth not Slavonic at all. In temperament, in feeling, in mind, +and even in unreason, they are Western, with an absolute +comprehension of all Western modes of thought, even of those which +are remote from their historical experience. + +That element of racial unity which may be called Polonism, remained +compressed between Prussian Germanism on one side and the Russian +Slavonism on the other. For Germanism it feels nothing but hatred. +But between Polonism and Slavonism there is not so much hatred as a +complete and ineradicable incompatibility. + +No political work of reconstructing Poland either as a matter of +justice or expediency could be sound which would leave the new +creation in dependence to Germanism or to Slavonism. + +The first need not be considered. The second must be--unless the +Powers elect to drop the Polish question either under the cover of +vague assurances or without any disguise whatever. + +But if it is considered it will be seen at once that the Slavonic +solution of the Polish Question can offer no guarantees of duration +or hold the promise of security for the peace of Europe. + +The only basis for it would be the Grand Duke's Manifesto. But +that Manifesto, signed by a personage now removed from Europe to +Asia, and by a man, moreover, who if true to himself, to his +conception of patriotism and to his family tradition could not have +put his hand to it with any sincerity of purpose, is now divested +of all authority. The forcible vagueness of its promises, its +startling inconsistency with the hundred years of ruthlessly +denationalising oppression permit one to doubt whether it was ever +meant to have any authority. + +But in any case it could have had no effect. The very nature of +things would have brought to nought its professed intentions. + +It is impossible to suppose that a State of Russia's power and +antecedents would tolerate a privileged community (of, to Russia, +unnational complexion) within the body of the Empire. All history +shows that such an arrangement, however hedged in by the most +solemn treaties and declarations, cannot last. In this case it +would lead to a tragic issue. The absorption of Polonism is +unthinkable. The last hundred years of European History proves it +undeniably. There remains then extirpation, a process of blood and +iron; and the last act of the Polish drama would be played then +before a Europe too weary to interfere, and to the applause of +Germany. + +It would not be just to say that the disappearance of Polonism +would add any strength to the Slavonic power of expansion. It +would add no strength, but it would remove a possibly effective +barrier against the surprises the future of Europe may hold in +store for the Western Powers. + +Thus the question whether Polonism is worth saving presents itself +as a problem of politics with a practical bearing on the stability +of European peace--as a barrier or perhaps better (in view of its +detached position) as an outpost of the Western Powers placed +between the great might of Slavonism which has not yet made up its +mind to anything, and the organised Germanism which has spoken its +mind with no uncertain voice, before the world. + +Looked at in that light alone Polonism seems worth saving. That it +has lived so long on its trust in the moral support of the Western +Powers may give it another and even stronger claim, based on a +truth of a more profound kind. Polonism had resisted the utmost +efforts of Germanism and Slavonism for more than a hundred years. +Why? Because of the strength of its ideals conscious of their +kinship with the West. Such a power of resistance creates a moral +obligation which it would be unsafe to neglect. There is always a +risk in throwing away a tool of proved temper. + +In this profound conviction of the practical and ideal worth of +Polonism one approaches the problem of its preservation with a very +vivid sense of the practical difficulties derived from the grouping +of the Powers. The uncertainty of the extent and of the actual +form of victory for the Allies will increase the difficulty of +formulating a plan of Polish regeneration at the present moment. + +Poland, to strike its roots again into the soil of political +Europe, will require a guarantee of security for the healthy +development and for the untrammelled play of such institutions as +she may be enabled to give to herself. + +Those institutions will be animated by the spirit of Polonism, +which, having been a factor in the history of Europe and having +proved its vitality under oppression, has established its right to +live. That spirit, despised and hated by Germany and incompatible +with Slavonism because of moral differences, cannot avoid being (in +its renewed assertion) an object of dislike and mistrust. + +As an unavoidable consequence of the past Poland will have to begin +its existence in an atmosphere of enmities and suspicions. That +advanced outpost of Western civilisation will have to hold its +ground in the midst of hostile camps: always its historical fate. + +Against the menace of such a specially dangerous situation the +paper and ink of public Treaties cannot be an effective defence. +Nothing but the actual, living, active participation of the two +Western Powers in the establishment of the new Polish commonwealth, +and in the first twenty years of its existence, will give the Poles +a sufficient guarantee of security in the work of restoring their +national life. + +An Anglo-French protectorate would be the ideal form of moral and +material support. But Russia, as an ally, must take her place in +it on such a footing as will allay to the fullest extent her +possible apprehensions and satisfy her national sentiment. That +necessity will have to be formally recognised. + +In reality Russia has ceased to care much for her Polish +possessions. Public recognition of a mistake in political morality +and a voluntary surrender of territory in the cause of European +concord, cannot damage the prestige of a powerful State. The new +spheres of expansion in regions more easily assimilable, will more +than compensate Russia for the loss of territory on the Western +frontier of the Empire. + +The experience of Dual Controls and similar combinations has been +so unfortunate in the past that the suggestion of a Triple +Protectorate may well appear at first sight monstrous even to +unprejudiced minds. But it must be remembered that this is a +unique case and a problem altogether exceptional, justifying the +employment of exceptional means for its solution. To those who +would doubt the possibility of even bringing such a scheme into +existence the answer may be made that there are psychological +moments when any measure tending towards the ends of concord and +justice may be brought into being. And it seems that the end of +the war would be the moment for bringing into being the political +scheme advocated in this note. + +Its success must depend on the singleness of purpose in the +contracting Powers, and on the wisdom, the tact, the abilities, the +good-will of men entrusted with its initiation and its further +control. Finally it may be pointed out that this plan is the only +one offering serious guarantees to all the parties occupying their +respective positions within the scheme. + +If her existence as a state is admitted as just, expedient and +necessary, Poland has the moral right to receive her constitution +not from the hand of an old enemy, but from the Western Powers +alone, though of course with the fullest concurrence of Russia. + +This constitution, elaborated by a committee of Poles nominated by +the three Governments, will (after due discussion and amendment by +the High Commissioners of the Protecting Powers) be presented to +Poland as the initial document, the charter of her new life, freely +offered and unreservedly accepted. + +It should be as simple and short as a written constitution can be-- +establishing the Polish Commonwealth, settling the lines of +representative institutions, the form of judicature, and leaving +the greatest measure possible of self-government to the provinces +forming part of the re-created Poland. + +This constitution will be promulgated immediately after the three +Powers had settled the frontiers of the new State, including the +town of Danzic (free port) and a proportion of seaboard. The +legislature will then be called together and a general treaty will +regulate Poland's international portion as a protected state, the +status of the High Commissioners and such-like matters. The +legislature will ratify, thus making Poland, as it were, a party in +the establishment of the protectorate. A point of importance. + +Other general treaties will define Poland's position in the Anglo- +Franco-Russian alliance, fix the numbers of the army, and settle +the participation of the Powers in its organisation and training. + + + +POLAND REVISITED--1915 + + + +I have never believed in political assassination as a means to an +end, and least of all in assassination of the dynastic order. I +don't know how far murder can ever approach the perfection of a +fine art, but looked upon with the cold eye of reason it seems but +a crude expedient of impatient hope or hurried despair. There are +few men whose premature death could influence human affairs more +than on the surface. The deeper stream of causes depends not on +individuals who, like the mass of mankind, are carried on by a +destiny which no murder has ever been able to placate, divert, or +arrest. + +In July of last year I was a stranger in a strange city in the +Midlands and particularly out of touch with the world's politics. +Never a very diligent reader of newspapers, there were at that time +reasons of a private order which caused me to be even less informed +than usual on public affairs as presented from day to day in that +necessarily atmosphereless, perspectiveless manner of the daily +papers, which somehow, for a man possessed of some historic sense, +robs them of all real interest. I don't think I had looked at a +daily for a month past. + +But though a stranger in a strange city I was not lonely, thanks to +a friend who had travelled there out of pure kindness to bear me +company in a conjuncture which, in a most private sense, was +somewhat trying. + +It was this friend who, one morning at breakfast, informed me of +the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand. + +The impression was mediocre. I was barely aware that such a man +existed. I remembered only that not long before he had visited +London. The recollection was rather of a cloud of insignificant +printed words his presence in this country provoked. + +Various opinions had been expressed of him, but his importance was +Archducal, dynastic, purely accidental. Can there be in the world +of real men anything more shadowy than an Archduke? And now he was +no more; removed with an atrocity of circumstances which made one +more sensible of his humanity than when he was in life. I +connected that crime with Balkanic plots and aspirations so little +that I had actually to ask where it had happened. My friend told +me it was in Serajevo, and wondered what would be the consequences +of that grave event. He asked me what I thought would happen next. + +It was with perfect sincerity that I answered "Nothing," and having +a great repugnance to consider murder as a factor of politics, I +dismissed the subject. It fitted with my ethical sense that an act +cruel and absurd should be also useless. I had also the vision of +a crowd of shadowy Archdukes in the background, out of which one +would step forward to take the place of that dead man in the light +of the European stage. And then, to speak the whole truth, there +was no man capable of forming a judgment who attended so little to +the march of events as I did at that time. What for want of a more +definite term I must call my mind was fixed upon my own affairs, +not because they were in a bad posture, but because of their +fascinating holiday-promising aspect. I had been obtaining my +information as to Europe at second hand, from friends good enough +to come down now and then to see us. They arrived with their +pockets full of crumpled newspapers, and answered my queries +casually, with gentle smiles of scepticism as to the reality of my +interest. And yet I was not indifferent; but the tension in the +Balkans had become chronic after the acute crisis, and one could +not help being less conscious of it. It had wearied out one's +attention. Who could have guessed that on that wild stage we had +just been looking at a miniature rehearsal of the great world- +drama, the reduced model of the very passions and violences of what +the future held in store for the Powers of the Old World? Here and +there, perhaps, rare minds had a suspicion of that possibility, +while they watched Old Europe stage-managing fussily by means of +notes and conferences, the prophetic reproduction of its awaiting +fate. It was wonderfully exact in the spirit; same roar of guns, +same protestations of superiority, same words in the air; race, +liberation, justice--and the same mood of trivial demonstrations. +One could not take to-day a ticket for Petersburg. "You mean +Petrograd," would say the booking clerk. Shortly after the fall of +Adrianople a friend of mine passing through Sophia asked for some +CAFE TURC at the end of his lunch. + +" Monsieur veut dire Cafe balkanique," the patriotic waiter +corrected him austerely. + +I will not say that I had not observed something of that +instructive aspect of the war of the Balkans both in its first and +in its second phase. But those with whom I touched upon that +vision were pleased to see in it the evidence of my alarmist +cynicism. As to alarm, I pointed out that fear is natural to man, +and even salutary. It has done as much as courage for the +preservation of races and institutions. But from a charge of +cynicism I have always shrunk instinctively. It is like a charge +of being blind in one eye, a moral disablement, a sort of +disgraceful calamity that must he carried off with a jaunty +bearing--a sort of thing I am not capable of. Rather than be +thought a mere jaunty cripple I allowed myself to be blinded by the +gross obviousness of the usual arguments. It was pointed out to me +that these Eastern nations were not far removed from a savage +state. Their economics were yet at the stage of scratching the +earth and feeding the pigs. The highly-developed material +civilisation of Europe could not allow itself to be disturbed by a +war. The industry and the finance could not allow themselves to be +disorganised by the ambitions of an idle class, or even the +aspirations, whatever they might be, of the masses. + +Very plausible all this sounded. War does not pay. There had been +a book written on that theme--an attempt to put pacificism on a +material basis. Nothing more solid in the way of argument could +have been advanced on this trading and manufacturing globe. War +was "bad business!" This was final. + +But, truth to say, on this July day I reflected but little on the +condition of the civilised world. Whatever sinister passions were +heaving under its splendid and complex surface, I was too agitated +by a simple and innocent desire of my own, to notice the signs or +interpret them correctly. The most innocent of passions will take +the edge off one's judgment. The desire which possessed me was +simply the desire to travel. And that being so it would have taken +something very plain in the way of symptoms to shake my simple +trust in the stability of things on the Continent. My sentiment +and not my reason was engaged there. My eyes were turned to the +past, not to the future; the past that one cannot suspect and +mistrust, the shadowy and unquestionable moral possession the +darkest struggles of which wear a halo of glory and peace. + +In the preceding month of May we had received an invitation to +spend some weeks in Poland in a country house in the neighbourhood +of Cracow, but within the Russian frontier. The enterprise at +first seemed to me considerable. Since leaving the sea, to which I +have been faithful for so many years, I have discovered that there +is in my composition very little stuff from which travellers are +made. I confess that my first impulse about a projected journey is +to leave it alone. But the invitation received at first with a +sort of dismay ended by rousing the dormant energy of my feelings. +Cracow is the town where I spent with my father the last eighteen +months of his life. It was in that old royal and academical city +that I ceased to be a child, became a boy, had known the +friendships, the admirations, the thoughts and the indignations of +that age. It was within those historical walls that I began to +understand things, form affections, lay up a store of memories and +a fund of sensations with which I was to break violently by +throwing myself into an unrelated existence. It was like the +experience of another world. The wings of time made a great dusk +over all this, and I feared at first that if I ventured bodily in +there I would discover that I who have had to do with a good many +imaginary lives have been embracing mere shadows in my youth. I +feared. But fear in itself may become a fascination. Men have +gone, alone and trembling, into graveyards at midnight--just to see +what would happen. And this adventure was to be pursued in +sunshine. Neither would it be pursued alone. The invitation was +extended to us all. This journey would have something of a +migratory character, the invasion of a tribe. My present, all that +gave solidity and value to it, at any rate, would stand by me in +this test of the reality of my past. I was pleased with the idea +of showing my companions what Polish country life was like; to +visit the town where I was at school before the boys by my side +should grow too old, and gaining an individual past of their own, +should lose their unsophisticated interest in mine. It is only in +the short instants of early youth that we have the faculty of +coming out of ourselves to see dimly the visions and share the +emotions of another soul. For youth all is reality in this world, +and with justice, since it apprehends so vividly its images behind +which a longer life makes one doubt whether there is any substance. +I trusted to the fresh receptivity of these young beings in whom, +unless Heredity is an empty word, there should have been a fibre +which would answer to the sight, to the atmosphere, to the memories +of that corner of the earth where my own boyhood had received its +earliest independent impressions. + +The first days of the third week in July, while the telegraph wires +hummed with the words of enormous import which were to fill blue +books, yellow books, white books, and to arouse the wonder of +mankind, passed for us in light-hearted preparations for the +journey. What was it but just a rush through Germany, to get +across as quickly as possible? + +Germany is the part of the earth's solid surface of which I know +the least. In all my life I had been across it only twice. I may +well say of it VIDI TANTUM; and the very little I saw was through +the window of a railway carriage at express speed. Those journeys +of mine had been more like pilgrimages when one hurries on towards +the goal for the satisfaction of a deeper need than curiosity. In +this last instance, too, I was so incurious that I would have liked +to have fallen asleep on the shores of England and opened my eyes, +if it were possible, only on the other side of the Silesian +frontier. Yet, in truth, as many others have done, I had "sensed +it"--that promised land of steel, of chemical dyes, of method, of +efficiency; that race planted in the middle of Europe, assuming in +grotesque vanity the attitude of Europeans amongst effete Asiatics +or barbarous niggers; and, with a consciousness of superiority +freeing their hands from all moral bonds, anxious to take up, if I +may express myself so, the "perfect man's burden." Meantime, in a +clearing of the Teutonic forest, their sages were rearing a Tree of +Cynical Wisdom, a sort of Upas tree, whose shade may be seen now +lying over the prostrate body of Belgium. It must be said that +they laboured openly enough, watering it with the most authentic +sources of all madness, and watching with their be-spectacled eyes +the slow ripening of the glorious blood-red fruit. The sincerest +words of peace, words of menace, and I verily believe words of +abasement, even if there had been a voice vile enough to utter +them, would have been wasted on their ecstasy. For when the fruit +ripens on a branch it must fall. There is nothing on earth that +can prevent it. + + +II. + + +For reasons which at first seemed to me somewhat obscure, that one +of my companions whose wishes are law decided that our travels +should begin in an unusual way by the crossing of the North Sea. +We should proceed from Harwich to Hamburg. Besides being thirty- +six times longer than the Dover-Calais passage this rather unusual +route had an air of adventure in better keeping with the romantic +feeling of this Polish journey which for so many years had been +before us in a state of a project full of colour and promise, but +always retreating, elusive like an enticing mirage. + +And, after all, it had turned out to be no mirage. No wonder they +were excited. It's no mean experience to lay your hands on a +mirage. The day of departure had come, the very hour had struck. +The luggage was coming downstairs. It was most convincing. Poland +then, if erased from the map, yet existed in reality; it was not a +mere PAYS DU REVE, where you can travel only in imagination. For +no man, they argued, not even father, an habitual pursuer of +dreams, would push the love of the novelist's art of make-believe +to the point of burdening himself with real trunks for a voyage AU +PAYS DU REVE. + +As we left the door of our house, nestling in, perhaps, the most +peaceful nook in Kent, the sky, after weeks of perfectly brazen +serenity, veiled its blue depths and started to weep fine tears for +the refreshment of the parched fields. A pearly blur settled over +them, and a light sifted of all glare, of everything unkindly and +searching that dwells in the splendour of unveiled skies. All +unconscious of going towards the very scenes of war, I carried off +in my eye, this tiny fragment of Great Britain; a few fields, a +wooded rise; a clump of trees or two, with a short stretch of road, +and here and there a gleam of red wall and tiled roof above the +darkening hedges wrapped up in soft mist and peace. And I felt +that all this had a very strong hold on me as the embodiment of a +beneficent and gentle spirit; that it was dear to me not as an +inheritance, but as an acquisition, as a conquest in the sense in +which a woman is conquered--by love, which is a sort of surrender. + +These were strange, as if disproportionate thoughts to the matter +in hand, which was the simplest sort of a Continental holiday. And +I am certain that my companions, near as they are to me, felt no +other trouble but the suppressed excitement of pleasurable +anticipation. The forms and the spirit of the land before their +eyes were their inheritance, not their conquest--which is a thing +precarious, and, therefore, the most precious, possessing you if +only by the fear of unworthiness rather than possessed by you. +Moreover, as we sat together in the same railway carriage, they +were looking forward to a voyage in space, whereas I felt more and +more plainly, that what I had started on was a journey in time, +into the past; a fearful enough prospect for the most consistent, +but to him who had not known how to preserve against his impulses +the order and continuity of his life--so that at times it presented +itself to his conscience as a series of betrayals--still more +dreadful. + +I down here these thoughts so exclusively personal, to explain why +there was no room in my consciousness for the apprehension of a +European war. I don't mean to say that I ignored the possibility; +I simply did not think of it. And it made no difference; for if I +had thought of it, it could only have been in the lame and +inconclusive way of the common uninitiated mortals; and I am sure +that nothing short of intellectual certitude--obviously +unattainable by the man in the street--could have stayed me on that +journey which now that I had started on it seemed an irrevocable +thing, a necessity of my self-respect. + +London, the London before the war, flaunting its enormous glare, as +of a monstrous conflagration up into the black sky--with its best +Venice-like aspect of rainy evenings, the wet asphalted streets +lying with the sheen of sleeping water in winding canals, and the +great houses of the city towering all dark, like empty palaces, +above the reflected lights of the glistening roadway. + +Everything in the subdued incomplete night-life around the Mansion +House went on normally with its fascinating air of a dead +commercial city of sombre walls through which the inextinguishable +activity of its millions streamed East and West in a brilliant flow +of lighted vehicles. + +In Liverpool Street, as usual too, through the double gates, a +continuous line of taxi-cabs glided down the inclined approach and +up again, like an endless chain of dredger-buckets, pouring in the +passengers, and dipping them out of the great railway station under +the inexorable pallid face of the clock telling off the diminishing +minutes of peace. It was the hour of the boat-trains to Holland, +to Hamburg, and there seemed to be no lack of people, fearless, +reckless, or ignorant, who wanted to go to these places. The +station was normally crowded, and if there was a great flutter of +evening papers in the multitude of hands there were no signs of +extraordinary emotion on that multitude of faces. There was +nothing in them to distract me from the thought that it was +singularly appropriate that I should start from this station on the +retraced way of my existence. For this was the station at which, +thirty-seven years before, I arrived on my first visit to London. +Not the same building, but the same spot. At nineteen years of +age, after a period of probation and training I had imposed upon +myself as ordinary seaman on board a North Sea coaster, I had come +up from Lowestoft--my first long railway journey in England--to +"sign on" for an Antipodean voyage in a deep-water ship. Straight +from a railway carriage I had walked into the great city with +something of the feeling of a traveller penetrating into a vast and +unexplored wilderness. No explorer could have been more lonely. I +did not know a single soul of all these millions that all around me +peopled the mysterious distances of the streets. I cannot say I +was free from a little youthful awe, but at that age one's feelings +are simple. I was elated. I was pursuing a clear aim, I was +carrying out a deliberate plan of making out of myself, in the +first place, a seaman worthy of the service, good enough to work by +the side of the men with whom I was to live; and in the second +place, I had to justify my existence to myself, to redeem a tacit +moral pledge. Both these aims were to be attained by the same +effort. How simple seemed the problem of life then, on that hazy +day of early September in the year 1878, when I entered London for +the first time. + +From that point of view--Youth and a straight-forward scheme of +conduct--it was certainly a year of grace. All the help I had to +get in touch with the world I was invading was a piece of paper not +much bigger than the palm of my hand--in which I held it--torn out +of a larger plan of London for the greater facility of reference. +It had been the object of careful study for some days past. The +fact that I could take a conveyance at the station never occurred +to my mind, no, not even when I got out into the street, and stood, +taking my anxious bearings, in the midst, so to speak, of twenty +thousand hansoms. A strange absence of mind or unconscious +conviction that one cannot approach an important moment of one's +life by means of a hired carriage? Yes, it would have been a +preposterous proceeding. And indeed I was to make an Australian +voyage and encircle the globe before ever entering a London hansom. + +Another document, a cutting from a newspaper, containing the +address of an obscure shipping agent, was in my pocket. And I +needed not to take it out. That address was as if graven deep in +my brain. I muttered its words to myself as I walked on, +navigating the sea of London by the chart concealed in the palm of +my hand; for I had vowed to myself not to inquire my way from +anyone. Youth is the time of rash pledges. Had I taken a wrong +turning I would have been lost; and if faithful to my pledge I +might have remained lost for days, for weeks, have left perhaps my +bones to be discovered bleaching in some blind alley of the +Whitechapel district, as it had happened to lonely travellers lost +in the bush. But I walked on to my destination without hesitation +or mistake, showing there, for the first time, some of that faculty +to absorb and make my own the imaged topography of a chart, which +in later years was to help me in regions of intricate navigation to +keep the ships entrusted to me off the ground. The place I was +bound to was not easy to find. It was one of those courts hidden +away from the charted and navigable streets, lost among the thick +growth of houses like a dark pool in the depths of a forest, +approached by an inconspicuous archway as if by secret path; a +Dickensian nook of London, that wonder city, the growth of which +bears no sign of intelligent design, but many traces of freakishly +sombre phantasy the Great Master knew so well how to bring out by +the magic of his understanding love. And the office I entered was +Dickensian too. The dust of the Waterloo year lay on the panes and +frames of its windows; early Georgian grime clung to its sombre +wainscoting. + +It was one o'clock in the afternoon, but the day was gloomy. By +the light of a single gas-jet depending from the smoked ceiling I +saw an elderly man, in a long coat of black broadcloth. He had a +grey beard, a big nose, thick lips, and heavy shoulders. His curly +white hair and the general character of his head recalled vaguely a +burly apostle in the BAROCCO style of Italian art. Standing up at +a tall, shabby, slanting desk, his silver-rimmed spectacles pushed +up high on his forehead, he was eating a mutton-chop, which had +been just brought to him from some Dickensian eating-house round +the corner. + +Without ceasing to eat he turned to me his florid, BAROCCO +apostle's face with an expression of inquiry. + +I produced elaborately a series of vocal sounds which must have +borne sufficient resemblance to the phonetics of English speech, +for his face broke into a smile of comprehension almost at once.