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diff --git a/11505-0.txt b/11505-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ae873d --- /dev/null +++ b/11505-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5429 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11505 *** + +[Illustration] + + + + +ALL THINGS CONSIDERED + +BY +G. K. CHESTERTON + + + + +_First Published (Eighth Edition) at IS. net September 2nd 1915_ + +_Ninth Edition November 1915_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + THE CASE FOR THE EPHEMERAL + COCKNEYS AND THEIR JOKES + THE FALLACY OF SUCCESS + ON RUNNING AFTER ONE’S HAT + THE VOTE AND THE HOUSE + CONCEIT AND CARICATURE + PATRIOTISM AND SPORT + AN ESSAY ON TWO CITIES + FRENCH AND ENGLISH + THE ZOLA CONTROVERSY + OXFORD FROM WITHOUT + WOMAN + THE MODERN MARTYR + ON POLITICAL SECRECY + EDWARD VII. AND SCOTLAND + THOUGHTS AROUND KOEPENICK + THE BOY + LIMERICKS AND COUNSELS OF PERFECTION + ANONYMITY AND FURTHER COUNSELS + ON THE CRYPTIC AND THE ELLIPTIC + THE WORSHIP OF THE WEALTHY + SCIENCE AND RELIGION + THE METHUSELAHITE + SPIRITUALISM + THE ERROR OF IMPARTIALITY + PHONETIC SPELLING + HUMANITARIANISM AND STRENGTH + WINE WHEN IT IS RED + DEMAGOGUES AND MYSTAGOGUES + THE “EATANSWILL GAZETTE” + FAIRY TALES + TOM JONES AND MORALITY + THE MAID OF ORLEANS + A DEAD POET + CHRISTMAS + + + + +THE CASE FOR THE EPHEMERAL + + +I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can +love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this +book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current or +rather flying subjects; and they must be published pretty much as they +stand. They were written, as a rule, at the last moment; they were +handed in the moment before it was too late, and I do not think that +our commonwealth would have been shaken to its foundations if they had +been handed in the moment after. They must go out now, with all their +imperfections on their head, or rather on mine; for their vices are too +vital to be improved with a blue pencil, or with anything I can think +of, except dynamite. + +Their chief vice is that so many of them are very serious; because I +had no time to make them flippant. It is so easy to be solemn; it is so +hard to be frivolous. Let any honest reader shut his eyes for a few +moments, and approaching the secret tribunal of his soul, ask himself +whether he would really rather be asked in the next two hours to write +the front page of the _Times_, which is full of long leading articles, +or the front page of _Tit-Bits,_ which is full of short jokes. If the +reader is the fine conscientious fellow I take him for, he will at once +reply that he would rather on the spur of the moment write ten _Times_ +articles than one _Tit-Bits_ joke. Responsibility, a heavy and cautious +responsibility of speech, is the easiest thing in the world; anybody +can do it. That is why so many tired, elderly, and wealthy men go in +for politics. They are responsible, because they have not the strength +of mind left to be irresponsible. It is more dignified to sit still +than to dance the Barn Dance. It is also easier. So in these easy pages +I keep myself on the whole on the level of the _Times_: it is only +occasionally that I leap upwards almost to the level of _Tit-Bits._ + +I resume the defence of this indefensible book. These articles have +another disadvantage arising from the scurry in which they were +written; they are too long-winded and elaborate. One of the great +disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time. If I have to +start for High-gate this day week, I may perhaps go the shortest way. +If I have to start this minute, I shall almost certainly go the +longest. In these essays (as I read them over) I feel frightfully +annoyed with myself for not getting to the point more quickly; but I +had not enough leisure to be quick. There are several maddening cases +in which I took two or three pages in attempting to describe an +attitude of which the essence could be expressed in an epigram; only +there was no time for epigrams. I do not repent of one shade of opinion +here expressed; but I feel that they might have been expressed so much +more briefly and precisely. For instance, these pages contain a sort of +recurring protest against the boast of certain writers that they are +merely recent. They brag that their philosophy of the universe is the +last philosophy or the new philosophy, or the advanced and progressive +philosophy. I have said much against a mere modernism. When I use the +word “modernism,” I am not alluding specially to the current quarrel in +the Roman Catholic Church, though I am certainly astonished at any +intellectual group accepting so weak and unphilosophical a name. It is +incomprehensible to me that any thinker can calmly call himself a +modernist; he might as well call himself a Thursdayite. But apart +altogether from that particular disturbance, I am conscious of a +general irritation expressed against the people who boast of their +advancement and modernity in the discussion of religion. But I never +succeeded in saying the quite clear and obvious thing that is really +the matter with modernism. The real objection to modernism is simply +that it is a form of snobbishness. It is an attempt to crush a rational +opponent not by reason, but by some mystery of superiority, by hinting +that one is specially up to date or particularly “in the know.” To +flaunt the fact that we have had all the last books from Germany is +simply vulgar; like flaunting the fact that we have had all the last +bonnets from Paris. To introduce into philosophical discussions a sneer +at a creed’s antiquity is like introducing a sneer at a lady’s age. It +is caddish because it is irrelevant. The pure modernist is merely a +snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion. + +Similarly I find that I have tried in these pages to express the real +objection to philanthropists and have not succeeded. I have not seen +the quite simple objection to the causes advocated by certain wealthy +idealists; causes of which the cause called teetotalism is the +strongest case. I have used many abusive terms about the thing, calling +it Puritanism, or superciliousness, or aristocracy; but I have not seen +and stated the quite simple objection to philanthropy; which is that it +is religious persecution. Religious persecution does not consist in +thumbscrews or fires of Smithfield; the essence of religious +persecution is this: that the man who happens to have material power in +the State, either by wealth or by official position, should govern his +fellow-citizens not according to their religion or philosophy, but +according to his own. If, for instance, there is such a thing as a +vegetarian nation; if there is a great united mass of men who wish to +live by the vegetarian morality, then I say in the emphatic words of +the arrogant French marquis before the French Revolution, “Let them eat +grass.” Perhaps that French oligarch was a humanitarian; most oligarchs +are. Perhaps when he told the peasants to eat grass he was recommending +to them the hygienic simplicity of a vegetarian restaurant. But that is +an irrelevant, though most fascinating, speculation. The point here is +that if a nation is really vegetarian let its government force upon it +the whole horrible weight of vegetarianism. Let its government give the +national guests a State vegetarian banquet. Let its government, in the +most literal and awful sense of the words, give them beans. That sort +of tyranny is all very well; for it is the people tyrannising over all +the persons. But “temperance reformers” are like a small group of +vegetarians who should silently and systematically act on an ethical +assumption entirely unfamiliar to the mass of the people. They would +always be giving peerages to greengrocers. They would always be +appointing Parliamentary Commissions to enquire into the private life +of butchers. Whenever they found a man quite at their mercy, as a +pauper or a convict or a lunatic, they would force him to add the final +touch to his inhuman isolation by becoming a vegetarian. All the meals +for school children will be vegetarian meals. All the State public +houses will be vegetarian public houses. There is a very strong case +for vegetarianism as compared with teetotalism. Drinking one glass of +beer cannot by any philosophy be drunkenness; but killing one animal +can, by this philosophy, be murder. The objection to both processes is +not that the two creeds, teetotal and vegetarian, are not admissible; +it is simply that they are not admitted. The thing is religious +persecution because it is not based on the existing religion of the +democracy. These people ask the poor to accept in practice what they +know perfectly well that the poor would not accept in theory. That is +the very definition of religious persecution. I was against the Tory +attempt to force upon ordinary Englishmen a Catholic theology in which +they do not believe. I am even more against the attempt to force upon +them a Mohamedan morality which they actively deny. + +Again, in the case of anonymous journalism I seem to have said a great +deal without getting out the point very clearly. Anonymous journalism +is dangerous, and is poisonous in our existing life simply because it +is so rapidly becoming an anonymous life. That is the horrible thing +about our contemporary atmosphere. Society is becoming a secret +society. The modern tyrant is evil because of his elusiveness. He is +more nameless than his slave. He is not more of a bully than the +tyrants of the past; but he is more of a coward. The rich publisher may +treat the poor poet better or worse than the old master workman treated +the old apprentice. But the apprentice ran away and the master ran +after him. Nowadays it is the poet who pursues and tries in vain to fix +the fact of responsibility. It is the publisher who runs away. The +clerk of Mr. Solomon gets the sack: the beautiful Greek slave of the +Sultan Suliman also gets the sack; or the sack gets her. But though she +is concealed under the black waves of the Bosphorus, at least her +destroyer is not concealed. He goes behind golden trumpets riding on a +white elephant. But in the case of the clerk it is almost as difficult +to know where the dismissal comes from as to know where the clerk goes +to. It may be Mr. Solomon or Mr. Solomon’s manager, or Mr. Solomon’s +rich aunt in Cheltenham, or Mr. Soloman’s rich creditor in Berlin. The +elaborate machinery which was once used to make men responsible is now +used solely in order to shift the responsibility. People talk about the +pride of tyrants; but we in this age are not suffering from the pride +of tyrants. We are suffering from the shyness of tyrants; from the +shrinking modesty of tyrants. Therefore we must not encourage +leader-writers to be shy; we must not inflame their already exaggerated +modesty. Rather we must attempt to lure them to be vain and +ostentatious; so that through ostentation they may at last find their +way to honesty. + +The last indictment against this book is the worst of all. It is simply +this: that if all goes well this book will be unintelligible gibberish. +For it is mostly concerned with attacking attitudes which are in their +nature accidental and incapable of enduring. Brief as is the career of +such a book as this, it may last just twenty minutes longer than most +of the philosophies that it attacks. In the end it will not matter to +us whether we wrote well or ill; whether we fought with flails or +reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought. + + + + +COCKNEYS AND THEIR JOKES + + +A writer in the _Yorkshire Evening Post_ is very angry indeed with my +performances in this column. His precise terms of reproach are, “Mr. G. +K. Chesterton is not a humourist: not even a Cockney humourist.” I do +not mind his saying that I am not a humourist—in which (to tell the +truth) I think he is quite right. But I do resent his saying that I am +not a Cockney. That envenomed arrow, I admit, went home. If a French +writer said of me, “He is no metaphysician: not even an English +metaphysician,” I could swallow the insult to my metaphysics, but I +should feel angry about the insult to my country. So I do not urge that +I am a humourist; but I do insist that I am a Cockney. If I were a +humourist, I should certainly be a Cockney humourist; if I were a +saint, I should certainly be a Cockney saint. I need not recite the +splendid catalogue of Cockney saints who have written their names on +our noble old City churches. I need not trouble you with the long list +of the Cockney humourists who have discharged their bills (or failed to +discharge them) in our noble old City taverns. We can weep together +over the pathos of the poor Yorkshireman, whose county has never +produced some humour not intelligible to the rest of the world. And we +can smile together when he says that somebody or other is “not even” a +Cockney humourist like Samuel Johnson or Charles Lamb. It is surely +sufficiently obvious that all the best humour that exists in our +language is Cockney humour. Chaucer was a Cockney; he had his house +close to the Abbey. Dickens was a Cockney; he said he could not think +without the London streets. The London taverns heard always the +quaintest conversation, whether it was Ben Johnson’s at the Mermaid or +Sam Johnson’s at the Cock. Even in our own time it may be noted that +the most vital and genuine humour is still written about London. Of +this type is the mild and humane irony which marks Mr. Pett Ridge’s +studies of the small grey streets. Of this type is the simple but +smashing laughter of the best tales of Mr. W. W. Jacobs, telling of the +smoke and sparkle of the Thames. No; I concede that I am not a Cockney +humourist. No; I am not worthy to be. Some time, after sad and +strenuous after-lives; some time, after fierce and apocalyptic +incarnations; in some strange world beyond the stars, I may become at +last a Cockney humourist. In that potential paradise I may walk among +the Cockney humourists, if not an equal, at least a companion. I may +feel for a moment on my shoulder the hearty hand of Dryden and thread +the labyrinths of the sweet insanity of Lamb. But that could only be if +I were not only much cleverer, but much better than I am. Before I +reach that sphere I shall have left behind, perhaps, the sphere that is +inhabited by angels, and even passed that which is appropriated +exclusively to the use of Yorkshiremen. + +No; London is in this matter attacked upon its strongest ground. London +is the largest of the bloated modern cities; London is the smokiest; +London is the dirtiest; London is, if you will, the most sombre; London +is, if you will, the most miserable. But London is certainly the most +amusing and the most amused. You may prove that we have the most +tragedy; the fact remains that we have the most comedy, that we have +the most farce. We have at the very worst a splendid hypocrisy of +humour. We conceal our sorrow behind a screaming derision. You speak of +people who laugh through their tears; it is our boast that we only weep +through our laughter. There remains always this great boast, perhaps +the greatest boast that is possible to human nature. I mean the great +boast that the most unhappy part of our population is also the most +hilarious part. The poor can forget that social problem which we (the +moderately rich) ought never to forget. Blessed are the poor; for they +alone have not the poor always with them. The honest poor can sometimes +forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it. + +I believe firmly in the value of all vulgar notions, especially of +vulgar jokes. When once you have got hold of a vulgar joke, you may be +certain that you have got hold of a subtle and spiritual idea. The men +who made the joke saw something deep which they could not express +except by something silly and emphatic. They saw something delicate +which they could only express by something indelicate. I remember that +Mr. Max Beerbohm (who has every merit except democracy) attempted to +analyse the jokes at which the mob laughs. He divided them into three +sections: jokes about bodily humiliation, jokes about things alien, +such as foreigners, and jokes about bad cheese. Mr. Max Beerbohm +thought he understood the first two forms; but I am not sure that he +did. In order to understand vulgar humour it is not enough to be +humorous. One must also be vulgar, as I am. And in the first case it is +surely obvious that it is not merely at the fact of something being +hurt that we laugh (as I trust we do) when a Prime Minister sits down +on his hat. If that were so we should laugh whenever we saw a funeral. +We do not laugh at the mere fact of something falling down; there is +nothing humorous about leaves falling or the sun going down. When our +house falls down we do not laugh. All the birds of the air might drop +around us in a perpetual shower like a hailstorm without arousing a +smile. If you really ask yourself why we laugh at a man sitting down +suddenly in the street you will discover that the reason is not only +recondite, but ultimately religious. All the jokes about men sitting +down on their hats are really theological jokes; they are concerned +with the Dual Nature of Man. They refer to the primary paradox that man +is superior to all the things around him and yet is at their mercy. + +Quite equally subtle and spiritual is the idea at the back of laughing +at foreigners. It concerns the almost torturing truth of a thing being +like oneself and yet not like oneself. Nobody laughs at what is +entirely foreign; nobody laughs at a palm tree. But it is funny to see +the familiar image of God disguised behind the black beard of a +Frenchman or the black face of a Negro. There is nothing funny in the +sounds that are wholly inhuman, the howling of wild beasts or of the +wind. But if a man begins to talk like oneself, but all the syllables +come out different, then if one is a man one feels inclined to laugh, +though if one is a gentleman one resists the inclination. + +Mr. Max Beerbohm, I remember, professed to understand the first two +forms of popular wit, but said that the third quite stumped him. He +could not see why there should be anything funny about bad cheese. I +can tell him at once. He has missed the idea because it is subtle and +philosophical, and he was looking for something ignorant and foolish. +Bad cheese is funny because it is (like the foreigner or the man fallen +on the pavement) the type of the transition or transgression across a +great mystical boundary. Bad cheese symbolises the change from the +inorganic to the organic. Bad cheese symbolises the startling prodigy +of matter taking on vitality. It symbolises the origin of life itself. +And it is only about such solemn matters as the origin of life that the +democracy condescends to joke. Thus, for instance, the democracy jokes +about marriage, because marriage is a part of mankind. But the +democracy would never deign to joke about Free Love, because Free Love +is a piece of priggishness. + +As a matter of fact, it will be generally found that the popular joke +is not true to the letter, but is true to the spirit. The vulgar joke +is generally in the oddest way the truth and yet not the fact. For +instance, it is not in the least true that mothers-in-law are as a +class oppressive and intolerable; most of them are both devoted and +useful. All the mothers-in-law I have ever had were admirable. Yet the +legend of the comic papers is profoundly true. It draws attention to +the fact that it is much harder to be a nice mother-in-law than to be +nice in any other conceivable relation of life. The caricatures have +drawn the worst mother-in-law a monster, by way of expressing the fact +that the best mother-in-law is a problem. The same is true of the +perpetual jokes in comic papers about shrewish wives and henpecked +husbands. It is all a frantic exaggeration, but it is an exaggeration +of a truth; whereas all the modern mouthings about oppressed women are +the exaggerations of a falsehood. If you read even the best of the +intellectuals of to-day you will find them saying that in the mass of +the democracy the woman is the chattel of her lord, like his bath or +his bed. But if you read the comic literature of the democracy you will +find that the lord hides under the bed to escape from the wrath of his +chattel. This is not the fact, but it is much nearer the truth. Every +man who is married knows quite well, not only that he does not regard +his wife as a chattel, but that no man can conceivably ever have done +so. The joke stands for an ultimate truth, and that is a subtle truth. +It is one not very easy to state correctly. It can, perhaps, be most +correctly stated by saying that, even if the man is the head of the +house, he knows he is the figurehead. + +But the vulgar comic papers are so subtle and true that they are even +prophetic. If you really want to know what is going to happen to the +future of our democracy, do not read the modern sociological +prophecies, do not read even Mr. Wells’s Utopias for this purpose, +though you should certainly read them if you are fond of good honesty +and good English. If you want to know what will happen, study the pages +of _Snaps_ or _Patchy Bits_ as if they were the dark tablets graven +with the oracles of the gods. For, mean and gross as they are, in all +seriousness, they contain what is entirely absent from all Utopias and +all the sociological conjectures of our time: they contain some hint of +the actual habits and manifest desires of the English people. If we are +really to find out what the democracy will ultimately do with itself, +we shall surely find it, not in the literature which studies the +people, but in the literature which the people studies. + +I can give two chance cases in which the common or Cockney joke was a +much better prophecy than the careful observations of the most cultured +observer. When England was agitated, previous to the last General +Election, about the existence of Chinese labour, there was a distinct +difference between the tone of the politicians and the tone of the +populace. The politicians who disapproved of Chinese labour were most +careful to explain that they did not in any sense disapprove of +Chinese. According to them, it was a pure question of legal propriety, +of whether certain clauses in the contract of indenture were not +inconsistent with our constitutional traditions: according to them, the +case would have been the same if the people had been Kaffirs or +Englishmen. It all sounded wonderfully enlightened and lucid; and in +comparison the popular joke looked, of course, very poor. For the +popular joke against the Chinese labourers was simply that they were +Chinese; it was an objection to an alien type; the popular papers were +full of gibes about pigtails and yellow faces. It seemed that the +Liberal politicians were raising an intellectual objection to a +doubtful document of State; while it seemed that the Radical populace +were merely roaring with idiotic laughter at the sight of a Chinaman’s +clothes. But the popular instinct was justified, for the vices revealed +were Chinese vices. + +But there is another case more pleasant and more up to date. The +popular papers always persisted in representing the New Woman or the +Suffragette as an ugly woman, fat, in spectacles, with bulging clothes, +and generally falling off a bicycle. As a matter of plain external +fact, there was not a word of truth in this. The leaders of the +movement of female emancipation are not at all ugly; most of them are +extraordinarily good-looking. Nor are they at all indifferent to art or +decorative costume; many of them are alarmingly attached to these +things. Yet the popular instinct was right. For the popular instinct +was that in this movement, rightly or wrongly, there was an element of +indifference to female dignity, of a quite new willingness of women to +be grotesque. These women did truly despise the pontifical quality of +woman. And in our streets and around our Parliament we have seen the +stately woman of art and culture turn into the comic woman of _Comic +Bits_. And whether we think the exhibition justifiable or not, the +prophecy of the comic papers is justified: the healthy and vulgar +masses were conscious of a hidden enemy to their traditions who has now +come out into the daylight, that the scriptures might be fulfilled. For +the two things that a healthy person hates most between heaven and hell +are a woman who is not dignified and a man who is. + + + + +THE FALLACY OF SUCCESS + + +There has appeared in our time a particular class of books and articles +which I sincerely and solemnly think may be called the silliest ever +known among men. They are much more wild than the wildest romances of +chivalry and much more dull than the dullest religious tract. Moreover, +the romances of chivalry were at least about chivalry; the religious +tracts are about religion. But these things are about nothing; they are +about what is called Success. On every bookstall, in every magazine, +you may find works telling people how to succeed. They are books +showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who +cannot even succeed in writing books. To begin with, of course, there +is no such thing as Success. Or, if you like to put it so, there is +nothing that is not successful. That a thing is successful merely means +that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a +donkey in being a donkey. Any live man has succeeded in living; any +dead man may have succeeded in committing suicide. But, passing over +the bad logic and bad philosophy in the phrase, we may take it, as +these writers do, in the ordinary sense of success in obtaining money +or worldly position. These writers profess to tell the ordinary man how +he may succeed in his trade or speculation—how, if he is a builder, he +may succeed as a builder; how, if he is a stockbroker, he may succeed +as a stockbroker. They profess to show him how, if he is a grocer, he +may become a sporting yachtsman; how, if he is a tenth-rate journalist, +he may become a peer; and how, if he is a German Jew, he may become an +Anglo-Saxon. This is a definite and business-like proposal, and I +really think that the people who buy these books (if any people do buy +them) have a moral, if not a legal, right to ask for their money back. +Nobody would dare to publish a book about electricity which literally +told one nothing about electricity; no one would dare to publish an +article on botany which showed that the writer did not know which end +of a plant grew in the earth. Yet our modern world is full of books +about Success and successful people which literally contain no kind of +idea, and scarcely any kind of verbal sense. + +It is perfectly obvious that in any decent occupation (such as +bricklaying or writing books) there are only two ways (in any special +sense) of succeeding. One is by doing very good work, the other is by +cheating. Both are much too simple to require any literary explanation. +If you are in for the high jump, either jump higher than any one else, +or manage somehow to pretend that you have done so. If you want to +succeed at whist, either be a good whist-player, or play with marked +cards. You may want a book about jumping; you may want a book about +whist; you may want a book about cheating at whist. But you cannot want +a book about Success. Especially you cannot want a book about Success +such as those which you can now find scattered by the hundred about the +book-market. You may want to jump or to play cards; but you do not want +to read wandering statements to the effect that jumping is jumping, or +that games are won by winners. If these writers, for instance, said +anything about success in jumping it would be something like this: “The +jumper must have a clear aim before him. He must desire definitely to +jump higher than the other men who are in for the same competition. He +must let no feeble feelings of mercy (sneaked from the sickening Little +Englanders and Pro-Boers) prevent him from trying to _do his best_. He +must remember that a competition in jumping is distinctly competitive, +and that, as Darwin has gloriously demonstrated, THE WEAKEST GO TO THE +WALL.” That is the kind of thing the book would say, and very useful it +would be, no doubt, if read out in a low and tense voice to a young man +just about to take the high jump. Or suppose that in the course of his +intellectual rambles the philosopher of Success dropped upon our other +case, that of playing cards, his bracing advice would run—“In playing +cards it is very necessary to avoid the mistake (commonly made by +maudlin humanitarians and Free Traders) of permitting your opponent to +win the game. You must have grit and snap and go _in to win_. The days +of idealism and superstition are over. We live in a time of science and +hard common sense, and it has now been definitely proved that in any +game where two are playing IF ONE DOES NOT WIN THE OTHER WILL.” It is +all very stirring, of course; but I confess that if I were playing +cards I would rather have some decent little book which told me the +rules of the game. Beyond the rules of the game it is all a question +either of talent or dishonesty; and I will undertake to provide either +one or the other—which, it is not for me to say. + +Turning over a popular magazine, I find a queer and amusing example. +There is an article called “The Instinct that Makes People Rich.” It is +decorated in front with a formidable portrait of Lord Rothschild. There +are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people +rich; the only “instinct” I know of which does it is that instinct +which theological Christianity crudely describes as “the sin of +avarice.” That, however, is beside the present point. I wish to quote +the following exquisite paragraphs as a piece of typical advice as to +how to succeed. It is so practical; it leaves so little doubt about +what should be our next step— + +“The name of Vanderbilt is synonymous with wealth gained by modern +enterprise. ‘Cornelius,’ the founder of the family, was the first of +the great American magnates of commerce. He started as the son of a +poor farmer; he ended as a millionaire twenty times over. + +“He had the money-making instinct. He seized his opportunities, the +opportunities that were given by the application of the steam-engine to +ocean traffic, and by the birth of railway locomotion in the wealthy +but undeveloped United States of America, and consequently he amassed +an immense fortune. + +“Now it is, of course, obvious that we cannot all follow exactly in the +footsteps of this great railway monarch. The precise opportunities that +fell to him do not occur to us. Circumstances have changed. But, +although this is so, still, in our own sphere and in our own +circumstances, we _can_ follow his general methods; we can seize those +opportunities that are given us, and give ourselves a very fair chance +of attaining riches.” + +In such strange utterances we see quite clearly what is really at the +bottom of all these articles and books. It is not mere business; it is +not even mere cynicism. It is mysticism; the horrible mysticism of +money. The writer of that passage did not really have the remotest +notion of how Vanderbilt made his money, or of how anybody else is to +make his. He does, indeed, conclude his remarks by advocating some +scheme; but it has nothing in the world to do with Vanderbilt. He +merely wished to prostrate himself before the mystery of a millionaire. +For when we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but +its obscurity. We exult in its very invisibility. Thus, for instance, +when a man is in love with a woman he takes special pleasure in the +fact that a woman is unreasonable. Thus, again, the very pious poet, +celebrating his Creator, takes pleasure in saying that God moves in a +mysterious way. Now, the writer of the paragraph which I have quoted +does not seem to have had anything to do with a god, and I should not +think (judging by his extreme unpracticality) that he had ever been +really in love with a woman. But the thing he does +worship—Vanderbilt—he treats in exactly this mystical manner. He really +revels in the fact his deity Vanderbilt is keeping a secret from him. +And it fills his soul with a sort of transport of cunning, an ecstasy +of priestcraft, that he should pretend to be telling to the multitude +that terrible secret which he does not know. + +Speaking about the instinct that makes people rich, the same writer +remarks— + +“In olden days its existence was fully understood. The Greeks enshrined +it in the story of Midas, of the ‘Golden Touch.’ Here was a man who +turned everything he laid his hands upon into gold. His life was a +progress amidst riches. Out of everything that came in his way he +created the precious metal. ‘A foolish legend,’ said the wiseacres of +the Victorian age. ‘A truth,’ say we of to-day. We all know of such +men. We are ever meeting or reading about such persons who turn +everything they touch into gold. Success dogs their very footsteps. +Their life’s pathway leads unerringly upwards. They cannot fail.” + +Unfortunately, however, Midas could fail; he did. His path did not lead +unerringly upward. He starved because whenever he touched a biscuit or +a ham sandwich it turned to gold. That was the whole point of the +story, though the writer has to suppress it delicately, writing so near +to a portrait of Lord Rothschild. The old fables of mankind are, +indeed, unfathomably wise; but we must not have them expurgated in the +interests of Mr. Vanderbilt. We must not have King Midas represented as +an example of success; he was a failure of an unusually painful kind. +Also, he had the ears of an ass. Also (like most other prominent and +wealthy persons) he endeavoured to conceal the fact. It was his barber +(if I remember right) who had to be treated on a confidential footing +with regard to this peculiarity; and his barber, instead of behaving +like a go-ahead person of the Succeed-at-all-costs school and trying to +blackmail King Midas, went away and whispered this splendid piece of +society scandal to the reeds, who enjoyed it enormously. It is said +that they also whispered it as the winds swayed them to and fro. I look +reverently at the portrait of Lord Rothschild; I read reverently about +the exploits of Mr. Vanderbilt. I know that I cannot turn everything I +touch to gold; but then I also know that I have never tried, having a +preference for other substances, such as grass, and good wine. I know +that these people have certainly succeeded in something; that they have +certainly overcome somebody; I know that they are kings in a sense that +no men were ever kings before; that they create markets and bestride +continents. Yet it always seems to me that there is some small domestic +fact that they are hiding, and I have sometimes thought I heard upon +the wind the laughter and whisper of the reeds. + +At least, let us hope that we shall all live to see these absurd books +about Success covered with a proper derision and neglect. They do not +teach people to be successful, but they do teach people to be snobbish; +they do spread a sort of evil poetry of worldliness. The Puritans are +always denouncing books that inflame lust; what shall we say of books +that inflame the viler passions of avarice and pride? A hundred years +ago we had the ideal of the Industrious Apprentice; boys were told that +by thrift and work they would all become Lord Mayors. This was +fallacious, but it was manly, and had a minimum of moral truth. In our +society, temperance will not help a poor man to enrich himself, but it +may help him to respect himself. Good work will not make him a rich +man, but good work may make him a good workman. The Industrious +Apprentice rose by virtues few and narrow indeed, but still virtues. +But what shall we say of the gospel preached to the new Industrious +Apprentice; the Apprentice who rises not by his virtues, but avowedly +by his vices? + + + + +ON RUNNING AFTER ONE’S HAT + + +I feel an almost savage envy on hearing that London has been flooded in +my absence, while I am in the mere country. My own Battersea has been, +I understand, particularly favoured as a meeting of the waters. +Battersea was already, as I need hardly say, the most beautiful of +human localities. Now that it has the additional splendour of great +sheets of water, there must be something quite incomparable in the +landscape (or waterscape) of my own romantic town. Battersea must be a +vision of Venice. The boat that brought the meat from the butcher’s +must have shot along those lanes of rippling silver with the strange +smoothness of the gondola. The greengrocer who brought cabbages to the +corner of the Latchmere Road must have leant upon the oar with the +unearthly grace of the gondolier. There is nothing so perfectly +poetical as an island; and when a district is flooded it becomes an +archipelago. + +Some consider such romantic views of flood or fire slightly lacking in +reality. But really this romantic view of such inconveniences is quite +as practical as the other. The true optimist who sees in such things an +opportunity for enjoyment is quite as logical and much more sensible +than the ordinary “Indignant Ratepayer” who sees in them an opportunity +for grumbling. Real pain, as in the case of being burnt at Smithfield +or having a toothache, is a positive thing; it can be supported, but +scarcely enjoyed. But, after all, our toothaches are the exception, and +as for being burnt at Smithfield, it only happens to us at the very +longest intervals. And most of the inconveniences that make men swear +or women cry are really sentimental or imaginative +inconveniences—things altogether of the mind. For instance, we often +hear grown-up people complaining of having to hang about a railway +station and wait for a train. Did you ever hear a small boy complain of +having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train? No; for to +him to be inside a railway station is to be inside a cavern of wonder +and a palace of poetical pleasures. Because to him the red light and +the green light on the signal are like a new sun and a new moon. +Because to him when the wooden arm of the signal falls down suddenly, +it is as if a great king had thrown down his staff as a signal and +started a shrieking tournament of trains. I myself am of little boys’ +habit in this matter. They also serve who only stand and wait for the +two fifteen. Their meditations may be full of rich and fruitful things. +Many of the most purple hours of my life have been passed at Clapham +Junction, which is now, I suppose, under water. I have been there in +many moods so fixed and mystical that the water might well have come up +to my waist before I noticed it particularly. But in the case of all +such annoyances, as I have said, everything depends upon the emotional +point of view. You can safely apply the test to almost every one of the +things that are currently talked of as the typical nuisance of daily +life. + +For instance, there is a current impression that it is unpleasant to +have to run after one’s hat. Why should it be unpleasant to the +well-ordered and pious mind? Not merely because it is running, and +running exhausts one. The same people run much faster in games and +sports. The same people run much more eagerly after an uninteresting +little leather ball than they will after a nice silk hat. There is an +idea that it is humiliating to run after one’s hat; and when people say +it is humiliating they mean that it is comic. It certainly is comic; +but man is a very comic creature, and most of the things he does are +comic—eating, for instance. And the most comic things of all are +exactly the things that are most worth doing—such as making love. A man +running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a +wife. + +Now a man could, if he felt rightly in the matter, run after his hat +with the manliest ardour and the most sacred joy. He might regard +himself as a jolly huntsman pursuing a wild animal, for certainly no +animal could be wilder. In fact, I am inclined to believe that +hat-hunting on windy days will be the sport of the upper classes in the +future. There will be a meet of ladies and gentlemen on some high +ground on a gusty morning. They will be told that the professional +attendants have started a hat in such-and-such a thicket, or whatever +be the technical term. Notice that this employment will in the fullest +degree combine sport with humanitarianism. The hunters would feel that +they were not inflicting pain. Nay, they would feel that they were +inflicting pleasure, rich, almost riotous pleasure, upon the people who +were looking on. When last I saw an old gentleman running after his hat +in Hyde Park, I told him that a heart so benevolent as his ought to be +filled with peace and thanks at the thought of how much unaffected +pleasure his every gesture and bodily attitude were at that moment +giving to the crowd. + +The same principle can be applied to every other typical domestic +worry. A gentleman trying to get a fly out of the milk or a piece of +cork out of his glass of wine often imagines himself to be irritated. +Let him think for a moment of the patience of anglers sitting by dark +pools, and let his soul be immediately irradiated with gratification +and repose. Again, I have known some people of very modern views driven +by their distress to the use of theological terms to which they +attached no doctrinal significance, merely because a drawer was jammed +tight and they could not pull it out. A friend of mine was particularly +afflicted in this way. Every day his drawer was jammed, and every day +in consequence it was something else that rhymes to it. But I pointed +out to him that this sense of wrong was really subjective and relative; +it rested entirely upon the assumption that the drawer could, should, +and would come out easily. “But if,” I said, “you picture to yourself +that you are pulling against some powerful and oppressive enemy, the +struggle will become merely exciting and not exasperating. Imagine that +you are tugging up a lifeboat out of the sea. Imagine that you are +roping up a fellow-creature out of an Alpine crevass. Imagine even that +you are a boy again and engaged in a tug-of-war between French and +English.” Shortly after saying this I left him; but I have no doubt at +all that my words bore the best possible fruit. I have no doubt that +every day of his life he hangs on to the handle of that drawer with a +flushed face and eyes bright with battle, uttering encouraging shouts +to himself, and seeming to hear all round him the roar of an applauding +ring. + +So I do not think that it is altogether fanciful or incredible to +suppose that even the floods in London may be accepted and enjoyed +poetically. Nothing beyond inconvenience seems really to have been +caused by them; and inconvenience, as I have said, is only one aspect, +and that the most unimaginative and accidental aspect of a really +romantic situation. An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly +considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. +The water that girdled the houses and shops of London must, if +anything, have only increased their previous witchery and wonder. For +as the Roman Catholic priest in the story said: “Wine is good with +everything except water,” and on a similar principle, water is good +with everything except wine. + + + + +THE VOTE AND THE HOUSE + + +Most of us will be canvassed soon, I suppose; some of us may even +canvass. Upon which side, of course, nothing will induce me to state, +beyond saying that by a remarkable coincidence it will in every case be +the only side in which a high-minded, public-spirited, and patriotic +citizen can take even a momentary interest. But the general question of +canvassing itself, being a non-party question, is one which we may be +permitted to approach. The rules for canvassers are fairly familiar to +any one who has ever canvassed. They are printed on the little card +which you carry about with you and lose. There is a statement, I think, +that you must not offer a voter food or drink. However hospitable you +may feel towards him in his own house, you must not carry his lunch +about with you. You must not produce a veal cutlet from your tail-coat +pocket. You must not conceal poached eggs about your person. You must +not, like a kind of conjurer, produce baked potatoes from your hat. In +short, the canvasser must not feed the voter in any way. Whether the +voter is allowed to feed the canvasser, whether the voter may give the +canvasser veal cutlets and baked potatoes, is a point of law on which I +have never been able to inform myself. When I found myself canvassing a +gentleman, I have sometimes felt tempted to ask him if there was any +rule against his giving me food and drink; but the matter seemed a +delicate one to approach. His attitude to me also sometimes suggested a +doubt as to whether he would, even if he could. But there are voters +who might find it worth while to discover if there is any law against +bribing a canvasser. They might bribe him to go away. + +The second veto for canvassers which was printed on the little card +said that you must not persuade any one to personate a voter. I have no +idea what it means. To dress up as an average voter seems a little +vague. There is no well-recognised uniform, as far as I know, with +civic waistcoat and patriotic whiskers. The enterprise resolves itself +into one somewhat similar to the enterprise of a rich friend of mine +who went to a fancy-dress ball dressed up as a gentleman. Perhaps it +means that there is a practice of personating some individual voter. +The canvasser creeps to the house of his fellow-conspirator carrying a +make-up in a bag. He produces from it a pair of white moustaches and a +single eyeglass, which are sufficient to give the most commonplace +person a startling resemblance to the Colonel at No. 80. Or he +hurriedly affixes to his friend that large nose and that bald head +which are all that is essential to an illusion of the presence of +Professor Budger. I do not undertake to unravel these knots. I can only +say that when I was a canvasser I was told by the little card, with +every circumstance of seriousness and authority, that I was not to +persuade anybody to personate a voter: and I can lay my hand upon my +heart and affirm that I never did. + +The third injunction on the card was one which seemed to me, if +interpreted exactly and according to its words, to undermine the very +foundations of our politics. It told me that I must not “threaten a +voter with any consequence whatever.” No doubt this was intended to +apply to threats of a personal and illegitimate character; as, for +instance, if a wealthy candidate were to threaten to raise all the +rents, or to put up a statue of himself. But as verbally and +grammatically expressed, it certainly would cover those general threats +of disaster to the whole community which are the main matter of +political discussion. When a canvasser says that if the opposition +candidate gets in the country will be ruined, he is threatening the +voters with certain consequences. When the Free Trader says that if +Tariffs are adopted the people in Brompton or Bayswater will crawl +about eating grass, he is threatening them with consequences. When the +Tariff Reformer says that if Free Trade exists for another year St. +Paul’s Cathedral will be a ruin and Ludgate Hill as deserted as +Stonehenge, he is also threatening. And what is the good of being a +Tariff Reformer if you can’t say that? What is the use of being a +politician or a Parliamentary candidate at all if one cannot tell the +people that if the other man gets in, England will be instantly invaded +and enslaved, blood be pouring down the Strand, and all the English +ladies carried off into harems. But these things are, after all, +consequences, so to speak. + +The majority of refined persons in our day may generally be heard +abusing the practice of canvassing. In the same way the majority of +refined persons (commonly the same refined persons) may be heard +abusing the practice of interviewing celebrities. It seems a very +singular thing to me that this refined world reserves all its +indignation for the comparatively open and innocent element in both +walks of life. There is really a vast amount of corruption and +hypocrisy in our election politics; about the most honest thing in the +whole mess is the canvassing. A man has not got a right to “nurse” a +constituency with aggressive charities, to buy it with great presents +of parks and libraries, to open vague vistas of future benevolence; all +this, which goes on unrebuked, is bribery and nothing else. But a man +has got the right to go to another free man and ask him with civility +whether he will vote for him. The information can be asked, granted, or +refused without any loss of dignity on either side, which is more than +can be said of a park. It is the same with the place of interviewing in +journalism. In a trade where there are labyrinths of insincerity, +interviewing is about the most simple and the most sincere thing there +is. The canvasser, when he wants to know a man’s opinions, goes and +asks him. It may be a bore; but it is about as plain and straight a +thing as he could do. So the interviewer, when he wants to know a man’s +opinions, goes and asks him. Again, it may be a bore; but again, it is +about as plain and straight as anything could be. But all the other +real and systematic cynicisms of our journalism pass without being +vituperated and even without being known—the financial motives of +policy, the misleading posters, the suppression of just letters of +complaint. A statement about a man may be infamously untrue, but it is +read calmly. But a statement by a man to an interviewer is felt as +indefensibly vulgar. That the paper should misrepresent him is nothing; +that he should represent himself is bad taste. The whole error in both +cases lies in the fact that the refined persons are attacking politics +and journalism on the ground of vulgarity. Of course, politics and +journalism are, as it happens, very vulgar. But their vulgarity is not +the worst thing about them. Things are so bad with both that by this +time their vulgarity is the best thing about them. Their vulgarity is +at least a noisy thing; and their great danger is that silence that +always comes before decay. The conversational persuasion at elections +is perfectly human and rational; it is the silent persuasions that are +utterly damnable. + +If it is true that the Commons’ House will not hold all the Commons, it +is a very good example of what we call the anomalies of the English +Constitution. It is also, I think, a very good example of how highly +undesirable those anomalies really are. Most Englishmen say that these +anomalies do not matter; they are not ashamed of being illogical; they +are proud of being illogical. Lord Macaulay (a very typical Englishman, +romantic, prejudiced, poetical), Lord Macaulay said that he would not +lift his hand to get rid of an anomaly that was not also a grievance. +Many other sturdy romantic Englishmen say the same. They boast of our +anomalies; they boast of our illogicality; they say it shows what a +practical people we are. They are utterly wrong. Lord Macaulay was in +this matter, as in a few others, utterly wrong. Anomalies do matter +very much, and do a great deal of harm; abstract illogicalities do +matter a great deal, and do a great deal of harm. And this for a reason +that any one at all acquainted with human nature can see for himself. +All injustice begins in the mind. And anomalies accustom the mind to +the idea of unreason and untruth. Suppose I had by some prehistoric law +the power of forcing every man in Battersea to nod his head three times +before he got out of bed. The practical politicians might say that this +power was a harmless anomaly; that it was not a grievance. It could do +my subjects no harm; it could do me no good. The people of Battersea, +they would say, might safely submit to it. But the people of Battersea +could not safely submit to it, for all that. If I had nodded their +heads for them for fifty years I could cut off their heads for them at +the end of it with immeasurably greater ease. For there would have +permanently sunk into every man’s mind the notion that it was a natural +thing for me to have a fantastic and irrational power. They would have +grown accustomed to insanity. + +For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is +necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must +think injustice _absurd_; above all, they must think it startling. They +must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. That is the +explanation of the singular fact which must have struck many people in +the relations of philosophy and reform. It is the fact (I mean) that +optimists are more practical reformers than pessimists. Superficially, +one would imagine that the railer would be the reformer; that the man +who thought that everything was wrong would be the man to put +everything right. In historical practice the thing is quite the other +way; curiously enough, it is the man who likes things as they are who +really makes them better. The optimist Dickens has achieved more +reforms than the pessimist Gissing. A man like Rousseau has far too +rosy a theory of human nature; but he produces a revolution. A man like +David Hume thinks that almost all things are depressing; but he is a +Conservative, and wishes to keep them as they are. A man like Godwin +believes existence to be kindly; but he is a rebel. A man like Carlyle +believes existence to be cruel; but he is a Tory. Everywhere the man +who alters things begins by liking things. And the real explanation of +this success of the optimistic reformer, of this failure of the +pessimistic reformer, is, after all, an explanation of sufficient +simplicity. It is because the optimist can look at wrong not only with +indignation, but with a startled indignation. When the pessimist looks +at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy +of existence. The Court of Chancery is indefensible—like mankind. The +Inquisition is abominable—like the universe. But the optimist sees +injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him +into action. The pessimist can be enraged at wrong; but only the +optimist can be surprised at it. + +And it is the same with the relations of an anomaly to the logical +mind. The pessimist resents evil (like Lord Macaulay) solely because it +is a grievance. The optimist resents it also, because it is an anomaly; +a contradiction to his conception of the course of things. And it is +not at all unimportant, but on the contrary most important, that this +course of things in politics and elsewhere should be lucid, explicable +and defensible. When people have got used to unreason they can no +longer be startled at injustice. When people have grown familiar with +an anomaly, they are prepared to that extent for a grievance; they may +think the grievance grievous, but they can no longer think it strange. +Take, if only as an excellent example, the very matter alluded to +before; I mean the seats, or rather the lack of seats, in the House of +Commons. Perhaps it is true that under the best conditions it would +never happen that every member turned up. Perhaps a complete attendance +would never actually be. But who can tell how much influence in keeping +members away may have been exerted by this calm assumption that they +would stop away? How can any man be expected to help to make a full +attendance when he knows that a full attendance is actually forbidden? +How can the men who make up the Chamber do their duty reasonably when +the very men who built the House have not done theirs reasonably? If +the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the +battle? And what if the remarks of the trumpet take this form, “I +charge you as you love your King and country to come to this Council. +And I know you won’t.” + + + + +CONCEIT AND CARICATURE + + +If a man must needs be conceited, it is certainly better that he should +be conceited about some merits or talents that he does not really +possess. For then his vanity remains more or less superficial; it +remains a mere mistake of fact, like that of a man who thinks he +inherits the royal blood or thinks he has an infallible system for +Monte Carlo. Because the merit is an unreal merit, it does not corrupt +or sophisticate his real merits. He is vain about the virtue he has not +got; but he may be humble about the virtues that he has got. His truly +honourable qualities remain in their primordial innocence; he cannot +see them and he cannot spoil them. If a man’s mind is erroneously +possessed with the idea that he is a great violinist, that need not +prevent his being a gentleman and an honest man. But if once his mind +is possessed in any strong degree with the knowledge that he is a +gentleman, he will soon cease to be one. + +But there is a third kind of satisfaction of which I have noticed one +or two examples lately—another kind of satisfaction which is neither a +pleasure in the virtues that we do possess nor a pleasure in the +virtues we do not possess. It is the pleasure which a man takes in the +presence or absence of certain things in himself without ever +adequately asking himself whether in his case they constitute virtues +at all. A man will plume himself because he is not bad in some +particular way, when the truth is that he is not good enough to be bad +in that particular way. Some priggish little clerk will say, “I have +reason to congratulate myself that I am a civilised person, and not so +bloodthirsty as the Mad Mullah.” Somebody ought to say to him, “A +really good man would be less bloodthirsty than the Mullah. But you are +less bloodthirsty, not because you are more of a good man, but because +you are a great deal less of a man. You are not bloodthirsty, not +because you would spare your enemy, but because you would run away from +him.” Or again, some Puritan with a sullen type of piety would say, “I +have reason to congratulate myself that I do not worship graven images +like the old heathen Greeks.” And again somebody ought to say to him, +“The best religion may not worship graven images, because it may see +beyond them. But if you do not worship graven images, it is only +because you are mentally and morally quite incapable of graving them. +True religion, perhaps, is above idolatry. But you are below idolatry. +You are not holy enough yet to worship a lump of stone.” + +Mr. F. C. Gould, the brilliant and felicitous caricaturist, recently +delivered a most interesting speech upon the nature and atmosphere of +our modern English caricature. I think there is really very little to +congratulate oneself about in the condition of English caricature. +There are few causes for pride; probably the greatest cause for pride +is Mr. F. C. Gould. But Mr. F. C. Gould, forbidden by modesty to adduce +this excellent ground for optimism, fell back upon saying a thing which +is said by numbers of other people, but has not perhaps been said +lately with the full authority of an eminent cartoonist. He said that +he thought “that they might congratulate themselves that the style of +caricature which found acceptation nowadays was very different from the +lampoon of the old days.” Continuing, he said, according to the +newspaper report, “On looking back to the political lampoons of +Rowlandson’s and Gilray’s time they would find them coarse and brutal. +In some countries abroad still, ‘even in America,’ the method of +political caricature was of the bludgeon kind. The fact was we had +passed the bludgeon stage. If they were brutal in attacking a man, even +for political reasons, they roused sympathy for the man who was +attacked. What they had to do was to rub in the point they wanted to +emphasise as gently as they could.” (Laughter and applause.) + +Anybody reading these words, and anybody who heard them, will certainly +feel that there is in them a great deal of truth, as well as a great +deal of geniality. But along with that truth and with that geniality +there is a streak of that erroneous type of optimism which is founded +on the fallacy of which I have spoken above. Before we congratulate +ourselves upon the absence of certain faults from our nation or +society, we ought to ask ourselves why it is that these faults are +absent. Are we without the fault because we have the opposite virtue? +Or are we without the fault because we have the opposite fault? It is a +good thing assuredly, to be innocent of any excess; but let us be sure +that we are not innocent of excess merely by being guilty of defect. Is +it really true that our English political satire is so moderate because +it is so magnanimous, so forgiving, so saintly? Is it penetrated +through and through with a mystical charity, with a psychological +tenderness? Do we spare the feelings of the Cabinet Minister because we +pierce through all his apparent crimes and follies down to the dark +virtues of which his own soul is unaware? Do we temper the wind to the +Leader of the Opposition because in our all-embracing heart we pity and +cherish the struggling spirit of the Leader of the Opposition? Briefly, +have we left off being brutal because we are too grand and generous to +be brutal? Is it really true that we are _better_ than brutality? Is it +really true that we have _passed_ the bludgeon stage? + +I fear that there is, to say the least of it, another side to the +matter. Is it not only too probable that the mildness of our political +satire, when compared with the political satire of our fathers, arises +simply from the profound unreality of our current politics? Rowlandson +and Gilray did not fight merely because they were naturally pothouse +pugilists; they fought because they had something to fight about. It is +easy enough to be refined about things that do not matter; but men +kicked and plunged a little in that portentous wrestle in which swung +to and fro, alike dizzy with danger, the independence of England, the +independence of Ireland, the independence of France. If we wish for a +proof of this fact that the lack of refinement did not come from mere +brutality, the proof is easy. The proof is that in that struggle no +personalities were more brutal than the really refined personalities. +None were more violent and intolerant than those who were by nature +polished and sensitive. Nelson, for instance, had the nerves and good +manners of a woman: nobody in his senses, I suppose, would call Nelson +“brutal.” But when he was touched upon the national matter, there +sprang out of him a spout of oaths, and he could only tell men to +“Kill! kill! kill the d----d Frenchmen.” It would be as easy to take +examples on the other side. Camille Desmoulins was a man of much the +same type, not only elegant and sweet in temper, but almost tremulously +tender and humanitarian. But he was ready, he said, “to embrace Liberty +upon a pile of corpses.” In Ireland there were even more instances. +Robert Emmet was only one famous example of a whole family of men at +once sensitive and savage. I think that Mr. F.C. Gould is altogether +wrong in talking of this political ferocity as if it were some sort of +survival from ruder conditions, like a flint axe or a hairy man. +Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kind of sin. Intellectual cruelty is +certainly the worst kind of cruelty. But there is nothing in the least +barbaric or ignorant about intellectual cruelty. The great Renaissance +artists who mixed colours exquisitely mixed poisons equally +exquisitely; the great Renaissance princes who designed instruments of +music also designed instruments of torture. Barbarity, malignity, the +desire to hurt men, are the evil things generated in atmospheres of +intense reality when great nations or great causes are at war. We may, +perhaps, be glad that we have not got them: but it is somewhat +dangerous to be proud that we have not got them. Perhaps we are hardly +great enough to have them. Perhaps some great virtues have to be +generated, as in men like Nelson or Emmet, before we can have these +vices at all, even as temptations. I, for one, believe that if our +caricaturists do not hate their enemies, it is not because they are too +big to hate them, but because their enemies are not big enough to hate. +I do not think we have passed the bludgeon stage. I believe we have not +come to the bludgeon stage. We must be better, braver, and purer men +than we are before we come to the bludgeon stage. + +Let us then, by all means, be proud of the virtues that we have not +got; but let us not be too arrogant about the virtues that we cannot +help having. It may be that a man living on a desert island has a right +to congratulate himself upon the fact that he can meditate at his ease. +But he must not congratulate himself on the fact that he is on a desert +island, and at the same time congratulate himself on the self-restraint +he shows in not going to a ball every night. Similarly our England may +have a right to congratulate itself upon the fact that her politics are +very quiet, amicable, and humdrum. But she must not congratulate +herself upon that fact and also congratulate herself upon the +self-restraint she shows in not tearing herself and her citizens into +rags. Between two English Privy Councillors polite language is a mark +of civilisation, but really not a mark of magnanimity. + +Allied to this question is the kindred question on which we so often +hear an innocent British boast—the fact that our statesmen are +privately on very friendly relations, although in Parliament they sit +on opposite sides of the House. Here, again, it is as well to have no +illusions. Our statesmen are not monsters of mystical generosity or +insane logic, who are really able to hate a man from three to twelve +and to love him from twelve to three. If our social relations are more +peaceful than those of France or America or the England of a hundred +years ago, it is simply because our politics are more peaceful; not +improbably because our politics are more fictitious. If our statesmen +agree more in private, it is for the very simple reason that they agree +more in public. And the reason they agree so much in both cases is +really that they belong to one social class; and therefore the dining +life is the real life. Tory and Liberal statesmen like each other, but +it is not because they are both expansive; it is because they are both +exclusive. + + + + +PATRIOTISM AND SPORT + + +I notice that some papers, especially papers that call themselves +patriotic, have fallen into quite a panic over the fact that we have +been twice beaten in the world of sport, that a Frenchman has beaten us +at golf, and that Belgians have beaten us at rowing. I suppose that the +incidents are important to any people who ever believed in the +self-satisfied English legend on this subject. I suppose that there are +men who vaguely believe that we could never be beaten by a Frenchman, +despite the fact that we have often been beaten by Frenchmen, and once +by a Frenchwoman. In the old pictures in _Punch_ you will find a +recurring piece of satire. The English caricaturists always assumed +that a Frenchman could not ride to hounds or enjoy English hunting. It +did not seem to occur to them that all the people who founded English +hunting were Frenchmen. All the Kings and nobles who originally rode to +hounds spoke French. Large numbers of those Englishmen who still ride +to hounds have French names. I suppose that the thing is important to +any one who is ignorant of such evident matters as these. I suppose +that if a man has ever believed that we English have some sacred and +separate right to be athletic, such reverses do appear quite enormous +and shocking. They feel as if, while the proper sun was rising in the +east, some other and unexpected sun had begun to rise in the +north-north-west by north. For the benefit, the moral and intellectual +benefit of such people, it may be worth while to point out that the +Anglo-Saxon has in these cases been defeated precisely by those +competitors whom he has always regarded as being out of the running; by +Latins, and by Latins of the most easy and unstrenuous type; not only +by Frenchman, but by Belgians. All this, I say, is worth telling to any +intelligent person who believes in the haughty theory of Anglo-Saxon +superiority. But, then, no intelligent person does believe in the +haughty theory of Anglo-Saxon superiority. No quite genuine Englishman +ever did believe in it. And the genuine Englishman these defeats will +in no respect dismay. + +The genuine English patriot will know that the strength of England has +never depended upon any of these things; that the glory of England has +never had anything to do with them, except in the opinion of a large +section of the rich and a loose section of the poor which copies the +idleness of the rich. These people will, of course, think too much of +our failure, just as they thought too much of our success. The typical +Jingoes who have admired their countrymen too much for being conquerors +will, doubtless, despise their countrymen too much for being conquered. +But the Englishman with any feeling for England will know that athletic +failures do not prove that England is weak, any more than athletic +successes proved that England was strong. The truth is that athletics, +like all other things, especially modern, are insanely individualistic. +The Englishmen who win sporting prizes are exceptional among +Englishmen, for the simple reason that they are exceptional even among +men. English athletes represent England just about as much as Mr. +Barnum’s freaks represent America. There are so few of such people in +the whole world that it is almost a toss-up whether they are found in +this or that country. + +If any one wants a simple proof of this, it is easy to find. When the +great English athletes are not exceptional Englishmen they are +generally not Englishmen at all. Nay, they are often representatives of +races of which the average tone is specially incompatible with +athletics. For instance, the English are supposed to rule the natives +of India in virtue of their superior hardiness, superior activity, +superior health of body and mind. The Hindus are supposed to be our +subjects because they are less fond of action, less fond of openness +and the open air. In a word, less fond of cricket. And, substantially, +this is probably true, that the Indians are less fond of cricket. All +the same, if you ask among Englishmen for the very best cricket-player, +you will find that he is an Indian. Or, to take another case: it is, +broadly speaking, true that the Jews are, as a race, pacific, +intellectual, indifferent to war, like the Indians, or, perhaps, +contemptuous of war, like the Chinese: nevertheless, of the very good +prize-fighters, one or two have been Jews. + +This is one of the strongest instances of the particular kind of evil +that arises from our English form of the worship of athletics. It +concentrates too much upon the success of individuals. It began, quite +naturally and rightly, with wanting England to win. The second stage +was that it wanted some Englishmen to win. The third stage was (in the +ecstasy and agony of some special competition) that it wanted one +particular Englishman to win. And the fourth stage was that when he had +won, it discovered that he was not even an Englishman. + +This is one of the points, I think, on which something might really be +said for Lord Roberts and his rather vague ideas which vary between +rifle clubs and conscription. Whatever may be the advantages or +disadvantages otherwise of the idea, it is at least an idea of +procuring equality and a sort of average in the athletic capacity of +the people; it might conceivably act as a corrective to our mere +tendency to see ourselves in certain exceptional athletes. As it is, +there are millions of Englishmen who really think that they are a +muscular race because C.B. Fry is an Englishman. And there are many of +them who think vaguely that athletics must belong to England because +Ranjitsinhji is an Indian. + +But the real historic strength of England, physical and moral, has +never had anything to do with this athletic specialism; it has been +rather hindered by it. Somebody said that the Battle of Waterloo was +won on Eton playing-fields. It was a particularly unfortunate remark, +for the English contribution to the victory of Waterloo depended very +much more than is common in victories upon the steadiness of the rank +and file in an almost desperate situation. The Battle of Waterloo was +won by the stubbornness of the common soldier—that is to say, it was +won by the man who had never been to Eton. It was absurd to say that +Waterloo was won on Eton cricket-fields. But it might have been fairly +said that Waterloo was won on the village green, where clumsy boys +played a very clumsy cricket. In a word, it was the average of the +nation that was strong, and athletic glories do not indicate much about +the average of a nation. Waterloo was not won by good cricket-players. +But Waterloo was won by bad cricket-players, by a mass of men who had +some minimum of athletic instincts and habits. + +It is a good sign in a nation when such things are done badly. It shows +that all the people are doing them. And it is a bad sign in a nation +when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few +experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely +looking on. Suppose that whenever we heard of walking in England it +always meant walking forty-five miles a day without fatigue. We should +be perfectly certain that only a few men were walking at all, and that +all the other British subjects were being wheeled about in Bath-chairs. +But if when we hear of walking it means slow walking, painful walking, +and frequent fatigue, then we know that the mass of the nation still is +walking. We know that England is still literally on its feet. + +The difficulty is therefore that the actual raising of the standard of +athletics has probably been bad for national athleticism. Instead of +the tournament being a healthy _mêlée_ into which any ordinary man +would rush and take his chance, it has become a fenced and guarded +tilting-yard for the collision of particular champions against whom no +ordinary man would pit himself or even be permitted to pit himself. If +Waterloo was won on Eton cricket-fields it was because Eton cricket was +probably much more careless then than it is now. As long as the game +was a game, everybody wanted to join in it. When it becomes an art, +every one wants to look at it. When it was frivolous it may have won +Waterloo: when it was serious and efficient it lost Magersfontein. + +In the Waterloo period there was a general rough-and-tumble athleticism +among average Englishmen. It