-- +"Oh, it's you who wrote a letter to me the other day from Lowestoft +about getting a ship." + +I had written to him from Lowestoft. I can't remember a single +word of that letter now. It was my very first composition in the +English language. And he had understood it, evidently, for he +spoke to the point at once, explaining that his business, mainly, +was to find good ships for young gentlemen who wanted to go to sea +as premium apprentices with a view of being trained for officers. +But he gathered that this was not my object. I did not desire to +be apprenticed. Was that the case? + +It was. He was good enough to say then, "Of course I see that you +are a gentleman. But your wish is to get a berth before the mast +as an Able Seaman if possible. Is that it?" + +It was certainly my wish; but he stated doubtfully that he feared +he could not help me much in this. There was an Act of Parliament +which made it penal to procure ships for sailors. "An Act-of - +Parliament. A law," he took pains to impress it again and again on +my foreign understanding, while I looked at him in consternation. + +I had not been half an hour in London before I had run my head +against an Act of Parliament! What a hopeless adventure! However, +the BAROCCO apostle was a resourceful person in his way, and we +managed to get round the hard letter of it without damage to its +fine spirit. Yet, strictly speaking, it was not the conduct of a +good citizen; and in retrospect there is an unfilial flavour about +that early sin of mine. For this Act of Parliament, the Merchant +Shipping Act of the Victorian era, had been in a manner of speaking +a father and mother to me. For many years it had regulated and +disciplined my life, prescribed my food and the amount of my +breathing space, had looked after my health and tried as much as +possible to secure my personal safety in a risky calling. It isn't +such a bad thing to lead a life of hard toil and plain duty within +the four corners of an honest Act of Parliament. And I am glad to +say that its seventies have never been applied to me. + +In the year 1878, the year of "Peace with Honour," I had walked as +lone as any human being in the streets of London, out of Liverpool +Street Station, to surrender myself to its care. And now, in the +year of the war waged for honour and conscience more than for any +other cause, I was there again, no longer alone, but a man of +infinitely dear and close ties grown since that time, of work done, +of words written, of friendships secured. It was like the closing +of a thirty-six-year cycle. + +All unaware of the War Angel already awaiting, with the trumpet at +his lips, the stroke of the fatal hour, I sat there, thinking that +this life of ours is neither long nor short, but that it can appear +very wonderful, entertaining, and pathetic, with symbolic images +and bizarre associations crowded into one half-hour of +retrospective musing. + +I felt, too, that this journey, so suddenly entered upon, was bound +to take me away from daily life's actualities at every step. I +felt it more than ever when presently we steamed out into the North +Sea, on a dark night fitful with gusts of wind, and I lingered on +deck, alone of all the tale of the ship's passengers. That sea was +to me something unforgettable, something much more than a name. It +had been for some time the school-room of my trade. On it, I may +safely say, I had learned, too, my first words of English. A wild +and stormy abode, sometimes, was that confined, shallow-water +academy of seamanship from which I launched myself on the wide +oceans. My teachers had been the sailors of the Norfolk shore; +coast men, with steady eyes, mighty limbs, and gentle voice; men of +very few words, which at least were never bare of meaning. Honest, +strong, steady men, sobered by domestic ties, one and all, as far +as I can remember. + +That is what years ago the North Sea I could hear growling in the +dark all round the ship had been for me. And I fancied that I must +have been carrying its voice in my ear ever since, for nothing +could be more familiar than those short, angry sounds I was +listening to with a smile of affectionate recognition. + +I could not guess that before many days my old schoolroom would be +desecrated by violence, littered with wrecks, with death walking +its waves, hiding under its waters. Perhaps while I am writing +these words the children, or maybe the grandchildren, of my pacific +teachers are out in trawlers, under the Naval flag, dredging for +German submarine mines. + + +III. + + +I have said that the North Sea was my finishing school of +seamanship before I launched myself on the wider oceans. Confined +as it is in comparison with the vast stage of this water-girt +globe, I did not know it in all its parts. My class-room was the +region of the English East Coast which, in the year of Peace with +Honour, had long forgotten the war episodes belonging to its +maritime history. It was a peaceful coast, agricultural, +industrial, the home of fishermen. At night the lights of its many +towns played on the clouds, or in clear weather lay still, here and +there, in brilliant pools above the ink-black outline of the land. +On many a night I have hauled at the braces under the shadow of +that coast, envying, as sailors will, the people on shore sleeping +quietly in their beds within sound of the sea. I imagine that not +one head on those envied pillows was made uneasy by the slightest +premonition of the realities of naval war the short lifetime of one +generation was to bring so close to their homes. + +Though far away from that region of kindly memories and traversing +a part of the North Sea much less known to me, I was deeply +conscious of the familiarity of my surroundings. It was a cloudy, +nasty day: and the aspects of Nature don't change, unless in the +course of thousands of years--or, perhaps, centuries. The +Phoenicians, its first discoverers, the Romans, the first imperial +rulers of that sea, had experienced days like this, so different in +the wintry quality of the light, even on a July afternoon, from +anything they had ever known in their native Mediterranean. For +myself, a very late comer into that sea, and its former pupil, I +accorded amused recognition to the characteristic aspect so well +remembered from my days of training. The same old thing. A grey- +green expanse of smudgy waters grinning angrily at one with white +foam-ridges, and over all a cheerless, unglowing canopy, apparently +made of wet blotting-paper. From time to time a flurry of fine +rain blew along like a puff of smoke across the dots of distant +fishing boats, very few, very scattered, and tossing restlessly on +an ever dissolving, ever re-forming sky-line. + +Those flurries, and the steady rolling of the ship, accounted for +the emptiness of the decks, favouring my reminiscent mood. It +might have been a day of five and thirty years ago, when there were +on this and every other sea more sails and less smoke-stacks to be +seen. Yet, thanks to the unchangeable sea I could have given +myself up to the illusion of a revised past, had it not been for +the periodical transit across my gaze of a German passenger. He +was marching round and round the boat deck with characteristic +determination. Two sturdy boys gambolled round him in his progress +like two disorderly satellites round their parent planet. He was +bringing them home, from their school in England, for their +holiday. What could have induced such a sound Teuton to entrust +his offspring to the unhealthy influences of that effete, corrupt, +rotten and criminal country I cannot imagine. It could hardly have +been from motives of economy. I did not speak to him. He trod the +deck of that decadent British ship with a scornful foot while his +breast (and to a large extent his stomach, too) appeared expanded +by the consciousness of a superior destiny. Later I could observe +the same truculent bearing, touched with the racial grotesqueness, +in the men of the LANDWEHR corps, that passed through Cracow to +reinforce the Austrian army in Eastern Galicia. Indeed, the +haughty passenger might very well have been, most probably was, an +officer of the LANDWEHR; and perhaps those two fine active boys are +orphans by now. Thus things acquire significance by the lapse of +time. A citizen, a father, a warrior, a mote in the dust-cloud of +six million fighting particles, an unconsidered trifle for the jaws +of war, his humanity was not consciously impressed on my mind at +the time. Mainly, for me, he was a sharp tapping of heels round +the corner of the deck-house, a white yachting cap and a green +overcoat getting periodically between my eyes and the shifting +cloud-horizon of the ashy-grey North Sea. He was but a shadowy +intrusion and a disregarded one, for, far away there to the West, +in the direction of the Dogger Bank, where fishermen go seeking +their daily bread and sometimes find their graves, I could behold +an experience of my own in the winter of '81, not of war, truly, +but of a fairly lively contest with the elements which were very +angry indeed. + +There had been a troublesome week of it, including one hateful +night--or a night of hate (it isn't for nothing that the North Sea +is also called the German Ocean)--when all the fury stored in its +heart seemed concentrated on one ship which could do no better than +float on her side in an unnatural, disagreeable, precarious, and +altogether intolerable manner. There were on board, besides +myself, seventeen men all good and true, including a round enormous +Dutchman who, in those hours between sunset and sunrise, managed to +lose his blown-out appearance somehow, became as it were deflated, +and thereafter for a good long time moved in our midst wrinkled and +slack all over like a half-collapsed balloon. The whimpering of +our deck-boy, a skinny, impressionable little scarecrow out of a +training-ship, for whom, because of the tender immaturity of his +nerves, this display of German Ocean frightfulness was too much +(before the year was out he developed into a sufficiently cheeky +young ruffian), his desolate whimpering, I say, heard between the +gusts of that black, savage night, was much more present to my mind +and indeed to my senses than the green overcoat and the white cap +of the German passenger circling the deck indefatigably, attended +by his two gyrating children. + +"That's a very nice gentleman." This information, together with +the fact that he was a widower and a regular passenger twice a year +by the ship, was communicated to me suddenly by our captain. At +intervals through the day he would pop out of the chart-room and +offer me short snatches of conversation. He owned a simple soul +and a not very entertaining mind, and he was without malice and, I +believe, quite unconsciously, a warm Germanophil. And no wonder! +As he told me himself, he had been fifteen years on that run, and +spent almost as much of his life in Hamburg as in Harwich. + +"Wonderful people they are," he repeated from time to time, without +entering into particulars, but with many nods of sagacious +obstinacy. What he knew of them, I suppose, were a few commercial +travellers and small merchants, most likely. But I had observed +long before that German genius has a hypnotising power over half- +baked souls and half-lighted minds. There is an immense force of +suggestion in highly organised mediocrity. Had it not hypnotised +half Europe? My man was very much under the spell of German +excellence. On the other hand, his contempt for France was equally +general and unbounded. I tried to advance some arguments against +this position, but I only succeeded in making him hostile. "I +believe you are a Frenchman yourself," he snarled at last, giving +me an intensely suspicious look; and forthwith broke off +communications with a man of such unsound sympathies. + +Hour by hour the blotting-paper sky and the great flat greenish +smudge of the sea had been taking on a darker tone, without any +change in their colouring and texture. Evening was coming on over +the North Sea. Black uninteresting hummocks of land appeared, +dotting the duskiness of water and clouds in the Eastern board: +tops of islands fringing the German shore. While I was looking at +their antics amongst the waves--and for all their solidity they +were very elusive things in the failing light--another passenger +came out on deck. This one wore a dark overcoat and a grey cap. +The yellow leather strap of his binocular case crossed his chest. +His elderly red cheeks nourished but a very thin crop of short +white hairs, and the end of his nose was so perfectly round that it +determined the whole character of his physiognomy. Indeed nothing +else in it had the slightest chance to assert itself. His +disposition, unlike the widower's, appeared to be mild and humane. +He offered me the loan of his glasses. He had a wife and some +small children concealed in the depths of the ship, and he thought +they were very well where they were. His eldest son was about the +decks somewhere. + +"We are Americans," he remarked weightily, but in a rather peculiar +tone. He spoke English with the accent of our captain's "wonderful +people," and proceeded to give me the history of the family's +crossing the Atlantic in a White Star liner. They remained in +England just the time necessary for a railway journey from +Liverpool to Harwich. His people (those in the depths of the ship) +were naturally a little tired. + +At that moment a young man of about twenty, his son, rushed up to +us from the fore-deck in a state of intense elation. "Hurrah," he +cried under his breath. "The first German light! Hurrah!" + +And those two American citizens shook hands on it with the greatest +fervour, while I turned away and received full in the eyes the +brilliant wink of the Borkum lighthouse squatting low down in the +darkness. The shade of the night had settled on the North Sea. + +I do not think I have ever seen before a night so full of lights. +The great change of sea life since my time was brought home to me. +I had been conscious all day of an interminable procession of +steamers. They went on and on as if in chase of each other, the +Baltic trade, the trade of Scandinavia, of Denmark, of Germany, +pitching heavily into a head sea and bound for the gateway of Dover +Straits. Singly, and in small companies of two and three, they +emerged from the dull, colourless, sunless distances ahead as if +the supply of rather roughly finished mechanical toys were +inexhaustible in some mysterious cheap store away there, below the +grey curve of the earth. Cargo steam vessels have reached by this +time a height of utilitarian ugliness which, when one reflects that +it is the product of human ingenuity, strikes hopeless awe into +one. These dismal creations look still uglier at sea than in port, +and with an added touch of the ridiculous. Their rolling waddle +when seen at a certain angle, their abrupt clockwork nodding in a +sea-way, so unlike the soaring lift and swing of a craft under +sail, have in them something caricatural, a suggestion of a low +parody directed at noble predecessors by an improved generation of +dull, mechanical toilers, conceited and without grace. + +When they switched on (each of these unlovely cargo tanks carried +tame lightning within its slab-sided body), when they switched on +their lamps they spangled the night with the cheap, electric, shop- +glitter, here, there, and everywhere, as of some High Street, +broken up and washed out to sea. Later, Heligoland cut into the +overhead darkness with its powerful beam, infinitely prolonged out +of unfathomable night under the clouds. + +I remained on deck until we stopped and a steam pilot-boat, so +overlighted amidships that one could not make out her complete +shape, glided across our bows and sent a pilot on board. I fear +that the oar, as a working implement, will become presently as +obsolete as the sail. The pilot boarded us in a motor-dinghy. +More and more is mankind reducing its physical activities to +pulling levers and twirling little wheels. Progress! Yet the +older methods of meeting natural forces demanded intelligence too; +an equally fine readiness of wits. And readiness of wits working +in combination with the strength of muscles made a more complete +man. + +It was really a surprisingly small dinghy and it ran to and fro +like a water-insect fussing noisily down there with immense self- +importance. Within hail of us the hull of the Elbe lightship +floated all dark and silent under its enormous round, service +lantern; a faithful black shadow watching the broad estuary full of +lights. + +Such was my first view of the Elbe approached under the wings of +peace ready for flight away from the luckless shores of Europe. +Our visual impressions remain with us so persistently that I find +it extremely difficult to hold fast to the rational belief that now +everything is dark over there, that the Elbe lightship has been +towed away from its post of duty, the triumphant beam of Heligoland +extinguished, and the pilot-boat laid up, or turned to warlike uses +for lack of its proper work to do. And obviously it must be so. + +Any trickle of oversea trade that passes yet that way must be +creeping along cautiously with the unlighted, war-blighted black +coast close on one hand, and sudden death on the other. For all +the space we steamed through that Sunday evening must now be one +great minefield, sown thickly with the seeds of hate; while +submarines steal out to sea, over the very spot perhaps where the +insect-dinghy put a pilot on board of us with so much fussy +importance. Mines; Submarines. The last word in sea-warfare! +Progress--impressively disclosed by this war. + +There have been other wars! Wars not inferior in the greatness of +the stake and in the fierce animosity of feelings. During that one +which was finished a hundred years ago it happened that while the +English Fleet was keeping watch on Brest, an American, perhaps +Fulton himself, offered to the Maritime Prefect of the port and to +the French Admiral, an invention which would sink all the +unsuspecting English ships one after another--or, at any rate most +of them. The offer was not even taken into consideration; and the +Prefect ends his report to the Minister in Paris with a fine phrase +of indignation: "It is not the sort of death one would deal to +brave men." + +And behold, before history had time to hatch another war of the +like proportions in the intensity of aroused passions and the +greatness of issues, the dead flavour of archaism descended on the +manly sentiment of those self-denying words. Mankind has been +demoralised since by its own mastery of mechanical appliances. Its +spirit is apparently so weak now, and its flesh has grown so +strong, that it will face any deadly horror of destruction and +cannot resist the temptation to use any stealthy, murderous +contrivance. It has become the intoxicated slave of its own +detestable ingenuity. It is true, too, that since the Napoleonic +time another sort of war-doctrine has been inculcated in a nation, +and held out to the world. + + +IV + + +On this journey of ours, which for me was essentially not a +progress, but a retracing of footsteps on the road of life, I had +no beacons to look for in Germany. I had never lingered in that +land which, on the whole, is so singularly barren of memorable +manifestations of generous sympathies and magnanimous impulses. An +ineradicable, invincible, provincialism of envy and vanity clings +to the forms of its thought like a frowsy garment. Even while yet +very young I turned my eyes away from it instinctively as from a +threatening phantom. I believe that children and dogs have, in +their innocence, a special power of perception as far as spectral +apparitions and coming misfortunes are concerned. + +I let myself be carried through Germany as if it were pure space, +without sights, without sounds. No whispers of the war reached my +voluntary abstraction. And perhaps not so very voluntary after +all! Each of us is a fascinating spectacle to himself, and I had +to watch my own personality returning from another world, as it +were, to revisit the glimpses of old moons. Considering the +condition of humanity, I am, perhaps, not so much to blame for +giving myself up to that occupation. We prize the sensation of our +continuity, and we can only capture it in that way. By watching. + +We arrived in Cracow late at night. After a scrambly supper, I +said to my eldest boy, "I can't go to bed. I am going out for a +look round. Coming?" + +He was ready enough. For him, all this was part of the interesting +adventure of the whole journey. We stepped out of the portal of +the hotel into an empty street, very silent and bright with +moonlight. I was, indeed, revisiting the glimpses of the moon. I +felt so much like a ghost that the discovery that I could remember +such material things as the right turn to take and the general +direction of the street gave me a moment of wistful surprise. + +The street, straight and narrow, ran into the great Market Square +of the town, the centre of its affairs and of the lighter side of +its life. We could see at the far end of the street a promising +widening of space. At the corner an unassuming (but armed) +policeman, wearing ceremoniously at midnight a pair of white gloves +which made his big hands extremely noticeable, turned his head to +look at the grizzled foreigner holding forth in a strange tongue to +a youth on whose arm he leaned. + +The Square, immense in its solitude, was full to the brim of +moonlight. The garland of lights at the foot of the houses seemed +to burn at the bottom of a bluish pool. I noticed with infinite +satisfaction that the unnecessary trees the Municipality insisted +upon sticking between the stones had been steadily refusing to +grow. They were not a bit bigger than the poor victims I could +remember. Also, the paving operations seemed to be exactly at the +same point at which I left them forty years before. There were the +dull, torn-up patches on that bright expanse, the piles of paving +material looking ominously black, like heads of rocks on a silvery +sea. Who was it that said that Time works wonders? What an +exploded superstition! As far as these trees and these paving +stones were concerned, it had worked nothing. The suspicion of the +unchangeableness of things already vaguely suggested to my senses +by our rapid drive from the railway station was agreeably +strengthened within me. + +"We are now on the line A.B.," I said to my companion, importantly. + +It was the name bestowed in my time on one of the sides of the +Square by the senior students of that town of classical learning +and historical relics. The common citizens knew nothing of it, +and, even if they had, would not have dreamed of taking it +seriously. He who used it was of the initiated, belonged to the +Schools. We youngsters regarded that name as a fine jest, the +invention of a most excellent fancy. Even as I uttered it to my +boy I experienced again that sense of my privileged initiation. +And then, happening to look up at the wall, I saw in the light of +the corner lamp, a white, cast-iron tablet fixed thereon, bearing +an inscription in raised black letters, thus: "Line A.B." +Heavens! The name had been adopted officially! Any town urchin, +any guttersnipe, any herb-selling woman of the market-place, any +wandering Boeotian, was free to talk of the line A.B., to walk on +the line A.B., to appoint to meet his friends on the line A.B. It +had become a mere name in a directory. I was stunned by the +extreme mutability of things. Time could work wonders, and no +mistake. A Municipality had stolen an invention of excellent +fancy, and a fine jest had turned into a horrid piece of cast-iron. + +I proposed that we should walk to the other end of the line, using +the profaned name, not only without gusto, but with positive +distaste. And this, too, was one of the wonders of Time, for a +bare minute had worked that change. There was at the end of the +line a certain street I wanted to look at, I explained to my +companion. + +To our right the unequal massive towers of St. Mary's Church soared +aloft into the ethereal radiance of the air, very black on their +shaded sides, glowing with a soft phosphorescent sheen on the +others. In the distance the Florian Gate, thick and squat under +its pointed roof, barred the street with the square shoulders of +the old city wall. In the narrow, brilliantly pale vista of bluish +flagstones and silvery fronts of houses, its black archway stood +out small and very distinct. + +There was not a soul in sight, and not even the echo of a footstep +for our ears. Into this coldly illuminated and dumb emptiness +there issued out of my aroused memory, a small boy of eleven, +wending his way, not very fast, to a preparatory school for day- +pupils on the second floor of the third house down from the Florian +Gate. It was in the winter months of 1868. At eight o'clock of +every morning that God made, sleet or shine, I walked up Florian +Street. But of that, my first school, I remember very little. I +believe that one of my co-sufferers there has become a much +appreciated editor of historical documents. But I didn't suffer +much from the various imperfections of my first school. I was +rather indifferent to school troubles. I had a private gnawing +worm of my own. This was the time of my father's last illness. +Every evening at seven, turning my back on the Florian Gate, I +walked all the way to a big old house in a quiet narrow street a +good distance beyond the Great Square. There, in a large drawing- +room, panelled and bare, with heavy cornices and a lofty ceiling, +in a little oasis of light made by two candles in a desert of dusk, +I sat at a little table to worry and ink myself all over till the +task of my preparation was done. The table of my toil faced a tall +white door, which was kept closed; now and then it would come ajar +and a nun in a white coif would squeeze herself through the crack, +glide across the room, and disappear. There were two of these +noiseless nursing nuns. Their voices were seldom heard. For, +indeed, what could they have had to say? When they did speak to me +it was with their lips hardly moving, in a claustral, clear +whisper. Our domestic matters were ordered by the elderly +housekeeper of our neighbour on the second floor, a Canon of the +Cathedral, lent for the emergency. She, too, spoke but seldom. +She wore a black dress with a cross hanging by a chain on her ample +bosom. And though when she spoke she moved her lips more than the +nuns, she never let her voice rise above a peacefully murmuring +note. The air around me was all piety, resignation, and silence. + +I don't know what would have become of me if I had not been a +reading boy. My prep. finished I would have had nothing to do but +sit and watch the awful stillness of the sick room flow out through +the closed door and coldly enfold my scared heart. I suppose that +in a futile childish way I would have gone crazy. But I was a +reading boy. There were many books about, lying on consoles, on +tables, and even on the floor, for we had not had time to settle +down. I read! What did I not read! Sometimes the elder nun, +gliding up and casting a mistrustful look on the open pages, would +lay her hand lightly on my head and suggest in a doubtful whisper, +"Perhaps it is not very good for you to read these books." I would +raise my eyes to her face mutely, and with a vague gesture of +giving it up she would glide away. + +Later in the evening, but not always, I would be permitted to tip- +toe into the sick room to say good-night to the figure prone on the +bed, which often could not acknowledge my presence but by a slow +movement of the eyes, put my lips dutifully to the nerveless hand +lying on the coverlet, and tip-toe out again. Then I would go to +bed, in a room at the end of the corridor, and often, not always, +cry myself into a good sound sleep. + +I looked forward to what was coming with an incredulous terror. I +turned my eyes from it sometimes with success, and yet all the time +I had an awful sensation of the inevitable. I had also moments of +revolt which stripped off me some of my simple trust in the +government of the universe. But when the inevitable entered the +sick room and the white door was thrown wide open, I don't think I +found a single tear to shed. I have a suspicion that the Canon's +housekeeper looked on me as the most callous little wretch on +earth. + +The day of the funeral came in due course and all the generous +"Youth of the Schools," the grave Senate of the University, the +delegations of the Trade-guilds, might have obtained (if they +cared) DE VISU evidence of the callousness of the little wretch. +There was nothing in my aching head but a few words, some such +stupid sentences as, "It's done," or, "It's accomplished" (in +Polish it is much shorter), or something of the sort, repeating +itself endlessly. The long procession moved out of the narrow +street, down a long street, past the Gothic front of St. Mary's +under its unequal towers, towards the Florian Gate. + +In the moonlight-flooded silence of the old town of glorious tombs +and tragic memories, I could see again the small boy of that day +following a hearse; a space kept clear in which I walked alone, +conscious of an enormous following, the clumsy swaying of the tall +black machine, the chanting of the surpliced clergy at the head, +the flames of tapers passing under the low archway of the gate, the +rows of bared heads on the pavements with fixed, serious eyes. +Half the population had turned out on that fine May afternoon. +They had not come to honour a great achievement, or even some +splendid failure. The dead and they were victims alike of an +unrelenting destiny which cut them off from every path of merit and +glory. They had come only to render homage to the ardent fidelity +of the man whose life had been a fearless confession in word and +deed of a creed which the simplest heart in that crowd could feel +and understand. + +It seemed to me that if I remained longer there in that narrow +street I should become the helpless prey of the Shadows I had +called up. They were crowding upon me, enigmatic and insistent in +their clinging air of the grave that tasted of dust and of the +bitter vanity of old hopes. + +"Let's go back to the hotel, my boy," I said. "It's getting late." + +It will be easily understood that I neither thought nor dreamt that +night of a possible war. For the next two days I went about +amongst my fellow men, who welcomed me with the utmost +consideration and friendliness, but unanimously derided my fears of +a war. They would not believe in it. It was impossible. On the +evening of the second day I was in the hotel's smoking room, an +irrationally private apartment, a sanctuary for a few choice minds +of the town, always pervaded by a dim religious light, and more +hushed than any club reading-room I have ever been in. Gathered +into a small knot, we were discussing the situation in subdued +tones suitable to the genius of the place. + +A gentleman with a fine head of white hair suddenly pointed an +impatient finger in my direction and apostrophised me. + +"What I want to know is whether, should there be war, England would +come in." + +The time to draw a breath, and I spoke out for the Cabinet without +faltering. + +"Most assuredly. I should think all Europe knows that by this +time." + +He took hold of the lapel of my coat, and, giving it a slight jerk +for greater emphasis, said forcibly: + +"Then, if England will, as you say, and all the world knows it, +there can be no war. Germany won't be so mad as that." + +On the morrow by noon we read of the German ultimatum. The day +after came the declaration of war, and the Austrian mobilisation +order. We were fairly caught. All that remained for me to do was +to get my party out of the way of eventual shells. The best move +which occurred to me was to snatch them up instantly into the +mountains to a Polish health resort of great repute--which I did +(at the rate of one hundred miles in eleven hours) by the last +civilian train permitted to leave Cracow for the next three weeks. + +And there we remained amongst the Poles from all parts of Poland, +not officially interned, but simply unable to obtain the permission +to travel by train, or road. It was a wonderful, a poignant two +months. This is not the time, and, perhaps, not the place, to +enlarge upon the tragic character of the situation; a whole people +seeing the culmination of its misfortunes in a final catastrophe, +unable to trust anyone, to appeal to anyone, to look for help from +any quarter; deprived of all hope and even of its last illusions, +and unable, in the trouble of minds and the unrest of consciences, +to take refuge in stoical acceptance. I have seen all this. And I +am glad I have not so many years left me to remember that appalling +feeling of inexorable fate, tangible, palpable, come after so many +cruel years, a figure of dread, murmuring with iron lips the final +words: Ruin--and Extinction. + +But enough of this. For our little band there was the awful +anguish of incertitude as to the real nature of events in the West. +It is difficult to give an idea how ugly and dangerous things +looked to us over there. Belgium knocked down and trampled out of +existence, France giving in under repeated blows, a military +collapse like that of 1870, and England involved in that disastrous +alliance, her army sacrificed, her people in a panic! Polish +papers, of course, had no other but German sources of information. +Naturally, we did not believe all we read, but it was sometimes +excessively difficult to react with sufficient firmness. + +We used to shut our door, and there, away from everybody, we sat +weighing the news, hunting up discrepancies, scenting lies, finding +reasons for hopefulness, and generally cheering each other up. But +it was a beastly time. People used to come to me with very serious +news and ask, "What do you think of it?" And my invariable answer +was: "Whatever has happened, or is going to happen, whoever wants +to make peace, you may be certain that England will not make it, +not for ten years, if necessary."' + +But enough of this, too. Through the unremitting efforts of Polish +friends we obtained at last the permission to travel to Vienna. +Once there, the wing of the American Eagle was extended over our +uneasy heads. We cannot be sufficiently grateful to the American +Ambassador (who, all along, interested himself in our fate) for his +exertions on our behalf, his invaluable assistance and the real +friendliness of his reception in Vienna. Owing to Mr. Penfield's +action we obtained the permission to leave Austria. And it was a +near thing, for his Excellency has informed my American publishers +since that a week later orders were issued to have us detained till +the end of the war. However, we effected our hair's-breadth escape +into Italy; and, reaching Genoa, took passage in a Dutch mail +steamer, homeward-bound from Java with London as a port of call. + +On that sea-route I might have picked up a memory at every mile if +the past had not been eclipsed by the tremendous actuality. We saw +the signs of it in the emptiness of the Mediterranean, the aspect +of Gibraltar, the misty glimpse in the Bay of Biscay of an outward- +bound convoy of transports, in the presence of British submarines +in the Channel. Innumerable drifters flying the Naval flag dotted +the narrow waters, and two Naval officers coming on board off the +South Foreland, piloted the ship through the Downs. + +The Downs! There they were, thick with the memories of my sea- +life. But what were to me now the futilities of an individual +past? As our ship's head swung into the estuary of the Thames, a +deep, yet faint, concussion passed through the air, a shock rather +than a sound, which missing my ear found its way straight into my +heart. Turning instinctively to look at my boys, I happened to +meet my wife's eyes. She also had felt profoundly, coming from far +away across the grey distances of the sea, the faint boom of the +big guns at work on the coast of Flanders--shaping the future. + + + +FIRST NEWS--1918 + + + +Four years ago, on the first day of August, in the town of Cracow, +Austrian Poland, nobody would believe that the war was coming. My +apprehensions were met by the words: "We have had these scares +before." This incredulity was so universal amongst people of +intelligence and information, that even I, who had accustomed +myself to look at the inevitable for years past, felt my conviction +shaken. At that time, it must be noted, the Austrian army was +already partly mobilised, and as we came through Austrian Silesia +we had noticed all the bridges being guarded by soldiers. + +"Austria will back down," was the opinion of all the well-informed +men with whom I talked on the first of August. The session of the +University was ended and the students were either all gone or going +home to different parts of Poland, but the professors had not all +departed yet on their respective holidays, and amongst them the +tone of scepticism prevailed generally. Upon the whole there was +very little inclination to talk about the possibility of a war. +Nationally, the Poles felt that from their point of view there was +nothing to hope from it. "Whatever happens," said a very +distinguished man to me, "we may be certain that it's our skins +which will pay for it as usual." A well-known literary critic and +writer on economical subjects said to me: "War seems a material +impossibility, precisely because it would mean the complete ruin of +all material interests." + +He was wrong, as we know; but those who said that Austria as usual +would back down were, as a matter of fact perfectly right. Austria +did back down. What these men did not foresee was the interference +of Germany. And one cannot blame them very well; for who could +guess that, when the balance stood even, the German sword would be +thrown into the scale with nothing in the open political situation +to justify that act, or rather that crime--if crime can ever be +justified? For, as the same intelligent man said to me: "As it +is, those people" (meaning Germans) "have very nearly the whole +world in their economic grip. Their prestige is even greater than +their actual strength. It can get for them practically everything +they want. Then why risk it?" And there was no apparent answer to +the question put in that way. I must also say that the Poles had +no illusions about the strength of Russia. Those illusions were +the monopoly of the Western world. + +Next day the librarian of the University invited me to come and +have a look at the library which I had not seen since I was +fourteen years old. It was from him that I learned that the +greater part of my father's MSS. was preserved there. He confessed +that he had not looked them through thoroughly yet, but he told me +that there was a lot of very important letters bearing on the epoch +from '60 to '63, to and from many prominent Poles of that time: +and he added: "There is a bundle of correspondence that will +appeal to you personally. Those are letters written by your father +to an intimate friend in whose papers they were found. They +contain many references to yourself, though you couldn't have been +more than four years old at the time. Your father seems to have +been extremely interested in his son." That afternoon I went to +the University, taking with me MY eldest son. The attention of +that young Englishman was mainly attracted by some relics of +Copernicus in a glass case. I saw the bundle of letters and +accepted the kind proposal of the librarian that he should have +them copied for me during the holidays. In the range of the +deserted vaulted rooms lined with books, full of august memories, +and in the passionless silence of all this enshrined wisdom, we +walked here and there talking of the past, the great historical +past in which lived the inextinguishable spark of national life; +and all around us the centuries-old buildings lay still and empty, +composing themselves to rest after a year of work on the minds of +another generation. + +No echo of the German ultimatum to Russia penetrated that +academical peace. But the news had come. When we stepped into the +street out of the deserted main quadrangle, we three, I imagine, +were the only people in the town who did not know of it. My boy +and I parted from the librarian (who hurried home to pack up for +his holiday) and walked on to the hotel, where we found my wife +actually in the car waiting for us to take a run of some ten miles +to the country house of an old school-friend of mine. He had been +my greatest chum. In my wanderings about the world I had heard +that his later career both at school and at the University had been +of extraordinary brilliance--in classics, I believe. But in this, +the iron-grey moustache period of his life, he informed me with +badly concealed pride that he had gained world fame as the +Inventor--no, Inventor is not the word--Producer, I believe would +be the right term--of a wonderful kind of beetroot seed. The beet +grown from this seed contained more sugar to the square inch--or +was it to the square root?--than any other kind of beet. He +exported this seed, not only with profit (and even to the United +States), but with a certain amount of glory which seemed to have +gone slightly to his head. There is a fundamental strain of +agriculturalist in a Pole which no amount of brilliance, even +classical, can destroy. While we were having tea outside, looking +down the lovely slope of the gardens at the view of the city in the +distance, the possibilities of the war faded from our minds. +Suddenly my friend's wife came to us with a telegram in her hand +and said calmly: "General mobilisation, do you know?" We looked +at her like men aroused from a dream. "Yes," she insisted, "they +are already taking the horses out of the ploughs and carts." I +said: "We had better go back to town as quick as we can," and my +friend assented with a troubled look: "Yes, you had better." As +we passed through villages on our way back we saw mobs of horses +assembled on the commons with soldiers guarding them, and groups of +villagers looking on silently at the officers with their note-books +checking deliveries and writing out receipts. Some old peasant +women were already weeping aloud. + +When our car drew up at the door of the hotel, the manager himself +came to help my wife out. In the first moment I did not quite +recognise him. His luxuriant black locks were gone, his head was +closely cropped, and as I glanced at it he smiled and said: "I +shall sleep at the barracks to-night." + +I cannot reproduce the atmosphere of that night, the first night +after mobilisation. The shops and the gateways of the houses were +of course closed, but all through the dark hours the town hummed +with voices; the echoes of distant shouts entered the open windows +of our bedroom. Groups of men talking noisily walked in the middle +of the road-way escorted by distressed women: men of all callings +and of all classes going to report themselves at the fortress. Now +and then a military car tooting furiously would whisk through the +streets empty of wheeled traffic, like an intensely black shadow +under the great flood of electric lights on the grey pavement. + +But what produced the greatest impression on my mind was a +gathering at night in the coffee-room of my hotel of a few men of +mark whom I was asked to join. It was about one o'clock in the +morning. The shutters were up. For some reason or other the +electric light was not switched on, and the big room was lit up +only by a few tall candles, just enough for us to see each other's +faces by. I saw in those faces the awful desolation of men whose +country, torn in three, found itself engaged in the contest with no +will of its own, and not even the power to assert itself at the +cost of life. All the past was gone, and there was no future, +whatever happened; no road which did not seem to lead to moral +annihilation. I remember one of those men addressing me after a +period of mournful silence compounded of mental exhaustion and +unexpressed forebodings. + +"What do you think England will do? If there is a ray of hope +anywhere it is only there." + +I said: "I believe I know what England will do" (this was before +the news of the violation of Belgian neutrality arrived), "though I +won't tell you, for I am not absolutely certain. But I can tell +you what I am absolutely certain of. It is this: If England comes +into the war, then, no matter who may want to make peace at the end +of six months at the cost of right and justice, England will keep +on fighting for years if necessary. You may reckon on that." + +"What, even alone?" asked somebody across the room. + +I said: "Yes, even alone. But if things go so far as that England +will not be alone." + +I think that at that moment I must have been inspired. + + + +WELL DONE--1918 + + + +I. + + +It can be safely said that for the last four years the seamen of +Great Britain have done well. I mean that every kind and sort of +human being classified as seaman, steward, fore-mast hand, fireman, +lamp-trimmer, mate, master, engineer, and also all through the +innumerable ratings of the Navy up to that of Admiral, has done +well. I don't say marvellously well or miraculously well or +wonderfully well or even very well, because these are simply over- +statements of undisciplined minds. I don't deny that a man may be +a marvellous being, but this is not likely to be discovered in his +lifetime, and not always even after he is dead. Man's +marvellousness is a hidden thing, because the secrets of his heart +are not to be read by his fellows. As to a man's work, if it is +done well it is the very utmost that can be said. You can do well, +and you can do no more for people to see. In the Navy, where human +values are thoroughly understood, the highest signal of +commendation complimenting a ship (that is, a ship's company) on +some achievements consists exactly of those two simple words "Well +done," followed by the name of the ship. Not marvellously done, +astonishingly done, wonderfully done--no, only just: + +"Well done, so-and-so." + +And to the men it is a matter of infinite pride that somebody +should judge it proper to mention aloud, as it were, that they have +done well. It is a memorable occurrence, for in the sea services +you are expected professionally and as a matter of course to do +well, because nothing less will do. And in sober speech no man can +be expected to do more than well. The superlatives are mere signs +of uninformed wonder. Thus the official signal which can express +nothing but a delicate share of appreciation becomes a great +honour. + +Speaking now as a purely civil seaman (or, perhaps, I ought to say +civilian, because politeness is not what I have in my mind) I may +say that I have never expected the Merchant Service to do otherwise +than well during the war. There were people who obviously did not +feel the same confidence, nay, who even confidently expected to see +the collapse of merchant seamen's courage. I must admit that such +pronouncements did arrest my attention. In my time I have never +been able to detect any faint hearts in the ships' companies with +whom I have served in various capacities. But I reflected that I +had left the sea in '94, twenty years before the outbreak of the +war that was to apply its severe test to the quality of modern +seamen. Perhaps they had deteriorated, I said unwillingly to +myself. I remembered also the alarmist articles I had read about +the great number of foreigners in the British Merchant Service, and +I didn't know how far these lamentations were justified. + +In my time the proportion of non-Britishers in the crews of the +ships flying the red ensign was rather under one-third, which, as a +matter of fact, was less than the proportion allowed under the very +strict French navigation laws for the crews of the ships of that +nation. For the strictest laws aiming at the preservation of +national seamen had to recognise the difficulties of manning +merchant ships all over the world. The one-third of the French law +seemed to be the irreducible minimum. But the British proportion +was even less. Thus it may be said that up to the date I have +mentioned the crews of British merchant ships engaged in deep water +voyages to Australia, to the East Indies and round the Horn were +essentially British. The small proportion of foreigners which I +remember were mostly Scandinavians, and my general impression +remains that those men were good stuff. They appeared always able +and ready to do their duty by the flag under which they served. +The majority were Norwegians, whose courage and straightness of +character are matters beyond doubt. I remember also a couple of +Finns, both carpenters, of course, and very good craftsmen; a +Swede, the most scientific sailmaker I ever met; another Swede, a +steward, who really might have been called a British seaman since +he had sailed out of London for over thirty years, a rather +superior person; one Italian, an everlastingly smiling but a +pugnacious character; one Frenchman, a most excellent sailor, +tireless and indomitable under very difficult circumstances; one +Hollander, whose placid manner of looking at the ship going to +pieces under our feet I shall never forget, and one young, +colourless, muscularly very strong German, of no particular +character. Of non-European crews, lascars and Kalashes, I have had +very little experience, and that was only in one steamship and for +something less than a year. It was on the same occasion that I had +my only sight of Chinese firemen. Sight is the exact word. One +didn't speak to them. One saw them going along the decks, to and +fro, characteristic figures with rolled-up pigtails, very dirty +when coming off duty and very clean-faced when going on duty. They +never looked at anybody, and one never had occasion to address them +directly. Their appearances in the light of day were very regular, +and yet somewhat ghostlike in their detachment and silence. + +But of the white crews of British ships and almost exclusively +British in blood and descent, the immediate predecessors of the men +whose worth the nation has discovered for itself to-day, I have had +a thorough experience. At first amongst them, then with them, I +have shared all the conditions of their very special life. For it +was very special. In my early days, starting out on a voyage was +like being launched into Eternity. I say advisedly Eternity +instead of Space, because of the boundless silence which swallowed +up one for eighty days--for one hundred days--for even yet more +days of an existence without echoes and whispers. Like Eternity +itself! For one can't conceive a vocal Eternity. An enormous +silence, in which there was nothing to connect one with the +Universe but the incessant wheeling about of the sun and other +celestial bodies, the alternation of light and shadow, eternally +chasing each other over the sky. The time of the earth, though +most carefully recorded by the half-hourly bells, did not count in +reality. + +It was a special life, and the men were a very special kind of men. +By this I don't mean to say they were more complex than the +generality of mankind. Neither were they very much simpler. I +have already admitted that man is a marvellous creature, and no +doubt those particular men were marvellous enough in their way. +But in their collective capacity they can be best defined as men +who lived under the command to do well, or perish utterly. I have +written of them with all the truth that was in me, and with an the +impartiality of which I was capable. Let me not be misunderstood +in this statement. Affection can be very exacting, and can easily +miss fairness on the critical side. I have looked upon them with a +jealous eye, expecting perhaps even more than it was strictly fair +to expect. And no wonder--since I had elected to be one of them +very deliberately, very completely, without any looking back or +looking elsewhere. The circumstances were such as to give me the +feeling of complete identification, a very vivid comprehension that +if I wasn't one of them I was nothing at all. But what was most +difficult to detect was the nature of the deep impulses which these +men obeyed. What spirit was it that inspired the unfailing +manifestations of their simple fidelity? No outward cohesive force +of compulsion or discipline was holding them together or had ever +shaped their unexpressed standards. It was very mysterious. At +last I came to the conclusion that it must be something in the +nature of the life itself; the sea-life chosen blindly, embraced +for the most part accidentally by those men who appeared but a +loose agglomeration of individuals toiling for their living away +from the eyes of mankind. Who can tell how a tradition comes into +the world? We are children of the earth. It may be that the +noblest tradition is but the offspring of material conditions, of +the hard necessities besetting men's precarious lives. But once it +has been born it becomes a spirit. Nothing can extinguish its +force then. Clouds of greedy selfishness, the subtle dialectics of +revolt or fear, may obscure it for a time, but in very truth it +remains an immortal ruler invested with the power of honour and +shame. + + +II. + + +The mysteriously born tradition of sea-craft commands unity in a +body of workers engaged in an occupation in which men have to +depend upon each other. It raises them, so to speak, above the +frailties of their dead selves. I don't wish to be suspected of +lack of judgment and of blind enthusiasm. I don't claim special +morality or even special manliness for the men who in my time +really lived at sea, and at the present time live at any rate +mostly at sea. But in their qualities as well as in their defects, +in their weaknesses as well as in their "virtue," there was +indubitably something apart. They were never exactly of the earth +earthly. They couldn't be that. Chance or desire (mostly desire) +had set them apart, often in their very childhood; and what is to +be remarked is that from the very nature of things this early +appeal, this early desire, had to be of an imaginative kind. Thus +their simple minds had a sort of sweetness. They were in a way +preserved. I am not alluding here to the preserving qualities of +the salt in the sea. The salt of the sea is a very good thing in +its way; it preserves for instance one from catching a beastly cold +while one remains wet for weeks together in the "roaring forties." +But in sober unpoetical truth the sea-salt never gets much further +than the seaman's skin, which in certain latitudes it takes the +opportunity to encrust very thoroughly. That and nothing more. +And then, what is this sea, the subject of so many apostrophes in +verse and prose addressed to its greatness and its mystery by men +who had never penetrated either the one or the other? The sea is +uncertain, arbitrary, featureless, and violent. Except when helped +by the varied majesty of the sky, there is something inane in its +serenity and something stupid in its wrath, which is endless, +boundless, persistent, and futile--a grey, hoary thing raging like +an old ogre uncertain of its prey. Its very immensity is +wearisome. At any time within the navigating centuries mankind +might have addressed it with the words: "What are you, after all? +Oh, yes, we know. The greatest scene of potential terror, a +devouring enigma of space. Yes. But our lives have been nothing +if not a continuous defiance of what you can do and what you may +hold; a spiritual and material defiance carried on in our plucky +cockleshells on and on beyond the successive provocations of your +unreadable horizons." + +Ah, but the charm of the sea! Oh, yes, charm enough. Or rather a +sort of unholy fascination as of an elusive nymph whose embrace is +death, and a Medusa's head whose stare is terror. That sort of +charm is calculated to keep men morally in order. But as to sea- +salt, with its particular bitterness like nothing else on earth, +that, I am safe to say, penetrates no further than the seamen's +lips. With them the inner soundness is caused by another kind of +preservative of which (nobody will be surprised to hear) the main +ingredient is a certain kind of love that has nothing to do with +the futile smiles and the futile passions of the sea. + +Being love this feeling is naturally naive and imaginative. It has +also in it that strain of fantasy that is so often, nay almost +invariably, to be found in the temperament of a true seaman. But I +repeat that I claim no particular morality for seamen. I will +admit without difficulty that I have found amongst them the usual +defects of mankind, characters not quite straight, uncertain +tempers, vacillating wills, capriciousness, small meannesses; all +this coming out mostly on the contact with the shore; and all +rather naive, peculiar, a little fantastic. I have even had a +downright thief in my experience. One. + +This is indeed a minute proportion, but it might have been my luck; +and since I am writing in eulogy of seamen I feel irresistibly +tempted to talk about this unique specimen; not indeed to offer him +as an example of morality, but to bring out certain characteristics +and set out a certain point of view. He was a large, strong man +with a guileless countenance, not very communicative with his +shipmates, but when drawn into any sort of conversation displaying +a very painstaking earnestness. He was fair and candid-eyed, of a +very satisfactory smartness, and, from the officer-of-the-watch +point of view,--altogether dependable. Then, suddenly, he went and +stole. And he didn't go away from his honourable kind to do that +thing to somebody on shore; he stole right there on the spot, in +proximity to his shipmates, on board his own ship, with complete +disregard for old Brown, our night watchman (whose fame for +trustworthiness was utterly blasted for the rest of the voyage) and +in such a way as to bring the profoundest possible trouble to all +the blameless souls animating that ship. He stole eleven golden +sovereigns, and a gold pocket chronometer and chain. I am really +in doubt whether the crime should not be entered under the category +of sacrilege rather than theft. Those things belonged to the +captain! There was certainly something in the nature of the +violation of a sanctuary, and of a particularly impudent kind, too, +because he got his plunder out of the captain's state-room while +the captain was asleep there. But look, now, at the fantasy of the +man! After going through the pockets of the clothes, he did not +hasten to retreat. No. He went deliberately into the saloon and +removed from the sideboard two big heavy, silver-plated lamps, +which he carried to the fore-end of the ship and stood +symmetrically on the knight-heads. This, I must explain, means +that he took them away as far as possible from the place where they +belonged. These were the deeds of darkness. In the morning the +bo'sun came along dragging after him a hose to wash the foc'sle +head, and, beholding the shiny cabin lamps, resplendent in the +morning light, one on each side of the bowsprit, he was paralysed +with awe. He dropped the nozzle from his nerveless hands--and such +hands, too! I happened along, and he said to me in a distracted +whisper: "Look at that, sir, look." "Take them back aft at once +yourself," I said, very amazed, too. As we approached the +quarterdeck we perceived the steward, a prey to a sort of sacred +horror, holding up before us the captain's trousers. + +Bronzed men with brooms and buckets in their hands stood about with +open mouths. "I have found them lying in the passage outside the +captain's door," the steward declared faintly. The additional +statement that the captain's watch was gone from its hook by the +bedside raised the painful sensation to the highest pitch. We knew +then we had a thief amongst us. Our thief! Behold the solidarity +of a ship's company. He couldn't be to us like any other thief. +We all had to live under the shadow of his crime for days; but the +police kept on investigating, and one morning a young woman +appeared on board swinging a parasol, attended by two policemen, +and identified the culprit. She was a barmaid of some bar near the +Circular Quay, and knew really nothing of our man except that he +looked like a respectable sailor. She had seen him only twice in +her life. On the second occasion he begged her nicely as a great +favour to take care for him of a small solidly tied-up paper parcel +for a day or two. But he never came near her again. At the end of +three weeks she opened it, and, of course, seeing the contents, was +much alarmed, and went to the nearest police-station for advice. +The police took her at once on board our ship, where all hands were +mustered on the quarterdeck. She stared wildly at all our faces, +pointed suddenly a finger with a shriek, "That's the man," and +incontinently went off into a fit of hysterics in front of thirty- +six seamen. I must say that never in my life did I see a ship's +company look so frightened. Yes, in this tale of guilt, there was +a curious absence of mere criminality, and a touch of that fantasy +which is often a part of a seaman's character. It wasn't greed +that moved him, I think. It was something much less simple: +boredom, perhaps, or a bet, or the pleasure of defiance. + +And now for the point of view. It was given to me by a short, +black-bearded A.B. of the crew, who on sea passages washed my +flannel shirts, mended my clothes and, generally, looked after my +room. He was an excellent needleman and washerman, and a very good +sailor. Standing in this peculiar relation to me, he considered +himself privileged to open his mind on the matter one evening when +he brought back to my cabin three clean and neatly folded shirts. +He was profoundly pained. He said: "What a ship's company! Never +seen such a crowd! Liars, cheats, thieves. . . " + +It was a needlessly jaundiced view. There were in that ship's +company three or four fellows who dealt in tall yarns, and I knew +that on the passage out there had been a dispute over a game in the +foc'sle once or twice of a rather acute kind, so that all card- +playing had to be abandoned. In regard to thieves, as we know, +there was only one, and he, I am convinced, came out of his reserve +to perform an exploit rather than to commit a crime. But my black- +bearded friend's indignation had its special morality, for he +added, with a burst of passion: "And on board our ship, too--a +ship like this. . ." + +Therein lies the secret of the seamen's special character as a +body. The ship, this ship, our ship, the ship we serve, is the +moral symbol of our life. A ship has to be respected, actually and +ideally; her merit, her innocence, are sacred things. Of all the +creations of man she is the closest partner of his toil and +courage. From every point of view it is imperative that you should +do well by her. And, as always in the case of true love, all you +can do for her adds only to the tale of her merits in your heart. +Mute and compelling, she claims not only your fidelity, but your +respect. And the supreme "Well done!" which you may earn is made +over to her. + + +III. + + +It is my deep conviction, or, perhaps, I ought to say my deep +feeling born from personal experience, that it is not the sea but +the ships of the sea that guide and command that spirit of +adventure which some say is the second nature of British men. I +don't want to provoke a controversy (for intellectually I am rather +a Quietist) but I venture to affirm that the main characteristic of +the British men spread all over the world, is not the spirit of +adventure so much as the spirit of service. I think that this +could be demonstrated from the history of great voyages and the +general activity of the race. That the British man has always +liked his service to be adventurous rather than otherwise cannot be +denied, for each British man began by being young in his time when +all risk has a glamour. Afterwards, with the course of years, risk +became a part of his daily work; he would have missed it from his +side as one misses a loved companion. + +The mere love of adventure is no saving grace. It is no grace at +all. It lays a man under no obligation of faithfulness to an idea +and even to his own self. Roughly speaking, an adventurer may be +expected to have courage, or at any rate may be said to need it. +But courage in itself is not an ideal. A successful highwayman +showed courage of a sort, and pirate crews have been known to fight +with courage or perhaps only with reckless desperation in the +manner of cornered rats. There is nothing in the world to prevent +a mere lover or pursuer of adventure from running at any moment. +There is his own self, his mere taste for excitement, the prospect +of some sort of gain, but there is no sort of loyalty to bind him +in honour to consistent conduct. I have noticed that the majority +of mere lovers of adventure are mightily careful of their skins; +and the proof of it is that so many of them manage to keep it whole +to an advanced age. You find them in mysterious nooks of islands +and continents, mostly red-nosed and watery-eyed, and not even +amusingly boastful. There is nothing more futile under the sun +than a mere adventurer. He might have loved at one time--which +would have been a saving grace. I mean loved adventure for itself. +But if so, he was bound to lose this grace very soon. Adventure by +itself is but a phantom, a dubious shape without a heart. Yes, +there is nothing more futile than an adventurer; but nobody can say +that the adventurous activities of the British race are stamped +with the futility of a chase after mere emotions. + +The successive generations that went out to sea from these Isles +went out to toil desperately in adventurous conditions. A man is a +worker. If he is not that he is nothing. Just nothing--like a +mere adventurer. Those men understood the nature of their work, +but more or less dimly, in various degrees of imperfection. The +best and greatest of their leaders even had never seen it clearly, +because of its magnitude and the remoteness of its end. This is +the common fate of mankind, whose most positive achievements are +born from dreams and visions followed loyally to an unknown +destination. And it doesn't matter. For the great mass of mankind +the only saving grace that is needed is steady fidelity to what is +nearest to hand and heart in the short moment of each human effort. +In other and in greater words, what is needed is a sense of +immediate duty, and a feeling of impalpable constraint. Indeed, +seamen and duty are all the time inseparable companions. It has +been suggested to me that this sense of duty is not a patriotic +sense or a religious sense, or even a social sense in a seaman. I +don't know. It seems to me that a seaman's duty may be an +unconscious compound of these three, something perhaps smaller than +either, but something much more definite for the simple mind and +more adapted to the humbleness of the seaman's task. It has been +suggested also to me that the impalpable constraint is put upon the +nature of a seaman by the Spirit of the Sea, which he serves with a +dumb and dogged devotion. + +Those are fine words conveying a fine idea. But this I do know, +that it is very difficult to display a dogged devotion to a mere +spirit, however great. In everyday life ordinary men require +something much more material, effective, definite and symbolic on +which to concentrate their love and their devotion. And then, what +is it, this Spirit of the Sea? It is too great and too elusive to +be embraced and taken to a human breast. All that a guileless or +guileful seaman knows of it is its hostility, its exaction of toil +as endless as its ever-renewed horizons. No. What awakens the +seaman's sense of duty, what lays that impalpable constraint upon +the strength of his manliness, what commands his not always dumb if +always dogged devotion, is not the spirit of the sea but something +that in his eyes has a body, a character, a fascination, and almost +a soul--it is his ship. + +There is not a day that has passed for many centuries now without +the sun seeing scattered over all the seas groups of British men +whose material and moral existence is conditioned by their loyalty +to each other and their faithful devotion to a ship. + +Each age has sent its contingent, not of sons (for the great mass +of seamen have always been a childless lot) but of loyal and +obscure successors taking up the modest but spiritual inheritance +of a hard life and simple duties; of duties so simple that nothing +ever could shake the traditional attitude born from the physical +conditions of the service. It was always the ship, bound on any +possible errand in the service of the nation, that has been the +stage for the exercise of seamen's primitive virtues. The dimness +of great distances and the obscurity of lives protected them from +the nation's admiring gaze. Those scattered distant ships' +companies seemed to the eyes of the earth only one degree removed +(on the right side, I suppose) from the other strange monsters of +the deep. If spoken of at all they were spoken of in tones of +half-contemptuous indulgence. A good many years ago it was my lot +to write about one of those ships' companies on a certain sea, +under certain circumstances, in a book of no particular length. + +That small group of men whom I tried to limn with loving care, but +sparing none of their weaknesses, was characterised by a friendly +reviewer as a lot of engaging ruffians. This gave me some food for +thought. Was it, then, in that guise that they appeared through +the mists of the sea, distant, perplexed, and simple-minded? And +what on earth is an "engaging ruffian"? He must be a creature of +literary imagination, I thought, for the two words don't match in +my personal experience. It has happened to me to meet a few +ruffians here and there, but I never found one of them "engaging." +I consoled myself, however, by the reflection that the friendly +reviewer must have been talking like a parrot, which so often seems +to understand what it says. + +Yes, in the mists of the sea, and in their remoteness from the rest +of the race, the shapes of those men appeared distorted, uncouth +and faint--so faint as to be almost invisible. It needed the lurid +light of the engines of war to bring them out into full view, very +simple, without worldly graces, organised now into a body of +workers by the genius of one of themselves, who gave them a place +and a voice in the social scheme; but in the main still apart in +their homeless, childless generations, scattered in loyal groups +over all the seas, giving faithful care to their ships and serving +the nation, which, since they are seamen, can give them no reward +but the supreme "Well Done." + + + +TRADITION--1918 + + + +"Work is the law. Like iron that lying idle degenerates into a +mass of useless rust, like water that in an unruffled pool sickens +into a stagnant and corrupt state, so without action the spirit of +men turns to a dead thing, loses its force, ceases prompting us to +leave some trace of ourselves on this earth." The sense of the +above lines does not belong to me. It may be found in the note- +books of one of the greatest artists that ever lived, Leonardo da +Vinci. It has a simplicity and a truth which no amount of subtle +comment can destroy. + +The Master who had meditated so deeply on the rebirth of arts and +sciences, on the inward beauty of all things,--ships' lines, +women's faces--and on the visible aspects of nature was profoundly +right in his pronouncement on the work that is done on the earth. +From the hard work of men are born the sympathetic consciousness of +a common destiny, the fidelity to right practice which makes great +craftsmen, the sense of right conduct which we may call honour, the +devotion to our calling and the idealism which is not a misty, +winged angel without eyes, but a divine figure of terrestrial +aspect with a clear glance and with its feet resting firmly on the +earth on which it was born. + +And work will overcome all evil, except ignorance, which is the +condition of humanity and, like the ambient air, fills the space +between the various sorts and conditions of men, which breeds +hatred, fear, and contempt between the masses of mankind, and puts +on men's lips, on their innocent lips, words that are thoughtless +and vain. + +Thoughtless, for instance, were the words that (in all innocence, I +believe) came on the lips of a prominent statesman making in the +House of Commons an eulogistic reference to the British Merchant +Service. In this name I include men of diverse status and origin, +who live on and by the sea, by it exclusively, outside all +professional pretensions and social formulas, men for whom not only +their daily bread but their collective character, their personal +achievement and their individual merit come from the sea. Those +words of the statesman were meant kindly; but, after all, this is +not a complete excuse. Rightly or wrongly, we expect from a man of +national importance a larger and at the same time a more scrupulous +precision of speech, for it is possible that it may go echoing down +the ages. His words were: + +"It is right when thinking of the Navy not to forget the men of the +Merchant Service, who have shown--and it is more surprising because +they have had no traditions towards it--courage as great," etc., +etc. + +And then he went on talking of the execution of Captain Fryatt, an +event of undying memory, but less connected with the permanent, +unchangeable conditions of sea service than with the wrong view +German minds delight in taking of Englishmen's psychology. The +enemy, he said, meant by this atrocity to frighten our sailors away +from the sea. + +"What has happened?" he goes on to ask. "Never at any time in +peace have sailors stayed so short a time ashore or shown such a +readiness to step again into a ship." + +Which means, in other words, that they answered to the call. I +should like to know at what time of history the English Merchant +Service, the great body of merchant seamen, had failed to answer +the call. Noticed or unnoticed, ignored or commanded, they have +answered invariably the call to do their work, the very conditions +of which made them what they are. They have always served the +nation's needs through their own invariable fidelity to the demands +of their special life; but with the development and complexity of +material civilisation they grew less prominent to the nation's eye +among all the vast schemes of national industry. Never was the +need greater and the call to the services more urgent than to-day. +And those inconspicuous workers on whose qualities depends so much +of the national welfare have answered it without dismay, facing +risk without glory, in the perfect faithfulness to that tradition +which the speech of the statesman denies to them at the very moment +when he thinks fit to praise their courage . . . and mention his +surprise! + +The hour of opportunity has struck--not for the first time--for the +Merchant Service; and if I associate myself with all my heart in +the admiration and the praise which is the greatest reward of brave +men I must be excused from joining in any sentiment of surprise. +It is perhaps because I have not been born to the inheritance of +that tradition, which has yet fashioned the fundamental part of my +character in my young days, that I am so consciously aware of it +and venture to vindicate its existence in this outspoken manner. + +Merchant seamen have always been what they are now, from their +earliest days, before the Royal Navy had been fashioned out of the +material they furnished for the hands of kings and statesmen. +Their work has made them, as work undertaken with single-minded +devotion makes men, giving to their achievements that vitality and +continuity in which their souls are expressed, tempered and matured +through the succeeding generations. In its simplest definition the +work of merchant seamen has been to take ships entrusted to their +care from port to port across the seas; and, from the highest to +the lowest, to watch and labour with devotion for the safety of the +property and the lives committed to their skill and fortitude +through the hazards of innumerable voyages. + +That was always the clear task, the single aim, the simple ideal, +the only problem for an unselfish solution. The terms of it have +changed with the years, its risks have worn different aspects from +time to time. There are no longer any unexplored seas. Human +ingenuity has devised better means to meet the dangers of natural +forces. But it is always the same problem. The youngsters who +were growing up at sea at the end of my service are commanding +ships now. At least I have heard of some of them who do. And +whatever the shape and power of their ships the character of the +duty remains the same. A mine or a torpedo that strikes your ship +is not so very different from a sharp, uncharted rock tearing her +life out of her in another way. At a greater cost of vital energy, +under the well-nigh intolerable stress of vigilance and resolution, +they are doing steadily the work of their professional forefathers +in the midst of multiplied dangers. They go to and fro across the +oceans on their everlasting task: the same men, the same stout +hearts, the same fidelity to an exacting tradition created by +simple toilers who in their time knew how to live and die at sea. + +Allowed to share in this work and in this tradition for something +like twenty years, I am bold enough to think that perhaps I am not +altogether unworthy to speak of it. It was the sphere not only of +my activity but, I may safely say, also of my affections; but after +such a close connection it is very difficult to avoid bringing in +one's own personality. Without looking at all at the aspects of +the Labour problem, I can safely affirm that I have never, never +seen British seamen refuse any risk, any exertion, any effort of +spirit or body up to the extremest demands of their calling. Years +ago--it seems ages ago--I have seen the crew of a British ship +fight the fire in the cargo for a whole sleepless week and then, +with her decks blown up, I have seen them still continue the fight +to save the floating shell. And at last I have seen them refuse to +be taken off by a vessel standing by, and this only in order "to +see the last of our ship," at the word, at the simple word, of a +man who commanded them, a worthy soul indeed, but of no heroic +aspect. I have seen that. I have shared their days in small +boats. Hard days. Ages ago. And now let me mention a story of +to-day. + +I will try to relate it here mainly in the words of the chief +engineer of a certain steamship which, after bunkering, left +Lerwick, bound for Iceland. The weather was cold, the sea pretty +rough, with a stiff head wind. All went well till next day, about +1.30 p.m., then the captain sighted a suspicious object far away to +starboard. Speed was increased at once to close in with the Faroes +and good lookouts were set fore and aft. Nothing further was seen +of the suspicious object, but about half-past three without any +warning the ship was struck amidships by a torpedo which exploded +in the bunkers. None of the crew was injured by the explosion, and +all hands, without exception, behaved admirably. + +The chief officer with his watch managed to lower the No. 3 boat. +Two other boats had been shattered