cannot be re-created by cricket, or by +conscription, or by any artificial means. It was a thing of the soul. +It came out of laughter, religion, and the spirit of the place. But it +was like the modern French duel in this—that it might happen to +anybody. If I were a French journalist it might really happen that +Monsieur Clemenceau might challenge me to meet him with pistols. But I +do not think that it is at all likely that Mr. C. B. Fry will ever +challenge me to meet him with cricket-bats. + + + + +AN ESSAY ON TWO CITIES + + +A little while ago I fell out of England into the town of Paris. If a +man fell out of the moon into the town of Paris he would know that it +was the capital of a great nation. If, however, he fell (perhaps off +some other side of the moon) so as to hit the city of London, he would +not know so well that it was the capital of a great nation; at any +rate, he would not know that the nation was so great as it is. This +would be so even on the assumption that the man from the moon could not +read our alphabet, as presumably he could not, unless elementary +education in that planet has gone to rather unsuspected lengths. But it +is true that a great part of the distinctive quality which separates +Paris from London may be even seen in the names. Real democrats always +insist that England is an aristocratic country. Real aristocrats always +insist (for some mysterious reason) that it is a democratic country. +But if any one has any real doubt about the matter let him consider +simply the names of the streets. Nearly all the streets out of the +Strand, for instance, are named after the first name, second name, +third name, fourth, fifth, and sixth names of some particular noble +family; after their relations, connections, or places of +residence—Arundel Street, Norfolk Street, Villiers Street, Bedford +Street, Southampton Street, and any number of others. The names are +varied, so as to introduce the same family under all sorts of different +surnames. Thus we have Arundel Street and also Norfolk Street; thus we +have Buckingham Street and also Villiers Street. To say that this is +not aristocracy is simply intellectual impudence. I am an ordinary +citizen, and my name is Gilbert Keith Chesterton; and I confess that if +I found three streets in a row in the Strand, the first called Gilbert +Street, the second Keith Street, and the third Chesterton Street, I +should consider that I had become a somewhat more important person in +the commonwealth than was altogether good for its health. If Frenchmen +ran London (which God forbid!), they would think it quite as ludicrous +that those streets should be named after the Duke of Buckingham as that +they should be named after me. They are streets out of one of the main +thoroughfares of London. If French methods were adopted, one of them +would be called Shakspere Street, another Cromwell Street, another +Wordsworth Street; there would be statues of each of these persons at +the end of each of these streets, and any streets left over would be +named after the date on which the Reform Bill was passed or the Penny +Postage established. + +Suppose a man tried to find people in London by the names of the +places. It would make a fine farce, illustrating our illogicality. Our +hero having once realised that Buckingham Street was named after the +Buckingham family, would naturally walk into Buckingham Palace in +search of the Duke of Buckingham. To his astonishment he would meet +somebody quite different. His simple lunar logic would lead him to +suppose that if he wanted the Duke of Marlborough (which seems +unlikely) he would find him at Marlborough House. He would find the +Prince of Wales. When at last he understood that the Marlboroughs live +at Blenheim, named after the great Marlborough’s victory, he would, no +doubt, go there. But he would again find himself in error if, acting +upon this principle, he tried to find the Duke of Wellington, and told +the cabman to drive to Waterloo. I wonder that no one has written a +wild romance about the adventures of such an alien, seeking the great +English aristocrats, and only guided by the names; looking for the Duke +of Bedford in the town of that name, seeking for some trace of the Duke +of Norfolk in Norfolk. He might sail for Wellington in New Zealand to +find the ancient seat of the Wellingtons. The last scene might show him +trying to learn Welsh in order to converse with the Prince of Wales. + +But even if the imaginary traveller knew no alphabet of this earth at +all, I think it would still be possible to suppose him seeing a +difference between London and Paris, and, upon the whole, the real +difference. He would not be able to read the words “Quai Voltaire;” but +he would see the sneering statue and the hard, straight roads; without +having heard of Voltaire he would understand that the city was +Voltairean. He would not know that Fleet Street was named after the +Fleet Prison. But the same national spirit which kept the Fleet Prison +closed and narrow still keeps Fleet Street closed and narrow. Or, if +you will, you may call Fleet Street cosy, and the Fleet Prison cosy. I +think I could be more comfortable in the Fleet Prison, in an English +way of comfort, than just under the statue of Voltaire. I think that +the man from the moon would know France without knowing French; I think +that he would know England without having heard the word. For in the +last resort all men talk by signs. To talk by statues is to talk by +signs; to talk by cities is to talk by signs. Pillars, palaces, +cathedrals, temples, pyramids, are an enormous dumb alphabet: as if +some giant held up his fingers of stone. The most important things at +the last are always said by signs, even if, like the Cross on St. +Paul’s, they are signs in heaven. If men do not understand signs, they +will never understand words. + +For my part, I should be inclined to suggest that the chief object of +education should be to restore simplicity. If you like to put it so, +the chief object of education is not to learn things; nay, the chief +object of education is to unlearn things. The chief object of education +is to unlearn all the weariness and wickedness of the world and to get +back into that state of exhilaration we all instinctively celebrate +when we write by preference of children and of boys. If I were an +examiner appointed to examine all examiners (which does not at present +appear probable), I would not only ask the teachers how much knowledge +they had imparted; I would ask them how much splendid and scornful +ignorance they had erected, like some royal tower in arms. But, in any +case, I would insist that people should have so much simplicity as +would enable them to see things suddenly and to see things as they are. +I do not care so much whether they can read the names over the shops. I +do care very much whether they can read the shops. I do not feel deeply +troubled as to whether they can tell where London is on the map so long +as they can tell where Brixton is on the way home. I do not even mind +whether they can put two and two together in the mathematical sense; I +am content if they can put two and two together in the metaphorical +sense. But all this longer statement of an obvious view comes back to +the metaphor I have employed. I do not care a dump whether they know +the alphabet, so long as they know the dumb alphabet. + +Unfortunately, I have noticed in many aspects of our popular education +that this is not done at all. One teaches our London children to see +London with abrupt and simple eyes. And London is far more difficult to +see properly than any other place. London is a riddle. Paris is an +explanation. The education of the Parisian child is something +corresponding to the clear avenues and the exact squares of Paris. When +the Parisian boy has done learning about the French reason and the +Roman order he can go out and see the thing repeated in the shapes of +many shining public places, in the angles of many streets. But when the +English boy goes out, after learning about a vague progress and +idealism, he cannot see it anywhere. He cannot see anything anywhere, +except Sapolio and the _Daily Mail_. We must either alter London to +suit the ideals of our education, or else alter our education to suit +the great beauty of London. + + + + +FRENCH AND ENGLISH + + +It is obvious that there is a great deal of difference between being +international and being cosmopolitan. All good men are international. +Nearly all bad men are cosmopolitan. If we are to be international we +must be national. And it is largely because those who call themselves +the friends of peace have not dwelt sufficiently on this distinction +that they do not impress the bulk of any of the nations to which they +belong. International peace means a peace between nations, not a peace +after the destruction of nations, like the Buddhist peace after the +destruction of personality. The golden age of the good European is like +the heaven of the Christian: it is a place where people will love each +other; not like the heaven of the Hindu, a place where they will be +each other. And in the case of national character this can be seen in a +curious way. It will generally be found, I think, that the more a man +really appreciates and admires the soul of another people the less he +will attempt to imitate it; he will be conscious that there is +something in it too deep and too unmanageable to imitate. The +Englishman who has a fancy for France will try to be French; the +Englishman who admires France will remain obstinately English. This is +to be particularly noticed in the case of our relations with the +French, because it is one of the outstanding peculiarities of the +French that their vices are all on the surface, and their extraordinary +virtues concealed. One might almost say that their vices are the flower +of their virtues. + +Thus their obscenity is the expression of their passionate love of +dragging all things into the light. The avarice of their peasants means +the independence of their peasants. What the English call their +rudeness in the streets is a phase of their social equality. The +worried look of their women is connected with the responsibility of +their women; and a certain unconscious brutality of hurry and gesture +in the men is related to their inexhaustible and extraordinary military +courage. Of all countries, therefore, France is the worst country for a +superficial fool to admire. Let a fool hate France: if the fool loves +it he will soon be a knave. He will certainly admire it, not only for +the things that are not creditable, but actually for the things that +are not there. He will admire the grace and indolence of the most +industrious people in the world. He will admire the romance and fantasy +of the most determinedly respectable and commonplace people in the +world. This mistake the Englishman will make if he admires France too +hastily; but the mistake that he makes about France will be slight +compared with the mistake that he makes about himself. An Englishman +who professes really to like French realistic novels, really to be at +home in a French modern theatre, really to experience no shock on first +seeing the savage French caricatures, is making a mistake very +dangerous for his own sincerity. He is admiring something he does not +understand. He is reaping where he has not sown, and taking up where he +has not laid down; he is trying to taste the fruit when he has never +toiled over the tree. He is trying to pluck the exquisite fruit of +French cynicism, when he has never tilled the rude but rich soil of +French virtue. + +The thing can only be made clear to Englishmen by turning it round. +Suppose a Frenchman came out of democratic France to live in England, +where the shadow of the great houses still falls everywhere, and where +even freedom was, in its origin, aristocratic. If the Frenchman saw our +aristocracy and liked it, if he saw our snobbishness and liked it, if +he set himself to imitate it, we all know what we should feel. We all +know that we should feel that that particular Frenchman was a repulsive +little gnat. He would be imitating English aristocracy; he would be +imitating the English vice. But he would not even understand the vice +he plagiarised: especially he would not understand that the vice is +partly a virtue. He would not understand those elements in the English +which balance snobbishness and make it human: the great kindness of the +English, their hospitality, their unconscious poetry, their sentimental +conservatism, which really admires the gentry. The French Royalist sees +that the English like their King. But he does not grasp that while it +is base to worship a King, it is almost noble to worship a powerless +King. The impotence of the Hanoverian Sovereigns has raised the English +loyal subject almost to the chivalry and dignity of a Jacobite. The +Frenchman sees that the English servant is respectful: he does not +realise that he is also disrespectful; that there is an English legend +of the humorous and faithful servant, who is as much a personality as +his master; the Caleb Balderstone, the Sam Weller. He sees that the +English do admire a nobleman; he does not allow for the fact that they +admire a nobleman most when he does not behave like one. They like a +noble to be unconscious and amiable: the slave may be humble, but the +master must not be proud. The master is Life, as they would like to +enjoy it; and among the joys they desire in him there is none which +they desire more sincerely than that of generosity, of throwing money +about among mankind, or, to use the noble mediæval word, largesse—the +joy of largeness. That is why a cabman tells you are no gentleman if +you give him his correct fare. Not only his pocket, but his soul is +hurt. You have wounded his ideal. You have defaced his vision of the +perfect aristocrat. All this is really very subtle and elusive; it is +very difficult to separate what is mere slavishness from what is a sort +of vicarious nobility in the English love of a lord. And no Frenchman +could easily grasp it at all. He would think it was mere slavishness; +and if he liked it, he would be a slave. So every Englishman must (at +first) feel French candour to be mere brutality. And if he likes it, he +is a brute. These national merits must not be understood so easily. It +requires long years of plenitude and quiet, the slow growth of great +parks, the seasoning of oaken beams, the dark enrichment of red wine in +cellars and in inns, all the leisure and the life of England through +many centuries, to produce at last the generous and genial fruit of +English snobbishness. And it requires battery and barricade, songs in +the streets, and ragged men dead for an idea, to produce and justify +the terrible flower of French indecency. + +When I was in Paris a short time ago, I went with an English friend of +mine to an extremely brilliant and rapid succession of French plays, +each occupying about twenty minutes. They were all astonishingly +effective; but there was one of them which was so effective that my +friend and I fought about it outside, and had almost to be separated by +the police. It was intended to indicate how men really behaved in a +wreck or naval disaster, how they break down, how they scream, how they +fight each other without object and in a mere hatred of everything. And +then there was added, with all that horrible irony which Voltaire +began, a scene in which a great statesman made a speech over their +bodies, saying that they were all heroes and had died in a fraternal +embrace. My friend and I came out of this theatre, and as he had lived +long in Paris, he said, like a Frenchman: “What admirable artistic +arrangement! Is it not exquisite?” “No,” I replied, assuming as far as +possible the traditional attitude of John Bull in the pictures in +_Punch_—“No, it is not exquisite. Perhaps it is unmeaning; if it is +unmeaning I do not mind. But if it has a meaning I know what the +meaning is; it is that under all their pageant of chivalry men are not +only beasts, but even hunted beasts. I do not know much of humanity, +especially when humanity talks in French. But I know when a thing is +meant to uplift the human soul, and when it is meant to depress it. I +know that ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ (where the actors talked even quicker) +was meant to encourage man. And I know that this was meant to +discourage him.” “These sentimental and moral views of art,” began my +friend, but I broke into his words as a light broke into my mind. “Let +me say to you,” I said, “what Jaurès said to Liebknecht at the +Socialist Conference: ‘You have not died on the barricades’. You are an +Englishman, as I am, and you ought to be as amiable as I am. These +people have some right to be terrible in art, for they have been +terrible in politics. They may endure mock tortures on the stage; they +have seen real tortures in the streets. They have been hurt for the +idea of Democracy. They have been hurt for the idea of Catholicism. It +is not so utterly unnatural to them that they should be hurt for the +idea of literature. But, by blazes, it is altogether unnatural to me! +And the worst thing of all is that I, who am an Englishman, loving +comfort, should find comfort in such things as this. The French do not +seek comfort here, but rather unrest. This restless people seeks to +keep itself in a perpetual agony of the revolutionary mood. Frenchmen, +seeking revolution, may find the humiliation of humanity inspiring. But +God forbid that two pleasure-seeking Englishmen should ever find it +pleasant!” + + + + +THE ZOLA CONTROVERSY + + +The difference between two great nations can be illustrated by the +coincidence that at this moment both France and England are engaged in +discussing the memorial of a literary man. France is considering the +celebration of the late Zola, England is considering that of the +recently deceased Shakspere. There is some national significance, it +may be, in the time that has elapsed. Some will find impatience and +indelicacy in this early attack on Zola or deification of him; but the +nation which has sat still for three hundred years after Shakspere’s +funeral may be considered, perhaps, to have carried delicacy too far. +But much deeper things are involved than the mere matter of time. The +point of the contrast is that the French are discussing whether there +shall be any monument, while the English are discussing only what the +monument shall be. In other words, the French are discussing a living +question, while we are discussing a dead one. Or rather, not a dead +one, but a settled one, which is quite a different thing. + +When a thing of the intellect is settled it is not dead: rather it is +immortal. The multiplication table is immortal, and so is the fame of +Shakspere. But the fame of Zola is not dead or not immortal; it is at +its crisis, it is in the balance; and may be found wanting. The French, +therefore, are quite right in considering it a living question. It is +still living as a question, because it is not yet solved. But Shakspere +is not a living question: he is a living answer. + +For my part, therefore, I think the French Zola controversy much more +practical and exciting than the English Shakspere one. The admission of +Zola to the Panthéon may be regarded as defining Zola’s position. But +nobody could say that a statue of Shakspere, even fifty feet high, on +the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral, could define Shakspere’s position. It +only defines our position towards Shakspere. It is he who is fixed; it +is we who are unstable. The nearest approach to an English parallel to +the Zola case would be furnished if it were proposed to put some +savagely controversial and largely repulsive author among the ashes of +the greatest English poets. Suppose, for instance, it were proposed to +bury Mr. Rudyard Kipling in Westminster Abbey. I should be against +burying him in Westminster Abbey; first, because he is still alive (and +here I think even he himself might admit the justice of my protest); +and second, because I should like to reserve that rapidly narrowing +space for the great permanent examples, not for the interesting foreign +interruptions, of English literature. I would not have either Mr. +Kipling or Mr. George Moore in Westminster Abbey, though Mr. Kipling +has certainly caught even more cleverly than Mr. Moore the lucid and +cool cruelty of the French short story. I am very sure that Geoffrey +Chaucer and Joseph Addison get on very well together in the Poets’ +Corner, despite the centuries that sunder them. But I feel that Mr. +George Moore would be much happier in Pere-la-Chaise, with a riotous +statue by Rodin on the top of him; and Mr. Kipling much happier under +some huge Asiatic monument, carved with all the cruelties of the gods. + +As to the affair of the English monument to Shakspere, every people has +its own mode of commemoration, and I think there is a great deal to be +said for ours. There is the French monumental style, which consists in +erecting very pompous statues, very well done. There is the German +monumental style, which consists in erecting very pompous statues, +badly done. And there is the English monumental method, the great +English way with statues, which consists in not erecting them at all. A +statue may be dignified; but the absence of a statue is always +dignified. For my part, I feel there is something national, something +wholesomely symbolic, in the fact that there is no statue of Shakspere. +There is, of course, one in Leicester Square; but the very place where +it stands shows that it was put up by a foreigner for foreigners. There +is surely something modest and manly about not attempting to express +our greatest poet in the plastic arts in which we do not excel. We +honour Shakspere as the Jews honour God—by not daring to make of him a +graven image. Our sculpture, our statues, are good enough for bankers +and philanthropists, who are our curse: not good enough for him, who is +our benediction. Why should we celebrate the very art in which we +triumph by the very art in which we fail? + +England is most easily understood as the country of amateurs. It is +especially the country of amateur soldiers (that is, of Volunteers), of +amateur statesmen (that is, of aristocrats), and it is not unreasonable +or out of keeping that it should be rather specially the country of a +careless and lounging view of literature. Shakspere has no academic +monument for the same reason that he had no academic education. He had +small Latin and less Greek, and (in the same spirit) he has never been +commemorated in Latin epitaphs or Greek marble. If there is nothing +clear and fixed about the emblems of his fame, it is because there was +nothing clear and fixed about the origins of it. Those great schools +and Universities which watch a man in his youth may record him in his +death; but Shakspere had no such unifying traditions. We can only say +of him what we can say of Dickens. We can only say that he came from +nowhere and that he went everywhere. For him a monument in any place is +out of place. A cold statue in a certain square is unsuitable to him as +it would be unsuitable to Dickens. If we put up a statue of Dickens in +Portland Place to-morrow we should feel the stiffness as unnatural. We +should fear that the statue might stroll about the street at night. + +But in France the question of whether Zola shall go to the Panthéon +when he is dead is quite as practicable as the question whether he +should go to prison when he was alive. It is the problem of whether the +nation shall take one turn of thought or another. In raising a monument +to Zola they do not raise merely a trophy, but a finger-post. The +question is one which will have to be settled in most European +countries; but like all such questions, it has come first to a head in +France; because France is the battlefield of Christendom. That question +is, of course, roughly this: whether in that ill-defined area of verbal +licence on certain dangerous topics it is an extenuation of indelicacy +or an aggravation of it that the indelicacy was deliberate and solemn. +Is indecency more indecent if it is grave, or more indecent if it is +gay? For my part, I belong to an old school in this matter. When a book +or a play strikes me as a crime, I am not disarmed by being told that +it is a serious crime. If a man has written something vile, I am not +comforted by the explanation that he quite meant to do it. I know all +the evils of flippancy; I do not like the man who laughs at the sight +of virtue. But I prefer him to the man who weeps at the sight of virtue +and complains bitterly of there being any such thing. I am not +reassured, when ethics are as wild as cannibalism, by the fact that +they are also as grave and sincere as suicide. And I think there is an +obvious fallacy in the bitter contrasts drawn by some moderns between +the aversion to Ibsen’s “Ghosts” and the popularity of some such joke +as “Dear Old Charlie.” Surely there is nothing mysterious or +unphilosophic in the popular preference. The joke of “Dear Old Charlie” +is passed—because it is a joke. “Ghosts” are exorcised—because they +are ghosts. + +This is, of course, the whole question of Zola. I am grown up, and I do +not worry myself much about Zola’s immorality. The thing I cannot stand +is his morality. If ever a man on this earth lived to embody the +tremendous text, “But if the light in your body be darkness, how great +is the darkness,” it was certainly he. Great men like Ariosto, +Rabelais, and Shakspere fall in foul places, flounder in violent but +venial sin, sprawl for pages, exposing their gigantic weakness, are +dirty, are indefensible; and then they struggle up again and can still +speak with a convincing kindness and an unbroken honour of the best +things in the world: Rabelais, of the instruction of ardent and austere +youth; Ariosto, of holy chivalry; Shakspere, of the splendid stillness +of mercy. But in Zola even the ideals are undesirable; Zola’s mercy is +colder than justice—nay, Zola’s mercy is more bitter in the mouth than +injustice. When Zola shows us an ideal training he does not take us, +like Rabelais, into the happy fields of humanist learning. He takes us +into the schools of inhumanist learning, where there are neither books +nor flowers, nor wine nor wisdom, but only deformities in glass +bottles, and where the rule is taught from the exceptions. Zola’s truth +answers the exact description of the skeleton in the cupboard; that is, +it is something of which a domestic custom forbids the discovery, but +which is quite dead, even when it is discovered. Macaulay said that the +Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but +because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Of such substance also was +this Puritan who had lost his God. A Puritan of this type is worse than +the Puritan who hates pleasure because there is evil in it. This man +actually hates evil because there is pleasure in it. Zola was worse +than a pornographer, he was a pessimist. He did worse than encourage +sin: he encouraged discouragement. He made lust loathsome because to +him lust meant life. + + + + +OXFORD FROM WITHOUT + + +Some time ago I ventured to defend that race of hunted and persecuted +outlaws, the Bishops; but until this week I had no idea of how much +persecuted they were. For instance, the Bishop of Birmingham made some +extremely sensible remarks in the House of Lords, to the effect that +Oxford and Cambridge were (as everybody knows they are) far too much +merely plutocratic playgrounds. One would have thought that an Anglican +Bishop might be allowed to know something about the English University +system, and even to have, if anything, some bias in its favour. But (as +I pointed out) the rollicking Radicalism of Bishops has to be +restrained. The man who writes the notes in the weekly paper called the +_Outlook_ feels that it is his business to restrain it. The passage has +such simple sublimity that I must quote it— + +“Dr. Gore talked unworthily of his reputation when he spoke of the +older Universities as playgrounds for the rich and idle. In the first +place, the rich men there are not idle. Some of the rich men are, and +so are some of the poor men. On the whole, the sons of noble and +wealthy families keep up the best traditions of academic life.” + +So far this seems all very nice. It is a part of the universal +principle on which Englishmen have acted in recent years. As you will +not try to make the best people the most powerful people, persuade +yourselves that the most powerful people are the best people. Mad +Frenchmen and Irishmen try to realise the ideal. To you belongs the +nobler (and much easier) task of idealising the real. First give your +Universities entirely into the power of the rich; then let the rich +start traditions; and then congratulate yourselves on the fact that the +sons of the rich keep up these traditions. All that is quite simple and +jolly. But then this critic, who crushes Dr. Gore from the high throne +of the _Outlook_, goes on in a way that is really perplexing. “It is +distinctly advantageous,” he says, “that rich and poor—_i. e._, young +men with a smooth path in life before them, and those who have to hew +out a road for themselves—should be brought into association. Each +class learns a great deal from the other. On the one side, social +conceit and exclusiveness give way to the free spirit of competition +amongst all classes; on the other side, angularities and prejudices are +rubbed away.” Even this I might have swallowed. But the paragraph +concludes with this extraordinary sentence: “We get the net result in +such careers as those of Lord Milner, Lord Curzon, and Mr. Asquith.” + +Those three names lay my intellect prostrate. The rest of the argument +I understand quite well. The social exclusiveness of aristocrats at +Oxford and Cambridge gives way before the free spirit of competition +amongst all classes. That is to say, there is at Oxford so hot and keen +a struggle, consisting of coal-heavers, London clerks, gypsies, +navvies, drapers’ assistants, grocers’ assistants—in short, all the +classes that make up the bulk of England—there is such a fierce +competition at Oxford among all these people that in its presence +aristocratic exclusiveness gives way. That is all quite clear. I am not +quite sure about the facts, but I quite understand the argument. But +then, having been called upon to contemplate this bracing picture of a +boisterous turmoil of all the classes of England, I am suddenly asked +to accept as example of it, Lord Milner, Lord Curzon, and the present +Chancellor of the Exchequer. What part do these gentlemen play in the +mental process? Is Lord Curzon one of the rugged and ragged poor men +whose angularities have been rubbed away? Or is he one of those whom +Oxford immediately deprived of all kind of social exclusiveness? His +Oxford reputation does not seem to bear out either account of him. To +regard Lord Milner as a typical product of Oxford would surely be +unfair. It would be to deprive the educational tradition of Germany of +one of its most typical products. English aristocrats have their +faults, but they are not at all like Lord Milner. What Mr. Asquith was +meant to prove, whether he was a rich man who lost his exclusiveness, +or a poor man who lost his angles, I am utterly unable to conceive. + +There is, however, one mild but very evident truth that might perhaps +be mentioned. And it is this: that none of those three excellent +persons is, or ever has been, a poor man in the sense that that word is +understood by the overwhelming majority of the English nation. There +are no poor men at Oxford in the sense that the majority of men in the +street are poor. The very fact that the writer in the _Outlook_ can +talk about such people as poor shows that he does not understand what +the modern problem is. His kind of poor man rather reminds me of the +Earl in the ballad by that great English satirist, Sir W.S. Gilbert, +whose angles (very acute angles) had, I fear, never been rubbed down by +an old English University. The reader will remember that when the +Periwinkle-girl was adored by two Dukes, the poet added— + +“A third adorer had the girl, + A man of lowly station; +A miserable grovelling Earl + Besought her approbation.” + + +Perhaps, indeed, some allusion to our University system, and to the +universal clash in it of all the classes of the community, may be found +in the verse a little farther on, which says— + +“He’d had, it happily befell, + A decent education; +His views would have befitted well + A far superior station.” + + +Possibly there was as simple a chasm between Lord Curzon and Lord +Milner. But I am afraid that the chasm will become almost +imperceptible, a microscopic crack, if we compare it with the chasm +that separates either or both of them from the people of this country. + +Of course the truth is exactly as the Bishop of Birmingham put it. I am +sure that he did not put it in any unkindly or contemptuous spirit +towards those old English seats of learning, which whether they are or +are not seats of learning, are, at any rate, old and English, and those +are two very good things to be. The Old English University is a +playground for the governing class. That does not prove that it is a +bad thing; it might prove that it was a very good thing. Certainly if +there is a governing class, let there be a playground for the governing +class. I would much rather be ruled by men who know how to play than by +men who do not know how to play. Granted that we are to be governed by +a rich section of the community, it is certainly very important that +that section should be kept tolerably genial and jolly. If the +sensitive man on the _Outlook_ does not like the phrase, “Playground of +the rich,” I can suggest a phrase that describes such a place as Oxford +perhaps with more precision. It is a place for humanising those who +might otherwise be tyrants, or even experts. + +To pretend that the aristocrat meets all classes at Oxford is too +ludicrous to be worth discussion. But it may be true that he meets more +different kinds of men than he would meet under a strictly aristocratic +_regime_ of private tutors and small schools. It all comes back to the +fact that the English, if they were resolved to have an aristocracy, +were at least resolved to have a good-natured aristocracy. And it is +due to them to say that almost alone among the peoples of the world, +they have succeeded in getting one. One could almost tolerate the +thing, if it were not for the praise of it. One might endure Oxford, +but not the _Outlook_. + +When the poor man at Oxford loses his angles (which means, I suppose, +his independence), he may perhaps, even if his poverty is of that +highly relative type possible at Oxford, gain a certain amount of +worldly advantage from the surrender of those angles. I must confess, +however, that I can imagine nothing nastier than to lose one’s angles. +It seems to me that a desire to retain some angles about one’s person +is a desire common to all those human beings who do not set their +ultimate hopes upon looking like Humpty-Dumpty. Our angles are simply +our shapes. I cannot imagine any phrase more full of the subtle and +exquisite vileness which is poisoning and weakening our country than +such a phrase as this, about the desirability of rubbing down the +angularities of poor men. Reduced to permanent and practical human +speech, it means nothing whatever except the corrupting of that first +human sense of justice which is the critic of all human institutions. + +It is not in any such spirit of facile and reckless reassurance that we +should approach the really difficult problem of the delicate virtues +and the deep dangers of our two historic seats of learning. A good son +does not easily admit that his sick mother is dying; but neither does a +good son cheerily assert that she is “all right.” There are many good +arguments for leaving the two historic Universities exactly as they +are. There are many good arguments for smashing them or altering them +entirely. But in either case the plain truth told by the Bishop of +Birmingham remains. If these Universities were destroyed, they would +not be destroyed as Universities. If they are preserved, they will not +be preserved as Universities. They will be preserved strictly and +literally as playgrounds; places valued for their hours of leisure more +than for their hours of work. I do not say that this is unreasonable; +as a matter of private temperament I find it attractive. It is not only +possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible +to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be +maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a +task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure +innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so +good that one can treat everything as a joke—that may be, perhaps, the +real end and final holiday of human souls. When we are really holy we +may regard the Universe as a lark; so perhaps it is not essentially +wrong to regard the University as a lark. But the plain and present +fact is that our upper classes do regard the University as a lark, and +do not regard it as a University. It also happens very often that +through some oversight they neglect to provide themselves with that +extreme degree of holiness which I have postulated as a necessary +preliminary to such indulgence