by the explosion, and though +another lifeboat was cleared and ready, there was no time to lower +it, and "some of us jumped while others were washed overboard. +Meantime the captain had been busy handing lifebelts to the men and +cheering them up with words and smiles, with no thought of his own +safety." The ship went down in less than four minutes. The +captain was the last man on board, going down with her, and was +sucked under. On coming up he was caught under an upturned boat to +which five hands were clinging. "One lifeboat," says the chief +engineer, "which was floating empty in the distance was cleverly +manoeuvred to our assistance by the steward, who swam off to her +pluckily. Our next endeavour was to release the captain, who was +entangled under the boat. As it was impossible to right her, we +set-to to split her side open with the boat hook, because by awful +bad luck the head of the axe we had flew off at the first blow and +was lost. The rescue took thirty minutes, and the extricated +captain was in a pitiable condition, being badly bruised and having +swallowed a lot of salt water. He was unconscious. While at that +work the submarine came to the surface quite close and made a +complete circle round us, the seven men that we counted on the +conning tower laughing at our efforts. + +"There were eighteen of us saved. I deeply regret the loss of the +chief officer, a fine fellow and a kind shipmate showing splendid +promise. The other men lost--one A.B., one greaser, and two +firemen--were quiet, conscientious, good fellows." + +With no restoratives in the boat, they endeavoured to bring the +captain round by means of massage. Meantime the oars were got out +in order to reach the Faroes, which were about thirty miles dead to +windward, but after about nine hours' hard work they had to desist, +and, putting out a sea-anchor, they took shelter under the canvas +boat-cover from the cold wind and torrential rain. Says the +narrator: "We were all very wet and miserable, and decided to have +two biscuits all round. The effects of this and being under the +shelter of the canvas warmed us up and made us feel pretty well +contented. At about sunrise the captain showed signs of recovery, +and by the time the sun was up he was looking a lot better, much to +our relief." + +After being informed of what had been done the revived captain +"dropped a bombshell in our midst," by proposing to make for the +Shetlands, which were ONLY one hundred and fifty miles off. "The +wind is in our favour," he said. "I promise to take you there. +Are you all willing?" This--comments the chief engineer--"from a +man who but a few hours previously had been hauled back from the +grave!" The captain's confident manner inspired the men, and they +all agreed. Under the best possible conditions a boat-run of one +hundred and fifty miles in the North Atlantic and in winter weather +would have been a feat of no mean merit, but in the circumstances +it required uncommon nerve and skill to carry out such a promise. +With an oar for a mast and the boat-cover cut down for a sail they +started on their dangerous journey, with the boat compass and the +stars for their guide. The captain's undaunted serenity buoyed +them all up against despondency. He told them what point he was +making for. It was Ronas Hill, "and we struck it as straight as a +die." + +The chief engineer commends also the ship steward for the manner in +which he made the little food they had last, the cheery spirit he +manifested, and the great help he was to the captain by keeping the +men in good humour. That trusty man had "his hands cruelly chafed +with the rowing, but it never damped his spirits." + +They made Ronas Hill (as straight as a die), and the chief engineer +cannot express their feelings of gratitude and relief when they set +their feet on the shore. He praises the unbounded kindness of the +people in Hillswick. "It seemed to us all like Paradise regained," +he says, concluding his letter with the words: + +"And there was our captain, just his usual self, as if nothing had +happened, as if bringing the boat that hazardous journey and being +the means of saving eighteen souls was to him an everyday +occurrence." + +Such is the chief engineer's testimony to the continuity of the old +tradition of the sea, which made by the work of men has in its turn +created for them their simple ideal of conduct. + + + +CONFIDENCE--1919 + + + +I. + + +The seamen hold up the Edifice. They have been holding it up in +the past and they will hold it up in the future, whatever this +future may contain of logical development, of unforeseen new +shapes, of great promises and of dangers still unknown. + +It is not an unpardonable stretching of the truth to say that the +British Empire rests on transportation. I am speaking now +naturally of the sea, as a man who has lived on it for many years, +at a time, too, when on sighting a vessel on the horizon of any of +the great oceans it was perfectly safe to bet any reasonable odds +on her being a British ship--with the certitude of making a pretty +good thing of it at the end of the voyage. + +I have tried to convey here in popular terms the strong impression +remembered from my young days. The Red Ensign prevailed on the +high seas to such an extent that one always experienced a slight +shock on seeing some other combination of colours blow out at the +peak or flag-pole of any chance encounter in deep water. In the +long run the persistence of the visual fact forced upon the mind a +half-unconscious sense of its inner significance. We have all +heard of the well-known view that trade follows the flag. And that +is not always true. There is also this truth that the flag, in +normal conditions, represents commerce to the eye and understanding +of the average man. This is a truth, but it is not the whole +truth. In its numbers and in its unfailing ubiquity, the British +Red Ensign, under which naval actions too have been fought, +adventures entered upon and sacrifices offered, represented in fact +something more than the prestige of a great trade. + +The flutter of that piece of red bunting showered sentiment on the +nations of the earth. I will not venture to say that in every case +that sentiment was of a friendly nature. Of hatred, half concealed +or concealed not at all, this is not the place to speak; and indeed +the little I have seen of it about the world was tainted with +stupidity and seemed to confess in its very violence the extreme +poorness of its case. But generally it was more in the nature of +envious wonder qualified by a half-concealed admiration. + +That flag, which but for the Union Jack in the corner might have +been adopted by the most radical of revolutions, affirmed in its +numbers the stability of purpose, the continuity of effort and the +greatness of Britain's opportunity pursued steadily in the order +and peace of the world: that world which for twenty-five years or +so after 1870 may be said to have been living in holy calm and +hushed silence with only now and then a slight clink of metal, as +if in some distant part of mankind's habitation some restless body +had stumbled over a heap of old armour. + + +II. + + +We who have learned by now what a world-war is like may be excused +for considering the disturbances of that period as insignificant +brawls, mere hole-and-corner scuffles. In the world, which memory +depicts as so wonderfully tranquil all over, it was the sea yet +that was the safest place. And the Red Ensign, commercial, +industrial, historic, pervaded the sea! Assertive only by its +numbers, highly significant, and, under its character of a trade-- +emblem, nationally expressive, it was symbolic of old and new +ideas, of conservatism and progress, of routine and enterprise, of +drudgery and adventure--and of a certain easy-going optimism that +would have appeared the Father of Sloth itself if it had not been +so stubbornly, so everlastingly active. + +The unimaginative, hard-working men, great and small, who served +this flag afloat and ashore, nursed dumbly a mysterious sense of +its greatness. It sheltered magnificently their vagabond labours +under the sleepless eye of the sun. It held up the Edifice. But +it crowned it too. This is not the extravagance of a mixed +metaphor. It is the sober expression of a not very complex truth. +Within that double function the national life that flag represented +so well went on in safety, assured of its daily crust of bread for +which we all pray and without which we would have to give up faith, +hope and charity, the intellectual conquests of our minds and the +sanctified strength of our labouring arms. I may permit myself to +speak of it in these terms because as a matter of fact it was on +that very symbol that I had founded my life and (as I have said +elsewhere in a moment of outspoken gratitude) had known for many +years no other roof above my head. + +In those days that symbol was not particularly regarded. +Superficially and definitely it represented but one of the forms of +national activity rather remote from the close-knit organisations +of other industries, a kind of toil not immediately under the +public eye. It was of its Navy that the nation, looking out of the +windows of its world-wide Edifice, was proudly aware. And that was +but fair. The Navy is the armed man at the gate. An existence +depending upon the sea must be guarded with a jealous, sleepless +vigilance, for the sea is but a fickle friend. + +It had provoked conflicts, encouraged ambitions, and had lured some +nations to destruction--as we know. He--man or people--who, +boasting of long years of familiarity with the sea, neglects the +strength and cunning of his right hand is a fool. The pride and +trust of the nation in its Navy so strangely mingled with moments +of neglect, caused by a particularly thick-headed idealism, is +perfectly justified. It is also very proper: for it is good for a +body of men conscious of a great responsibility to feel themselves +recognised, if only in that fallible, imperfect and often +irritating way in which recognition is sometimes offered to the +deserving. + +But the Merchant Service had never to suffer from that sort of +irritation. No recognition was thrust on it offensively, and, +truth to say, it did not seem to concern itself unduly with the +claims of its own obscure merit. It had no consciousness. It had +no words. It had no time. To these busy men their work was but +the ordinary labour of earning a living; their duties in their +ever-recurring round had, like the sun itself, the commonness of +daily things; their individual fidelity was not so much united as +merely co-ordinated by an aim that shone with no spiritual lustre. +They were everyday men. They were that, eminently. When the great +opportunity came to them to link arms in response to a supreme call +they received it with characteristic simplicity, incorporating +self-sacrifice into the texture of their common task, and, as far +as emotion went, framing the horror of mankind's catastrophic time +within the rigid rules of their professional conscience. And who +can say that they could have done better than this? + +Such was their past both remote and near. It has been stubbornly +consistent, and as this consistency was based upon the character of +men fashioned by a very old tradition, there is no doubt that it +will endure. Such changes as came into the sea life have been for +the main part mechanical and affecting only the material conditions +of that inbred consistency. That men don't change is a profound +truth. They don't change because it is not necessary for them to +change even if they could accomplish that miracle. It is enough +for them to be infinitely adaptable--as the last four years have +abundantly proved. + + +III. + + +Thus one may await the future without undue excitement and with +unshaken confidence. Whether the hues of sunrise are angry or +benign, gorgeous or sinister, we shall always have the same sky +over our heads. Yet by a kindly dispensation of Providence the +human faculty of astonishment will never lack food. What could be +more surprising for instance, than the calm invitation to Great +Britain to discard the force and protection of its Navy? It has +been suggested, it has been proposed--I don't know whether it has +been pressed. Probably not much. For if the excursions of +audacious folly have no bounds that human eye can see, reason has +the habit of never straying very far away from its throne. + +It is not the first time in history that excited voices have been +heard urging the warrior still panting from the fray to fling his +tried weapons on the altar of peace, for they would be needed no +more! And such voices have been, in undying hope or extreme +weariness, listened to sometimes. But not for long. After all +every sort of shouting is a transitory thing. It is the grim +silence of facts that remains. + +The British Merchant Service has been challenged in its supremacy +before. It will be challenged again. It may be even asked +menacingly in the name of some humanitarian doctrine or some empty +ideal to step down voluntarily from that place which it has managed +to keep for so many years. But I imagine that it will take more +than words of brotherly love or brotherly anger (which, as is well +known, is the worst kind of anger) to drive British seamen, armed +or unarmed, from the seas. Firm in this indestructible if not +easily explained conviction, I can allow myself to think placidly +of that long, long future which I shall not see. + +My confidence rests on the hearts of men who do not change, though +they may forget many things for a time and even forget to be +themselves in a moment of false enthusiasm. But of that I am not +afraid. It will not be for long. I know the men. Through the +kindness of the Admiralty (which, let me confess here in a white +sheet, I repaid by the basest ingratitude) I was permitted during +the war to renew my contact with the British seamen of the merchant +service. It is to their generosity in recognising me under the +shore rust of twenty-five years as one of themselves that I owe one +of the deepest emotions of my life. Never for a moment did I feel +among them like an idle, wandering ghost from a distant past. They +talked to me seriously, openly, and with professional precision, of +facts, of events, of implements, I had never heard of in my time; +but the hands I grasped were like the hands of the generation which +had trained my youth and is now no more. I recognised the +character of their glances, the accent of their voices. Their +moving tales of modern instances were presented to me with that +peculiar turn of mind flavoured by the inherited humour and +sagacity of the sea. I don't know what the seaman of the future +will be like. He may have to live all his days with a telephone +tied up to his head and bristle all over with scientific antennae +like a figure in a fantastic tale. But he will always be the man +revealed to us lately, immutable in his slight variations like the +closed path of this planet of ours on which he must find his exact +position once, at the very least, in every twenty-four hours. + +The greatest desideratum of a sailor's life is to be "certain of +his position." It is a source of great worry at times, but I don't +think that it need be so at this time. Yet even the best position +has its dangers on account of the fickleness of the elements. But +I think that, left untrammelled to the individual effort of its +creators and to the collective spirit of its servants, the British +Merchant Service will manage to maintain its position on this +restless and watery globe. + + + +FLIGHT--1917 + + + +To begin at the end, I will say that the "landing" surprised me by +a slight and very characteristically "dead" sort of shock. + +I may fairly call myself an amphibious creature. A good half of my +active existence has been passed in familiar contact with salt +water, and I was aware, theoretically, that water is not an elastic +body: but it was only then that I acquired the absolute conviction +of the fact. I remember distinctly the thought flashing through my +head: "By Jove! it isn't elastic!" Such is the illuminating force +of a particular experience. + +This landing (on the water of the North Sea) was effected in a +Short biplane after one hour and twenty minutes in the air. I +reckon every minute like a miser counting his hoard, for, if what +I've got is mine, I am not likely now to increase the tale. That +feeling is the effect of age. It strikes me as I write that, when +next time I leave the surface of this globe, it won't be to soar +bodily above it in the air. Quite the contrary. And I am not +thinking of a submarine either. . . . + +But let us drop this dismal strain and go back logically to the +beginning. I must confess that I started on that flight in a +state--I won't say of fury, but of a most intense irritation. I +don't remember ever feeling so annoyed in my life. + +It came about in this way. Two or three days before, I had been +invited to lunch at an R.N.A.S. station, and was made to feel very +much at home by the nicest lot of quietly interesting young men it +had ever been my good fortune to meet. Then I was taken into the +sheds. I walked respectfully round and round a lot of machines of +all kinds, and the more I looked at them the more I felt somehow +that for all the effect they produced on me they might have been so +many land-vehicles of an eccentric design. So I said to Commander +O., who very kindly was conducting me: "This is all very fine, but +to realise what one is looking at, one must have been up." + +He said at once: "I'll give you a flight to-morrow if you like." + +I postulated that it should be none of those "ten minutes in the +air" affairs. I wanted a real business flight. Commander O. +assured me that I would get "awfully bored," but I declared that I +was willing to take that risk. "Very well," he said. "Eleven +o'clock to-morrow. Don't be late." + +I am sorry to say I was about two minutes late, which was enough, +however, for Commander O. to greet me with a shout from a great +distance: "Oh! You are coming, then!" + +"Of course I am coming," I yelled indignantly. + +He hurried up to me. "All right. There's your machine, and here's +your pilot. Come along." + +A lot of officers closed round me, rushed me into a hut: two of +them began to button me into the coat, two more were ramming a cap +on my head, others stood around with goggles, with binoculars. . . +I couldn't understand the necessity of such haste. We weren't +going to chase Fritz. There was no sign of Fritz anywhere in the +blue. Those dear boys did not seem to notice my age--fifty-eight, +if a day--nor my infirmities--a gouty subject for years. This +disregard was very flattering, and I tried to live up to it, but +the pace seemed to me terrific. They galloped me across a vast +expanse of open ground to the water's edge. + +The machine on its carriage seemed as big as a cottage, and much +more imposing. My young pilot went up like a bird. There was an +idle, able-bodied ladder loafing against a shed within fifteen feet +of me, but as nobody seemed to notice it, I recommended myself +mentally to Heaven and started climbing after the pilot. The close +view of the real fragility of that rigid structure startled me +considerably, while Commander O. discomposed me still more by +shouting repeatedly: "Don't put your foot there!" I didn't know +where to put my foot. There was a slight crack; I heard some +swear-words below me, and then with a supreme effort I rolled in +and dropped into a basket-chair, absolutely winded. A small crowd +of mechanics and officers were looking up at me from the ground, +and while I gasped visibly I thought to myself that they would be +sure to put it down to sheer nervousness. But I hadn't breath +enough in my body to stick my head out and shout down to them: + +"You know, it isn't that at all!" + +Generally I try not to think of my age and infirmities. They are +not a cheerful subject. But I was never so angry and disgusted +with them as during that minute or so before the machine took the +water. As to my feelings in the air, those who will read these +lines will know their own, which are so much nearer the mind and +the heart than any writings of an unprofessional can be. At first +all my faculties were absorbed and as if neutralised by the sheer +novelty of the situation. The first to emerge was the sense of +security so much more perfect than in any small boat I've ever been +in; the, as it were, material, stillness, and immobility (though it +was a bumpy day). I very soon ceased to hear the roar of the wind +and engines--unless, indeed, some cylinders missed, when I became +acutely aware of that. Within the rigid spread of the powerful +planes, so strangely motionless I had sometimes the illusion of +sitting as if by enchantment in a block of suspended marble. Even +while looking over at the aeroplane's shadow running prettily over +land and sea, I had the impression of extreme slowness. I imagine +that had she suddenly nose-dived out of control, I would have gone +to the final smash without a single additional heartbeat. I am +sure I would not have known. It is doubtless otherwise with the +man in control. + +But there was no dive, and I returned to earth (after an hour and +twenty minutes) without having felt "bored" for a single second. I +descended (by the ladder) thinking that I would never go flying +again. No, never any more--lest its mysterious fascination, whose +invisible wing had brushed my heart up there, should change to +unavailing regret in a man too old for its glory. + + + +SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC--1912 + + + +It is with a certain bitterness that one must admit to oneself that +the late S.S. Titanic had a "good press." It is perhaps because I +have no great practice of daily newspapers (I have never seen so +many of them together lying about my room) that the white spaces +and the big lettering of the headlines have an incongruously +festive air to my eyes, a disagreeable effect of a feverish +exploitation of a sensational God-send. And if ever a loss at sea +fell under the definition, in the terms of a bill of lading, of Act +of God, this one does, in its magnitude, suddenness and severity; +and in the chastening influence it should have on the self- +confidence of mankind. + +I say this with all the seriousness the occasion demands, though I +have neither the competence nor the wish to take a theological view +of this great misfortune, sending so many souls to their last +account. It is but a natural REFLECTION. Another one flowing also +from the phraseology of bills of lading (a bill of lading is a +shipping document limiting in certain of its clauses the liability +of the carrier) is that the "King's Enemies" of a more or less +overt sort are not altogether sorry that this fatal mishap should +strike the prestige of the greatest Merchant Service of the world. +I believe that not a thousand miles from these shores certain +public prints have betrayed in gothic letters their satisfaction-- +to speak plainly--by rather ill-natured comments. + +In what light one is to look at the action of the American Senate +is more difficult to say. From a certain point of view the sight +of the august senators of a great Power rushing to New York and +beginning to bully and badger the luckless "Yamsi"--on the very +quay-side so to speak--seems to furnish the Shakespearian touch of +the comic to the real tragedy of the fatuous drowning of all these +people who to the last moment put their trust in mere bigness, in +the reckless affirmations of commercial men and mere technicians +and in the irresponsible paragraphs of the newspapers booming these +ships! Yes, a grim touch of comedy. One asks oneself what these +men are after, with this very provincial display of authority. I +beg my friends in the United States pardon for calling these +zealous senators men. I don't wish to be disrespectful. They may +be of the stature of demi-gods for all I know, but at that great +distance from the shores of effete Europe and in the presence of so +many guileless dead, their size seems diminished from this side. +What are they after? What is there for them to find out? We know +what had happened. The ship scraped her side against a piece of +ice, and sank after floating for two hours and a half, taking a lot +of people down with her. What more can they find out from the +unfair badgering of the unhappy "Yamsi," or the ruffianly abuse of +the same. + +"Yamsi," I should explain, is a mere code address, and I use it +here symbolically. I have seen commerce pretty close. I know what +it is worth, and I have no particular regard for commercial +magnates, but one must protest against these Bumble-like +proceedings. Is it indignation at the loss of so many lives which +is at work here? Well, the American railroads kill very many +people during one single year, I dare say. Then why don't these +dignitaries come down on the presidents of their own railroads, of +which one can't say whether they are mere means of transportation +or a sort of gambling game for the use of American plutocrats. Is +it only an ardent and, upon the whole, praiseworthy desire for +information? But the reports of the inquiry tell us that the +august senators, though raising a lot of questions testifying to +the complete innocence and even blankness of their minds, are +unable to understand what the second officer is saying to them. We +are so informed by the press from the other side. Even such a +simple expression as that one of the look-out men was stationed in +the "eyes of the ship" was too much for the senators of the land of +graphic expression. What it must have been in the more recondite +matters I won't even try to think, because I have no mind for +smiles just now. They were greatly exercised about the sound of +explosions heard when half the ship was under water already. Was +there one? Were there two? They seemed to be smelling a rat +there! Has not some charitable soul told them (what even +schoolboys who read sea stories know) that when a ship sinks from a +leak like this, a deck or two is always blown up; and that when a +steamship goes down by the head, the boilers may, and often do +break adrift with a sound which resembles the sound of an +explosion? And they may, indeed, explode, for all I know. In the +only case I have seen of a steamship sinking there was such a +sound, but I didn't dive down after her to investigate. She was +not of 45,000 tons and declared unsinkable, but the sight was +impressive enough. I shall never forget the muffled, mysterious +detonation, the sudden agitation of the sea round the slowly raised +stern, and to this day I have in my eye the propeller, seen +perfectly still in its frame against a clear evening sky. + +But perhaps the second officer has explained to them by this time +this and a few other little facts. Though why an officer of the +British merchant service should answer the questions of any king, +emperor, autocrat, or senator of any foreign power (as to an event +in which a British ship alone was concerned, and which did not even +take place in the territorial waters of that power) passes my +understanding. The only authority he is bound to answer is the +Board of Trade. But with what face the Board of Trade, which, +having made the regulations for 10,000 ton ships, put its dear old +bald head under its wing for ten years, took it out only to shelve +an important report, and with a dreary murmur, "Unsinkable," put it +back again, in the hope of not being disturbed for another ten +years, with what face it will be putting questions to that man who +has done his duty, as to the facts of this disaster and as to his +professional conduct in it--well, I don't know! I have the +greatest respect for our established authorities. I am a +disciplined man, and I have a natural indulgence for the weaknesses +of human institutions; but I will own that at times I have +regretted their--how shall I say it?