in the higher frivolity. + +Humanity, always dreaming of a happy race, free, fantastic, and at +ease, has sometimes pictured them in some mystical island, sometimes in +some celestial city, sometimes as fairies, gods, or citizens of +Atlantis. But one method in which it has often indulged is to picture +them as aristocrats, as a special human class that could actually be +seen hunting in the woods or driving about the streets. And this never +was (as some silly Germans say) a worship of pride and scorn; mankind +never really admired pride; mankind never had any thing but a scorn for +scorn. It was a worship of the spectacle of happiness; especially of +the spectacle of youth. This is what the old Universities in their +noblest aspect really are; and this is why there is always something to +be said for keeping them as they are. Aristocracy is not a tyranny; it +is not even merely a spell. It is a vision. It is a deliberate +indulgence in a certain picture of pleasure painted for the purpose; +every Duchess is (in an innocent sense) painted, like Gainsborough’s +“Duchess of Devonshire.” She is only beautiful because, at the back of +all, the English people wanted her to be beautiful. In the same way, +the lads at Oxford and Cambridge are only larking because England, in +the depths of its solemn soul, really wishes them to lark. All this is +very human and pardonable, and would be even harmless if there were no +such things in the world as danger and honour and intellectual +responsibility. But if aristocracy is a vision, it is perhaps the most +unpractical of all visions. It is not a working way of doing things to +put all your happiest people on a lighted platform and stare only at +them. It is not a working way of managing education to be entirely +content with the mere fact that you have (to a degree unexampled in the +world) given the luckiest boys the jolliest time. It would be easy +enough, like the writer in the _Outlook_, to enjoy the pleasures and +deny the perils. Oh what a happy place England would be to live in if +only one did not love it! + + + + +WOMAN + + +A correspondent has written me an able and interesting letter in the +matter of some allusions of mine to the subject of communal kitchens. +He defends communal kitchens very lucidly from the standpoint of the +calculating collectivist; but, like many of his school, he cannot +apparently grasp that there is another test of the whole matter, with +which such calculation has nothing at all to do. He knows it would be +cheaper if a number of us ate at the same time, so as to use the same +table. So it would. It would also be cheaper if a number of us slept at +different times, so as to use the same pair of trousers. But the +question is not how cheap are we buying a thing, but what are we +buying? It is cheap to own a slave. And it is cheaper still to be a +slave. + +My correspondent also says that the habit of dining out in restaurants, +etc., is growing. So, I believe, is the habit of committing suicide. I +do not desire to connect the two facts together. It seems fairly clear +that a man could not dine at a restaurant because he had just committed +suicide; and it would be extreme, perhaps, to suggest that he commits +suicide because he has just dined at a restaurant. But the two cases, +when put side by side, are enough to indicate the falsity and +poltroonery of this eternal modern argument from what is in fashion. +The question for brave men is not whether a certain thing is +increasing; the question is whether we are increasing it. I dine very +often in restaurants because the nature of my trade makes it +convenient: but if I thought that by dining in restaurants I was +working for the creation of communal meals, I would never enter a +restaurant again; I would carry bread and cheese in my pocket or eat +chocolate out of automatic machines. For the personal element in some +things is sacred. I heard Mr. Will Crooks put it perfectly the other +day: “The most sacred thing is to be able to shut your own door.” + +My correspondent says, “Would not our women be spared the drudgery of +cooking and all its attendant worries, leaving them free for higher +culture?” The first thing that occurs to me to say about this is very +simple, and is, I imagine, a part of all our experience. If my +correspondent can find any way of preventing women from worrying, he +will indeed be a remarkable man. I think the matter is a much deeper +one. First of all, my correspondent overlooks a distinction which is +elementary in our human nature. Theoretically, I suppose, every one +would like to be freed from worries. But nobody in the world would +always like to be freed from worrying occupations. I should very much +like (as far as my feelings at the moment go) to be free from the +consuming nuisance of writing this article. But it does not follow that +I should like to be free from the consuming nuisance of being a +journalist. Because we are worried about a thing, it does not follow +that we are not interested in it. The truth is the other way. If we are +not interested, why on earth should we be worried? Women are worried +about housekeeping, but those that are most interested are the most +worried. Women are still more worried about their husbands and their +children. And I suppose if we strangled the children and poleaxed the +husbands it would leave women free for higher culture. That is, it +would leave them free to begin to worry about that. For women would +worry about higher culture as much as they worry about everything else. + +I believe this way of talking about women and their higher culture is +almost entirely a growth of the classes which (unlike the journalistic +class to which I belong) have always a reasonable amount of money. One +odd thing I specially notice. Those who write like this seem entirely +to forget the existence of the working and wage-earning classes. They +say eternally, like my correspondent, that the ordinary woman is always +a drudge. And what, in the name of the Nine Gods, is the ordinary man? +These people seem to think that the ordinary man is a Cabinet Minister. +They are always talking about man going forth to wield power, to carve +his own way, to stamp his individuality on the world, to command and to +be obeyed. This may be true of a certain class. Dukes, perhaps, are not +drudges; but, then, neither are Duchesses. The Ladies and Gentlemen of +the Smart Set are quite free for the higher culture, which consists +chiefly of motoring and Bridge. But the ordinary man who typifies and +constitutes the millions that make up our civilisation is no more free +for the higher culture than his wife is. + +Indeed, he is not so free. Of the two sexes the woman is in the more +powerful position. For the average woman is at the head of something +with which she can do as she likes; the average man has to obey orders +and do nothing else. He has to put one dull brick on another dull +brick, and do nothing else; he has to add one dull figure to another +dull figure, and do nothing else. The woman’s world is a small one, +perhaps, but she can alter it. The woman can tell the tradesman with +whom she deals some realistic things about himself. The clerk who does +this to the manager generally gets the sack, or shall we say (to avoid +the vulgarism), finds himself free for higher culture. Above all, as I +said in my previous article, the woman does work which is in some small +degree creative and individual. She can put the flowers or the +furniture in fancy arrangements of her own. I fear the bricklayer +cannot put the bricks in fancy arrangements of his own, without +disaster to himself and others. If the woman is only putting a patch +into a carpet, she can choose the thing with regard to colour. I fear +it would not do for the office boy dispatching a parcel to choose his +stamps with a view to colour; to prefer the tender mauve of the +sixpenny to the crude scarlet of the penny stamp. A woman cooking may +not always cook artistically; still she can cook artistically. She can +introduce a personal and imperceptible alteration into the composition +of a soup. The clerk is not encouraged to introduce a personal and +imperceptible alteration into the figures in a ledger. + +The trouble is that the real question I raised is not discussed. It is +argued as a problem in pennies, not as a problem in people. It is not +the proposals of these reformers that I feel to be false so much as +their temper and their arguments. I am not nearly so certain that +communal kitchens are wrong as I am that the defenders of communal +kitchens are wrong. Of course, for one thing, there is a vast +difference between the communal kitchens of which I spoke and the +communal meal (_monstrum horrendum, informe_) which the darker and +wilder mind of my correspondent diabolically calls up. But in both the +trouble is that their defenders will not defend them humanly as human +institutions. They will not interest themselves in the staring +psychological fact that there are some things that a man or a woman, as +the case may be, wishes to do for himself or herself. He or she must do +it inventively, creatively, artistically, individually—in a word, +badly. Choosing your wife (say) is one of these things. Is choosing +your husband’s dinner one of these things? That is the whole question: +it is never asked. + +And then the higher culture. I know that culture. I would not set any +man free for it if I could help it. The effect of it on the rich men +who are free for it is so horrible that it is worse than any of the +other amusements of the millionaire—worse than gambling, worse even +than philanthropy. It means thinking the smallest poet in Belgium +greater than the greatest poet of England. It means losing every +democratic sympathy. It means being unable to talk to a navvy about +sport, or about beer, or about the Bible, or about the Derby, or about +patriotism, or about anything whatever that he, the navvy, wants to +talk about. It means taking literature seriously, a very amateurish +thing to do. It means pardoning indecency only when it is gloomy +indecency. Its disciples will call a spade a spade; but only when it is +a grave-digger’s spade. The higher culture is sad, cheap, impudent, +unkind, without honesty and without ease. In short, it is “high.” That +abominable word (also applied to game) admirably describes it. + +No; if you were setting women free for something else, I might be more +melted. If you can assure me, privately and gravely, that you are +setting women free to dance on the mountains like mænads, or to worship +some monstrous goddess, I will make a note of your request. If you are +quite sure that the ladies in Brixton, the moment they give up cooking, +will beat great gongs and blow horns to Mumbo-Jumbo, then I will agree +that the occupation is at least human and is more or less entertaining. +Women have been set free to be Bacchantes; they have been set free to +be Virgin Martyrs; they have been set free to be Witches. Do not ask +them now to sink so low as the higher culture. + +I have my own little notions of the possible emancipation of women; but +I suppose I should not be taken very seriously if I propounded them. I +should favour anything that would increase the present enormous +authority of women and their creative action in their own homes. The +average woman, as I have said, is a despot; the average man is a serf. +I am for any scheme that any one can suggest that will make the average +woman more of a despot. So far from wishing her to get her cooked meals +from outside, I should like her to cook more wildly and at her own will +than she does. So far from getting always the same meals from the same +place, let her invent, if she likes, a new dish every day of her life. +Let woman be more of a maker, not less. We are right to talk about +“Woman;” only blackguards talk about women. Yet all men talk about men, +and that is the whole difference. Men represent the deliberative and +democratic element in life. Woman represents the despotic. + + + + +THE MODERN MARTYR + + +The incident of the Suffragettes who chained themselves with iron +chains to the railings of Downing Street is a good ironical allegory of +most modern martyrdom. It generally consists of a man chaining himself +up and then complaining that he is not free. Some say that such larks +retard the cause of female suffrage, others say that such larks alone +can advance it; as a matter of fact, I do not believe that they have +the smallest effect one way or the other. + +The modern notion of impressing the public by a mere demonstration of +unpopularity, by being thrown out of meetings or thrown into jail is +largely a mistake. It rests on a fallacy touching the true popular +value of martyrdom. People look at human history and see that it has +often happened that persecutions have not only advertised but even +advanced a persecuted creed, and given to its validity the public and +dreadful witness of dying men. The paradox was pictorially expressed in +Christian art, in which saints were shown brandishing as weapons the +very tools that had slain them. And because his martyrdom is thus a +power to the martyr, modern people think that any one who makes himself +slightly uncomfortable in public will immediately be uproariously +popular. This element of inadequate martyrdom is not true only of the +Suffragettes; it is true of many movements I respect and some that I +agree with. It was true, for instance, of the Passive Resisters, who +had pieces of their furniture sold up. The assumption is that if you +show your ordinary sincerity (or even your political ambition) by being +a nuisance to yourself as well as to other people, you will have the +strength of the great saints who passed through the fire. Any one who +can be hustled in a hall for five minutes, or put in a cell for five +days, has achieved what was meant by martyrdom, and has a halo in the +Christian art of the future. Miss Pankhurst will be represented holding +a policeman in each hand—the instruments of her martyrdom. The Passive +Resister will be shown symbolically carrying the teapot that was torn +from him by tyrannical auctioneers. + +But there is a fallacy in this analogy of martyrdom. The truth is that +the special impressiveness which does come from being persecuted only +happens in the case of extreme persecution. For the fact that the +modern enthusiast will undergo some inconvenience for the creed he +holds only proves that he does hold it, which no one ever doubted. No +one doubts that the Nonconformist minister cares more for Nonconformity +than he does for his teapot. No one doubts that Miss Pankhurst wants a +vote more than she wants a quiet afternoon and an armchair. All our +ordinary intellectual opinions are worth a bit of a row: I remember +during the Boer War fighting an Imperialist clerk outside the Queen’s +Hall, and giving and receiving a bloody nose; but I did not think it +one of the incidents that produce the psychological effect of the Roman +amphitheatre or the stake at Smithfield. For in that impression there +is something more than the mere fact that a man is sincere enough to +give his time or his comfort. Pagans were not impressed by the torture +of Christians merely because it showed that they honestly held their +opinion; they knew that millions of people honestly held all sorts of +opinions. The point of such extreme martyrdom is much more subtle. It +is that it gives an appearance of a man having something quite +specially strong to back him up, of his drawing upon some power. And +this can only be proved when all his physical contentment is destroyed; +when all the current of his bodily being is reversed and turned to +pain. If a man is seen to be roaring with laughter all the time that he +is skinned alive, it would not be unreasonable to deduce that somewhere +in the recesses of his mind he had thought of a rather good joke. +Similarly, if men smiled and sang (as they did) while they were being +boiled or torn in pieces, the spectators felt the presence of something +more than mere mental honesty: they felt the presence of some new and +unintelligible kind of pleasure, which, presumably, came from +somewhere. It might be a strength of madness, or a lying spirit from +Hell; but it was something quite positive and extraordinary; as +positive as brandy and as extraordinary as conjuring. The Pagan said to +himself: “If Christianity makes a man happy while his legs are being +eaten by a lion, might it not make me happy while my legs are still +attached to me and walking down the street?” The Secularists +laboriously explain that martyrdoms do not prove a faith to be true, as +if anybody was ever such a fool as to suppose that they did. What they +did prove, or, rather, strongly suggest, was that something had entered +human psychology which was stronger than strong pain. If a young girl, +scourged and bleeding to death, saw nothing but a crown descending on +her from God, the first mental step was not that her philosophy was +correct, but that she was certainly feeding on something. But this +particular point of psychology does not arise at all in the modern +cases of mere public discomfort or inconvenience. The causes of Miss +Pankhurst’s cheerfulness require no mystical explanations. If she were +being burned alive as a witch, if she then looked up in unmixed rapture +and saw a ballot-box descending out of heaven, then I should say that +the incident, though not conclusive, was frightfully impressive. It +would not prove logically that she ought to have the vote, or that +anybody ought to have the vote. But it would prove this: that there +was, for some reason, a sacramental reality in the vote, that the soul +could take the vote and feed on it; that it was in itself a positive +and overpowering pleasure, capable of being pitted against positive and +overpowering pain. + +I should advise modern agitators, therefore, to give up this particular +method: the method of making very big efforts to get a very small +punishment. It does not really go down at all; the punishment is too +small, and the efforts are too obvious. It has not any of the +effectiveness of the old savage martyrdom, because it does not leave +the victim absolutely alone with his cause, so that his cause alone can +support him. At the same time it has about it that element of the +pantomimic and the absurd, which was the cruellest part of the slaying +and the mocking of the real prophets. St. Peter was crucified upside +down as a huge inhuman joke; but his human seriousness survived the +inhuman joke, because, in whatever posture, he had died for his faith. +The modern martyr of the Pankhurst type courts the absurdity without +making the suffering strong enough to eclipse the absurdity. She is +like a St. Peter who should deliberately stand on his head for ten +seconds and then expect to be canonised for it. + +Or, again, the matter might be put in this way. Modern martyrdoms fail +even as demonstrations, because they do not prove even that the martyrs +are completely serious. I think, as a fact, that the modern martyrs +generally are serious, perhaps a trifle too serious. But their +martyrdom does not prove it; and the public does not always believe it. +Undoubtedly, as a fact, Dr. Clifford is quite honourably indignant with +what he considers to be clericalism, but he does not prove it by having +his teapot sold; for a man might easily have his teapot sold as an +actress has her diamonds stolen—as a personal advertisement. As a +matter of fact, Miss Pankhurst is quite in earnest about votes for +women. But she does not prove it by being chucked out of meetings. A +person might be chucked out of meetings just as young men are chucked +out of music-halls—for fun. But no man has himself eaten by a lion as a +personal advertisement. No woman is broiled on a gridiron for fun. That +is where the testimony of St. Perpetua and St. Faith comes in. +Doubtless it is no fault of these enthusiasts that they are not +subjected to the old and searching penalties; very likely they would +pass through them as triumphantly as St. Agatha. I am simply advising +them upon a point of policy, things being as they are. And I say that +the average man is not impressed with their sacrifices simply because +they are not and cannot be more decisive than the sacrifices which the +average man himself would make for mere fun if he were drunk. Drunkards +would interrupt meetings and take the consequences. And as for selling +a teapot, it is an act, I imagine, in which any properly constituted +drunkard would take a positive pleasure. The advertisement is not good +enough; it does not tell. If I were really martyred for an opinion +(which is more improbable than words can say), it would certainly only +be for one or two of my most central and sacred opinions. I might, +perhaps, be shot for England, but certainly not for the British Empire. +I might conceivably die for political freedom, but I certainly wouldn’t +die for Free Trade. But as for kicking up the particular kind of shindy +that the Suffragettes are kicking up, I would as soon do it for my +shallowest opinion as for my deepest one. It never could be anything +worse than an inconvenience; it never could be anything better than a +spree. Hence the British public, and especially the working classes, +regard the whole demonstration with fundamental indifference; for, +while it is a demonstration that probably is adopted from the most +fanatical motives, it is a demonstration which might be adopted from +the most frivolous. + + + + +ON POLITICAL SECRECY + + +Generally, instinctively, in the absence of any special reason, +humanity hates the idea of anything being hidden—that is, it hates the +idea of anything being successfully hidden. Hide-and-seek is a popular +pastime; but it assumes the truth of the text, “Seek and ye shall +find.” Ordinary mankind (gigantic and unconquerable in its power of +joy) can get a great deal of pleasure out of a game called “hide the +thimble,” but that is only because it is really a game of “see the +thimble.” Suppose that at the end of such a game the thimble had not +been found at all; suppose its place was unknown for ever: the result +on the players would not be playful, it would be tragic. That thimble +would hag-ride all their dreams. They would all die in asylums. The +pleasure is all in the poignant moment of passing from not knowing to +knowing. Mystery stories are very popular, especially when sold at +sixpence; but that is because the author of a mystery story reveals. He +is enjoyed not because he creates mystery, but because he destroys +mystery. Nobody would have the courage to publish a detective-story +which left the problem exactly where it found it. That would rouse even +the London public to revolution. No one dare publish a detective-story +that did not detect. + +There are three broad classes of the special things in which human +wisdom does permit privacy. The first is the case I have mentioned—that +of hide-and-seek, or the police novel, in which it permits privacy only +in order to explode and smash privacy. The author makes first a +fastidious secret of how the Bishop was murdered, only in order that he +may at last declare, as from a high tower, to the whole democracy the +great glad news that he was murdered by the governess. In that case, +ignorance is only valued because being ignorant is the best and purest +preparation for receiving the horrible revelations of high life. +Somewhat in the same way being an agnostic is the best and purest +preparation for receiving the happy revelations of St. John. + +This first sort of secrecy we may dismiss, for its whole ultimate +object is not to keep the secret, but to tell it. Then there is a +second and far more important class of things which humanity does agree +to hide. They are so important that they cannot possibly be discussed +here. But every one will know the kind of things I mean. In connection +with these, I wish to remark that though they are, in one sense, a +secret, they are also always a “sécret de Polichinelle.” Upon sex and +such matters we are in a human freemasonry; the freemasonry is +disciplined, but the freemasonry is free. We are asked to be silent +about these things, but we are not asked to be ignorant about them. On +the contrary, the fundamental human argument is entirely the other way. +It is the thing most common to humanity that is most veiled by +humanity. It is exactly because we all know that it is there that we +need not say that it is there. + +Then there is a third class of things on which the best civilisation +does permit privacy, does resent all inquiry or explanation. This is in +the case of things which need not be explained, because they cannot be +explained, things too airy, instinctive, or intangible—caprices, sudden +impulses, and the more innocent kind of prejudice. A man must not be +asked why he is talkative or silent, for the simple reason that he does +not know. A man is not asked (even in Germany) why he walks slow or +quick, simply because he could not answer. A man must take his own road +through a wood, and make his own use of a holiday. And the reason is +this: not because he has a strong reason, but actually because he has a +weak reason; because he has a slight and fleeting feeling about the +matter which he could not explain to a policeman, which perhaps the +very appearance of a policeman out of the bushes might destroy. He must +act on the impulse, because the impulse is unimportant, and he may +never have the same impulse again. If you like to put it so he must act +on the impulse because the impulse is not worth a moment’s thought. All +these fancies men feel should be private; and even Fabians have never +proposed to interfere with them. + +Now, for the last fortnight the newspapers have been full of very +varied comments upon the problem of the secrecy of certain parts of our +political finance, and especially of the problem of the party funds. +Some papers have failed entirely to understand what the quarrel is +about. They have urged that Irish members and Labour members are also +under the shadow, or, as some have said, even more under it. The ground +of this frantic statement seems, when patiently considered, to be +simply this: that Irish and Labour members receive money for what they +do. All persons, as far as I know, on this earth receive money for what +they do; the only difference is that some people, like the Irish +members, do it. + +I cannot imagine that any human being could think any other human being +capable of maintaining the proposition that men ought not to receive +money. The simple point is that, as we know that some money is given +rightly and some wrongly, an elementary common-sense leads us to look +with indifference at the money that is given in the middle of Ludgate +Circus, and to look with particular suspicion at the money which a man +will not give unless he is shut up in a box or a bathing-machine. In +short, it is too silly to suppose that anybody could ever have +discussed the desirability of funds. The only thing that even idiots +could ever have discussed is the concealment of funds. Therefore, the +whole question that we have to consider is whether the concealment of +political money-transactions, the purchase of peerages, the payment of +election expenses, is a kind of concealment that falls under any of the +three classes I have mentioned as those in which human custom and +instinct does permit us to conceal. I have suggested three kinds of +secrecy which are human and defensible. Can this institution be +defended by means of any of them? + +Now the question is whether this political secrecy is of any of the +kinds that can be called legitimate. We have roughly divided legitimate +secrets into three classes. First comes the secret that is only kept in +order to be revealed, as in the detective stories; secondly, the secret +which is kept because everybody knows it, as in sex; and third, the +secret which is kept because it is too delicate and vague to be +explained at all, as in the choice of a country walk. Do any of these +broad human divisions cover such a case as that of secrecy of the +political and party finances? It would be absurd, and even delightfully +absurd, to pretend that any of them did. It would be a wild and +charming fancy to suggest that our politicians keep political secrets +only that they may make political revelations. A modern peer only +pretends that he has earned his peerage in order that he may more +dramatically declare, with a scream of scorn and joy, that he really +bought it. The Baronet pretends that he deserved his title only in +order to make more exquisite and startling the grand historical fact +that he did not deserve it. Surely this sounds improbable. Surely all +our statesmen cannot be saving themselves up for the excitement of a +death-bed repentance. The writer of detective tales makes a man a duke +solely in order to blast him with a charge of burglary. But surely the +Prime Minister does not make a man a duke solely in order to blast him +with a charge of bribery. No; the detective-tale theory of the secrecy +of political funds must (with a sigh) be given up. + +Neither can we say that the thing is explained by that second case of +human secrecy which is so secret that it is hard to discuss it in +public. A decency is preserved about certain primary human matters +precisely because every one knows all about them. But the decency +touching contributions, purchases, and peerages is not kept up because +most ordinary men know what is happening; it is kept up precisely +because most ordinary men do not know what is happening. The ordinary +curtain of decorum covers normal proceedings. But no one will say that +being bribed is a normal proceeding. + +And if we apply the third test to this problem of political secrecy, +the case is even clearer and even more funny. Surely no one will say +that the purchase of peerages and such things are kept secret because +they are so light and impulsive and unimportant that they must be +matters of individual fancy. A child sees a flower and for the first +time feels inclined to pick it. But surely no one will say that a +brewer sees a coronet and for the first time suddenly thinks that he +would like to be a peer. The child’s impulse need not be explained to +the police, for the simple reason that it could not be explained to +anybody. But does any one believe that the laborious political +ambitions of modern commercial men ever have this airy and +incommunicable character? A man lying on the beach may throw stones +into the sea without any particular reason. But does any one believe +that the brewer throws bags of gold into the party funds without any +particular reason? This theory of the secrecy of political money must +also be regretfully abandoned; and with it the two other possible +excuses as well. This secrecy is one which cannot be justified as a +sensational joke nor as a common human freemasonry, nor as an +indescribable personal whim. Strangely enough, indeed, it violates all +three conditions and classes at once. It is not hidden in order to be +revealed: it is hidden in order to be hidden. It is not kept secret +because it is a common secret of mankind, but because mankind must not +get hold of it. And it is not kept secret because it is too unimportant +to be told, but because it is much too important to bear telling. In +short, the thing we have is the real and perhaps rare political +phenomenon of an occult government. We have an exoteric and an esoteric +doctrine. England is really ruled by priestcraft, but not by priests. +We have in this country all that has ever been alleged against the evil +side of religion; the peculiar class with privileges, the sacred words +that are unpronounceable; the important things known only to the few. +In fact we lack nothing except the religion. + + + + +EDWARD VII. AND SCOTLAND + + +I have received a serious, and to me, at any rate, an impressive +remonstrance from the Scottish Patriotic Association. It appears that I +recently referred to Edward VII. of Great Britain and Ireland, King, +Defender of the Faith, under the horrible description of the King of +England. The Scottish Patriotic Association draws my attention to the +fact that by the provisions of the Act of Union, and the tradition of +nationality, the monarch should be referred to as the King of Britain. +The blow thus struck at me is particularly wounding because it is +particularly unjust. I believe in the reality of the independent +nationalities under the British Crown much more passionately and +positively than any other educated Englishman of my acquaintance +believes in it. I am quite certain that Scotland is a nation; I am +quite certain that nationality is the key of Scotland; I am quite +certain that all our success with Scotland has been due to the fact +that we have in spirit treated it as a nation. I am quite certain that +Ireland is a nation; I am quite certain that nationality is the key to +Ireland; I am quite certain that all our failure in Ireland arose from +the fact that we would not in spirit treat it as a nation. It would be +difficult to find, even among the innumerable examples that exist, a +stronger example of the immensely superior importance of sentiment to +what is called practicality than this case of the two sister nations. +It is not that we have encouraged a Scotchman to be rich; it is not +that we have encouraged a Scotchman to be active; it is not that we +have encouraged a Scotchman to be free. It is that we have quite +definitely encouraged a Scotchman to be Scotch. + +A vague, but vivid impression was received from all our writers of +history, philosophy, and rhetoric that the Scottish element was +something really valuable in itself, was something which even +Englishmen were forced to recognise and respect. If we ever admitted +the beauty of Ireland, it was as something which might be loved by an +Englishman but which could hardly be respected even by an Irishman. A +Scotchman might be proud of Scotland; it was enough for an Irishman +that he could be fond of Ireland. Our success with the two nations has +been exactly proportioned to our encouragement of their independent +national emotion; the one that we would not treat nationally has alone +produced Nationalists. The one nation that we would not recognise as a +nation in theory is the one that we have been forced to recognise as a +nation in arms. The Scottish Patriotic Association has no need to draw +my attention to the importance of the separate national sentiment or +the need of keeping the Border as a sacred line. The case is quite +sufficiently proved by the positive history of Scotland. The place of +Scottish loyalty to England has been taken by English admiration of +Scotland. They do not need to envy us our titular leadership, when we +seem to envy them their separation. + +I wish to make very clear my entire sympathy with the national +sentiment of the Scottish Patriotic Association. But I wish also to +make clear this very enlightening comparison between the fate of Scotch +and of Irish patriotism. In life it is always the little facts that +express the large emotions, and if the English once respected Ireland +as they respect Scotland, it would come out in a hundred small ways. +For instance, there are crack regiments in the British Army which wear +the kilt—the kilt which, as Macaulay says with perfect truth, was +regarded by nine Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief. The +Highland officers carry a silver-hilted version of the old barbarous +Gaelic broadsword with a basket-hilt, which split the skulls of so many +English soldiers at Killiecrankie and Prestonpans. When you have a +regiment of men in the British Army carrying ornamental silver +shillelaghs you will have done the same thing for Ireland, and not +before—or when you mention Brian Boru with the same intonation as +Bruce. + +Let me be considered therefore to have made quite clear that I believe +with a quite special intensity in the independent consideration of +Scotland and Ireland as apart from England. I believe that, in the +proper sense of the words, Scotland is an independent nation, even if +Edward VII. is the King of Scotland. I believe that, in the proper +sense of words, Ireland is an independent nation, even if Edward VII. +is King of Ireland. But the fact is that I have an even bolder and +wilder belief than either of these. I believe that England is an +independent nation. I believe that England also has its independent +colour and history, and meaning. I believe that England could produce +costumes quite as queer as the kilt; I believe that England has heroes +fully as untranslateable as Brian Boru, and consequently I believe that +Edward VII. is, among his innumerable other functions, really King of +England. If my Scotch friends insist, let us call it one of his quite +obscure, unpopular, and minor titles; one of his relaxations. A little +while ago he was Duke of Cornwall; but for a family accident he might +still have been King of Hanover. Nor do I think that we should blame +the simple Cornishmen if they spoke of him in a rhetorical moment by +his Cornish title, nor the well-meaning Hanoverians if they classed him +with Hanoverian Princes. + +Now it so happens that in the passage complained of I said the King of +England merely because I meant the King of England. I was speaking +strictly and especially of English Kings, of Kings in the tradition of +the old Kings of England. I wrote as an English nationalist keenly +conscious of the sacred boundary of the Tweed that keeps (or used to +keep) our ancient enemies at bay. I wrote as an English nationalist +resolved for one wild moment to throw off the tyranny of the Scotch and +Irish who govern and oppress my country. I felt that England was at +least spiritually guarded against these surrounding nationalities. I +dreamed that the Tweed was guarded by the ghosts of Scropes and Percys; +I dreamed that St. George’s Channel was guarded by St. George. And in +this insular security I spoke deliberately and specifically of the King +of England, of the representative of the Tudors and Plantagenets. It is +true that the two Kings of England, of whom I especially spoke, Charles +II. and George III., had both an alien origin, not very recent and not +very remote. Charles II. came of a family originally Scotch. George +III. came of a family originally German. But the same, so far as that +goes, could be said of the English royal houses when England stood +quite alone. The Plantagenets were originally a French family. The +Tudors were originally a Welsh family. But I was not talking of the +amount of English sentiment in the English Kings. I was talking of the +amount of English sentiment in the English treatment and popularity of +the English Kings. With that Ireland and Scotland have nothing whatever +to do. + +Charles II. may, for all I know, have not only been King of Scotland; +he may, by virtue of his temper and ancestry, have been a Scotch King +of Scotland. There was something Scotch about his combination of +clear-headedness with sensuality. There was something Scotch about his +combination of doing what he liked with knowing what he was doing. But +I was not talking of the personality of Charles, which may have been +Scotch. I was talking of the popularity of Charles, which was certainly +English. One thing is quite certain: whether or no he ever ceased to be +a Scotch man, he ceased as soon as he conveniently could to be a Scotch +King. He had actually tried the experiment of being a national ruler +north of the Tweed, and his people liked him as little as he liked +them. Of Presbyterianism, of the Scottish religion, he left on record +the exquisitely English judgment that it was “no religion for a +gentleman.” His popularity then was purely English; his royalty was +purely English; and I was using the words with the utmost narrowness +and deliberation when I spoke of this particular popularity and royalty +as the popularity and royalty of a King of England. I said of the +English people specially that they like to pick up the King’s crown +when he has dropped it. I do not feel at all sure that this does apply +to the Scotch or the Irish. I think that the Irish would knock his +crown off for him. I think that the Scotch would keep it for him after +they had picked it up. + +For my part, I should be inclined to adopt quite the opposite method of +asserting nationality. Why should good Scotch nationalists call Edward +VII. the King of Britain? They ought to call him King Edward I. of +Scotland. What is Britain? Where is Britain? There is no such place. +There never was a nation of Britain; there never was a King of Britain; +unless perhaps Vortigern or Uther Pendragon had a taste for the title. +If we are to develop our Monarchy, I should be altogether in favour of +developing it along the line of local patriotism and of local +proprietorship in the King. I think that the Londoners ought to call +him the King of London, and the Liverpudlians ought to call him the +King of Liverpool. I do not go so far as to say that the people of +Birmingham ought to call Edward VII. the King of Birmingham; for that +would be high treason to a holier and more established power. But I +think we might read in the papers: “The King of Brighton left Brighton +at half-past two this afternoon,” and then immediately afterwards, “The +King of Worthing entered Worthing at ten minutes past three.” Or, “The +people of Margate bade a reluctant farewell to the popular King of +Margate this morning,” and then, “His Majesty the King of Ramsgate +returned to his country and capital this afternoon after his long +sojourn in strange lands.” It might be pointed out that by a curious +coincidence the departure of the King of Oxford occurred a very short +time before the triumphal arrival of the King of Reading. I cannot +imagine any method which would more increase the kindly and normal +relations between the Sovereign and his people. Nor do I think that +such a method would be in any sense a depreciation of the royal +dignity; for, as a matter of fact, it would put the King upon the same +platform with the gods. The saints, the most exalted of human figures, +were also the most local. It was exactly the men whom we most easily +connected with heaven whom we also most easily connected with earth. + + + + +THOUGHTS AROUND KOEPENICK + + +A famous and epigrammatic author said that life copied literature; it +seems clear that life really caricatures it. I suggested recently that +the Germans submitted to, and even admired, a solemn and theatrical +assertion of authority. A few hours after I had sent up my “copy,” I +saw the first announcement of the affair of the comic Captain at +Koepenick. The most absurd part of this absurd fraud (at least, to +English eyes) is one which, oddly enough, has received comparatively +little comment. I mean the point at which the Mayor asked for a +warrant, and the Captain pointed to the bayonets of his soldiery and +said. “These are my authority.” One would have thought any one would +have known that no soldier would talk like that. The dupes were blamed +for not knowing that the man wore the wrong cap or the wrong sash, or +had his sword buckled on the wrong way; but these are technicalities +which they might surely be excused for not knowing. I certainly should +not know if a soldier’s sash were on inside out or his cap on behind +before. But I should know uncommonly well that genuine professional +soldiers do not talk like Adelphi villains and utter theatrical +epigrams in praise of abstract violence. + +We can see this more clearly, perhaps, if we suppose it to be the case +of any other dignified and clearly distinguishable profession. Suppose +a Bishop called upon me. My great modesty and my rather distant +reverence for the higher clergy might lead me certainly to a strong +suspicion that any Bishop who called on me was a bogus Bishop. But if I +wished to test his genuineness I should not dream of attempting to do +so by examining the shape of his apron or the way his gaiters were done +up. I have not the remotest idea of the way his gaiters ought to be +done up. A very vague approximation to an apron would probably take me +in; and if he behaved like an approximately Christian gentleman he +would be safe enough from my detection. But suppose the Bishop, the +moment he entered the room, fell on his knees on the mat, clasped his +hands, and poured out a flood of passionate and somewhat hysterical +extempore prayer, I should say at once and without the smallest +hesitation, “Whatever else this man is, he is not an elderly and +wealthy cleric of the Church of England. They don’t do such things.” Or +suppose a man came to me pretending to be a qualified doctor, and +flourished a stethoscope, or what he said was a stethoscope. I am glad +to say that I have not even the remotest notion of what a stethoscope +looks like; so that if he flourished a musical-box or a coffee-mill it +would be all one to me. But I do think that I am not exaggerating my +own sagacity if I say that I should begin to suspect the doctor if on +entering my room he flung his legs and arms about, crying wildly, +“Health! Health! priceless gift of Nature! I possess it! I overflow +with it! I yearn to impart it! Oh, the sacred rapture of imparting +health!” In that case I should suspect him of being rather in a +position to receive than to offer medical superintendence. + +Now, it is no exaggeration at all to say that any one who has ever +known any soldiers (I can only answer for English and Irish and Scotch +soldiers) would find it just as easy to believe that a real Bishop +would grovel on the carpet in a religious ecstasy, or that a real +doctor would dance about the drawing-room to show the invigorating +effects of his own medicine, as to believe that a soldier, when asked +for his authority, would point to a lot of shining weapons and declare +symbolically that might was right. Of course, a real soldier would go +rather red in the face and huskily repeat the proper formula, whatever +it was, as that he came in the King’s name. + +Soldiers have many faults, but they have one redeeming merit; they are +never worshippers of force. Soldiers more than any other men are taught +severely and systematically that might is not right. The fact is +obvious. The might is in the hundred men who obey. The right (or what +is held to be right) is in the one man who commands them. They learn to +obey symbols, arbitrary things, stripes on an arm, buttons on a coat, a +title, a flag. These may be artificial things; they may be unreasonable +things; they may, if you will, be wicked things; but they are weak +things. They are not Force, and they do not look like Force. They are +parts of an idea: of the idea of discipline; if you will, of the idea +of tyranny; but still an idea. No soldier could possibly say that his +own bayonets were his authority. No soldier could possibly say that he +came in the name of his own bayonets. It would be as absurd as if a +postman said that he came inside his bag. I do not, as I have said, +underrate the evils that really do arise from militarism and the +military ethic. It tends to give people wooden faces and sometimes +wooden heads. It tends moreover (both through its specialisation and +through its constant obedience) to a certain loss of real independence +and strength of character. This has almost always been found when +people made the mistake of turning the soldier into a statesman, under +the mistaken impression that he was a strong man. The Duke of +Wellington, for instance, was a strong soldier and therefore a weak +statesman. But the soldier is always, by the nature of things, loyal to +something. And as long as one is loyal to something one can never be a +worshipper of mere force. For mere force, violence in the abstract, is +the enemy of anything we love. To love anything is to see it at once +under lowering skies of danger. Loyalty implies loyalty in misfortune; +and when a soldier has accepted any nation’s uniform he has already +accepted its defeat. + +Nevertheless, it does appear to be possible in Germany for a man to +point to fixed bayonets and say, “These are my authority,” and yet to +convince ordinarily sane men that he is a soldier. If this is so, it +does really seem to point to some habit of high-falutin’ in the German +nation, such as that of which I spoke previously. It almost looks as if +the advisers, and even the officials, of the German Army had become +infected in some degree with the false and feeble doctrine that might +is right. As this doctrine is invariably preached by physical weaklings +like Nietzsche it is a very serious thing even to entertain the +supposition that it is affecting men who have really to do military +work. It would be the end of German soldiers to be affected by German +philosophy. Energetic people use energy as a means, but only very tired +people ever use energy as a reason. Athletes go in for games, because +athletes desire glory. Invalids go in for calisthenics; for invalids +(alone of all human beings) desire strength. So long as the German Army +points to its heraldic eagle and says, “I come in the name of this +fierce but fabulous animal,” the German Army will be all right. If ever +it says, “I come in the name of bayonets,” the bayonets will break like +glass, for only the weak exhibit strength without an aim. + +At the same time, as I said before, do not let us forget our own +faults. Do not let us forget them any the more easily because they are +the opposite to the German faults. Modern England is too prone to +present the spectacle of a person who is enormously delighted because +he has not got the contrary disadvantages to his own. The Englishman is +always saying “My house is not damp” at the moment when his house is on +fire. The Englishman is always saying, “I have thrown off all traces of +anæmia” in the middle of a fit of apoplexy. Let us always remember that +if an Englishman wants to swindle English people, he does not dress up +in the uniform of a soldier. If an Englishman wants to swindle English +people he would as soon think of dressing up in the uniform of a +messenger boy. Everything in England is done unofficially, casually, by +conversations and cliques. The one Parliament that really does rule +England is a secret Parliament; the debates of which must not be +published—the Cabinet. The debates of the Commons are sometimes +important; but only the debates in the Lobby, never the debates in the +House. Journalists do control public opinion; but it is not controlled +by the arguments they publish—it is controlled by the arguments between +the editor and sub-editor, which they do not publish. This casualness +is our English vice. It is at once casual and secret. Our public life +is conducted privately. Hence it follows that if an English swindler +wished to impress us, the last thing he would think of doing would be +to put on a uniform. He would put on a polite slouching air and a +careless, expensive suit of clothes; he would stroll up to the Mayor, +be so awfully sorry to disturb him, find he had forgotten his +card-case, mention, as if he were ashamed of it, that he was the Duke +of Mercia, and carry the whole thing through with the air of a man who +could get two hundred witnesses and two thousand retainers, but who was +too tired to call any of them. And if he did it very well I strongly +suspect that he would be as successful as the indefensible Captain at +Koepenick. + +Our tendency for many centuries past has been, not so much towards +creating an aristocracy (which may or may not be a good thing in +itself), as towards substituting an aristocracy for everything else. In +England we have an aristocracy instead of a religion. The nobility are +to the English poor what the saints and the fairies are to the Irish +poor, what the large devil with a black face was to the Scotch poor—the +poetry of life. In the same way in England we have an aristocracy +instead of a Government. We rely on a certain good humour and education +in the upper class to interpret to us our contradictory Constitution. +No educated man born of woman will be quite so absurd as the system +that he has to administer. In short, we do not get good laws to +restrain bad people. We get good people to restrain bad laws. And last +of all we in England have an aristocracy instead of an Army. We have an +Army of which the officers are proud of their families and ashamed of +their uniforms. If I were a king of any country whatever, and one of my +officers were ashamed of my uniform, I should be ashamed of my officer. +Beware, then, of the really well-bred and apologetic gentleman whose +clothes are at once quiet and fashionable, whose manner is at once +diffident and frank. Beware how you admit him into your domestic +secrets, for he may be a bogus Earl. Or, worse still, a real one. + + + + +THE BOY + + +I have no sympathy with international aggression when it is taken +seriously, but I have a certain dark and wild sympathy with it when it +is quite absurd. Raids are all wrong as practical politics, but they +are human and imaginable as practical jokes. In fact, almost any act of +ragging or violence can be forgiven on this strict condition—that it is +of no use at all to anybody. If the aggressor gets anything out of it, +then it is quite unpardonable. It is damned by the least hint of +utility or profit. A man of spirit and breeding may brawl, but he does +not steal. A gentleman knocks off his friend’s hat; but he does not +annex his friend’s hat. For this reason (as Mr. Belloc has pointed out +somewhere), the very militant French people have always returned after +their immense raids—the raids of Godfrey the Crusader, the raids of +Napoleon; “they are sucked back, having accomplished nothing but an +epic.” + +Sometimes I see small fragments of information in the newspapers which +make my heart leap with an irrational patriotic sympathy. I have had +the misfortune to be left comparatively cold by many of the enterprises +and proclamations of my country in recent times. But the other day I +found in the _Tribune_ the following paragraph, which I may be +permitted to set down as an example of the kind of international +outrage with which I have by far the most instinctive sympathy. There +is something attractive, too, in the austere simplicity with which the +affair is set forth— + +“Geneva, Oct. 31. + +“The English schoolboy Allen, who was arrested at Lausanne railway +station on Saturday, for having painted red the statue of General +Jomini of Payerne, was liberated yesterday, after paying a fine of £24. +Allen has proceeded to Germany, where he will continue his studies. The +people of Payerne are indignant, and clamoured for his detention in +prison.” + +Now I have no doubt that ethics and social necessity require a contrary +attitude, but I will freely confess that my first emotions on reading +of this exploit were those of profound and elemental pleasure. There is +something so large and simple about the operation of painting a whole +stone General a bright red. Of course I can understand that the people +of Payerne were indignant. They had passed to their homes at twilight +through the streets of that beautiful city (or is it a province?), and +they had seen against the silver ending of the sunset the grand grey +figure of the hero of that land remaining to guard the town under the +stars. It certainly must have been a shock to come out in the broad +white morning and find a large vermilion General staring under the +staring sun. I do not blame them at all for clamouring for the +schoolboy’s detention in prison; I dare say a little detention in +prison would do him no harm. Still, I think the immense act has +something about it human and excusable; and when I endeavour to analyse +the reason of this feeling I find it to lie, not in the fact that the +thing was big or bold or successful, but in the fact that the thing was +perfectly useless to everybody, including the person who did it. The +raid ends in itself; and so Master Allen is sucked back again, having +accomplished nothing but an epic. + +There is one thing which, in the presence of average modern journalism, +is perhaps worth saying in connection with such an idle matter as this. +The morals of a matter like this are exactly like the morals of +anything else; they are concerned with mutual contract, or with the +rights of independent human lives. But the whole modern world, or at +any rate the whole modern Press, has a perpetual and consuming terror +of plain morals. Men always attempt to avoid condemning a thing upon +merely moral grounds. If I beat my grandmother to death to-morrow in +the middle of Battersea Park, you may be perfectly certain that people +will say everything about it except the simple and fairly obvious fact +that it is wrong. Some will call it insane; that is, will accuse it of +a deficiency of intelligence. This is not necessarily true at all. You +could not tell whether the act was unintelligent or not unless you knew +my grandmother. Some will call it vulgar, disgusting, and the rest of +it; that is, they will accuse it of a lack of manners. Perhaps it does +show a lack of manners; but this is scarcely its most serious +disadvantage. Others will talk about the loathsome spectacle and the +revolting scene; that is, they will accuse it of a deficiency of art, +or æsthetic beauty. This again depends on the circumstances: in order +to be quite certain that the appearance of the old lady has definitely +deteriorated under the process of being beaten to death, it is +necessary for the philosophical critic to be quite certain how ugly she +was before. Another school of thinkers will say that the action is +lacking in efficiency: that it is an uneconomic waste of a good +grandmother. But that could only depend on the value, which is again an +individual matter. The only real point that is worth mentioning is that +the action is wicked, because your grandmother has a right not to be +beaten to death. But of this simple moral explanation modern journalism +has, as I say, a standing fear. It will call the action anything +else—mad, bestial, vulgar, idiotic, rather than call it sinful. + +One example can be found in such cases as that of the prank of the boy +and the statue. When some trick of this sort is played, the newspapers +opposed to it always describe it as “a senseless joke.” What is the +good of saying that? Every joke is a senseless joke. A joke is by its +nature a protest against sense. It is no good attacking nonsense for +being successfully nonsensical. Of course it is nonsensical to paint a +celebrated Italian General a bright red; it is as nonsensical as “Alice +in Wonderland.” It is also, in my opinion, very nearly as funny. But +the real answer to the affair is not to say that it is nonsensical or +even to say that it is not funny, but to point out that it is wrong to +spoil statues which belong to other people. If the modern world will +not insist on having some sharp and definite moral law, capable of +resisting the counter-attractions of art and humour, the modern world +will simply be given over as a spoil to anybody who can manage to do a +nasty thing in a nice way. Every murderer who can murder entertainingly +will be allowed to murder. Every burglar who burgles in really humorous +attitudes will burgle as much as he likes. + +There is another case of the thing that I mean. Why on earth do the +newspapers, in describing a dynamite outrage or any other political +assassination, call it a “dastardly outrage” or a cowardly outrage? It +is perfectly evident that it is not dastardly in the least. It is +perfectly evident that it is about as cowardly as the Christians going +to the lions. The man who does it exposes himself to the chance of +being torn in pieces by two thousand people. What the thing is, is not +cowardly, but profoundly and detestably wicked. The man who does it is +very infamous and very brave. But, again, the explanation is that our +modern Press would rather appeal to physical arrogance, or to anything, +rather than appeal to right and wrong. + +In most of the matters of modern England, the real difficulty is that +there is a negative revolution without a positive revolution. Positive +aristocracy is breaking up without any particular appearance of +positive democracy taking its place. The polished class is becoming +less polished without becoming less of a class; the nobleman who +becomes a guinea-pig keeps all his privileges but loses some of his +tradition; he becomes less of a gentleman without becoming less of a +nobleman. In the same way (until some recent and happy revivals) it +seemed highly probable that the Church of England would cease to be a +religion long before it had ceased to be a Church. And in the same way, +the vulgarisation of the old, simple middle class does not even have +the advantage of doing away with class distinctions; the vulgar man is +always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished +is vulgar. + +At the same time, it must be remembered that when a class has a +morality it does not follow that it is an adequate morality. The +middle-class ethic was inadequate for some purposes; so is the +public-school ethic, the ethic of the upper classes. On this last +matter of the public schools Dr. Spenser, the Head Master of University +College School, has lately made some valuable observations. But even +he, I think, overstates the claim of the public schools. “The strong +point of the English public schools,” he says, “has always lain in +their efficiency as agencies for the formation of character and for the +inculcation of the great notion of obligation which distinguishes a +gentleman. On the physical and moral sides the public-school men of +England are, I believe, unequalled.” And he goes on to say that it is +on the mental side that they are defective. But, as a matter of fact, +the public-school training is in the strict sense defective upon the +moral side also; it leaves out about half of morality. Its just claim +is that, like the old middle class (and the Zulus), it trains some +virtues and therefore suits some people for some situations. Put an old +English merchant to serve in an army and he would have been irritated +and clumsy. Put the men from English public schools to rule Ireland, +and they make the greatest hash in human history. + +Touching the morality of the public schools, I will take one point +only, which is enough to prove the case. People have got into their +heads an extraordinary idea that English public-school boys and English +youth generally are taught to tell the truth. They are taught +absolutely nothing of the kind. At no English public school is it even +suggested, except by accident, that it is a man’s duty to tell the +truth. What is suggested is something entirely different: that it is a +man’s duty not to tell lies. So completely does this mistake soak +through all civilisation that we hardly ever think even of the +difference between the two things. When we say to a child, “You must +tell the truth,” we do merely mean that he must refrain from verbal +inaccuracies. But the thing we never teach at all is the general duty +of telling the truth, of giving a complete and fair picture of anything +we are talking about, of not misrepresenting, not evading, not +suppressing, not using plausible arguments that we know to be unfair, +not selecting unscrupulously to prove an _ex parte_ case, not telling +all the nice stories about the Scotch, and all the nasty stories about +the Irish, not pretending to be disinterested when you are really +angry, not pretending to be angry when you are really only avaricious. +The one thing that is never taught by any chance in the atmosphere of +public schools is exactly that—that there is a whole truth of things, +and that in knowing it and speaking it we are happy. + +If any one has the smallest doubt of this neglect of truth in public +schools he can kill his doubt with one plain question. Can any one on +earth believe that if the seeing and telling of the whole truth were +really one of the ideals of the English governing class, there could +conceivably exist such a thing as the English party system? Why, the +English party system is founded upon the principle that telling the +whole truth does not matter. It is founded upon the principle that half +a truth is better than no politics. Our system deliberately turns a +crowd of men who might be impartial into irrational partisans. It +teaches some of them to tell lies and all of them to believe lies. It +gives every man an arbitrary brief that he has to work up as best he +may and defend as best he can. It turns a room full of citizens into a +room full of barristers. I know that it has many charms and virtues, +fighting and good-fellowship; it has all the charms and virtues of a +game. I only say that it would be a stark impossibility in a nation +which believed in telling the truth. + + + + +LIMERICKS AND COUNSELS OF PERFECTION + + +It is customary to remark that modern problems cannot easily be +attacked because they are so complex. In many cases I believe it is +really because they are so simple. Nobody would believe in such +simplicity of scoundrelism even if it were pointed out. People would +say that the truth was a charge of mere melodramatic villainy; +forgetting that nearly all villains really are melodramatic. Thus, for +instance, we say that some good measures are frustrated or some bad +officials kept in power by the press and confusion of public business; +whereas very often the reason is simple healthy human bribery. And thus +especially we say that the Yellow Press is exaggerative, +over-emotional, illiterate, and anarchical, and a hundred other long +words; whereas the only objection to it is that it tells lies. We waste +our fine intellects in finding exquisite phraseology to fit a man, when +in a well-ordered society we ought to be finding handcuffs to fit him. + +This criticism of the modern type of righteous indignation must have +come into many people’s minds, I think, in reading Dr. Horton’s +eloquent expressions of disgust at the “corrupt Press,” especially in +connection with the Limerick craze. Upon the Limerick craze itself, I +fear Dr. Horton will not have much effect; such fads perish before one +has had time to kill them. But Dr. Horton’s protest may really do good +if it enables us to come to some clear understanding about what is +really wrong with the popular Press, and which means it might be useful +and which permissible to use for its reform. We do not want a +censorship of the Press; but we are long past talking about that. At +present it is not we that silence the Press; it is the Press that +silences us. It is not a case of the Commonwealth settling how much the +editors shall say; it is a case of the editors settling how much the +Commonwealth shall know. If we attack the Press we shall be rebelling, +not repressing. But shall we attack it? + +Now it is just here that the chief difficulty occurs. It arises from +the very rarity and rectitude of those minds which commonly inaugurate +such crusades. I have the warmest respect for Dr. Horton’s thirst after +righteousness; but it has always seemed to me that his righteousness +would be more effective without his refinement. The curse of the +Nonconformists is their universal refinement. They dimly connect being +good with being delicate, and even dapper; with not being grotesque or +loud or violent; with not sitting down on one’s hat. Now it is always a +pleasure to be loud and violent, and sometimes it is a duty. Certainly +it has nothing to do with sin; a man can be loudly and violently +virtuous—nay, he can be loudly and violently saintly, though that is +not the type of saintliness that we recognise in Dr. Horton. And as for +sitting on one’s hat, if it is done for any sublime object (as, for +instance, to amuse the children), it is obviously an act of very +beautiful self-sacrifice, the destruction and surrender of the symbol +of personal dignity upon the shrine of public festivity. Now it will +not do to attack the modern editor merely for being unrefined, like the +great mass of mankind. We must be able to say that he is immoral, not +that he is undignified or ridiculous. I do not mind the Yellow Press +editor sitting on his hat. My only objection to him begins to dawn when +he attempts to sit on my hat; or, indeed (as is at present the case), +when he proceeds to sit on my head. + +But in reading between the lines of Dr. Horton’s invective one +continually feels that he is not only angry with the popular Press for +being unscrupulous: he is partly angry with the popular Press for being +popular. He is not only irritated with Limericks for causing a mean +money-scramble; he is also partly irritated with Limericks for being +Limericks. The enormous size of the levity gets on his nerves, like the +glare and blare of Bank Holiday. Now this is a motive which, however +human and natural, must be strictly kept out of the way. It takes all +sorts to make a world; and it is not in the least necessary that +everybody should have that love of subtle and unobtrusive perfections +in the matter of manners or literature which does often go with the +type of the ethical idealist. It is not in the least desirable that +everybody should be earnest. It is highly desirable that everybody +should be honest, but that is a thing that can go quite easily with a +coarse and cheerful character. But the ineffectualness of most protests +against the abuse of the Press has been very largely due to the +instinct of democracy (and the instinct of democracy is like the +instinct of one woman, wild but quite right) that the people who were +trying to purify the Press were also trying to refine it; and to this +the democracy very naturally and very justly objected. We are justified +in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are +not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean +our own manners. We have no right to purge the popular Press of all +that we think vulgar or trivial. Dr. Horton may possibly loathe and +detest Limericks just as I loathe and detest riddles; but I have no +right to call them flippant and unprofitable; there are wild people in +the world who like riddles. I am so afraid of this movement passing off +into mere formless rhetoric and platform passion that I will even come +close to the earth and lay down specifically some of the things that, +in my opinion, could be, and ought to be, done to reform the Press. + +First, I would make a law, if there is none such at present, by which +an editor, proved to have published false news without reasonable +verification, should simply go to prison. This is not a question of +influences or atmospheres; the thing could be carried out as easily and +as practically as the punishment of thieves and murderers. Of course +there would be the usual statement that the guilt was that of a +subordinate. Let the accused editor have the right of proving this if +he can; if he does, let the subordinate be tried and go to prison. Two +or three good rich editors and proprietors properly locked up would +take the sting out of the Yellow Press better than centuries of Dr. +Horton. + +Second, it’s impossible to pass over altogether the most unpleasant, +but the most important part of this problem. I will deal with it as +distantly as possible. I do not believe there is any harm whatever in +reading about murders; rather, if anything, good; for the thought of +death operates very powerfully with the poor in the creation of +brotherhood and a sense of human dignity. I do not believe there is a +pennyworth of harm in the police news, as such. Even divorce news, +though contemptible enough, can really in most cases be left to the +discretion of grown people; and how far children get hold of such +things is a problem for the home and not for the nation. But there is a +certain class of evils which a healthy man or woman can actually go +through life without knowing anything about at all. These, I say, +should be stamped and blackened out of every newspaper with the +thickest black of the Russian censor. Such cases should either be +always tried _in camera_ or reporting them should be a punishable +offence. The common weakness of Nature and the sins that flesh is heir +to we can leave people to find in newspapers. Men can safely see in the +papers what they have already seen in the streets. They may safely find +in their journals what they have already found in themselves. But we do +not want the imaginations of rational and decent people clouded with +the horrors of some obscene insanity which has no more to do with human +life than the man in Bedlam who thinks he is a chicken. And, if this +vile matter is admitted, let it be simply with a mention of the Latin +or legal name of the crime, and with no details whatever. As it is, +exactly the reverse is true. Papers are permitted to terrify and darken +the fancy of the young with innumerable details, but not permitted to +state in clean legal language what the thing is about. They are allowed +to give any fact about the thing except the fact that it is a sin. + +Third, I would do my best to introduce everywhere the practice of +signed articles. Those who urge the advantages of anonymity are either +people who do not realise the special peril of our time or they are +people who are profiting by it. It is true, but futile, for instance, +to say that there is something noble in being nameless when a whole +corporate body is bent on a consistent aim: as in an army or men +building a cathedral. The point of modern newspapers is that there is +no such corporate body and common aim; but each man can use the +authority of the paper to further his own private fads and his own +private finances. + + + + +ANONYMITY AND FURTHER COUNSELS + + +The end of the article which I write is always cut off, and, +unfortunately, I belong to that lower class of animals in whom the tail +is important. It is not anybody’s fault but my own; it arises from the +fact that I take such a long time to get to the point. Somebody, the +other day, very reasonably complained of my being employed to write +prefaces. He was perfectly right, for I always write a preface to the +preface, and then I am stopped; also quite justifiably. + +In my last article I said that I favoured three things—first, the legal +punishment of deliberately false information; secondly, a distinction, +in the matter of reported immorality, between those sins which any +healthy man can see in himself and those which he had better not see +anywhere; and thirdly, an absolute insistence in the great majority of +cases upon the signing of articles. It was at this point that I was cut +short, I will not say by the law of space, but rather by my own +lawlessness in the matter of space. In any case, there is something +more that ought to be said. + +It would be an exaggeration to say that I hope some day to see an +anonymous article counted as dishonourable as an anonymous letter. For +some time to come, the idea of the leading