--their imponderability. A +Board of Trade--what is it? A Board of . . . I believe the Speaker +of the Irish Parliament is one of the members of it. A ghost. +Less than that; as yet a mere memory. An office with adequate and +no doubt comfortable furniture and a lot of perfectly irresponsible +gentlemen who exist packed in its equable atmosphere softly, as if +in a lot of cotton-wool, and with no care in the world; for there +can be no care without personal responsibility--such, for instance, +as the seamen have--those seamen from whose mouths this +irresponsible institution can take away the bread--as a +disciplinary measure. Yes--it's all that. And what more? The +name of a politician--a party man! Less than nothing; a mere void +without as much as a shadow of responsibility cast into it from +that light in which move the masses of men who work, who deal in +things and face the realities--not the words--of this life. + +Years ago I remember overhearing two genuine shellbacks of the old +type commenting on a ship's officer, who, if not exactly +incompetent, did not commend himself to their severe judgment of +accomplished sailor-men. Said one, resuming and concluding the +discussion in a funnily judicial tone: + +"The Board of Trade must have been drunk when they gave him his +certificate." + +I confess that this notion of the Board of Trade as an entity +having a brain which could be overcome by the fumes of strong +liquor charmed me exceedingly. For then it would have been unlike +the limited companies of which some exasperated wit has once said +that they had no souls to be saved and no bodies to be kicked, and +thus were free in this world and the next from all the effective +sanctions of conscientious conduct. But, unfortunately, the +picturesque pronouncement overheard by me was only a characteristic +sally of an annoyed sailor. The Board of Trade is composed of +bloodless departments. It has no limbs and no physiognomy, or else +at the forthcoming inquiry it might have paid to the victims of the +Titanic disaster the small tribute of a blush. I ask myself +whether the Marine Department of the Board of Trade did really +believe, when they decided to shelve the report on equipment for a +time, that a ship of 45,000 tons, that ANY ship, could be made +practically indestructible by means of watertight bulkheads? It +seems incredible to anybody who had ever reflected upon the +properties of material, such as wood or steel. You can't, let +builders say what they like, make a ship of such dimensions as +strong proportionately as a much smaller one. The shocks our old +whalers had to stand amongst the heavy floes in Baffin's Bay were +perfectly staggering, notwithstanding the most skilful handling, +and yet they lasted for years. The Titanic, if one may believe the +last reports, has only scraped against a piece of ice which, I +suspect, was not an enormously bulky and comparatively easily seen +berg, but the low edge of a floe--and sank. Leisurely enough, God +knows--and here the advantage of bulkheads comes in--for time is a +great friend, a good helper--though in this lamentable case these +bulkheads served only to prolong the agony of the passengers who +could not be saved. But she sank, causing, apart from the sorrow +and the pity of the loss of so many lives, a sort of surprised +consternation that such a thing should have happened at all. Why? +You build a 45,000 tons hotel of thin steel plates to secure the +patronage of, say, a couple of thousand rich people (for if it had +been for the emigrant trade alone, there would have been no such +exaggeration of mere size), you decorate it in the style of the +Pharaohs or in the Louis Quinze style--I don't know which--and to +please the aforesaid fatuous handful of individuals, who have more +money than they know what to do with, and to the applause of two +continents, you launch that mass with two thousand people on board +at twenty-one knots across the sea--a perfect exhibition of the +modern blind trust in mere material and appliances. And then this +happens. General uproar. The blind trust in material and +appliances has received a terrible shock. I will say nothing of +the credulity which accepts any statement which specialists, +technicians and office-people are pleased to make, whether for +purposes of gain or glory. You stand there astonished and hurt in +your profoundest sensibilities. But what else under the +circumstances could you expect? + +For my part I could much sooner believe in an unsinkable ship of +3,000 tons than in one of 40,000 tons. It is one of those things +that stand to reason. You can't increase the thickness of +scantling and plates indefinitely. And the mere weight of this +bigness is an added disadvantage. In reading the reports, the +first reflection which occurs to one is that, if that luckless ship +had been a couple of hundred feet shorter, she would have probably +gone clear of the danger. But then, perhaps, she could not have +had a swimming bath and a French cafe. That, of course, is a +serious consideration. I am well aware that those responsible for +her short and fatal existence ask us in desolate accents to believe +that if she had hit end on she would have survived. Which, by a +sort of coy implication, seems to mean that it was all the fault of +the officer of the watch (he is dead now) for trying to avoid the +obstacle. We shall have presently, in deference to commercial and +industrial interests, a new kind of seamanship. A very new and +"progressive" kind. If you see anything in the way, by no means +try to avoid it; smash at it full tilt. And then--and then only +you shall see the triumph of material, of clever contrivances, of +the whole box of engineering tricks in fact, and cover with glory a +commercial concern of the most unmitigated sort, a great Trust, and +a great ship-building yard, justly famed for the super-excellence +of its material and workmanship. Unsinkable! See? I told you she +was unsinkable, if only handled in accordance with the new +seamanship. Everything's in that. And, doubtless, the Board of +Trade, if properly approached, would consent to give the needed +instructions to its examiners of Masters and Mates. Behold the +examination-room of the future. Enter to the grizzled examiner a +young man of modest aspect: "Are you well up in modern +seamanship?" "I hope so, sir." "H'm, let's see. You are at night +on the bridge in charge of a 150,000 tons ship, with a motor track, +organ-loft, etc., etc., with a full cargo of passengers, a full +crew of 1,500 cafe waiters, two sailors and a boy, three +collapsible boats as per Board of Trade regulations, and going at +your three-quarter speed of, say, about forty knots. You perceive +suddenly right ahead, and close to, something that looks like a +large ice-floe. What would you do?" "Put the helm amidships." +"Very well. Why?" "In order to hit end on." "On what grounds +should you endeavour to hit end on?" "Because we are taught by our +builders and masters that the heavier the smash, the smaller the +damage, and because the requirements of material should be attended +to." + +And so on and so on. The new seamanship: when in doubt try to ram +fairly--whatever's before you. Very simple. If only the Titanic +had rammed that piece of ice (which was not a monstrous berg) +fairly, every puffing paragraph would have been vindicated in the +eyes of the credulous public which pays. But would it have been? +Well, I doubt it. I am well aware that in the eighties the +steamship Arizona, one of the "greyhounds of the ocean" in the +jargon of that day, did run bows on against a very unmistakable +iceberg, and managed to get into port on her collision bulkhead. +But the Arizona was not, if I remember rightly, 5,000 tons +register, let alone 45,000, and she was not going at twenty knots +per hour. I can't be perfectly certain at this distance of time, +but her sea-speed could not have been more than fourteen at the +outside. Both these facts made for safety. And, even if she had +been engined to go twenty knots, there would not have been behind +that speed the enormous mass, so difficult to check in its impetus, +the terrific weight of which is bound to do damage to itself or +others at the slightest contact. + +I assure you it is not for the vain pleasure of talking about my +own poor experiences, but only to illustrate my point, that I will +relate here a very unsensational little incident I witnessed now +rather more than twenty years ago in Sydney, N.S.W. Ships were +beginning then to grow bigger year after year, though, of course, +the present dimensions were not even dreamt of. I was standing on +the Circular Quay with a Sydney pilot watching a big mail steamship +of one of our best-known companies being brought alongside. We +admired her lines, her noble appearance, and were impressed by her +size as well, though her length, I imagine, was hardly half that of +the Titanic. + +She came into the Cove (as that part of the harbour is called), of +course very slowly, and at some hundred feet or so short of the +quay she lost her way. That quay was then a wooden one, a fine +structure of mighty piles and stringers bearing a roadway--a thing +of great strength. The ship, as I have said before, stopped moving +when some hundred feet from it. Then her engines were rung on slow +ahead, and immediately rung off again. The propeller made just +about five turns, I should say. She began to move, stealing on, so +to speak, without a ripple; coming alongside with the utmost +gentleness. I went on looking her over, very much interested, but +the man with me, the pilot, muttered under his breath: "Too much, +too much." His exercised judgment had warned him of what I did not +even suspect. But I believe that neither of us was exactly +prepared for what happened. There was a faint concussion of the +ground under our feet, a groaning of piles, a snapping of great +iron bolts, and with a sound of ripping and splintering, as when a +tree is blown down by the wind, a great strong piece of wood, a +baulk of squared timber, was displaced several feet as if by +enchantment. I looked at my companion in amazement. "I could not +have believed it," I declared. "No," he said. "You would not have +thought she would have cracked an egg--eh?" + +I certainly wouldn't have thought that. He shook his head, and +added: "Ah! These great, big things, they want some handling." + +Some months afterwards I was back in Sydney. The same pilot +brought me in from sea. And I found the same steamship, or else +another as like her as two peas, lying at anchor not far from us. +The pilot told me she had arrived the day before, and that he was +to take her alongside to-morrow. I reminded him jocularly of the +damage to the quay. "Oh!" he said, "we are not allowed now to +bring them in under their own steam. We are using tugs." + +A very wise regulation. And this is my point--that size is to a +certain extent an element of weakness. The bigger the ship, the +more delicately she must be handled. Here is a contact which, in +the pilot's own words, you wouldn't think could have cracked an +egg; with the astonishing result of something like eighty feet of +good strong wooden quay shaken loose, iron bolts snapped, a baulk +of stout timber splintered. Now, suppose that quay had been of +granite (as surely it is now)--or, instead of the quay, if there +had been, say, a North Atlantic fog there, with a full-grown +iceberg in it awaiting the gentle contact of a ship groping its way +along blindfold? Something would have been hurt, but it would not +have been the iceberg. + +Apparently, there is a point in development when it ceases to be a +true progress--in trade, in games, in the marvellous handiwork of +men, and even in their demands and desires and aspirations of the +moral and mental kind. There is a point when progress, to remain a +real advance, must change slightly the direction of its line. But +this is a wide question. What I wanted to point out here is--that +the old Arizona, the marvel of her day, was proportionately +stronger, handier, better equipped, than this triumph of modern +naval architecture, the loss of which, in common parlance, will +remain the sensation of this year. The clatter of the presses has +been worthy of the tonnage, of the preliminary paeans of triumph +round that vanished hull, of the reckless statements, and elaborate +descriptions of its ornate splendour. A great babble of news (and +what sort of news too, good heavens!) and eager comment has arisen +around this catastrophe, though it seems to me that a less strident +note would have been more becoming in the presence of so many +victims left struggling on the sea, of lives miserably thrown away +for nothing, or worse than nothing: for false standards of +achievement, to satisfy a vulgar demand of a few moneyed people for +a banal hotel luxury--the only one they can understand--and because +the big ship pays, in one way or another: in money or in +advertising value. + +It is in more ways than one a very ugly business, and a mere scrape +along the ship's side, so slight that, if reports are to be +believed, it did not interrupt a card party in the gorgeously +fitted (but in chaste style) smoking-room--or was it in the +delightful French cafe?--is enough to bring on the exposure. All +the people on board existed under a sense of false security. How +false, it has been sufficiently demonstrated. And the fact which +seems undoubted, that some of them actually were reluctant to enter +the boats when told to do so, shows the strength of that falsehood. +Incidentally, it shows also the sort of discipline on board these +ships, the sort of hold kept on the passengers in the face of the +unforgiving sea. These people seemed to imagine it an optional +matter: whereas the order to leave the ship should be an order of +the sternest character, to be obeyed unquestioningly and promptly +by every one on board, with men to enforce it at once, and to carry +it out methodically and swiftly. And it is no use to say it cannot +be done, for it can. It has been done. The only requisite is +manageableness of the ship herself and of the numbers she carries +on board. That is the great thing which makes for safety. A +commander should be able to hold his ship and everything on board +of her in the hollow of his hand, as it were. But with the modern +foolish trust in material, and with those floating hotels, this has +become impossible. A man may do his best, but he cannot succeed in +a task which from greed, or more likely from sheer stupidity, has +been made too great for anybody's strength. + +The readers of THE ENGLISH REVIEW, who cast a friendly eye nearly +six years ago on my Reminiscences, and know how much the merchant +service, ships and men, has been to me, will understand my +indignation that those men of whom (speaking in no sentimental +phrase, but in the very truth of feeling) I can't even now think +otherwise than as brothers, have been put by their commercial +employers in the impossibility to perform efficiently their plain +duty; and this from motives which I shall not enumerate here, but +whose intrinsic unworthiness is plainly revealed by the greatness, +the miserable greatness, of that disaster. Some of them have +perished. To die for commerce is hard enough, but to go under that +sea we have been trained to combat, with a sense of failure in the +supreme duty of one's calling is indeed a bitter fate. Thus they +are gone, and the responsibility remains with the living who will +have no difficulty in replacing them by others, just as good, at +the same wages. It was their bitter fate. But I, who can look at +some arduous years when their duty was my duty too, and their +feelings were my feelings, can remember some of us who once upon a +time were more fortunate. + +It is of them that I would talk a little, for my own comfort +partly, and also because I am sticking all the time to my subject +to illustrate my point, the point of manageableness which I have +raised just now. Since the memory of the lucky Arizona has been +evoked by others than myself, and made use of by me for my own +purpose, let me call up the ghost of another ship of that distant +day whose less lucky destiny inculcates another lesson making for +my argument. The Douro, a ship belonging to the Royal Mail Steam +Packet Company, was rather less than one-tenth the measurement of +the Titanic. Yet, strange as it may appear to the ineffable hotel +exquisites who form the bulk of the first-class Cross-Atlantic +Passengers, people of position and wealth and refinement did not +consider it an intolerable hardship to travel in her, even all the +way from South America; this being the service she was engaged +upon. Of her speed I know nothing, but it must have been the +average of the period, and the decorations of her saloons were, I +dare say, quite up to the mark; but I doubt if her birth had been +boastfully paragraphed all round the Press, because that was not +the fashion of the time. She was not a mass of material gorgeously +furnished and upholstered. She was a ship. And she was not, in +the apt words of an article by Commander C. Crutchley, R.N.R., +which I have just read, "run by a sort of hotel syndicate composed +of the Chief Engineer, the Purser, and the Captain," as these +monstrous Atlantic ferries are. She was really commanded, manned, +and equipped as a ship meant to keep the sea: a ship first and +last in the fullest meaning of the term, as the fact I am going to +relate will show. + +She was off the Spanish coast, homeward bound, and fairly full, +just like the Titanic; and further, the proportion of her crew to +her passengers, I remember quite well, was very much the same. The +exact number of souls on board I have forgotten. It might have +been nearly three hundred, certainly not more. The night was +moonlit, but hazy, the weather fine with a heavy swell running from +the westward, which means that she must have been rolling a great +deal, and in that respect the conditions for her were worse than in +the case of the Titanic. Some time either just before or just +after midnight, to the best of my recollection, she was run into +amidships and at right angles by a large steamer which after the +blow backed out, and, herself apparently damaged, remained +motionless at some distance. + +My recollection is that the Douro remained afloat after the +collision for fifteen minutes or thereabouts. It might have been +twenty, but certainly something under the half-hour. In that time +the boats were lowered, all the passengers put into them, and the +lot shoved off. There was no time to do anything more. All the +crew of the Douro went down with her, literally without a murmur. +When she went she plunged bodily down like a stone. The only +members of the ship's company who survived were the third officer, +who was from the first ordered to take charge of the boats, and the +seamen told off to man them, two in each. Nobody else was picked +up. A quartermaster, one of the saved in the way of duty, with +whom I talked a month or so afterwards, told me that they pulled up +to the spot, but could neither see a head nor hear the faintest +cry. + +But I have forgotten. A passenger was drowned. She was a lady's +maid who, frenzied with terror, refused to leave the ship. One of +the boats waited near by till the chief officer, finding himself +absolutely unable to tear the girl away from the rail to which she +dung with a frantic grasp, ordered the boat away out of danger. My +quartermaster told me that he spoke over to them in his ordinary +voice, and this was the last sound heard before the ship sank. + +The rest is silence. I daresay there was the usual official +inquiry, but who cared for it? That sort of thing speaks for +itself with no uncertain voice; though the papers, I remember, gave +the event no space to speak of: no large headlines--no headlines +at all. You see it was not the fashion at the time. A seaman-like +piece of work, of which one cherishes the old memory at this +juncture more than ever before. She was a ship commanded, manned, +equipped--not a sort of marine Ritz, proclaimed unsinkable and sent +adrift with its casual population upon the sea, without enough +boats, without enough seamen (but with a Parisian cafe and four +hundred of poor devils of waiters) to meet dangers which, let the +engineers say what they like, lurk always amongst the waves; sent +with a blind trust in mere material, light-heartedly, to a most +miserable, most fatuous disaster. + +And there are, too, many ugly developments about this tragedy. The +rush of the senatorial inquiry before the poor wretches escaped +from the jaws of death had time to draw breath, the vituperative +abuse of a man no more guilty than others in this matter, and the +suspicion of this aimless fuss being a political move to get home +on the M.T. Company, into which, in common parlance, the United +States Government has got its knife, I don't pretend to understand +why, though with the rest of the world I am aware of the fact. +Perhaps there may be an excellent and worthy reason for it; but I +venture to suggest that to take advantage of so many pitiful +corpses, is not pretty. And the exploiting of the mere sensation +on the other side is not pretty in its wealth of heartless +inventions. Neither is the welter of Marconi lies which has not +been sent vibrating without some reason, for which it would be +nauseous to inquire too closely. And the calumnious, baseless, +gratuitous, circumstantial lie charging poor Captain Smith with +desertion of his post by means of suicide is the vilest and most +ugly thing of all in this outburst of journalistic enterprise, +without feeling, without honour, without decency. + +But all this has its moral. And that other sinking which I have +related here and to the memory of which a seaman turns with relief +and thankfulness has its moral too. Yes, material may fail, and +men, too, may fail sometimes; but more often men, when they are +given the chance, will prove themselves truer than steel, that +wonderful thin steel from which the sides and the bulkheads of our +modern sea-leviathans are made. + + + +CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE ADMIRABLE INQUIRY INTO THE LOSS OF THE +TITANIC--1912 + + + +I have been taken to task by a friend of mine on the "other side" +for my strictures on Senator Smith's investigation into the loss of +the Titanic, in the number of THE ENGLISH REVIEW for May, 1912. I +will admit that the motives of the investigation may have been +excellent, and probably were; my criticism bore mainly on matters +of form and also on the point of efficiency. In that respect I +have nothing to retract. The Senators of the Commission had +absolutely no knowledge and no practice to guide them in the +conduct of such an investigation; and this fact gave an air of +unreality to their zealous exertions. I think that even in the +United States there is some regret that this zeal of theirs was not +tempered by a large dose of wisdom. It is fitting that people who +rush with such ardour to the work of putting questions to men yet +gasping from a narrow escape should have, I wouldn't say a tincture +of technical information, but enough knowledge of the subject to +direct the trend of their inquiry. The newspapers of two +continents have noted the remarks of the President of the +Senatorial Commission with comments which I will not reproduce +here, having a scant respect for the "organs of public opinion," as +they fondly believe themselves to be. The absolute value of their +remarks was about as great as the value of the investigation they +either mocked at or extolled. To the United States Senate I did +not intend to be disrespectful. I have for that body, of which one +hears mostly in connection with tariffs, as much reverence as the +best of Americans. To manifest more or less would be an +impertinence in a stranger. I have expressed myself with less +reserve on our Board of Trade. That was done under the influence +of warm feelings. We were all feeling warmly on the matter at that +time. But, at any rate, our Board of Trade Inquiry, conducted by +an experienced President, discovered a very interesting fact on the +very second day of its sitting: the fact that the water-tight +doors in the bulkheads of that wonder of naval architecture could +be opened down below by any irresponsible person. Thus the famous +closing apparatus on the bridge, paraded as a device of greater +safety, with its attachments of warning bells, coloured lights, and +all these pretty-pretties, was, in the case of this ship, little +better than a technical farce. + +It is amusing, if anything connected with this stupid catastrophe +can be amusing, to see the secretly crestfallen attitude of +technicians. They are the high priests of the modern cult of +perfected material and of mechanical appliances, and would fain +forbid the profane from inquiring into its mysteries. We are the +masters of progress, they say, and you should remain respectfully +silent. And they take refuge behind their mathematics. I have the +greatest regard for mathematics as an exercise of mind. It is the +only manner of thinking which approaches the Divine. But mere +calculations, of which these men make so much, when unassisted by +imagination and when they have gained mastery over common sense, +are the most deceptive exercises of intellect. Two and two are +four, and two are six. That is immutable; you may trust your soul +to that; but you must be certain first of your quantities. I know +how the strength of materials can be calculated away, and also the +evidence of one's senses. For it is by some sort of calculation +involving weights and levels that the technicians responsible for +the Titanic persuaded themselves that a ship NOT DIVIDED by water- +tight compartments could be "unsinkable." Because, you know, she +was not divided. You and I, and our little boys, when we want to +divide, say, a box, take care to procure a piece of wood which will +reach from the bottom to the lid. We know that if it does not +reach all the way up, the box will not be divided into two +compartments. It will be only partly divided. The Titanic was +only partly divided. She was just sufficiently divided to drown +some poor devils like rats in a trap. It is probable that they +would have perished in any case, but it is a particularly horrible +fate to die boxed up like this. Yes, she was sufficiently divided +for that, but not sufficiently divided to prevent the water flowing +over. + +Therefore to a plain man who knows something of mathematics but is +not bemused by calculations, she was, from the point of view of +"unsinkability," not divided at all. What would you say of people +who would boast of a fireproof building, an hotel, for instance, +saying, "Oh, we have it divided by fireproof bulkheads which would +localise any outbreak," and if you were to discover on closer +inspection that these bulkheads closed no more than two-thirds of +the openings they were meant to close, leaving above an open space +through which draught, smoke, and fire could rush from one end of +the building to the other? And, furthermore, that those +partitions, being too high to climb over, the people confined in +each menaced compartment had to stay there and become asphyxiated +or roasted, because