article, expressing the +policy of the whole paper, must necessarily remain legitimate; at any +rate, we have all written such leading articles, and should never think +the worse of any one for writing one. But I should certainly say that +writing anonymously ought to have some definite excuse, such as that of +the leading article. Writing anonymously ought to be the exception; +writing a signed article ought to be the rule. And anonymity ought to +be not only an exception, but an accidental exception; a man ought +always to be ready to say what anonymous article he had written. The +journalistic habit of counting it something sacred to keep secret the +origin of an article is simply part of the conspiracy which seeks to +put us who are journalists in the position of a much worse sort of +Jesuits or Freemasons. + +As has often been said, anonymity would be all very well if one could +for a moment imagine that it was established from good motives. +Suppose, for instance, that we were all quite certain that the men on +the _Thunderer_ newspaper were a band of brave young idealists who were +so eager to overthrow Socialism, Municipal and National, that they did +not care to which of them especially was given the glory of striking it +down. Unfortunately, however, we do not believe this. What we believe, +or, rather, what we know, is that the attack on Socialism in the +_Thunderer_ arises from a chaos of inconsistent and mostly evil +motives, any one of which would lose simply by being named. A +jerry-builder whose houses have been condemned writes anonymously and +becomes the _Thunderer_. A Socialist who has quarrelled with the other +Socialists writes anonymously, and he becomes the _Thunderer_. A +monopolist who has lost his monopoly, and a demagogue who has lost his +mob, can both write anonymously and become the same newspaper. It is +quite true that there is a young and beautiful fanaticism in which men +do not care to reveal their names. But there is a more elderly and a +much more common excitement in which men do not dare to reveal them. + +Then there is another rule for making journalism honest on which I +should like to insist absolutely. I should like it to be a fixed thing +that the name of the proprietor as well as the editor should be printed +upon every paper. If the paper is owned by shareholders, let there be a +list of shareholders. If (as is far more common in this singularly +undemocratic age) it is owned by one man, let that one man’s name be +printed on the paper, if possible in large red letters. Then, if there +are any obvious interests being served, we shall know that they are +being served. My friends in Manchester are in a terrible state of +excitement about the power of brewers and the dangers of admitting them +to public office. But at least, if a man has controlled politics +through beer, people generally know it: the subject of beer is too +fascinating for any one to miss such personal peculiarities. But a man +may control politics through journalism, and no ordinary English +citizen know that he is controlling them at all. Again and again in the +lists of Birthday Honours you and I have seen some Mr. Robinson +suddenly elevated to the Peerage without any apparent reason. Even the +Society papers (which we read with avidity) could tell us nothing about +him except that he was a sportsman or a kind landlord, or interested in +the breeding of badgers. Now I should like the name of that Mr. +Robinson to be already familiar to the British public. I should like +them to know already the public services for which they have to thank +him. I should like them to have seen the name already on the outside of +that organ of public opinion called _Tootsie’s Tips_, or _The Boy +Blackmailer_, or _Nosey Knows_, that bright little financial paper +which did so much for the Empire and which so narrowly escaped a +criminal prosecution. If they had seen it thus, they would estimate +more truly and tenderly the full value of the statement in the Society +paper that he is a true gentleman and a sound Churchman. + +Finally, it should be practically imposed by custom (it so happens that +it could not possibly be imposed by law) that letters of definite and +practical complaint should be necessarily inserted by any editor in any +paper. Editors have grown very much too lax in this respect. The old +editor used dimly to regard himself as an unofficial public servant for +the transmitting of public news. If he suppressed anything, he was +supposed to have some special reason for doing so; as that the material +was actually libellous or literally indecent. But the modern editor +regards himself far too much as a kind of original artist, who can +select and suppress facts with the arbitrary ease of a poet or a +caricaturist. He “makes up” the paper as man “makes up” a fairy tale, +he considers his newspaper solely as a work of art, meant to give +pleasure, not to give news. He puts in this one letter because he +thinks it clever. He puts in these three or four letters because he +thinks them silly. He suppresses this article because he thinks it +wrong. He suppresses this other and more dangerous article because he +thinks it right. The old idea that he is simply a mode of the +expression of the public, an “organ” of opinion, seems to have +entirely vanished from his mind. To-day the editor is not only the +organ, but the man who plays on the organ. For in all our modern +movements we move away from Democracy. + +This is the whole danger of our time. There is a difference between the +oppression which has been too common in the past and the oppression +which seems only too probable in the future. Oppression in the past, +has commonly been an individual matter. The oppressors were as simple +as the oppressed, and as lonely. The aristocrat sometimes hated his +inferiors; he always hated his equals. The plutocrat was an +individualist. But in our time even the plutocrat has become a +Socialist. They have science and combination, and may easily inaugurate +a much greater tyranny than the world has ever seen. + + + + +ON THE CRYPTIC AND THE ELLIPTIC + + +Surely the art of reporting speeches is in a strange state of +degeneration. We should not object, perhaps, to the reporter’s making +the speeches much shorter than they are; but we do object to his making +all the speeches much worse than they are. And the method which he +employs is one which is dangerously unjust. When a statesman or +philosopher makes an important speech, there are several courses which +the reporter might take without being unreasonable. Perhaps the most +reasonable course of all would be not to report the speech at all. Let +the world live and love, marry and give in marriage, without that +particular speech, as they did (in some desperate way) in the days when +there were no newspapers. A second course would be to report a small +part of it; but to get that right. A third course, far better if you +can do it, is to understand the main purpose and argument of the +speech, and report that in clear and logical language of your own. In +short, the three possible methods are, first, to leave the man’s speech +alone; second, to report what he says or some complete part of what he +says; and third, to report what he means. But the present way of +reporting speeches (mainly created, I think, by the scrappy methods of +the _Daily Mail_) is something utterly different from both these ways, +and quite senseless and misleading. + +The present method is this: the reporter sits listening to a tide of +words which he does not try to understand, and does not, generally +speaking, even try to take down; he waits until something occurs in the +speech which for some reason sounds funny, or memorable, or very +exaggerated, or, perhaps, merely concrete; then he writes it down and +waits for the next one. If the orator says that the Premier is like a +porpoise in the sea under some special circumstances, the reporter gets +in the porpoise even if he leaves out the Premier. If the orator begins +by saying that Mr. Chamberlain is rather like a violoncello, the +reporter does not even wait to hear why he is like a violoncello. He +has got hold of something material, and so he is quite happy. The +strong words all are put in; the chain of thought is left out. If the +orator uses the word “donkey,” down goes the word “donkey.” If the +orator uses the word “damnable,” down goes the word “damnable.” They +follow each other so abruptly in the report that it is often hard to +discover the fascinating fact as to what was damnable or who was being +compared with a donkey. And the whole line of argument in which these +things occurred is entirely lost. I have before me a newspaper report +of a speech by Mr. Bernard Shaw, of which one complete and separate +paragraph runs like this— + +“Capital meant spare money over and above one’s needs. Their country +was not really their country at all except in patriotic songs.” + +I am well enough acquainted with the whole map of Mr. Bernard Shaw’s +philosophy to know that those two statements might have been related to +each other in a hundred ways. But I think that if they were read by an +ordinary intelligent man, who happened not to know Mr. Shaw’s views, he +would form no impression at all except that Mr. Shaw was a lunatic of +more than usually abrupt conversation and disconnected mind. The other +two methods would certainly have done Mr. Shaw more justice: the +reporter should either have taken down verbatim what the speaker really +said about Capital, or have given an outline of the way in which this +idea was connected with the idea about patriotic songs. + +But we have not the advantage of knowing what Mr. Shaw really did say, +so we had better illustrate the different methods from something that +we do know. Most of us, I suppose, know Mark Antony’s Funeral Speech in +“Julius Cæsar.” Now Mark Antony would have no reason to complain if he +were not reported at all; if the _Daily Pilum_ or the _Morning Fasces_, +or whatever it was, confined itself to saying, “Mr. Mark Antony also +spoke,” or “Mr. Mark Antony, having addressed the audience, the meeting +broke up in some confusion.” The next honest method, worthy of a noble +Roman reporter, would be that since he could not report the whole of +the speech, he should report some of the speech. He might say—“Mr. Mark +Antony, in the course of his speech, said— + +‘When that the poor have cried Cæsar hath wept: +Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.’” + + +In that case one good, solid argument of Mark Antony would be correctly +reported. The third and far higher course for the Roman reporter would +be to give a philosophical statement of the purport of the speech. As +thus—“Mr. Mark Antony, in the course of a powerful speech, conceded the +high motives of the Republican leaders, and disclaimed any intention of +raising the people against them; he thought, however, that many +instances could be quoted against the theory of Cæsar’s ambition, and +he concluded by reading, at the request of the audience, the will of +Cæsar, which proved that he had the most benevolent designs towards the +Roman people.” That is (I admit) not quite so fine as Shakspere, but it +is a statement of the man’s political position. But if a _Daily Mail_ +reporter were sent to take down Antony’s oration, he would simply wait +for any expressions that struck him as odd and put them down one after +another without any logical connection at all. It would turn out +something like this: “Mr. Mark Antony wished for his audience’s ears. +He had thrice offered Cæsar a crown. Cæsar was like a deer. If he were +Brutus he would put a wound in every tongue. The stones of Rome would +mutiny. See what a rent the envious Casca paid. Brutus was Cæsar’s +angel. The right honourable gentleman concluded by saying that he and +the audience had all fallen down.” That is the report of a political +speech in a modern, progressive, or American manner, and I wonder +whether the Romans would have put up with it. + +The reports of the debates in the Houses of Parliament are constantly +growing smaller and smaller in our newspapers. Perhaps this is partly +because the speeches are growing duller and duller. I think in some +degree the two things act and re-act on each other. For fear of the +newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for +the newspapers. The speeches in our time are more careful and +elaborate, because they are meant to be read, and not to be heard. And +exactly because they are more careful and elaborate, they are not so +likely to be worthy of a careful and elaborate report. They are not +interesting enough. So the moral cowardice of modern politicians has, +after all, some punishment attached to it by the silent anger of +heaven. Precisely because our political speeches are meant to be +reported, they are not worth reporting. Precisely because they are +carefully designed to be read, nobody reads them. + +Thus we may concede that politicians have done something towards +degrading journalism. It was not entirely done by us, the journalists. +But most of it was. It was mostly the fruit of our first and most +natural sin—the habit of regarding ourselves as conjurers rather than +priests, for the definition is that a conjurer is apart from his +audience, while a priest is a part of his. The conjurer despises his +congregation; if the priest despises any one, it must be himself. The +curse of all journalism, but especially of that yellow journalism which +is the shame of our profession, is that we think ourselves cleverer +than the people for whom we write, whereas, in fact, we are generally +even stupider. But this insolence has its Nemesis; and that Nemesis is +well illustrated in this matter of reporting. + +For the journalist, having grown accustomed to talking down to the +public, commonly talks too low at last, and becomes merely barbaric and +unintelligible. By his very efforts to be obvious he becomes obscure. +This just punishment may specially be noticed in the case of those +staggering and staring headlines which American journalism introduced +and which some English journalism imitates. I once saw a headline in a +London paper which ran simply thus: “Dobbin’s Little Mary.” This was +intended to be familiar and popular, and therefore, presumably, lucid. +But it was some time before I realised, after reading about half the +printed matter underneath, that it had something to do with the proper +feeding of horses. At first sight, I took it, as the historical leader +of the future will certainly take it, as containing some allusion to +the little daughter who so monopolised the affections of the Major at +the end of “Vanity Fair.” The Americans carry to an even wilder extreme +this darkness by excess of light. You may find a column in an American +paper headed “Poet Brown Off Orange-flowers,” or “Senator Robinson +Shoehorns Hats Now,” and it may be quite a long time before the full +meaning breaks upon you: it has not broken upon me yet. + +And something of this intellectual vengeance pursues also those who +adopt the modern method of reporting speeches. They also become +mystical, simply by trying to be vulgar. They also are condemned to be +always trying to write like George R. Sims, and succeeding, in spite of +themselves, in writing like Maeterlinck. That combination of words +which I have quoted from an alleged speech of Mr. Bernard Shaw’s was +written down by the reporter with the idea that he was being +particularly plain and democratic. But, as a matter of fact, if there +is any connection between the two sentences, it must be something as +dark as the deepest roots of Browning, or something as invisible as the +most airy filaments of Meredith. To be simple and to be democratic are +two very honourable and austere achievements; and it is not given to +all the snobs and self-seekers to achieve them. High above even +Maeterlinck or Meredith stand those, like Homer and Milton, whom no one +can misunderstand. And Homer and Milton are not only better poets than +Browning (great as he was), but they would also have been very much +better journalists than the young men on the _Daily Mail_. + +As it is, however, this misrepresentation of speeches is only a part of +a vast journalistic misrepresentation of all life as it is. Journalism +is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and +life seen in the newspapers another; the public enjoys both, but it is +more or less conscious of the difference. People do not believe, for +instance, that the debates in the House of Commons are as dramatic as +they appear in the daily papers. If they did they would go, not to the +daily paper, but to the House of Commons. The galleries would be +crowded every night as they were in the French Revolution; for instead +of seeing a printed story for a penny they would be seeing an acted +drama for nothing. But the people know in their hearts that journalism +is a conventional art like any other, that it selects, heightens, and +falsifies. Only its Nemesis is the same as that of other arts: if it +loses all care for truth it loses all form likewise. The modern who +paints too cleverly produces a picture of a cow which might be the +earthquake at San Francisco. And the journalist who reports a speech +too cleverly makes it mean nothing at all. + + + + +THE WORSHIP OF THE WEALTHY + + +There has crept, I notice, into our literature and journalism a new way +of flattering the wealthy and the great. In more straightforward times +flattery itself was more straightforward; falsehood itself was more +true. A poor man wishing to please a rich man simply said that he was +the wisest, bravest, tallest, strongest, most benevolent and most +beautiful of mankind; and as even the rich man probably knew that he +wasn’t that, the thing did the less harm. When courtiers sang the +praises of a King they attributed to him things that were entirely +improbable, as that he resembled the sun at noonday, that they had to +shade their eyes when he entered the room, that his people could not +breathe without him, or that he had with his single sword conquered +Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. The safety of this method was its +artificiality; between the King and his public image there was really +no relation. But the moderns have invented a much subtler and more +poisonous kind of eulogy. The modern method is to take the prince or +rich man, to give a credible picture of his type of personality, as +that he is business-like, or a sportsman, or fond of art, or convivial, +or reserved; and then enormously exaggerate the value and importance of +these natural qualities. Those who praise Mr. Carnegie do not say that +he is as wise as Solomon and as brave as Mars; I wish they did. It +would be the next most honest thing to giving their real reason for +praising him, which is simply that he has money. The journalists who +write about Mr. Pierpont Morgan do not say that he is as beautiful as +Apollo; I wish they did. What they do is to take the rich man’s +superficial life and manner, clothes, hobbies, love of cats, dislike of +doctors, or what not; and then with the assistance of this realism make +the man out to be a prophet and a saviour of his kind, whereas he is +merely a private and stupid man who happens to like cats or to dislike +doctors. The old flatterer took for granted that the King was an +ordinary man, and set to work to make him out extraordinary. The newer +and cleverer flatterer takes for granted that he is extraordinary, and +that therefore even ordinary things about him will be of interest. + +I have noticed one very amusing way in which this is done. I notice the +method applied to about six of the wealthiest men in England in a book +of interviews published by an able and well-known journalist. The +flatterer contrives to combine strict truth of fact with a vast +atmosphere of awe and mystery by the simple operation of dealing almost +entirely in negatives. Suppose you are writing a sympathetic study of +Mr. Pierpont Morgan. Perhaps there is not much to say about what he +does think, or like, or admire; but you can suggest whole vistas of his +taste and philosophy by talking a great deal about what he does not +think, or like, or admire. You say of him—“But little attracted to the +most recent schools of German philosophy, he stands almost as +resolutely aloof from the tendencies of transcendental Pantheism as +from the narrower ecstasies of Neo-Catholicism.” Or suppose I am called +upon to praise the charwoman who has just come into my house, and who +certainly deserves it much more. I say—“It would be a mistake to class +Mrs. Higgs among the followers of Loisy; her position is in many ways +different; nor is she wholly to be identified with the concrete +Hebraism of Harnack.” It is a splendid method, as it gives the +flatterer an opportunity of talking about something else besides the +subject of the flattery, and it gives the subject of the flattery a +rich, if somewhat bewildered, mental glow, as of one who has somehow +gone through agonies of philosophical choice of which he was previously +unaware. It is a splendid method; but I wish it were applied sometimes +to charwomen rather than only to millionaires. + +There is another way of flattering important people which has become +very common, I notice, among writers in the newspapers and elsewhere. +It consists in applying to them the phrases “simple,” or “quiet,” or +“modest,” without any sort of meaning or relation to the person to whom +they are applied. To be simple is the best thing in the world; to be +modest is the next best thing. I am not so sure about being quiet. I am +rather inclined to think that really modest people make a great deal of +noise. It is quite self-evident that really simple people make a great +deal of noise. But simplicity and modesty, at least, are very rare and +royal human virtues, not to be lightly talked about. Few human beings, +and at rare intervals, have really risen into being modest; not one man +in ten or in twenty has by long wars become simple, as an actual old +soldier does by [**Note: Apparent typesetting error here in original.] +long wars become simple. These virtues are not things to fling about as +mere flattery; many prophets and righteous men have desired to see +these things and have not seen them. But in the description of the +births, lives, and deaths of very luxurious men they are used +incessantly and quite without thought. If a journalist has to describe +a great politician or financier (the things are substantially the same) +entering a room or walking down a thoroughfare, he always says, “Mr. +Midas was quietly dressed in a black frock coat, a white waistcoat, and +light grey trousers, with a plain green tie and simple flower in his +button-hole.” As if any one would expect him to have a crimson frock +coat or spangled trousers. As if any one would expect him to have a +burning Catherine wheel in his button-hole. + +But this process, which is absurd enough when applied to the ordinary +and external lives of worldly people, becomes perfectly intolerable +when it is applied, as it always is applied, to the one episode which +is serious even in the lives of politicians. I mean their death. When +we have been sufficiently bored with the account of the simple costume +of the millionaire, which is generally about as complicated as any that +he could assume without being simply thought mad; when we have been +told about the modest home of the millionaire, a home which is +generally much too immodest to be called a home at all; when we have +followed him through all these unmeaning eulogies, we are always asked +last of all to admire his quiet funeral. I do not know what else people +think a funeral should be except quiet. Yet again and again, over the +grave of every one of those sad rich men, for whom one should surely +feel, first and last, a speechless pity—over the grave of Beit, over +the grave of Whiteley—this sickening nonsense about modesty and +simplicity has been poured out. I well remember that when Beit was +buried, the papers said that the mourning-coaches contained everybody +of importance, that the floral tributes were sumptuous, splendid, +intoxicating; but, for all that, it was a simple and quiet funeral. +What, in the name of Acheron, did they expect it to be? Did they think +there would be human sacrifice—the immolation of Oriental slaves upon +the tomb? Did they think that long rows of Oriental dancing-girls would +sway hither and thither in an ecstasy of lament? Did they look for the +funeral games of Patroclus? I fear they had no such splendid and pagan +meaning. I fear they were only using the words “quiet” and “modest” +as words to fill up a page—a mere piece of the automatic hypocrisy +which does become too common among those who have to write rapidly and +often. The word “modest” will soon become like the word “honourable,” +which is said to be employed by the Japanese before any word that +occurs in a polite sentence, as “Put honourable umbrella in honourable +umbrella-stand;” or “condescend to clean honourable boots.” We shall +read in the future that the modest King went out in his modest crown, +clad from head to foot in modest gold and attended with his ten +thousand modest earls, their swords modestly drawn. No! if we have to +pay for splendour let us praise it as splendour, not as simplicity. +When next I meet a rich man I intend to walk up to him in the street +and address him with Oriental hyperbole. He will probably run away. + + + + +SCIENCE AND RELIGION + + +In these days we are accused of attacking science because we want it to +be scientific. Surely there is not any undue disrespect to our doctor +in saying that he is our doctor, not our priest, or our wife, or +ourself. It is not the business of the doctor to say that we must go to +a watering-place; it is his affair to say that certain results of +health will follow if we do go to a watering-place. After that, +obviously, it is for us to judge. Physical science is like simple +addition: it is either infallible or it is false. To mix science up +with philosophy is only to produce a philosophy that has lost all its +ideal value and a science that has lost all its practical value. I want +my private physician to tell me whether this or that food will kill me. +It is for my private philosopher to tell me whether I ought to be +killed. I apologise for stating all these truisms. But the truth is, +that I have just been reading a thick pamphlet written by a mass of +highly intelligent men who seem never to have heard of any of these +truisms in their lives. + +Those who detest the harmless writer of this column are generally +reduced (in their final ecstasy of anger) to calling him “brilliant;” +which has long ago in our journalism become a mere expression of +contempt. But I am afraid that even this disdainful phrase does me too +much honour. I am more and more convinced that I suffer, not from a +shiny or showy impertinence, but from a simplicity that verges upon +imbecility. I think more and more that I must be very dull, and that +everybody else in the modern world must be very clever. I have just +been reading this important compilation, sent to me in the name of a +number of men for whom I have a high respect, and called “New Theology +and Applied Religion.” And it is literally true that I have read +through whole columns of the things without knowing what the people +were talking about. Either they must be talking about some black and +bestial religion in which they were brought up, and of which I never +even heard, or else they must be talking about some blazing and +blinding vision of God which they have found, which I have never found, +and which by its very splendour confuses their logic and confounds +their speech. But the best instance I can quote of the thing is in +connection with this matter of the business of physical science on the +earth, of which I have just spoken. The following words are written +over the signature of a man whose intelligence I respect, and I cannot +make head or tail of them— + +“When modern science declared that the cosmic process knew nothing of a +historical event corresponding to a Fall, but told, on the contrary, +the story of an incessant rise in the scale of being, it was quite +plain that the Pauline scheme—I mean the argumentative processes of +Paul’s scheme of salvation—had lost its very foundation; for was not +that foundation the total depravity of the human race inherited from +their first parents?.... But now there was no Fall; there was no total +depravity, or imminent danger of endless doom; and, the basis gone, the +superstructure followed.” + +It is written with earnestness and in excellent English; it must mean +something. But what can it mean? How could physical science prove that +man is not depraved? You do not cut a man open to find his sins. You do +not boil him until he gives forth the unmistakable green fumes of +depravity. How could physical science find any traces of a moral fall? +What traces did the writer expect to find? Did he expect to find a +fossil Eve with a fossil apple inside her? Did he suppose that the ages +would have spared for him a complete skeleton of Adam attached to a +slightly faded fig-leaf? The whole paragraph which I have quoted is +simply a series of inconsequent sentences, all quite untrue in +themselves and all quite irrelevant to each other. Science never said +that there could have been no Fall. There might have been ten Falls, +one on top of the other, and the thing would have been quite consistent +with everything that we know from physical science. Humanity might have +grown morally worse for millions of centuries, and the thing would in +no way have contradicted the principle of Evolution. Men of science +(not being raving lunatics) never said that there had been “an +incessant rise in the scale of being;” for an incessant rise would mean +a rise without any relapse or failure; and physical evolution is full +of relapse and failure. There were certainly some physical Falls; there +may have been any number of moral Falls. So that, as I have said, I am +honestly bewildered as to the meaning of such passages as this, in +which the advanced person writes that because geologists know nothing +about the Fall, therefore any doctrine of depravity is untrue. Because +science has not found something which obviously it could not find, +therefore something entirely different—the psychological sense of +evil—is untrue. You might sum up this writer’s argument abruptly, but +accurately, in some way like this—“We have not dug up the bones of the +Archangel Gabriel, who presumably had none, therefore little boys, left +to themselves, will not be selfish.” To me it is all wild and whirling; +as if a man said—“The plumber can find nothing wrong with our piano; so +I suppose that my wife does love me.” + +I am not going to enter here into the real doctrine of original sin, or +into that probably false version of it which the New Theology writer +calls the doctrine of depravity. But whatever else the worst doctrine +of depravity may have been, it was a product of spiritual conviction; +it had nothing to do with remote physical origins. Men thought mankind +wicked because they felt wicked themselves. If a man feels wicked, I +cannot see why he should suddenly feel good because somebody tells him +that his ancestors once had tails. Man’s primary purity and innocence +may have dropped off with his tail, for all anybody knows. The only +thing we all know about that primary purity and innocence is that we +have not got it. Nothing can be, in the strictest sense of the word, +more comic than to set so shadowy a thing as the conjectures made by +the vaguer anthropologists about primitive man against so solid a thing +as the human sense of sin. By its nature the evidence of Eden is +something that one cannot find. By its nature the evidence of sin is +something that one cannot help finding. + +Some statements I disagree with; others I do not understand. If a man +says, “I think the human race would be better if it abstained totally +from fermented liquor,” I quite understand what he means, and how his +view could be defended. If a man says, “I wish to abolish beer because +I am a temperance man,” his remark conveys no meaning to my mind. It is +like saying, “I wish to abolish roads because I am a moderate walker.” +If a man says, “I am not a Trinitarian,” I understand. But if he says +(as a lady once said to me), “I believe in the Holy Ghost in a +spiritual sense,” I go away dazed. In what other sense could one +believe in the Holy Ghost? And I am sorry to say that this pamphlet of +progressive religious views is full of baffling observations of that +kind. What can people mean when they say that science has disturbed +their view of sin? What sort of view of sin can they have had before +science disturbed it? Did they think that it was something to eat? When +people say that science has shaken their faith in immortality, what do +they mean? Did they think that immortality was a gas? + +Of course the real truth is that science has introduced no new +principle into the matter at all. A man can be a Christian to the end +of the world, for the simple reason that a man could have been an +Atheist from the beginning of it. The materialism of things is on the +face of things; it does not require any science to find it out. A man +who has lived and loved falls down dead and the worms eat him. That is +Materialism if you like. That is Atheism if you like. If mankind has +believed in spite of that, it can believe in spite of anything. But why +our human lot is made any more hopeless because we know the names of +all the worms who eat him, or the names of all the parts of him that +they eat, is to a thoughtful mind somewhat difficult to discover. My +chief objection to these semi-scientific revolutionists is that they +are not at all revolutionary. They are the party of platitude. They do +not shake religion: rather religion seems to shake them. They can only +answer the great paradox by repeating the truism. + + + + +THE METHUSELAHITE + + +I Saw in a newspaper paragraph the other day the following entertaining +and deeply philosophical incident. A man was enlisting as a soldier at +Portsmouth, and some form was put before him to be filled up, common, I +suppose, to all such cases, in which was, among other things, an +inquiry about what was his religion. With an equal and ceremonial +gravity the man wrote down the word “Methuselahite.” Whoever looks over +such papers must, I should imagine, have seen some rum religions in his +time; unless the Army is going to the dogs. But with all his specialist +knowledge he could not “place” Methuselahism among what Bossuet called +the variations of Protestantism. He felt a fervid curiosity about the +tenets and tendencies of the sect; and he asked the soldier what it +meant. The soldier replied that it was his religion “to live as long as +he could.” + +Now, considered as an incident in the religious history of Europe, that +answer of that soldier was worth more than a hundred cartloads of +quarterly and monthly and weekly and daily papers discussing religious +problems and religious books. Every day the daily paper reviews some +new philosopher who has some new religion; and there is not in the +whole two thousand words of the whole two columns one word as witty as +or wise as that word “Methuselahite.” The whole meaning of literature +is simply to cut a long story short; that is why our modern books of +philosophy are never literature. That soldier had in him the very soul +of literature; he was one of the great phrase-makers of modern thought, +like Victor Hugo or Disraeli. He found one word that defines the +paganism of to-day. + +Henceforward, when the modern philosophers come to me with their new +religions (and there is always a kind of queue of them waiting all the +way down the street) I shall anticipate their circumlocutions and be +able to cut them short with a single inspired word. One of them will +begin, “The New Religion, which is based upon that Primordial Energy in +Nature....” “Methuselahite,” I shall say sharply; “good morning.” +“Human Life,” another will say, “Human Life, the only ultimate +sanctity, freed from creed and dogma....” “Methuselahite!” I shall +yell. “Out you go!” “My religion is the Religion of Joy,” a third will +explain (a bald old man with a cough and tinted glasses), “the Religion +of Physical Pride and Rapture, and my....” “Methuselahite!” I shall cry +again, and I shall slap him boisterously on the back, and he will fall +down. Then a pale young poet with serpentine hair will come and say to +me (as one did only the other day): “Moods and impressions are the only +realities, and these are constantly and wholly changing. I could hardly +therefore define my religion....” “I can,” I should say, somewhat +sternly. “Your religion is to live a long time; and if you stop here a +moment longer you won’t fulfil it.” + +A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old +vice. We have had the sophist who defends cruelty, and calls it +masculinity. We have had the sophist who defends profligacy, and calls +it the liberty of the emotions. We have had the sophist who defends +idleness, and calls it art. It will almost certainly happen—it can +almost certainly be prophesied—that in this saturnalia of sophistry +there will at some time or other arise a sophist who desires to +idealise cowardice. And when we are once in this unhealthy world of +mere wild words, what a vast deal there would be to say