no exits to the outside, say to the roof, had +been provided! What would you think of the intelligence or candour +of these advertising people? What would you think of them? And +yet, apart from the obvious difference in the action of fire and +water, the cases are essentially the same. + +It would strike you and me and our little boys (who are not +engineers yet) that to approach--I won't say attain--somewhere near +absolute safety, the divisions to keep out water should extend from +the bottom right up to the uppermost deck of THE HULL. I repeat, +the HULL, because there are above the hull the decks of the +superstructures of which we need not take account. And further, as +a provision of the commonest humanity, that each of these +compartments should have a perfectly independent and free access to +that uppermost deck: that is, into the open. Nothing less will +do. Division by bulkheads that really divide, and free access to +the deck from every water-tight compartment. Then the responsible +man in the moment of danger and in the exercise of his judgment +could close all the doors of these water-tight bulkheads by +whatever clever contrivance has been invented for the purpose, +without a qualm at the awful thought that he may be shutting up +some of his fellow creatures in a death-trap; that he may be +sacrificing the lives of men who, down there, are sticking to the +posts of duty as the engine-room staffs of the Merchant Service +have never failed to do. I know very well that the engineers of a +ship in a moment of emergency are not quaking for their lives, but, +as far as I have known them, attend calmly to their duty. We all +must die; but, hang it all, a man ought to be given a chance, if +not for his life, then at least to die decently. It's bad enough +to have to stick down there when something disastrous is going on +and any moment may be your last; but to be drowned shut up under +deck is too bad. Some men of the Titanic died like that, it is to +be feared. Compartmented, so to speak. Just think what it means! +Nothing can approach the horror of that fate except being buried +alive in a cave, or in a mine, or in your family vault. + +So, once more: continuous bulkheads--a clear way of escape to the +deck out of each water-tight compartment. Nothing less. And if +specialists, the precious specialists of the sort that builds +"unsinkable ships," tell you that it cannot be done, don't you +believe them. It can be done, and they are quite clever enough to +do it too. The objections they will raise, however disguised in +the solemn mystery of technical phrases, will not be technical, but +commercial. I assure you that there is not much mystery about a +ship of that sort. She is a tank. She is a tank ribbed, joisted, +stayed, but she is no greater mystery than a tank. The Titanic was +a tank eight hundred feet long, fitted as an hotel, with corridors, +bed-rooms, halls, and so on (not a very mysterious arrangement +truly), and for the hazards of her existence I should think about +as strong as a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin. I make this +comparison because Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tins, being almost a +national institution, are probably known to all my readers. Well, +about that strong, and perhaps not quite so strong. Just look at +the side of such a tin, and then think of a 50,000 ton ship, and +try to imagine what the thickness of her plates should be to +approach anywhere the relative solidity of that biscuit-tin. In my +varied and adventurous career I have been thrilled by the sight of +a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin kicked by a mule sky-high, as the +saying is. It came back to earth smiling, with only a sort of +dimple on one of its cheeks. A proportionately severe blow would +have burst the side of the Titanic or any other "triumph of modern +naval architecture" like brown paper--I am willing to bet. + +I am not saying this by way of disparagement. There is reason in +things. You can't make a 50,000 ton ship as strong as a Huntley +and Palmer biscuit-tin. But there is also reason in the way one +accepts facts, and I refuse to be awed by the size of a tank bigger +than any other tank that ever went afloat to its doom. The people +responsible for her, though disconcerted in their hearts by the +exposure of that disaster, are giving themselves airs of +superiority--priests of an Oracle which has failed, but still must +remain the Oracle. The assumption is that they are ministers of +progress. But the mere increase of size is not progress. If it +were, elephantiasis, which causes a man's legs to become as large +as tree-trunks, would be a sort of progress, whereas it is nothing +but a very ugly disease. Yet directly this very disconcerting +catastrophe happened, the servants of the silly Oracle began to +cry: "It's no use! You can't resist progress. The big ship has +come to stay." Well, let her stay on, then, in God's name! But +she isn't a servant of progress in any sense. She is the servant +of commercialism. For progress, if dealing with the problems of a +material world, has some sort of moral aspect--if only, say, that +of conquest, which has its distinct value since man is a conquering +animal. But bigness is mere exaggeration. The men responsible for +these big ships have been moved by considerations of profit to be +made by the questionable means of pandering to an absurd and vulgar +demand for banal luxury--the seaside hotel luxury. One even asks +oneself whether there was such a demand? It is inconceivable to +think that there are people who can't spend five days of their life +without a suite of apartments, cafes, bands, and such-like refined +delights. I suspect that the public is not so very guilty in this +matter. These things were pushed on to it in the usual course of +trade competition. If to-morrow you were to take all these +luxuries away, the public would still travel. I don't despair of +mankind. I believe that if, by some catastrophic miracle all ships +of every kind were to disappear off the face of the waters, +together with the means of replacing them, there would be found, +before the end of the week, men (millionaires, perhaps) cheerfully +putting out to sea in bath-tubs for a fresh start. We are all like +that. This sort of spirit lives in mankind still uncorrupted by +the so-called refinements, the ingenuity of tradesmen, who look +always for something new to sell, offers to the public. + +Let her stay,--I mean the big ship--since she has come to stay. I +only object to the attitude of the people, who, having called her +into being and having romanced (to speak politely) about her, +assume a detached sort of superiority, goodness only knows why, and +raise difficulties in the way of every suggestion--difficulties +about boats, about bulkheads, about discipline, about davits, all +sorts of difficulties. To most of them the only answer would be: +"Where there's a will there's a way"--the most wise of proverbs. +But some of these objections are really too stupid for anything. I +shall try to give an instance of what I mean. + +This Inquiry is admirably conducted. I am not alluding to the +lawyers representing "various interests," who are trying to earn +their fees by casting all sorts of mean aspersions on the +characters of all sorts of people not a bit worse than themselves. +It is honest to give value for your wages; and the "bravos" of +ancient Venice who kept their stilettos in good order and never +failed to deliver the stab bargained for with their employers, +considered themselves an honest body of professional men, no doubt. +But they don't compel my admiration, whereas the conduct of this +Inquiry does. And as it is pretty certain to be attacked, I take +this opportunity to deposit here my nickel of appreciation. Well, +lately, there came before it witnesses responsible for the +designing of the ship. One of them was asked whether it would not +be advisable to make each coal-bunker of the ship a water-tight +compartment by means of a suitable door. + +The answer to such a question should have been, "Certainly," for it +is obvious to the simplest intelligence that the more water-tight +spaces you provide in a ship (consistently with having her +workable) the nearer you approach safety. But instead of admitting +the expediency of the suggestion, this witness at once raised an +objection as to the possibility of closing tightly the door of a +bunker on account of the slope of coal. This with the true +expert's attitude of "My dear man, you don't know what you are +talking about." + +Now would you believe that the objection put forward was absolutely +futile? I don't know whether the distinguished President of the +Court perceived this. Very likely he did, though I don't suppose +he was ever on terms of familiarity with a ship's bunker. But I +have. I have been inside; and you may take it that what I say of +them is correct. I don't wish to be wearisome to the benevolent +reader, but I want to put his finger, so to speak, on the inanity +of the objection raised by the expert. A bunker is an enclosed +space for holding coals, generally located against the ship's side, +and having an opening, a doorway in fact, into the stokehold. Men +called trimmers go in there, and by means of implements called +slices make the coal run through that opening on to the floor of +the stokehold, where it is within reach of the stokers' (firemen's) +shovels. This being so, you will easily understand that there is +constantly a more or less thick layer of coal generally shaped in a +slope lying in that doorway. And the objection of the expert was: +that because of this obstruction it would be impossible to close +the water-tight door, and therefore that the thing could not be +done. And that objection was inane. A water-tight door in a +bulkhead may be defined as a metal plate which is made to close a +given opening by some mechanical means. And if there were a law of +Medes and Persians that a water-tight door should always slide +downwards and never otherwise, the objection would be to a great +extent valid. But what is there to prevent those doors to be +fitted so as to move upwards, or horizontally, or slantwise? In +which case they would go through the obstructing layer of coal as +easily as a knife goes through butter. Anyone may convince himself +of it by experimenting with a light piece of board and a heap of +stones anywhere along our roads. Probably the joint of such a door +would weep a little--and there is no necessity for its being +hermetically tight--but the object of converting bunkers into +spaces of safety would be attained. You may take my word for it +that this could be done without any great effort of ingenuity. And +that is why I have qualified the expert's objection as inane. + +Of course, these doors must not be operated from the bridge because +of the risk of trapping the coal-trimmers inside the bunker; but on +the signal of all other water-tight doors in the ship being closed +(as would be done in case of a collision) they too could be closed +on the order of the engineer of the watch, who would see to the +safety of the trimmers. If the rent in the ship's side were within +the bunker itself, that would become manifest enough without any +signal, and the rush of water into the stokehold could be cut off +directly the doorplate came into its place. Say a minute at the +very outside. Naturally, if the blow of a right-angled collision, +for instance, were heavy enough to smash through the inner bulkhead +of the bunker, why, there would be then nothing to do but for the +stokers and trimmers and everybody in there to clear out of the +stoke-room. But that does not mean that the precaution of having +water-tight doors to the bunkers is useless, superfluous, or +impossible. {7} + +And talking of stokeholds, firemen, and trimmers, men whose heavy +labour has not a single redeeming feature; which is unhealthy, +uninspiring, arduous, without the reward of personal pride in it; +sheer, hard, brutalising toil, belonging neither to earth nor sea, +I greet with joy the advent for marine purposes of the internal +combustion engine. The disappearance of the marine boiler will be +a real progress, which anybody in sympathy with his kind must +welcome. Instead of the unthrifty, unruly, nondescript crowd the +boilers require, a crowd of men IN the ship but not OF her, we +shall have comparatively small crews of disciplined, intelligent +workers, able to steer the ship, handle anchors, man boats, and at +the same time competent to take their place at a bench as fitters +and repairers; the resourceful and skilled seamen--mechanics of the +future, the legitimate successors of these seamen--sailors of the +past, who had their own kind of skill, hardihood, and tradition, +and whose last days it has been my lot to share. + +One lives and learns and hears very surprising things--things that +one hardly knows how to take, whether seriously or jocularly, how +to meet--with indignation or with contempt? Things said by solemn +experts, by exalted directors, by glorified ticket-sellers, by +officials of all sorts. I suppose that one of the uses of such an +inquiry is to give such people enough rope to hang themselves with. +And I hope that some of them won't neglect to do so. One of them +declared two days ago that there was "nothing to learn from the +catastrophe of the Titanic." That he had been "giving his best +consideration" to certain rules for ten years, and had come to the +conclusion that nothing ever happened at sea, and that rules and +regulations, boats and sailors, were unnecessary; that what was +really wrong with the Titanic was that she carried too many boats. + +No; I am not joking. If you don't believe me, pray look back +through the reports and you will find it all there. I don't +recollect the official's name, but it ought to have been Pooh-Bah. +Well, Pooh-Bah said all these things, and when asked whether he +really meant it, intimated his readiness to give the subject more +of "his best consideration"--for another ten years or so +apparently--but he believed, oh yes! he was certain, that had there +been fewer boats there would have been more people saved. Really, +when reading the report of this admirably conducted inquiry one +isn't certain at times whether it is an Admirable Inquiry or a +felicitous OPERA-BOUFFE of the Gilbertian type--with a rather grim +subject, to be sure. + +Yes, rather grim--but the comic treatment never fails. My readers +will remember that in the number of THE ENGLISH REVIEW for May, +1912, I quoted the old case of the Arizona, and went on from that +to prophesy the coming of a new seamanship (in a spirit of irony +far removed from fun) at the call of the sublime builders of +unsinkable ships. I thought that, as a small boy of my +acquaintance says, I was "doing a sarcasm," and regarded it as a +rather wild sort of sarcasm at that. Well, I am blessed (excuse +the vulgarism) if a witness has not turned up who seems to have +been inspired by the same thought, and evidently longs in his heart +for the advent of the new seamanship. He is an expert, of course, +and I rather believe he's the same gentleman who did not see his +way to fit water-tight doors to bunkers. With ludicrous +earnestness he assured the Commission of his intense belief that +had only the Titanic struck end-on she would have come into port +all right. And in the whole tone of his insistent statement there +was suggested the regret that the officer in charge (who is dead +now, and mercifully outside the comic scope of this inquiry) was so +ill-advised as to try to pass clear of the ice. Thus my sarcastic +prophecy, that such a suggestion was sure to turn up, receives an +unexpected fulfilment. You will see yet that in deference to the +demands of "progress" the theory of the new seamanship will become +established: "Whatever you see in front of you--ram it fair. . ." +The new seamanship! Looks simple, doesn't it? But it will be a +very exact art indeed. The proper handling of an unsinkable ship, +you see, will demand that she should be made to hit the iceberg +very accurately with her nose, because should you perchance scrape +the bluff of the bow instead, she may, without ceasing to be as +unsinkable as before, find her way to the bottom. I congratulate +the future Transatlantic passengers on the new and vigorous +sensations in store for them. They shall go bounding across from +iceberg to iceberg at twenty-five knots with precision and safety, +and a "cheerful bumpy sound"--as the immortal poem has it. It will +be a teeth-loosening, exhilarating experience. The decorations +will be Louis-Quinze, of course, and the cafe shall remain open all +night. But what about the priceless Sevres porcelain and the +Venetian glass provided for the service of Transatlantic +passengers? Well, I am afraid all that will have to be replaced by +silver goblets and plates. Nasty, common, cheap silver. But those +who WILL go to sea must be prepared to put up with a certain amount +of hardship. + +And there shall be no boats. Why should there be no boats? +Because Pooh-Bah has said that the fewer the boats, the more people +can be saved; and therefore with no boats at all, no one need be +lost. But even if there was a flaw in this argument, pray look at +the other advantages the absence of boats gives you. There can't +be the annoyance of having to go into them in the middle of the +night, and the unpleasantness, after saving your life by the skin +of your teeth, of being hauled over the coals by irreproachable +members of the Bar with hints that you are no better than a +cowardly scoundrel and your wife a heartless monster. Less Boats. +No boats! Great should be the gratitude of passage-selling +Combines to Pooh-Bah; and they ought to cherish his memory when he +dies. But no fear of that. His kind never dies. All you have to +do, O Combine, is to knock at the door of the Marine Department, +look in, and beckon to the first man you see. That will be he, +very much at your service--prepared to affirm after "ten years of +my best consideration" and a bundle of statistics in hand, that: +"There's no lesson to be learned, and that there is nothing to be +done!" + +On an earlier day there was another witness before the Court of +Inquiry. A mighty official of the White Star Line. The impression +of his testimony which the Report gave is of an almost scornful +impatience with all this fuss and pother. Boats! Of course we +have crowded our decks with them in answer to this ignorant +clamour. Mere lumber! How can we handle so many boats with our +davits? Your people don't know the conditions of the problem. We +have given these matters our best consideration, and we have done +what we thought reasonable. We have done more than our duty. We +are wise, and good, and impeccable. And whoever says otherwise is +either ignorant or wicked. + +This is the gist of these scornful answers which disclose the +psychology of commercial undertakings. It is the same psychology +which fifty or so years ago, before Samuel Plimsoll uplifted his +voice, sent overloaded ships to sea. "Why shouldn't we cram in as +much cargo as our ships will hold? Look how few, how very few of +them get lost, after all." + +Men don't change. Not very much. And the only answer to be given +to this manager who came out, impatient and indignant, from behind +the plate-glass windows of his shop to be discovered by this +inquiry, and to tell us that he, they, the whole three million (or +thirty million, for all I know) capital Organisation for selling +passages has considered the problem of boats--the only answer to +give him is: that this is not a problem of boats at all. It is +the problem of decent behaviour. If you can't carry or handle so +many boats, then don't cram quite so many people on board. It is +as simple as that--this problem of right feeling and right conduct, +the real nature of which seems beyond the comprehension of ticket- +providers. Don't sell so many tickets, my virtuous dignitary. +After all, men and women (unless considered from a purely +commercial point of view) are not exactly the cattle of the +Western-ocean trade, that used some twenty years ago to be thrown +overboard on an emergency and left to swim round and round before +they sank. If you can't get more boats, then sell less tickets. +Don't drown so many people on the finest, calmest night that was +ever known in the North Atlantic--even if you have provided them +with a little music to get drowned by. Sell less tickets! That's +the solution of the problem, your Mercantile Highness. + +But there would be a cry, "Oh! This requires consideration!" (Ten +years of it--eh?) Well, no! This does not require consideration. +This is the very first thing to do. At once. Limit the number of +people by the boats you can handle. That's honesty. And then you +may go on fumbling for years about these precious davits which are +such a stumbling-block to your humanity. These fascinating patent +davits. These davits that refuse to do three times as much work as +they were meant to do. Oh! The wickedness of these davits! + +One of the great discoveries of this admirable Inquiry is the +fascination of the davits. All these people positively can't get +away from them. They shuffle about and groan around their davits. +Whereas the obvious thing to do is to eliminate the man-handled +davits altogether. Don't you think that with all the mechanical +contrivances, with all the generated power on board these ships, it +is about time to get rid of the hundred-years-old, man-power +appliances? Cranes are what is wanted; low, compact cranes with +adjustable heads, one to each set of six or nine boats. And if +people tell you of insuperable difficulties, if they tell you of +the swing and spin of spanned boats, don't you believe them. The +heads of the cranes need not be any higher than the heads of the +davits. The lift required would be only a couple of inches. As to +the spin, there is a way to prevent that if you have in each boat +two men who know what they are about. I have taken up on board a +heavy ship's boat, in the open sea (the ship rolling heavily), with +a common cargo derrick. And a cargo derrick is very much like a +crane; but a crane devised AD HOC would be infinitely easier to +work. We must remember that the loss of this ship has altered the +moral atmosphere. As long as the Titanic is remembered, an ugly +rush for the boats may be feared in case of some accident. You +can't hope to drill into perfect discipline a casual mob of six +hundred firemen and waiters, but in a ship like the Titanic you can +keep on a permanent trustworthy crew of one hundred intelligent +seamen and mechanics who would know their stations for abandoning +ship and would do the work efficiently. The boats could be lowered +with sufficient dispatch. One does not want to let rip one's boats +by the run all at the same time. With six boat-cranes, six boats +would be simultaneously swung, filled, and got away from the side; +and if any sort of order is kept, the ship could be cleared of the +passengers in a quite short time. For there must be boats enough +for the passengers and crew, whether you increase the number of +boats or limit the number of passengers, irrespective of the size +of the ship. That is the only honest course. Any other would be +rather worse than putting sand in the sugar, for which a tradesman +gets fined or imprisoned. Do not let us take a romantic view of +the so-called progress. A company selling passages is a tradesman; +though from the way these people talk and behave you would think +they are benefactors of mankind in some mysterious way, engaged in +some lofty and amazing enterprise. + +All these boats should have a motor-engine in them. And, of +course, the glorified tradesman, the mummified official, the +technicians, and all these secretly disconcerted hangers-on to the +enormous ticket-selling enterprise, will raise objections to it +with every air of superiority. But don't believe them. Doesn't it +strike you as absurd that in this age of mechanical propulsion, of +generated power, the boats of such ultra-modern ships are fitted +with oars and sails, implements more than three thousand years old? +Old as the siege of Troy. Older! . . . And I know what I am +talking about. Only six weeks ago I was on the river in an +ancient, rough, ship's boat, fitted with a two-cylinder motor- +engine of 7.5 h.p. Just a common ship's boat, which the man who +owns her uses for taking the workmen and stevedores to and from the +ships loading at the buoys off Greenhithe. She would have carried +some thirty people. No doubt has carried as many daily for many +months. And she can tow a twenty-five ton water barge--which is +also part of that man's business. + +It was a boisterous day, half a gale of wind against the flood +tide. Two fellows managed her. A youngster of seventeen was cox +(and a first-rate cox he was too); a fellow in a torn blue jersey, +not much older, of the usual riverside type, looked after the +engine. I spent an hour and a half in her, running up and down and +across that reach. She handled perfectly. With eight or twelve +oars out she could not have done anything like as well. These two +youngsters at my request kept her stationary for ten minutes, with +a touch of engine and helm now and then, within three feet of a +big, ugly mooring buoy over which the water broke and the spray +flew in sheets, and which would have holed her if she had bumped +against it. But she kept her position, it seemed to me, to an +inch, without apparently any trouble to these boys. You could not +have done it with oars. And her engine did not take up the space +of three men, even on the assumption that you would pack people as +tight as sardines in a box. + +Not the room of three people, I tell you! But no one would want to +pack a boat like a sardine-box. There must be room enough to +handle the oars. But in that old ship's boat, even if she had been +desperately overcrowded, there was power (manageable by two +riverside youngsters) to get away quickly from a ship's side (very +important for your safety and to make room for other boats), the +power to keep her easily head to sea, the power to move at five to +seven knots towards a rescuing ship, the power to come safely +alongside. And all that in an engine which did not take up the +room of three people. + +A poor boatman who had to scrape together painfully the few +sovereigns of the price had the idea of putting that engine into +his boat. But all these designers, directors, managers, +constructors, and others whom we may include in the generic name of +Yamsi, never thought of it for the boats of the biggest tank on +earth, or rather on sea. And therefore they assume an air of +impatient superiority and make objections--however sick at heart +they may be. And I hope they are; at least, as much as a grocer +who has sold a tin of imperfect salmon which destroyed only half a +dozen people. And you know, the tinning of salmon was "progress" +as much at least as the building of the Titanic. More, in fact. I +am not attacking shipowners. I care neither more nor less for +Lines, Companies, Combines, and generally for Trade arrayed in +purple and fine linen than the Trade cares for me. But I am +attacking foolish arrogance, which is fair game; the offensive +posture of superiority by which they hide the sense of their guilt, +while the echoes of the miserably hypocritical cries along the +alley-ways of that ship: "Any more women? Any more women?" linger +yet in our ears. + +I have been expecting from one or the other of them all bearing the +generic name of Yamsi, something, a sign of some sort, some sincere +utterance, in the course of this Admirable Inquiry, of manly, of +genuine compunction. In vain. All trade talk. Not a whisper-- +except for the conventional expression of regret at the beginning +of the yearly report--which otherwise is a cheerful document. +Dividends, you know. The shop is doing well. + +And the Admirable Inquiry goes on, punctuated by idiotic laughter, +by paid-for cries of indignation from under legal wigs, bringing to +light the psychology of various commercial characters too stupid to +know that they are giving themselves away--an admirably laborious +inquiry into facts that speak, nay shout, for themselves. + +I am not a soft-headed, humanitarian faddist. I have been ordered +in my time to do dangerous work; I have ordered, others to do +dangerous work; I have never ordered a man to do any work I was not +prepared to do myself. I attach no exaggerated value to human +life. But I know it has a value for which the most generous +contributions to the Mansion House and "Heroes" funds cannot pay. +And they cannot pay for it, because people, even of the third class +(excuse my plain speaking), are not cattle. Death has its sting. +If Yamsi's manager's head were forcibly held under the water of his +bath for some little time, he would soon discover that it has. +Some people can only learn from that sort of experience which comes +home to their own dear selves. + +I am not a sentimentalist; therefore it is not a great consolation +to me to see all these people breveted as "Heroes" by the penny and +halfpenny Press. It is no consolation at all. In extremity, in +the worst extremity, the majority of people, even of common people, +will behave decently. It's a fact of which only the journalists +don't seem aware. Hence their enthusiasm, I suppose. But I, who +am not a sentimentalist, think it would have been finer if the band +of the Titanic had been quietly saved, instead of being drowned +while playing--whatever tune they were playing, the poor devils. I +would rather they had been saved to support their families than to +see their families supported by the magnificent generosity of the +subscribers. I am not consoled by the false, written-up, Drury +Lane aspects of that event, which is neither drama, nor melodrama, +nor tragedy, but the exposure of arrogant folly. There is nothing +more heroic in being drowned very much against your will, off a +holed, helpless, big tank in which you bought your passage, than in +dying of colic caused by the imperfect salmon in the tin you bought +from your grocer. + +And that's the truth. The unsentimental truth stripped of the +romantic garment the Press has wrapped around this most unnecessary +disaster. + + + +PROTECTION OF OCEAN LINERS {8}--1914 + + + +The loss of the Empress of Ireland awakens feelings somewhat +different from those the sinking of the Titanic had called up on +two continents. The grief for the lost and the sympathy for the +survivors and the bereaved are the same; but there is not, and +there cannot be, the same undercurrent of indignation. The good +ship that is gone (I remember reading of her launch something like +eight years ago) had not been ushered in with beat of drum as the +chief wonder of the world of waters. The company who owned her had +no agents, authorised or unauthorised, giving boastful interviews +about her unsinkability to newspaper reporters ready to swallow any +sort of trade statement if only sensational enough for their +readers--readers as ignorant as themselves of the nature of all +things outside the commonest experience of the man in the street. + +No; there was nothing of that in her case. The company was content +to have as fine, staunch, seaworthy a ship as the technical +knowledge of that time could make her. In fact, she was as safe a +ship as nine hundred and ninety-nine ships out of any thousand now +afloat upon the sea. No; whatever sorrow one can feel, one does +not feel indignation. This was not an accident of a very boastful +marine transportation; this was a real casualty of the sea. The +indignation of the New South Wales Premier flashed telegraphically +to Canada is perfectly uncalled-for. That statesman, whose +sympathy for poor mates and seamen is so suspect to me that I +wouldn't take it at fifty per cent. discount, does not seem to know +that a British Court of Marine Inquiry, ordinary or extraordinary, +is not a contrivance for catching scapegoats. I, who have been +seaman, mate and master for twenty years, holding my certificate +under the Board of Trade, may safely say that none of us ever felt +in danger of unfair treatment from a Court of Inquiry. It is a +perfectly impartial tribunal which has never punished seamen for +the faults of shipowners--as, indeed, it could not do even if it +wanted to. And there is another thing the angry Premier of New +South Wales does not know. It is this: that for a ship to float +for fifteen minutes after receiving such a blow by a bare stem on +her bare side is not so bad. + +She took a tremendous list which made the minutes of grace +vouchsafed her of not much use for the saving of lives. But for +that neither her owners nor her officers are responsible. It would +have been wonderful if she had not listed with such a hole in her +side. Even the Aquitania with such an opening in her outer hull +would be bound to take a list. I don't say this with the intention +of disparaging this latest "triumph of marine architecture"--to use +the consecrated phrase. The Aquitania is a magnificent ship. I +believe she would bear her people unscathed through ninety-nine per +cent. of all possible accidents of the sea. But suppose a +collision out on the ocean involving damage as extensive as this +one was, and suppose then a gale of wind coming on. Even the +Aquitania would not be quite seaworthy, for she would not be +manageable. + +We have been accustoming ourselves to put our trust in material, +technical skill, invention, and scientific contrivances to such an +extent that we have come at last to believe that with these things +we can overcome the immortal gods themselves. Hence when a +disaster like this happens, there arises, besides the shock to our +humane sentiments, a feeling of irritation, such as the hon. +gentleman at the head of the New South Wales Government has +discharged in a telegraphic flash upon the world. + +But it is no use being angry and trying to hang a threat of penal +servitude over the heads of the directors of shipping companies. +You can't get the better of the immortal gods by the mere power of +material contrivances. There will be neither scapegoats in this +matter nor yet penal servitude for anyone. The Directors of the +Canadian Pacific Railway Company did not sell "safety at sea" to +the people on board the Empress of Ireland. They never in the +slightest degree pretended to do so. What they did was to sell +them a sea-passage, giving very good value for the money. Nothing +more. As long as men will travel on the water, the sea-gods will +take their toll. They will catch good seamen napping, or confuse +their judgment by arts well known to those who go to sea, or +overcome them by the sheer brutality of elemental forces. It seems +to me that the resentful sea-gods never do sleep, and are never +weary; wherein the seamen who are mere mortals condemned to +unending vigilance are no match for them. + +And yet it is right that the responsibility should be fixed. It is +the fate of men that even in their contests with the immortal gods +they must render an account of their conduct. Life at sea is the +life in which, simple as it is, you can't afford to make mistakes. + +With whom the mistake lies here, is not for me to say. I see that +Sir Thomas Shaughnessy has expressed his opinion of Captain +Kendall's absolute innocence. This statement, premature as it is, +does him honour, for I don't suppose for a moment that the thought +of the material issue involved in the verdict of the Court of +Inquiry influenced him in the least. I don't suppose that he is +more impressed by the writ of two million dollars nailed (or more +likely pasted) to the foremast of the Norwegian than I am, who +don't believe that the Storstad is worth two million shillings. +This is merely a move of commercial law, and even the whole majesty +of the British Empire (so finely invoked by the Sheriff) cannot +squeeze more than a very moderate quantity of blood out of a stone. +Sir Thomas, in his confident pronouncement, stands loyally by a +loyal and distinguished servant of his company. + +This thing has to be investigated yet, and it is not proper for me +to express my opinion, though I have one, in this place and at this +time. But I need not conceal my sympathy with the vehement +protestations of Captain Andersen. A charge of neglect and +indifference in the matter of saving lives is the cruellest blow +that can be aimed at the character of a seaman worthy of the name. +On the face of the facts as known up to now the charge does not +seem to be true. If upwards of three hundred people have been, as +stated in the last reports, saved by the Storstad, then that ship +must have been at hand and rendering all the assistance in her +power. + +As to the point which must come up for the decision of the Court of +Inquiry, it is as fine as a hair. The two ships saw each other +plainly enough before the fog closed on them. No one can question +Captain Kendall's prudence. He has been as prudent as ever he +could be. There is not a shadow of doubt as to that. + +But there is this question: Accepting the position of the two +ships when they saw each other as correctly described in the very +latest newspaper reports, it seems clear that it was the Empress of +Ireland's duty to keep clear of the collier, and what the Court +will have to decide is whether the stopping of the liner was, under +the circumstances, the best way of keeping her clear of the other +ship, which had the right to proceed cautiously on an unchanged +course. + +This, reduced to its simplest expression, is the question which the +Court will have to decide. + +And now, apart from all problems of manoeuvring, of rules of the +road, of the judgment of the men in command, away from their +possible errors and from the points the Court will have to decide, +if we ask ourselves what it was that was needed to avert this +disaster costing so many lives, spreading so much sorrow, and to a +certain point shocking the public conscience--if we ask that +question, what is the answer to be? + +I hardly dare set it down. Yes; what was it that was needed, what +ingenious combinations of shipbuilding, what transverse bulkheads, +what skill, what genius--how much expense in money and trained +thinking, what learned contriving, to avert that disaster? + +To save that ship, all these lives, so much anguish for the dying, +and so much grief for the bereaved, all that was needed in this +particular case in the way of science, money, ingenuity, and +seamanship was a man, and a cork-fender. + +Yes; a man, a quartermaster, an able seaman that would know how to +jump to an order and was not an excitable fool. In my time at sea +there was no lack of men in British ships who could jump to an +order and were not excitable fools. As to the so-called cork- +fender, it is a sort of soft balloon made from a net of thick rope +rather more than a foot in diameter. It is such a long time since +I have indented for cork-fenders that I don't remember how much +these things cost apiece. One of them, hung judiciously over the +side at the end of its lanyard by a man who knew what he was about, +might perhaps have saved from destruction the ship and upwards of a +thousand lives. + +Two men with a heavy rope-fender would have been better, but even +the other one might have made all the difference between a very +damaging accident and downright disaster. By the time the cork- +fender had been squeezed between the liner's side and the bluff of +the Storstad's bow, the effect of the latter's reversed propeller +would have been produced, and the ships would have come apart with +no more damage than bulged and started plates. Wasn't there lying +about on that liner's bridge, fitted with all sorts of scientific +contrivances, a couple of simple and effective cork-fenders--or on +board of that Norwegian either? There must have been, since one +ship was just out of a dock or harbour and the other just arriving. +That is the time, if ever, when cork-fenders are lying about a +ship's decks. And there was plenty of time to use them, and +exactly in the conditions in which such fenders are effectively +used. The water was as smooth as in any dock; one ship was +motionless, the other just moving at what may be called dock-speed +when entering, leaving, or shifting berths; and from the moment the +collision was seen to be unavoidable till the actual contact a +whole minute elapsed. A minute,--an age under the circumstances. +And no one thought of the homely expedient of dropping a simple, +unpretending rope-fender between the destructive stern and the +defenceless side! + +I appeal confidently to all the seamen in the still United Kingdom, +from his Majesty the King (who has been really at sea) to the +youngest intelligent A.B. in any ship that will dock next tide in +the ports of this realm, whether there was not a chance there. I +have followed the sea for more than twenty years; I have seen +collisions; I have been involved in a collision myself; and I do +believe that in the case under consideration this little thing +would have made all that enormous difference--the difference +between considerable damage and an appalling disaster. + +Many letters have been written to the Press on the subject of +collisions. I have seen some. They contain many suggestions, +valuable and otherwise; but there is only one which hits the nail +on the head. It is a letter to the TIMES from a retired Captain of +the Royal Navy. It is printed in small type, but it deserved to be +printed in letters of gold and crimson. The writer suggests that +all steamers should be obliged by law to carry hung over their +stern what we at sea call a "pudding." + +This solution of the problem is as wonderful in its simplicity as +the celebrated trick of Columbus's egg, and infinitely more useful +to mankind. A "pudding" is a thing something like a bolster of +stout rope-net stuffed with old junk, but thicker in the middle +than at the ends. It can be seen on almost every tug working in +our docks. It is, in fact, a fixed rope-fender always in a +position where presumably it would do most good. Had the Storstad +carried such a "pudding" proportionate to her size (say, two feet +diameter in the thickest part) across her stern, and hung above the +level of her hawse-pipes, there would have been an accident +certainly, and some repair-work for the nearest ship-yard, but +there would have been no loss of life to deplore. + +It seems almost too simple to be true, but I assure you that the +statement is as true as anything can be. We shall see whether the +lesson will be taken to heart. We shall see. There is a +Commission of learned men sitting to consider the subject of saving +life at sea. They are discussing bulkheads, boats, davits, +manning, navigation, but I am willing to bet that not one of them +has thought of the humble "pudding." They can make what rules they +like. We shall see if, with that disaster calling aloud to them, +they will make the rule that every steam-ship should carry a +permanent fender across her stern, from two to four feet in +diameter in its thickest part in proportion to the size of the +ship. But perhaps they may think the thing too rough and unsightly +for this scientific and aesthetic age. It certainly won't look +very pretty but I make bold to say it will save more lives at sea +than any amount of the Marconi installations which are being forced +on the shipowners on that very ground--the safety of lives at sea. + +We shall see! + + +To the Editor of the DAILY EXPRESS. + +SIR, + +As I fully expected, this morning's post brought me not a few +letters on the subject of that article of mine in the ILLUSTRATED +LONDON NEWS. And they are very much what I expected them to be. + +I shall address my reply to Captain Littlehales, since obviously he +can speak with authority, and speaks in his own name, not under a +pseudonym. And also for the reason that it is no use talking to +men who tell you to shut your head for a confounded fool. They are +not likely to listen to you. + +But if there be in Liverpool anybody not too angry to listen, I +want to assure him or them that my exclamatory line, "Was there no +one on board either of these ships to think of dropping a fender-- +etc.," was not uttered in the spirit of blame for anyone. I would +not dream of blaming a seaman for doing or omitting to do anything +a person sitting in a perfectly safe and unsinkable study may think +of. All my sympathy goes to the two captains; much the greater +share of it to Captain Kendall, who has lost his ship and whose +load of responsibility was so much heavier! I may not know a great +deal, but I know how anxious and perplexing are those nearly end-on +approaches, so infinitely more trying to the men in charge than a +frank right-angle crossing. + +I may begin by reminding Captain Littlehales that I, as well as +himself, have had to form my opinion, or rather my vision, of the +accident, from printed statements, of which many must have been +loose and inexact and none could have been minutely circumstantial. +I have read the reports of the TIMES and the DAILY TELEGRAPH, and +no others. What stands in the columns of these papers is +responsible for my conclusion--or perhaps for the state of my +feelings when I wrote the ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS article. + +From these sober and unsensational reports, I derived the +impression that this collision was a collision of the slowest sort. +I take it, of course, that both the men in charge speak the +strictest truth as to preliminary facts. We know that the Empress +of Ireland was for a time lying motionless. And if the captain of +the Storstad stopped his engines directly the fog came on (as he +says he did), then taking into account the adverse current of the +river, the Storstad, by the time the two ships sighted each other +again, must have been barely moving OVER THE GROUND. The "over the +ground" speed is the only one that matters in this discussion. In +fact, I represented her to myself as just creeping on ahead--no +more. This, I contend, is an imaginative view (and we can form no +other) not utterly absurd for a seaman to adopt. + +So much for the imaginative view of the sad occurrence which caused +me to speak of the fender, and be chided for it in unmeasured +terms. Not by Captain Littlehales, however, and I wish to reply to +what he says with all possible deference. His illustration +borrowed from boxing is very apt, and in a certain sense makes for +my contention. Yes. A blow delivered with a boxing-glove will +draw blood or knock a man out; but it would not crush in his nose +flat or break his jaw for him--at least, not always. And this is +exactly my point. + +Twice in my sea life I have had occasion to be impressed by the +preserving effect of a fender. Once I was myself the man who +dropped it over. Not because I was so very clever or smart, but +simply because I happened to be at hand. And I agree with Captain +Littlehales that to see a steamer's stern coming at you at the rate +of only two knots is a staggering experience. The thing seems to +have power enough behind it to cut half through the terrestrial +globe. + +And perhaps Captain Littlehales is right? It may be that I am +mistaken in my appreciation of circumstances and possibilities in +this case--or in any such case. Perhaps what was really wanted +there was an extraordinary man and an extraordinary fender. I care +nothing if possibly my deep feeling has betrayed me into something +which some people call absurdity. + +Absurd was the word applied to the proposal for carrying "enough +boats for all" on board the big liners. And my absurdity can +affect no lives, break no bones--need make no one angry. Why +should I care, then, as long as out of the discussion of my +absurdity there will emerge the acceptance of the suggestion of +Captain F. Papillon, R.N., for the universal and compulsory fitting +of very heavy collision fenders on the stems of all mechanically +propelled ships? + +An extraordinary man we cannot always get from heaven on order, but +an extraordinary fender that will do its work is well within the +power of a committee of old boatswains to plan out, make, and place +in position. I beg to ask, not in a provocative spirit, but simply +as to a matter of fact which he is better qualified to judge than I +am--Will Captain Littlehales affirm that if the Storstad had +carried, slung securely across the stem, even nothing thicker than +a single bale of wool (an ordinary, hand-pressed, Australian wool- +bale), it would have made no difference? + +If scientific men can invent an air cushion, a gas cushion, or even +an electricity cushion (with wires or without), to fit neatly round +the stems and bows of ships, then let them go to work, in God's +name and produce another "marvel of science" without loss of time. +For something like this has long been due--too long for the credit +of that part of mankind which is not absurd, and in which I +include, among others, such people as marine underwriters, for +instance. + +Meanwhile, turning to materials I am familiar with, I would put my +trust in canvas, lots of big rope, and in large, very large +quantities of old junk. + +It sounds awfully primitive, but if it will mitigate the mischief +in only fifty per cent. of cases, is it not well worth trying? +Most collisions occur at slow speeds, and it ought to be remembered +that in case of a big liner's loss, involving many lives, she is +generally sunk by a ship much smaller than herself. + +JOSEPH CONRAD. + + + +A FRIENDLY PLACE + + + +Eighteen years have passed since I last set foot in the London +Sailors' Home. I was not staying there then; I had gone in to try +to find a man I wanted to see. He was one of those able seamen +who, in a watch, are a perfect blessing to a young officer. I +could perhaps remember here and there among the shadows of my sea- +life a more daring man, or a more agile man, or a man more expert +in some special branch of his calling--such as wire splicing, for +instance; but for all-round competence, he was unequalled. As +character he was sterling stuff. His name was Anderson. He had a +fine, quiet face, kindly eyes, and a voice which matched that +something attractive in the whole man. Though he looked yet in the +prime of life, shoulders, chest, limbs untouched by decay, and +though his hair and moustache were only iron-grey, he was on board +ship generally called Old Andy by his fellows. He accepted the +name with some complacency. + +I made my enquiry at the highly-glazed entry office. The clerk on +duty opened an enormous ledger, and after running his finger down a +page, informed me that Anderson had gone to sea a week before, in a +ship bound round the Horn. Then, smiling at me, he added: "Old +Andy. We know him well, here. What a nice fellow!" + +I, who knew what a "good man," in a sailor sense, he was, assented +without reserve. Heaven only knows when, if ever, he came back +from that voyage, to the Sailors' Home of which he was a faithful +client. + +I went out glad to know he was safely at sea, but sorry not to have +seen him; though, indeed, if I had, we would not have exchanged +more than a score of words, perhaps. He was not a talkative man, +Old Andy, whose affectionate ship-name clung to him even in that +Sailors' Home, where the staff understood and liked the sailors +(those men without a home) and did its duty by them with an +unobtrusive tact, with a patient and humorous sense of their +idiosyncrasies, to which I hasten to testify now, when the very +existence of that institution is menaced after so many years of +most useful work. + +Walking away from it on that day eighteen years ago, I was far from +thinking it was for the last time. Great changes have come since, +over land and sea; and if I were to seek somebody who knew Old Andy +it would be (of all people in the world) Mr. John Galsworthy. For +Mr. John Galsworthy, Andy, and myself have been shipmates together +in our different stations, for some forty days in the Indian Ocean +in the early nineties. And, but for us two, Old Andy's very memory +would be gone from this changing earth. + +Yes, things have changed--the very sky, the atmosphere, the light +of judgment which falls on the labours of men, either splendid or +obscure. Having been asked to say a word to the public on behalf +of the Sailors' Home, I felt immensely flattered--and troubled. +Flattered to have been thought of in that connection; troubled to +find myself in touch again with that past so deeply rooted in my +heart. And the illusion of nearness is so great while I trace +these lines that I feel as if I were speaking in the name of that +worthy Sailor-Shade of Old Andy, whose faithfully hard life seems +to my vision a thing of yesterday. + + +But though the past keeps firm hold on one, yet one feels with the +same warmth that the men and the institutions of to-day have their +merit and their claims. Others will know how to set forth before +the public the merit of the Sailors' Home in the eloquent terms of +hard facts and some few figures. For myself, I can only bring a +personal note, give a glimpse of the human side of the good work +for sailors ashore, carried on through so many decades with a +perfect understanding of the end in view. I have been in touch +with the Sailors' Home for sixteen years of my life, off and on; I +have seen the changes in the staff and I have observed the subtle +alterations in the physiognomy of that stream of sailors passing +through it, in from the sea and out again to sea, between the years +1878 and 1894. I have listened to the talk on the decks of ships +in all latitudes, when its name would turn up frequently, and if I +had to characterise its good work in one sentence, I would say +that, for seamen, the Well Street Home was a friendly place. + +It was essentially just that; quietly, unobtrusively, with a regard +for the independence of the men who sought its shelter ashore, and +with no ulterior aims behind that effective friendliness. No small +merit this. And its claim on the generosity of the public is +derived from a long record of valuable public service. Since we +are all agreed that the men of the merchant service are a national +asset worthy of care and sympathy, the public could express this +sympathy no better than by enabling the Sailors' Home, so useful in +the past, to continue its friendly offices to the seamen of future +generations. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} Yvette and Other Stories. Translated by Ada Galsworthy. + +{2} TURGENEV: A Study. By Edward Garnett. + +{3} STUDIES IN BROWN HUMANITY. By Hugh Clifford. + +{4} QUIET DAYS IN SPAIN. By C. Bogue Luffmann. + +{5} Existence after Death Implied by Science. By Jasper B. Hunt, +M.A. + +{6} THE ASCENDING EFFORT. By George Bourne. + +{7} Since writing the above, I am told that such doors are fitted +in the bunkers of more than one ship in the Atlantic trade. + +{8} The loss of the Empress of Ireland. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Notes on Life and Letters, by Conrad + diff --git a/old/ntlfl10.zip b/old/ntlfl10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b26e7e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ntlfl10.zip |