for cowardice! +“Is not life a lovely thing and worth saving?” the soldier would say as +he ran away. “Should I not prolong the exquisite miracle of +consciousness?” the householder would say as he hid under the table. +“As long as there are roses and lilies on the earth shall I not remain +here?” would come the voice of the citizen from under the bed. It would +be quite as easy to defend the coward as a kind of poet and mystic as +it has been, in many recent books, to defend the emotionalist as a kind +of poet and mystic, or the tyrant as a kind of poet and mystic. When +that last grand sophistry and morbidity is preached in a book or on a +platform, you may depend upon it there will be a great stir in its +favour, that is, a great stir among the little people who live among +books and platforms. There will be a new great Religion, the Religion +of Methuselahism: with pomps and priests and altars. Its devout +crusaders will vow themselves in thousands with a great vow to live +long. But there is one comfort: they won’t. + +For, indeed, the weakness of this worship of mere natural life (which +is a common enough creed to-day) is that it ignores the paradox of +courage and fails in its own aim. As a matter of fact, no men would be +killed quicker than the Methuselahites. The paradox of courage is that +a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it. +And in the very case I have quoted we may see an example of how little +the theory of Methuselahism really inspires our best life. For there is +one riddle in that case which cannot easily be cleared up. If it was +the man’s religion to live as long as he could, why on earth was he +enlisting as a soldier? + + + + +SPIRITUALISM + + +I Have received a letter from a gentleman who is very indignant at what +he considers my flippancy in disregarding or degrading Spiritualism. I +thought I was defending Spiritualism; but I am rather used to being +accused of mocking the thing that I set out to justify. My fate in most +controversies is rather pathetic. It is an almost invariable rule that +the man with whom I don’t agree thinks I am making a fool of myself, +and the man with whom I do agree thinks I am making a fool of him. +There seems to be some sort of idea that you are not treating a subject +properly if you eulogise it with fantastic terms or defend it by +grotesque examples. Yet a truth is equally solemn whatever figure or +example its exponent adopts. It is an equally awful truth that four and +four make eight, whether you reckon the thing out in eight onions or +eight angels, or eight bricks or eight bishops, or eight minor poets or +eight pigs. Similarly, if it be true that God made all things, that +grave fact can be asserted by pointing at a star or by waving an +umbrella. But the case is stronger than this. There is a distinct +philosophical advantage in using grotesque terms in a serious +discussion. + +I think seriously, on the whole, that the more serious is the +discussion the more grotesque should be the terms. For this, as I say, +there is an evident reason. For a subject is really solemn and +important in so far as it applies to the whole cosmos, or to some great +spheres and cycles of experience at least. So far as a thing is +universal it is serious. And so far as a thing is universal it is full +of comic things. If you take a small thing, it may be entirely serious: +Napoleon, for instance, was a small thing, and he was serious: the same +applies to microbes. If you isolate a thing, you may get the pure +essence of gravity. But if you take a large thing (such as the Solar +System) it _must_ be comic, at least in parts. The germs are serious, +because they kill you. But the stars are funny, because they give birth +to life, and life gives birth to fun. If you have, let us say, a theory +about man, and if you can only prove it by talking about Plato and +George Washington, your theory may be a quite frivolous thing. But if +you can prove it by talking about the butler or the postman, then it is +serious, because it is universal. So far from it being irreverent to +use silly metaphors on serious questions, it is one’s duty to use silly +metaphors on serious questions. It is the test of one’s seriousness. It +is the test of a responsible religion or theory whether it can take +examples from pots and pans and boots and butter-tubs. It is the test +of a good philosophy whether you can defend it grotesquely. It is the +test of a good religion whether you can joke about it. + +When I was a very young journalist I used to be irritated at a peculiar +habit of printers, a habit which most persons of a tendency similar to +mine have probably noticed also. It goes along with the fixed belief of +printers that to be a Rationalist is the same thing as to be a +Nationalist. I mean the printer’s tendency to turn the word “cosmic” +into the word “comic.” It annoyed me at the time. But since then I have +come to the conclusion that the printers were right. The democracy is +always right. Whatever is cosmic is comic. + +Moreover, there is another reason that makes it almost inevitable that +we should defend grotesquely what we believe seriously. It is that all +grotesqueness is itself intimately related to seriousness. Unless a +thing is dignified, it cannot be undignified. Why is it funny that a +man should sit down suddenly in the street? There is only one possible +or intelligent reason: that man is the image of God. It is not funny +that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. +No one sees anything funny in a tree falling down. No one sees a +delicate absurdity in a stone falling down. No man stops in the road +and roars with laughter at the sight of the snow coming down. The fall +of thunderbolts is treated with some gravity. The fall of roofs and +high buildings is taken seriously. It is only when a man tumbles down +that we laugh. Why do we laugh? Because it is a grave religious matter: +it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be +dignified. + +The above, which occupies the great part of my article, is a +parenthises. It is time that I returned to my choleric correspondent +who rebuked me for being too frivolous about the problem of +Spiritualism. My correspondent, who is evidently an intelligent man, is +very angry with me indeed. He uses the strongest language. He says I +remind him of a brother of his: which seems to open an abyss or vista +of infamy. The main substance of his attack resolves itself into two +propositions. First, he asks me what right I have to talk about +Spiritualism at all, as I admit I have never been to a _séance_. This +is all very well, but there are a good many things to which I have +never been, but I have not the smallest intention of leaving off +talking about them. I refuse (for instance) to leave off talking about +the Siege of Troy. I decline to be mute in the matter of the French +Revolution. I will not be silenced on the late indefensible +assassination of Julius Cæsar. If nobody has any right to judge of +Spiritualism except a man who has been to a _séance_, the results, +logically speaking, are rather serious: it would almost seem as if +nobody had any right to judge of Christianity who had not been to the +first meeting at Pentecost. Which would be dreadful. I conceive myself +capable of forming my opinion of Spiritualism without seeing spirits, +just as I form my opinion of the Japanese War without seeing the +Japanese, or my opinion of American millionaires without (thank God) +seeing an American millionaire. Blessed are they who have not seen and +yet have believed: a passage which some have considered as a prophecy +of modern journalism. + +But my correspondent’s second objection is more important. He charges +me with actually ignoring the value of communication (if it exists) +between this world and the next. I do not ignore it. But I do say +this—That a different principle attaches to investigation in this +spiritual field from investigation in any other. If a man baits a line +for fish, the fish will come, even if he declares there are no such +things as fishes. If a man limes a twig for birds, the birds will be +caught, even if he thinks it superstitious to believe in birds at all. +But a man cannot bait a line for souls. A man cannot lime a twig to +catch gods. All wise schools have agreed that this latter capture +depends to some extent on the faith of the capturer. So it comes to +this: If you have no faith in the spirits your appeal is in vain; and +if you have—is it needed? If you do not believe, you cannot. If you +do—you will not. + +That is the real distinction between investigation in this department +and investigation in any other. The priest calls to the goddess, for +the same reason that a man calls to his wife, because he knows she is +there. If a man kept on shouting out very loud the single word “Maria,” +merely with the object of discovering whether if he did it long enough +some woman of that name would come and marry him, he would be more or +less in the position of the modern spiritualist. The old religionist +cried out for his God. The new religionist cries out for some god to be +his. The whole point of religion as it has hitherto existed in the +world was that you knew all about your gods, even before you saw them, +if indeed you ever did. Spiritualism seems to me absolutely right on +all its mystical side. The supernatural part of it seems to me quite +natural. The incredible part of it seems to me obviously true. But I +think it so far dangerous or unsatisfactory that it is in some degree +scientific. It inquires whether its gods are worth inquiring into. A +man (of a certain age) may look into the eyes of his lady-love to see +that they are beautiful. But no normal lady will allow that young man +to look into her eyes to see whether they are beautiful. The same +vanity and idiosyncrasy has been generally observed in gods. Praise +them; or leave them alone; but do not look for them unless you know +they are there. Do not look for them unless you want them. It annoys +them very much. + + + + +THE ERROR OF IMPARTIALITY + + +The refusal of the jurors in the Thaw trial to come to an agreement is +certainly a somewhat amusing sequel to the frenzied and even fantastic +caution with which they were selected. Jurymen were set aside for +reasons which seem to have only the very wildest relation to the +case—reasons which we cannot conceive as giving any human being a real +bias. It may be questioned whether the exaggerated theory of +impartiality in an arbiter or juryman may not be carried so far as to +be more unjust than partiality itself. What people call impartiality +may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may +simply mean mental activity. It is sometimes made an objection, for +instance, to a juror that he has formed some _primâ-facie_ opinion upon +a case: if he can be forced under sharp questioning to admit that he +has formed such an opinion, he is regarded as manifestly unfit to +conduct the inquiry. Surely this is unsound. If his bias is one of +interest, of class, or creed, or notorious propaganda, then that fact +certainly proves that he is not an impartial arbiter. But the mere fact +that he did form some temporary impression from the first facts as far +as he knew them—this does not prove that he is not an impartial +arbiter—it only proves that he is not a cold-blooded fool. + +If we walk down the street, taking all the jurymen who have not formed +opinions and leaving all the jurymen who have formed opinions, it seems +highly probable that we shall only succeed in taking all the stupid +jurymen and leaving all the thoughtful ones. Provided that the opinion +formed is really of this airy and abstract kind, provided that it has +no suggestion of settled motive or prejudice, we might well regard it +not merely as a promise of capacity, but literally as a promise of +justice. The man who took the trouble to deduce from the police reports +would probably be the man who would take the trouble to deduce further +and different things from the evidence. The man who had the sense to +form an opinion would be the man who would have the sense to alter it. + +It is worth while to dwell for a moment on this minor aspect of the +matter because the error about impartiality and justice is by no means +confined to a criminal question. In much more serious matters it is +assumed that the agnostic is impartial; whereas the agnostic is merely +ignorant. The logical outcome of the fastidiousness about the Thaw +jurors would be that the case ought to be tried by Esquimaux, or +Hottentots, or savages from the Cannibal Islands—by some class of +people who could have no conceivable interest in the parties, and +moreover, no conceivable interest in the case. The pure and starry +perfection of impartiality would be reached by people who not only had +no opinion before they had heard the case, but who also had no opinion +after they had heard it. In the same way, there is in modern +discussions of religion and philosophy an absurd assumption that a man +is in some way just and well-poised because he has come to no +conclusion; and that a man is in some way knocked off the list of fair +judges because he has come to a conclusion. It is assumed that the +sceptic has no bias; whereas he has a very obvious bias in favour of +scepticism. I remember once arguing with an honest young atheist, who +was very much shocked at my disputing some of the assumptions which +were absolute sanctities to him (such as the quite unproved proposition +of the independence of matter and the quite improbable proposition of +its power to originate mind), and he at length fell back upon this +question, which he delivered with an honourable heat of defiance and +indignation: “Well, can you tell me any man of intellect, great in +science or philosophy, who accepted the miraculous?” I said, “With +pleasure. Descartes, Dr. Johnson, Newton, Faraday, Newman, Gladstone, +Pasteur, Browning, Brunetiere—as many more as you please.” To which +that quite admirable and idealistic young man made this astonishing +reply—“Oh, but of course they _had_ to say that; they were Christians.” +First he challenged me to find a black swan, and then he ruled out all +my swans because they were black. The fact that all these great +intellects had come to the Christian view was somehow or other a proof +either that they were not great intellects or that they had not really +come to that view. The argument thus stood in a charmingly convenient +form: “All men that count have come to my conclusion; for if they come +to your conclusion they do not count.” + +It did not seem to occur to such controversialists that if Cardinal +Newman was really a man of intellect, the fact that he adhered to +dogmatic religion proved exactly as much as the fact that Professor +Huxley, another man of intellect, found that he could not adhere to +dogmatic religion; that is to say (as I cheerfully admit), it proved +precious little either way. If there is one class of men whom history +has proved especially and supremely capable of going quite wrong in all +directions, it is the class of highly intellectual men. I would always +prefer to go by the bulk of humanity; that is why I am a democrat. But +whatever be the truth about exceptional intelligence and the masses, it +is manifestly most unreasonable that intelligent men should be divided +upon the absurd modern principle of regarding every clever man who +cannot make up his mind as an impartial judge, and regarding every +clever man who can make up his mind as a servile fanatic. As it is, we +seem to regard it as a positive objection to a reasoner that he has +taken one side or the other. We regard it (in other words) as a +positive objection to a reasoner that he has contrived to reach the +object of his reasoning. We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma +because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite +end. We say that the juryman is not a juryman because he has brought in +a verdict. We say that the judge is not a judge because he gives +judgment. We say that the sincere believer has no right to vote, simply +because he has voted. + + + + +PHONETIC SPELLING + + +A correspondent asks me to make more lucid my remarks about phonetic +spelling. I have no detailed objection to items of spelling-reform; my +objection is to a general principle; and it is this. It seems to me +that what is really wrong with all modern and highly civilised language +is that it does so largely consist of dead words. Half our speech +consists of similes that remind us of no similarity; of pictorial +phrases that call up no picture; of historical allusions the origin of +which we have forgotten. Take any instance on which the eye happens to +alight. I saw in the paper some days ago that the well-known leader of +a certain religious party wrote to a supporter of his the following +curious words: “I have not forgotten the talented way in which you held +up the banner at Birkenhead.” Taking the ordinary vague meaning of the +word “talented,” there is no coherency in the picture. The trumpets +blow, the spears shake and glitter, and in the thick of the purple +battle there stands a gentleman holding up a banner in a talented way. +And when we come to the original force of the word “talent” the matter +is worse: a talent is a Greek coin used in the New Testament as a +symbol of the mental capital committed to an individual at birth. If +the religious leader in question had really meant anything by his +phrases, he would have been puzzled to know how a man could use a Greek +coin to hold up a banner. But really he meant nothing by his phrases. +“Holding up the banner” was to him a colourless term for doing the +proper thing, and “talented” was a colourless term for doing it +successfully. + +Now my own fear touching anything in the way of phonetic spelling is +that it would simply increase this tendency to use words as counters +and not as coins. The original life in a word (as in the word +“talent”) burns low as it is: sensible spelling might extinguish it +altogether. Suppose any sentence you like: suppose a man says, +“Republics generally encourage holidays.” It looks like the top line of +a copy-book. Now, it is perfectly true that if you wrote that sentence +exactly as it is pronounced, even by highly educated people, the +sentence would run: “Ripubliks jenrally inkurrij hollidies.” It looks +ugly: but I have not the smallest objection to ugliness. My objection +is that these four words have each a history and hidden treasures in +them: that this history and hidden treasure (which we tend to forget +too much as it is) phonetic spelling tends to make us forget +altogether. Republic does not mean merely a mode of political choice. +Republic (as we see when we look at the structure of the word) means +the Public Thing: the abstraction which is us all. + +A Republican is not a man who wants a Constitution with a President. A +Republican is a man who prefers to think of Government as impersonal; +he is opposed to the Royalist, who prefers to think of Government as +personal. Take the second word, “generally.” This is always used as +meaning “in the majority of cases.” But, again, if we look at the shape +and spelling of the word, we shall see that “generally” means something +more like “generically,” and is akin to such words as “generation” or +“regenerate.” “Pigs are generally dirty” does not mean that pigs are, +in the majority of cases, dirty, but that pigs as a race or genus are +dirty, that pigs as pigs are dirty—an important philosophical +distinction. Take the third word, “encourage.” The word “encourage” is +used in such modern sentences in the merely automatic sense of promote; +to encourage poetry means merely to advance or assist poetry. But to +encourage poetry means properly to put courage into poetry—a fine idea. +Take the fourth word, “holidays.” As long as that word remains, it will +always answer the ignorant slander which asserts that religion was +opposed to human cheerfulness; that word will always assert that when a +day is holy it should also be happy. Properly spelt, these words all +tell a sublime story, like Westminster Abbey. Phonetically spelt, they +might lose the last traces of any such story. “Generally” is an exalted +metaphysical term; “jenrally” is not. If you “encourage” a man, you +pour into him the chivalry of a hundred princes; this does not happen +if you merely “inkurrij” him. “Republics,” if spelt phonetically, might +actually forget to be public. “Holidays,” if spelt phonetically, might +actually forget to be holy. + +Here is a case that has just occurred. A certain magistrate told +somebody whom he was examining in court that he or she “should always +be polite to the police.” I do not know whether the magistrate noticed +the circumstance, but the word “polite” and the word “police” have the +same origin and meaning. Politeness means the atmosphere and ritual of +the city, the symbol of human civilisation. The policeman means the +representative and guardian of the city, the symbol of human +civilisation. Yet it may be doubted whether the two ideas are commonly +connected in the mind. It is probable that we often hear of politeness +without thinking of a policeman; it is even possible that our eyes +often alight upon a policeman without our thoughts instantly flying to +the subject of politeness. Yet the idea of the sacred city is not only +the link of them both, it is the only serious justification and the +only serious corrective of them both. If politeness means too often a +mere frippery, it is because it has not enough to do with serious +patriotism and public dignity; if policemen are coarse or casual, it is +because they are not sufficiently convinced that they are the servants +of the beautiful city and the agents of sweetness and light. Politeness +is not really a frippery. Politeness is not really even a thing merely +suave and deprecating. Politeness is an armed guard, stern and splendid +and vigilant, watching over all the ways of men; in other words, +politeness is a policeman. A policeman is not merely a heavy man with a +truncheon: a policeman is a machine for the smoothing and sweetening of +the accidents of everyday existence. In other words, a policeman is +politeness; a veiled image of politeness—sometimes impenetrably veiled. +But my point is here that by losing the original idea of the city, +which is the force and youth of both the words, both the things +actually degenerate. Our politeness loses all manliness because we +forget that politeness is only the Greek for patriotism. Our policemen +lose all delicacy because we forget that a policeman is only the Greek +for something civilised. A policeman should often have the functions of +a knight-errant. A policeman should always have the elegance of a +knight-errant. But I am not sure that he would succeed any the better +in remembering this obligation of romantic grace if his name were spelt +phonetically, supposing that it could be spelt phonetically. Some +spelling-reformers, I am told, in the poorer parts of London do spell +his name phonetically, very phonetically. They call him a “pleeceman.” +Thus the whole romance of the ancient city disappears from the word, +and the policeman’s reverent courtesy of demeanour deserts him quite +suddenly. This does seem to me the case against any extreme revolution +in spelling. If you spell a word wrong you have some temptation to +think it wrong. + + + + +HUMANITARIANISM AND STRENGTH + + +Somebody writes complaining of something I said about progress. I have +forgotten what I said, but I am quite certain that it was (like a +certain Mr. Douglas in a poem which I have also forgotten) tender and +true. In any case, what I say now is this. Human history is so rich and +complicated that you can make out a case for any course of improvement +or retrogression. I could make out that the world has been growing more +democratic, for the English franchise has certainly grown more +democratic. I could also make out that the world has been growing more +aristocratic, for the English Public Schools have certainly grown more +aristocratic. I could prove the decline of militarism by the decline of +flogging; I could prove the increase of militarism by the increase of +standing armies and conscription. But I can prove anything in this way. +I can prove that the world has always been growing greener. Only lately +men have invented absinthe and the _Westminster Gazette_. I could prove +the world has grown less green. There are no more Robin Hood foresters, +and fields are being covered with houses. I could show that the world +was less red with khaki or more red with the new penny stamps. But in +all cases progress means progress only in some particular thing. Have +you ever noticed that strange line of Tennyson, in which he confesses, +half consciously, how very _conventional_ progress is?— + +“Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.” + + +Even in praising change, he takes for a simile the most unchanging +thing. He calls our modern change a groove. And it is a groove; perhaps +there was never anything so groovy. + +Nothing would induce me in so idle a monologue as this to discuss +adequately a great political matter like the question of the military +punishments in Egypt. But I may suggest one broad reality to be +observed by both sides, and which is, generally speaking, observed by +neither. Whatever else is right, it is utterly wrong to employ the +argument that we Europeans must do to savages and Asiatics whatever +savages and Asiatics do to us. I have even seen some controversialists +use the metaphor, “We must fight them with their own weapons.” Very +well; let those controversialists take their metaphor, and take it +literally. Let us fight the Soudanese with their own weapons. Their own +weapons are large, very clumsy knives, with an occasional old-fashioned +gun. Their own weapons are also torture and slavery. If we fight them +with torture and slavery, we shall be fighting badly, precisely as if +we fought them with clumsy knives and old guns. That is the whole +strength of our Christian civilisation, that it does fight with its own +weapons and not with other people’s. It is not true that superiority +suggests a tit for tat. It is not true that if a small hooligan puts +his tongue out at the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord Chief Justice +immediately realises that his only chance of maintaining his position +is to put his tongue out at the little hooligan. The hooligan may or +may not have any respect at all for the Lord Chief Justice: that is a +matter which we may contentedly leave as a solemn psychological +mystery. But if the hooligan has any respect at all for the Lord Chief +Justice, that respect is certainly extended to the Lord Chief Justice +entirely because he does not put his tongue out. + +Exactly in the same way the ruder or more sluggish races regard the +civilisation of Christendom. If they have any respect for it, it is +precisely because it does not use their own coarse and cruel +expedients. According to some modern moralists whenever Zulus cut off +the heads of dead Englishmen, Englishmen must cut off the heads of dead +Zulus. Whenever Arabs or Egyptians constantly use the whip to their +slaves, Englishmen must use the whip to their subjects. And on a +similar principle (I suppose), whenever an English Admiral has to fight +cannibals the English Admiral ought to eat them. However unattractive a +menu consisting entirely of barbaric kings may appear to an English +gentleman, he must try to sit down to it with an appetite. He must +fight the Sandwich Islanders with their own weapons; and their own +weapons are knives and forks. But the truth of the matter is, of +course, that to do this kind of thing is to break the whole spell of +our supremacy. All the mystery of the white man, all the fearful poetry +of the white man, so far as it exists in the eyes of these savages, +consists in the fact that we do not do such things. The Zulus point at +us and say, “Observe the advent of these inexplicable demi-gods, these +magicians, who do not cut off the noses of their enemies.” The +Soudanese say to each other, “This hardy people never flogs its +servants; it is superior to the simplest and most obvious human +pleasures.” And the cannibals say, “The austere and terrible race, the +race that denies itself even boiled missionary, is upon us: let us +flee.” + +Whether or no these details are a little conjectural, the general +proposition I suggest is the plainest common sense. The elements that +make Europe upon the whole the most humanitarian civilisation are +precisely the elements that make it upon the whole the strongest. For +the power which makes a man able to entertain a good impulse is the +same as that which enables him to make a good gun; it is imagination. +It is imagination that makes a man outwit his enemy, and it is +imagination that makes him spare his enemy. It is precisely because +this picturing of the other man’s point of view is in the main a thing +in which Christians and Europeans specialise that Christians and +Europeans, with all their faults, have carried to such perfection both +the arts of peace and war. + +They alone have invented machine-guns, and they alone have invented +ambulances; they have invented ambulances (strange as it may sound) for +the same reason for which they have invented machine-guns. Both involve +a vivid calculation of remote events. It is precisely because the East, +with all its wisdom, is cruel, that the East, with all its wisdom, is +weak. And it is precisely because savages are pitiless that they are +still—merely savages. If they could imagine their enemy’s sufferings +they could also imagine his tactics. If Zulus did not cut off the +Englishman’s head they might really borrow it. For if you do not +understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, +very probably you will not. + +When I was about seven years old I used to think that the chief modern +danger was a danger of over-civilisation. I am inclined to think now +that the chief modern danger is that of a slow return towards +barbarism, just such a return towards barbarism as is indicated in the +suggestions of barbaric retaliation of which I have just spoken. +Civilisation in the best sense merely means the full authority of the +human spirit over all externals. Barbarism means the worship of those +externals in their crude and unconquered state. Barbarism means the +worship of Nature; and in recent poetry, science, and philosophy there +has been too much of the worship of Nature. Wherever men begin to talk +much and with great solemnity about the forces outside man, the note of +it is barbaric. When men talk much about heredity and environment they +are almost barbarians. The modern men of science are many of them +almost barbarians. Mr. Blatchford is in great danger of becoming a +barbarian. For barbarians (especially the truly squalid and unhappy +barbarians) are always talking about these scientific subjects from +morning till night. That is why they remain squalid and unhappy; that +is why they remain barbarians. Hottentots are always talking about +heredity, like Mr. Blatchford. Sandwich Islanders are always talking +about environment, like Mr. Suthers. Savages—those that are truly +stunted or depraved—dedicate nearly all their tales and sayings to the +subject of physical kinship, of a curse on this or that tribe, of a +taint in this or that family, of the invincible law of blood, of the +unavoidable evil of places. The true savage is a slave, and is always +talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man and +is always talking about what he may do. Hence all the Zola heredity and +Ibsen heredity that has been written in our time affects me as not +merely evil, but as essentially ignorant and retrogressive. This sort +of science is almost the only thing that can with strict propriety be +called reactionary. Scientific determinism is simply the primal +twilight of all mankind; and some men seem to be returning to it. + +Another savage trait of our time is the disposition to talk about +material substances instead of about ideas. The old civilisation talked +about the sin of gluttony or excess. We talk about the Problem of +Drink—as if drink could be a problem. When people have come to call the +problem of human intemperance the Problem of Drink, and to talk about +curing it by attacking the drink traffic, they have reached quite a dim +stage of barbarism. The thing is an inverted form of fetish worship; it +is no sillier to say that a bottle is a god than to say that a bottle +is a devil. The people who talk about the curse of drink will probably +progress down that dark hill. In a little while we shall have them +calling the practice of wife-beating the Problem of Pokers; the habit +of housebreaking will be called the Problem of the Skeleton-Key Trade; +and for all I know they may try to prevent forgery by shutting up all +the stationers’ shops by Act of Parliament. + +I cannot help thinking that there is some shadow of this uncivilised +materialism lying at present upon a much more dignified and valuable +cause. Every one is talking just now about the desirability of +ingeminating peace and averting war. But even war and peace are +physical states rather than moral states, and in talking about them +only we have by no means got to the bottom of the matter. How, for +instance, do we as a matter of fact create peace in one single +community? We do not do it by vaguely telling every one to avoid +fighting and to submit to anything that is done to him. We do it by +definitely defining his rights and then undertaking to avenge his +wrongs. We shall never have a common peace in Europe till we have a +common principle in Europe. People talk of “The United States of +Europe;” but they forget that it needed the very doctrinal “Declaration +of Independence” to make the United States of America. You cannot agree +about nothing any more than you can quarrel about nothing. + + + + +WINE WHEN IT IS RED + + +I suppose that there will be some wigs on the green in connection with +the recent manifesto signed by a string of very eminent doctors on the +subject of what is called “alcohol.” “Alcohol” is, to judge by the +sound of it, an Arabic word, like “algebra” and “Alhambra,” those two +other unpleasant things. The Alhambra in Spain I have never seen; I am +told that it is a low and rambling building; I allude to the far more +dignified erection in Leicester Square. If it is true, as I surmise, +that “alcohol” is a word of the Arabs, it is interesting to realise +that our general word for the essence of wine and beer and such things +comes from a people which has made particular war upon them. I suppose +that some aged Moslem chieftain sat one day at the opening of his tent +and, brooding with black brows and cursing in his black beard over wine +as the symbol of Christianity, racked his brains for some word ugly +enough to express his racial and religious antipathy, and suddenly spat +out the horrible word “alcohol.” The fact that the doctors had to use +this word for the sake of scientific clearness was really a great +disadvantage to them in fairly discussing the matter. For the word +really involves one of those beggings of the question which make these +moral matters so difficult. It is quite a mistake to suppose that, when +a man desires an alcoholic drink, he necessarily desires alcohol. + +Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer’s day along a dusty +English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented. The fact +that beer has a very slight stimulating quality will be quite among the +smallest reasons that induce him to ask for it. In short, he will not +be in the least desiring alcohol; he will be desiring beer. But, of +course, the question cannot be settled in such a simple way. The real +difficulty which confronts everybody, and which especially confronts +doctors, is that the extraordinary position of man in the physical +universe makes it practically impossible to treat him in either one +direction or the other in a purely physical way. Man is an exception, +whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a +disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then +we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head. In +neither case can we really argue very much from the body of man simply +considered as the body of an innocent and healthy animal. His body has +got too much mixed up with his soul, as we see in the supreme instance +of sex. It may be worth while uttering the warning to wealthy +philanthropists and idealists that this argument from the animal should +not be thoughtlessly used, even against the atrocious evils of excess; +it is an argument that proves too little or too much. + +Doubtless, it is unnatural to be drunk. But then in a real sense it is +unnatural to be human. Doubtless, the intemperate workman wastes his +tissues in drinking; but no one knows how much the sober workman wastes +his tissues by working. No one knows how much the wealthy +philanthropist wastes his tissues by talking; or, in much rarer +conditions, by thinking. All the human things are more dangerous than +anything that affects the beasts—sex, poetry, property, religion. The +real case against drunkenness is not that it calls up the beast, but +that it calls up the Devil. It does not call up the beast, and if it +did it would not matter much, as a rule; the beast is a harmless and +rather amiable creature, as anybody can see by watching cattle. There +is nothing bestial about intoxication; and certainly there is nothing +intoxicating or even particularly lively about beasts. Man is always +something worse or something better than an animal; and a mere argument +from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal +is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal ever invented +anything so bad as drunkenness—or so good as drink. + +The pronouncement of these particular doctors is very clear and +uncompromising; in the modern atmosphere, indeed, it even deserves some +credit for moral courage. The majority of modern people, of course, +will probably agree with it in so far as it declares that alcoholic +drinks are often of supreme value in emergencies of illness; but many +people, I fear, will open their eyes at the emphatic terms in which +they describe such drink as considered as a beverage; but they are not +content with declaring that the drink is in moderation harmless: they +distinctly declare that it is in moderation beneficial. But I fancy +that, in saying this, the doctors had in mind a truth that runs +somewhat counter to the common opinion. I fancy that it is the +experience of most doctors that giving any alcohol for illness (though +often necessary) is about the most morally dangerous way of giving it. +Instead of giving it to a healthy person who has many other forms of +life, you are giving it to a desperate person, to whom it is the only +form of life. The invalid can hardly be blamed if by some accident of +his erratic and overwrought condition he comes to remember the thing as +the very water of vitality and to use it as such. For in so far as +drinking is really a sin it is not because drinking is wild, but +because drinking is tame; not in so far as it is anarchy, but in so far +as it is slavery. Probably the worst way to drink is to drink +medicinally. Certainly the safest way to drink is to drink carelessly; +that is, without caring much for anything, and especially not caring +for the drink. + +The doctor, of course, ought to be able to do a great deal in the way +of restraining those individual cases where there is plainly an evil +thirst; and beyond that the only hope would seem to be in some +increase, or, rather, some concentration of ordinary public opinion on +the subject. I have always held consistently my own modest theory on +the subject. I believe that if by some method the local public-house +could be as definite and isolated a place as the local post-office or +the local railway station, if all types of people passed through it for +all types of refreshment, you would have the same safeguard against a +man behaving in a disgusting way in a tavern that you have at present +against his behaving in a disgusting way in a post-office: simply the +presence of his ordinary sensible neighbours. In such a place the kind +of lunatic who wants to drink an unlimited number of whiskies would be +treated with the same severity with which the post office authorities +would treat an amiable lunatic who had an appetite for licking an +unlimited number of stamps. It is a small matter whether in either case +a technical refusal would be officially employed. It is an essential +matter that in both cases the authorities could rapidly communicate +with the friends and family of the mentally afflicted person. At least, +the postmistress would not dangle a strip of tempting sixpenny stamps +before the enthusiast’s eyes as he was being dragged away with his +tongue out. If we made drinking open and official we might be taking +one step towards making it careless. In such things to be careless is +to be sane: for neither drunkards nor Moslems can be careless about +drink. + + + + +DEMAGOGUES AND MYSTAGOGUES + + +I once heard a man call this age the age of demagogues. Of this I can +only say, in the admirably sensible words of the angry coachman in +“Pickwick,” that “that remark’s political, or what is much the same, it +ain’t true.” So far from being the age of demagogues, this is really +and specially the age of mystagogues. So far from this being a time in +which things are praised because they are popular, the truth is that +this is the first time, perhaps, in the whole history of the world in +which things can be praised because they are unpopular. The demagogue +succeeds because he makes himself understood, even if he is not worth +understanding. But the mystagogue succeeds because he gets himself +misunderstood; although, as a rule, he is not even worth +misunderstanding. Gladstone was a demagogue: Disraeli a mystagogue. But +ours is specially the time when a man can advertise his wares not as a +universality, but as what the tradesmen call “a speciality.” We all +know this, for instance, about modern art. Michelangelo and Whistler +were both fine artists; but one is obviously public, the other +obviously private, or, rather, not obvious at all. Michelangelo’s +frescoes are doubtless finer than the popular judgment, but they are +plainly meant to strike the popular judgment. Whistler’s pictures seem +often meant to escape the popular judgment; they even seem meant to +escape the popular admiration. They are elusive, fugitive; they fly +even from praise. Doubtless many artists in Michelangelo’s day declared +themselves to be great artists, although they were unsuccessful. But +they did not declare themselves great artists because they were +unsuccessful: that is the peculiarity of our own time, which has a +positive bias against the populace. + +Another case of the same kind of thing can be found in the latest +conceptions of humour. By the wholesome tradition of mankind, a joke +was a thing meant to amuse men; a joke which did not amuse them was a +failure, just as a fire which did not warm them was a failure. But we +have seen the process of secrecy and aristocracy introduced even into +jokes. If a joke falls flat, a small school of æsthetes only ask us to +notice the wild grace of its falling and its perfect flatness after its +fall. The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company +has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was +not worthy of the joke. They have introduced an almost insane +individualism into that one form of intercourse which is specially and +uproariously communal. They have made even levities into secrets. They +have made laughter lonelier than tears. + +There is a third thing to which the mystagogues have recently been +applying the methods of a secret society: I mean manners. Men who +sought to rebuke rudeness used to represent manners as reasonable and +ordinary; now they seek to represent them as private and peculiar. +Instead of saying to a man who blocks up a street or the fireplace, +“You ought to know better than that,” the moderns say, “You, of course, +don’t know better than that.” + +I have just been reading an amusing book by Lady Grove called “The +Social Fetich,” which is a positive riot of this new specialism and +mystification. It is due to Lady Grove to say that she has some of the +freer and more honourable qualities of the old Whig aristocracy, as +well as their wonderful worldliness and their strange faith in the +passing fashion of our politics. For instance, she speaks of Jingo +Imperialism with a healthy English contempt; and she perceives stray +and striking truths, and records them justly—as, for instance, the +greater democracy of the Southern and Catholic countries of Europe. But +in her dealings with social formulæ here in England she is, it must +frankly be said, a common mystagogue. She does not, like a decent +demagogue, wish to make people understand; she wishes to make them +painfully conscious of not understanding. Her favourite method is to +terrify people from doing things that are quite harmless by telling +them that if they do they are the kind of people who would do other +things, equally harmless. If you ask after somebody’s mother (or +whatever it is), you are the kind of person who would have a +pillow-case, or would not have a pillow-case. I forget which it is; and +so, I dare say, does she. If you assume the ordinary dignity of a +decent citizen and say that you don’t see the harm of having a mother +or a pillow-case, she would say that of course _you_ wouldn’t. This is +what I call being a mystagogue. It is more vulgar than being a +demagogue; because it is much easier. + +The primary point I meant to emphasise is that this sort of aristocracy +is essentially a new sort. All the old despots were demagogues; at +least, they were demagogues whenever they were really trying to please +or impress the demos. If they poured out beer for their vassals it was +because both they and their vassals had a taste for beer. If (in some +slightly different mood) they poured melted lead on their vassals, it +was because both they and their vassals had a strong distaste for +melted lead. But they did not make any mystery about either of the two +substances. They did not say, “You don’t like melted lead?.... Ah! no, +of course, _you_ wouldn’t; you are probably the kind of person who +would prefer beer.... It is no good asking you even to imagine the +curious undercurrent of psychological pleasure felt by a refined person +under the seeming shock of melted lead.” Even tyrants when they tried +to be popular, tried to give the people pleasure; they did not try to +overawe the people by giving them something which they ought to regard +as pleasure. It was the same with the popular presentment of +aristocracy. Aristocrats tried to impress humanity by the exhibition of +qualities which humanity admires, such as courage, gaiety, or even mere +splendour. The aristocracy might have more possession in these things, +but the democracy had quite equal delight in them. It was much more +sensible to offer yourself for admiration because you had drunk three +bottles of port at a sitting, than to offer yourself for admiration (as +Lady Grove does) because you think it right to say “port wine” while +other people think it right to say “port.” Whether Lady Grove’s +preference for port wine (I mean for the phrase port wine) is a piece +of mere nonsense I do not know; but at least it is a very good example +of the futility of such tests in the matter even of mere breeding. +“Port wine” may happen to be the phrase used in certain good families; +but numberless aristocrats say “port,” and all barmaids say “port +wine.” The whole thing is rather more trivial than collecting +tram-tickets; and I will not pursue Lady Grove’s further distinctions. +I pass over the interesting theory that I ought to say to Jones (even +apparently if he is my dearest friend), “How is Mrs. Jones?” instead of +“How is your wife?” and I pass over an impassioned declamation about +bedspreads (I think) which has failed to fire my blood. + +The truth of the matter is really quite simple. An aristocracy is a +secret society; and this is especially so when, as in the modern world, +it is practically a plutocracy. The one idea of a secret society is to +change the password. Lady Grove falls naturally into a pure perversity +because she feels subconsciously that the people of England can be more +effectively kept at a distance by a perpetual torrent of new tests than +by the persistence of a few old ones. She knows that in the educated +“middle class” there is an idea that it is vulgar to say port wine; +therefore she reverses the idea—she says that the man who would say +“port” is a man who would say, “How is your wife?” She says it because +she knows both these remarks to be quite obvious and reasonable. + +The only thing to be done or said in reply, I suppose, would be to +apply the same principle of bold mystification on our own part. I do +not see why I should not write a book called “Etiquette in Fleet +Street,” and terrify every one else out of that thoroughfare by +mysterious allusions to the mistakes that they generally make. I might +say: “This is the kind of man who would wear a green tie when he went +into a tobacconist’s,” or “You don’t see anything wrong in drinking a +Benedictine on Thursday?.... No, of course _you_ wouldn’t.” I might +asseverate with passionate disgust and disdain: “The man who is capable +of writing sonnets as well as triolets is capable of climbing an +omnibus while holding an umbrella.” It seems a simple method; if ever I +should master it perhaps I may govern England. + + + + +THE “EATANSWILL GAZETTE” + + +The other day some one presented me with a paper called the _Eatanswill +Gazette_. I need hardly say that I could not have been more startled if +I had seen a coach coming down the road with old Mr. Tony Weller on the +box. But, indeed, the case is much more extraordinary than that would +be. Old Mr. Weller was a good man, a specially and seriously good man, +a proud father, a very patient husband, a sane moralist, and a reliable +ally. One could not be so very much surprised if somebody pretended to +be Tony Weller. But the _Eatanswill Gazette_ is definitely depicted in +“Pickwick” as a dirty and unscrupulous rag, soaked with slander and +nonsense. It was really interesting to find a modern paper proud to +take its name. The case cannot be compared to anything so simple as a +resurrection of one of the “Pickwick” characters; yet a very good +parallel could easily be found. It is almost exactly as if a firm of +solicitors were to open their offices to-morrow under the name of +Dodson and Fogg. + +It was at once apparent, of course, that the thing was a joke. But what +was not apparent, what only grew upon the mind with gradual wonder and +terror, was the fact that it had its serious side. The paper is +published in the well-known town of Sudbury, in Suffolk. And it seems +that there is a standing quarrel between Sudbury and the county town of +Ipswich as to which was the town described by Dickens in his celebrated +sketch of an election. Each town proclaims with passion that it was +Eatanswill. If each town proclaimed with passion that it was not +Eatanswill, I might be able to understand it. Eatanswill, according to +Dickens, was a town alive with loathsome corruption, hypocritical in +all its public utterances, and venal in all its votes. Yet, two highly +respectable towns compete for the honour of having been this particular +cesspool, just as ten cities fought to be the birthplace of Homer. They +claim to be its original as keenly as if they were claiming to be the +original of More’s “Utopia” or Morris’s “Earthly Paradise.” They grow +seriously heated over the matter. The men of Ipswich say warmly, “It +must have been our town; for Dickens says it was corrupt, and a more +corrupt town than our town you couldn’t have met in a month.” The men +of Sudbury reply with rising passion, “Permit us to tell you, +gentlemen, that our town was quite as corrupt as your town any day of +the week. Our town was a common nuisance; and we defy our enemies to +question it.” “Perhaps you will tell us,” sneer the citizens of +Ipswich, “that your politics were ever as thoroughly filthy as----” “As +filthy as anything,” answer the Sudbury men, undauntedly. “Nothing in +politics could be filthier. Dickens must have noticed how disgusting we +were.” “And could he have failed to notice,” the others reason +indignantly, “how disgusting we were? You could smell us a mile off. +You Sudbury fellows may think yourselves very fine, but let me tell you +that, compared to our city, Sudbury was an honest place.” And so the +controversy goes on. It seems to me to be a new and odd kind of +controversy. + +Naturally, an outsider feels inclined to ask why Eatanswill should be +either one or the other. As a matter of fact, I fear Eatanswill was +every town in the country. It is surely clear that when Dickens +described the Eatanswill election he did not mean it as a satire on +Sudbury or a satire on Ipswich; he meant it as a satire on England. The +Eatanswill election is not a joke against Eatanswill; it is a joke +against elections. If the satire is merely local, it practically loses +its point; just as the “Circumlocution Office” would lose its point if +it were not supposed to be a true sketch of all Government offices; +just as the Lord Chancellor in “Bleak House” would lose his point if he +were not supposed to be symbolic and representative of all Lord +Chancellors. The whole moral meaning would vanish if we supposed that +Oliver Twist had got by accident into an exceptionally bad workhouse, +or that Mr. Dorrit was in the only debtors’ prison that was not well +managed. Dickens was making game, not of places, but of methods. He +poured all his powerful genius into trying to make the people ashamed +of the methods. But he seems only to have succeeded in making people +proud of the places. In any case, the controversy is conducted in a +truly extraordinary way. No one seems to allow for the fact that, after +all, Dickens was writing a novel, and a highly fantastic novel at that. +Facts in support of Sudbury or Ipswich are quoted not only from the +story itself, which is wild and wandering enough, but even from the yet +wilder narratives which incidentally occur in the story, such as Sam +Weller’s description of how his father, on the way to Eatanswill, +tipped all the voters into the canal. This may quite easily be (to +begin with) an entertaining tarradiddle of Sam’s own invention, told, +like many other even more improbable stories, solely to amuse Mr. +Pickwick. Yet the champions of these two towns positively ask each +other to produce a canal, or to fail for ever in their attempt to prove +themselves the most corrupt town in England. As far as I remember, +Sam’s story of the canal ends with Mr. Pickwick eagerly asking whether +everybody was rescued, and Sam solemnly replying that one old +gentleman’s hat was found, but that he was not sure whether his head +was in it. If the canal is to be taken as realistic, why not the hat +and the head? If these critics ever find the canal I recommend them to +drag it for the body of the old gentleman. + +Both sides refuse to allow for the fact that the characters in the +story are comic characters. For instance, Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, the +eminent student of Dickens, writes to the _Eatanswill Gazette_ to say +that Sudbury, a small town, could not have been Eatanswill, because one +of the candidates speaks of its great manufactures. But obviously one +of the candidates would have spoken of its great manufactures if it had +had nothing but a row of apple-stalls. One of the candidates might have +said that the commerce of Eatanswill eclipsed Carthage, and covered +every sea; it would have been quite in the style of Dickens. But when +the champion of Sudbury answers him, he does not point out this plain +mistake. He answers by making another mistake exactly of the same kind. +He says that Eatanswill was not a busy, important place. And his odd +reason is that Mrs. Pott said she was dull there. But obviously Mrs. +Pott would have said she was dull anywhere. She was setting her cap at +Mr. Winkle. Moreover, it was the whole point of her character in any +case. Mrs. Pott was that kind of woman. If she had been in Ipswich she +would have said that she ought to be in London. If she was in London +she would have said that she ought to be in Paris. The first disputant +proves Eatanswill grand because a servile candidate calls it grand. The +second proves it dull because a discontented woman calls it dull. + +The great part of the controversy seems to be conducted in the spirit +of highly irrelevant realism. Sudbury cannot be Eatanswill, because +there was a fancy-dress shop at Eatanswill, and there is no record of a +fancy-dress shop at Sudbury. Sudbury must be Eatanswill because there +were heavy roads outside Eatanswill, and there are heavy roads outside +Sudbury. Ipswich cannot be Eatanswill, because Mrs. Leo Hunter’s +country seat would not be near a big town. Ipswich must be Eatanswill +because Mrs. Leo Hunter’s country seat would be near a large town. +Really, Dickens might have been allowed to take liberties with such +things as these, even if he had been mentioning the place by name. If I +were writing a story about the town of Limerick, I should take the +liberty of introducing a bun-shop without taking a journey to Limerick +to see whether there was a bun-shop there. If I wrote a romance about +Torquay, I should hold myself free to introduce a house with a green +door without having studied a list of all the coloured doors in the +town. But if, in order to make it particularly obvious that I had not +meant the town for a photograph either of Torquay or Limerick, I had +gone out of my way to give the place a wild, fictitious name of my own, +I think that in that case I should be justified in tearing my hair with +rage if the people of Limerick or Torquay began to argue about +bun-shops and green doors. No reasonable man would expect Dickens to be +so literal as all that even about Bath or Bury St. Edmunds, which do +exist; far less need he be literal about Eatanswill, which didn’t +exist. + +I must confess, however, that I incline to the Sudbury side of the +argument. This does not only arise from the sympathy which all healthy +people have for small places as against big ones; it arises from some +really good qualities in this particular Sudbury publication. First of +all, the champions of Sudbury seem to be more open to the sensible and +humorous view of the book than the champions of Ipswich—at least, those +that appear in this discussion. Even the Sudbury champion, bent on +finding realistic clothes, rebels (to his eternal honour) when Mr. +Percy Fitzgerald tries to show that Bob Sawyer’s famous statement that +he was neither Buff nor Blue, “but a sort of plaid,” must have been +copied from some silly man at Ipswich who said that his politics were +“half and half.” Anybody might have made either of the two jokes. But +it was the whole glory and meaning of Dickens that he confined himself +to making jokes that anybody might have made a little better than +anybody would have made them. + + + + +FAIRY TALES + + +Some solemn and superficial people (for nearly all very superficial +people are solemn) have declared that the fairy-tales are immoral; they +base this upon some accidental circumstances or regrettable incidents +in the war between giants and boys, some cases in which the latter +indulged in unsympathetic deceptions or even in practical jokes. The +objection, however, is not only false, but very much the reverse of the +facts. The fairy-tales are at root not only moral in the sense of being +innocent, but moral in the sense of being didactic, moral in the sense +of being moralising. It is all very well to talk of the freedom of +fairyland, but there was precious little freedom in fairyland by the +best official accounts. Mr. W.B. Yeats and other sensitive modern +souls, feeling that modern life is about as black a slavery as ever +oppressed mankind (they are right enough there), have especially +described elfland as a place of utter ease and abandonment—a place +where the soul can turn every way at will like the wind. Science +denounces the idea of a capricious God; but Mr. Yeats’s school suggests +that in that world every one is a capricious god. Mr. Yeats himself has +said a hundred times in that sad and splendid literary style which +makes him the first of all poets now writing in English (I will not say +of all English poets, for Irishmen are familiar with the practice of +physical assault), he has, I say, called up a hundred times the picture +of the terrible freedom of the fairies, who typify the ultimate anarchy +of art— + +“Where nobody grows old or weary or wise, +Where nobody grows old or godly or grave.” + + +But, after all (it is a shocking thing to say), I doubt whether Mr. +Yeats really knows the real philosophy of the fairies. He is not simple +enough; he is not stupid enough. Though I say it who should not, in +good sound human stupidity I would knock Mr. Yeats out any day. The +fairies like me better than Mr. Yeats; they can take me in more. And I +have my doubts whether this feeling of the free, wild spirits on the +crest of hill or wave is really the central and simple spirit of +folk-lore. I think the poets have made a mistake: because the world of +the fairy-tales is a brighter and more varied world than ours, they +have fancied it less moral; really it is brighter and more varied +because it is more moral. Suppose a man could be born in a modern +prison. It is impossible, of course, because nothing human can happen +in a modern prison, though it could sometimes in an ancient dungeon. A +modern prison is always inhuman, even when it is not inhumane. But +suppose a man were born in a modern prison, and grew accustomed to the +deadly silence and the disgusting indifference; and suppose he were +then suddenly turned loose upon the life and laughter of Fleet Street. +He would, of course, think that the literary men in Fleet Street were a +free and happy race; yet how sadly, how ironically, is this the reverse +of the case! And so again these toiling serfs in Fleet Street, when +they catch a glimpse of the fairies, think the fairies are utterly +free. But fairies are like journalists in this and many other respects. +Fairies and journalists have an apparent gaiety and a delusive beauty. +Fairies and journalists seem to be lovely and lawless; they seem to be +both of them too exquisite to descend to the ugliness of everyday duty. +But it is an illusion created by the sudden sweetness of their +presence. Journalists live under law; and so in fact does fairyland. + +If you really read the fairy-tales, you will observe that one idea runs +from one end of them to the other—the idea that peace and happiness can +only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, +is the core of the nursery-tales. The whole happiness of fairyland +hangs upon a thread, upon one thread. Cinderella may have a dress woven +on supernatural looms and blazing with unearthly brilliance; but she +must be back when the clock strikes twelve. The king may invite fairies +to the christening, but he must invite all the fairies or frightful +results will follow. Bluebeard’s wife may open all doors but one. A +promise is broken to a cat, and the whole world goes wrong. A promise +is broken to a yellow dwarf, and the whole world goes wrong. A girl may +be the bride of the God of Love himself if she never tries to see him; +she sees him, and he vanishes away. A girl is given a box on condition +she does not open it; she opens it, and all the evils of this world +rush out at her. A man and woman are put in a garden on condition that +they do not eat one fruit: they eat it, and lose their joy in all the +fruits of the earth. + +This great idea, then, is the backbone of all folk-lore—the idea that +all happiness hangs on one thin veto; all positive joy depends on one +negative. Now, it is obvious that there are many philosophical and +religious ideas akin to or symbolised by this; but it is not with them +I wish to deal here. It is surely obvious that all ethics ought to be +taught to this fairy-tale tune; that, if one does the thing forbidden, +one imperils all the things provided. A man who breaks his promise to +his wife ought to be reminded that, even if she is a cat, the case of +the fairy-cat shows that such conduct may be incautious. A burglar just +about to open some one else’s safe should be playfully reminded that he +is in the perilous posture of the beautiful Pandora: he is about to +lift the forbidden lid and loosen evils unknown. The boy eating some +one’s apples in some one’s apple tree should be a reminder that he has +come to a mystical moment of his life, when one apple may rob him of +all others. This is the profound morality of fairy-tales; which, so far +from being lawless, go to the root of all law. Instead of finding (like +common books of ethics) a rationalistic basis for each Commandment, +they find the great mystical basis for all Commandments. We are in this +fairyland on sufferance; it is not for us to quarrel with the +conditions under which we enjoy this wild vision of the world. The +vetoes are indeed extraordinary, but then so are the concessions. The +idea of property, the idea of some one else’s apples, is a rum idea; +but then the idea of there being any apples is a rum idea. It is +strange and weird that I cannot with safety drink ten bottles of +champagne; but then the champagne itself is strange and weird, if you +come to that. If I have drunk of the fairies’ drink it is but just I +should drink by the fairies’ rules. We may not see the direct logical +connection between three beautiful silver spoons and a large ugly +policeman; but then who in fairy tales ever could see the direct +logical connection between three bears and a giant, or between a rose +and a roaring beast? Not only can these fairy-tales be enjoyed because +they are moral, but morality can be enjoyed because it puts us in +fairyland, in a world at once of wonder and of war. + + + + +TOM JONES AND MORALITY + + +The two hundredth anniversary of Henry Fielding is very justly +celebrated, even if, as far as can be discovered, it is only celebrated +by the newspapers. It would be too much to expect that any such merely +chronological incident should induce the people who write about +Fielding to read him; this kind of neglect is only another name for +glory. A great classic means a man whom one can praise without having +read. This is not in itself wholly unjust; it merely implies a certain +respect for the realisation and fixed conclusions of the mass of +mankind. I have never read Pindar (I mean I have never read the Greek +Pindar; Peter Pindar I have read all right), but the mere fact that I +have not read Pindar, I think, ought not to prevent me and certainly +would not prevent me from talking of “the masterpieces of Pindar,” or +of “great poets like Pindar or Æschylus.” The very learned men are +angularly unenlightened on this as on many other subjects; and the +position they take up is really quite unreasonable. If any ordinary +journalist or man of general reading alludes to Villon or to Homer, +they consider it a quite triumphant sneer to say to the man, “You +cannot read mediæval French,” or “You cannot read Homeric Greek.” But +it is not a triumphant sneer—or, indeed, a sneer at all. A man has got +as much right to employ in his speech the established and traditional +facts of human history as he has to employ any other piece of common +human information. And it is as reasonable for a man who knows no +French to assume that Villon was a good poet as it would be for a man +who has no ear for music to assume that Beethoven was a good musician. +Because he himself has no ear for music, that is no reason why he +should assume that the human race has no ear for music. Because I am +ignorant (as I am), it does not follow that I ought to assume that I am +deceived. The man who would not praise Pindar unless he had read him +would be a low, distrustful fellow, the worst kind of sceptic, who +doubts not only God, but man. He would be like a man who could not call +Mount Everest high unless he had climbed it. He would be like a man who +would not admit that the North Pole was cold until he had been there. + +But I think there is a limit, and a highly legitimate limit, to this +process. I think a man may praise Pindar without knowing the top of a +Greek letter from the bottom. But I think that if a man is going to +abuse Pindar, if he is going to denounce, refute, and utterly expose +Pindar, if he is going to show Pindar up as the utter ignoramus and +outrageous impostor that he is, then I think it will be just as well +perhaps—I think, at any rate, it would do no harm—if he did know a +little Greek, and even had read a little Pindar. And I think the same +situation would be involved if the critic were concerned to point out +that Pindar was scandalously immoral, pestilently cynical, or low and +beastly in his views of life. When people brought such attacks against +the morality of Pindar, I should regret that they could not read Greek; +and when they bring such attacks against the morality of Fielding, I +regret very much that they cannot read English. + +There seems to be an extraordinary idea abroad that Fielding was in +some way an immoral or offensive writer. I have been astounded by the +number of the leading articles, literary articles, and other articles +written about him just now in which there is a curious tone of +apologising for the man. One critic says that after all he couldn’t +help it, because he lived in the eighteenth century; another says that +we must allow for the change of manners and ideas; another says that he +was not altogether without generous and humane feelings; another +suggests that he clung feebly, after all, to a few of the less +important virtues. What on earth does all this mean? Fielding described +Tom Jones as going on in a certain way, in which, most unfortunately, a +very large number of young men do go on. It is unnecessary to say that +Henry Fielding knew that it was an unfortunate way of going on. Even +Tom Jones knew that. He said in so many words that it was a very +unfortunate way of going on; he said, one may almost say, that it had +ruined his life; the passage is there for the benefit of any one who +may take the trouble to read the book. There is ample evidence (though +even this is of a mystical and indirect kind), there is ample evidence +that Fielding probably thought that it was better to be Tom Jones than +to be an utter coward and sneak. There is simply not one rag or thread +or speck of evidence to show that Fielding thought that it was better +to be Tom Jones than to be a good man. All that he is concerned with is +the description of a definite and very real type of young man; the +young man whose passions and whose selfish necessities sometimes seemed +to be stronger than anything else in him. + +The practical morality of Tom Jones is bad, though not so bad, +_spiritually_ speaking, as the practical morality of Arthur Pendennis +or the practical morality of Pip, and certainly nothing like so bad as +the profound practical immorality of Daniel Deronda. The practical +morality of Tom Jones is bad; but I cannot see any proof that his +theoretical morality was particularly bad. There is no need to tell the +majority of modern young men even to live up to the theoretical ethics +of Henry Fielding. They would suddenly spring into the stature of +archangels if they lived up to the theoretic ethics of poor Tom Jones. +Tom Jones is still alive, with all his good and all his evil; he is +walking about the streets; we meet him every day. We meet with him, we +drink with him, we smoke with him, we talk with him, we talk about him. +The only difference is that we have no longer the intellectual courage +to write about him. We split up the supreme and central human being, +Tom Jones, into a number of separate aspects. We let Mr. J.M. Barrie +write about him in his good moments, and make him out better than he +is. We let Zola write about him in his bad moments, and make him out +much worse than he is. We let Maeterlinck celebrate those moments of +spiritual panic which he knows to be cowardly; we let Mr. Rudyard +Kipling celebrate those moments of brutality which he knows to be far +more cowardly. We let obscene writers write about the obscenities of +this ordinary man. We let puritan writers write about the purities of +this ordinary man. We look through one peephole that makes men out as +devils, and we call it the new art. We look through another peephole +that makes men out as angels, and we call it the New Theology. But if +we pull down some dusty old books from the bookshelf, if we turn over +some old mildewed leaves, and if in that obscurity and decay we find +some faint traces of a tale about a complete man, such a man as is +walking on the pavement outside, we suddenly pull a long face, and we +call it the coarse morals of a bygone age. + +The truth is that all these things mark a certain change in the general +view of morals; not, I think, a change for the better. We have grown to +associate morality in a book with a kind of optimism and prettiness; +according to us, a moral book is a book about moral people. But the old +idea was almost exactly the opposite; a moral book was a book about +immoral people. A moral book was full of pictures like Hogarth’s “Gin +Lane” or “Stages of Cruelty,” or it recorded, like the popular +broadsheet, “God’s dreadful judgment” against some blasphemer or +murderer. There is a philosophical reason for this change. The homeless +scepticism of our time has reached a sub-conscious feeling that +morality is somehow merely a matter of human taste—an accident of +psychology. And if goodness only exists in certain human minds, a man +wishing to praise goodness will naturally exaggerate the amount of it +that there is in human minds or the number of human minds in which it +is supreme. Every confession that man is vicious is a confession that +virtue is visionary. Every book which admits that evil is real is felt +in some vague way to be admitting that good is unreal. The modern +instinct is that if the heart of man is evil, there is nothing that +remains good. But the older feeling was that if the heart of man was +ever so evil, there was something that remained good—goodness remained +good. An actual avenging virtue existed outside the human race; to that +men rose, or from that men fell away. Therefore, of course, this law +itself was as much demonstrated in the breach as in the observance. If +Tom Jones violated morality, so much the worse for Tom Jones. Fielding +did not feel, as a melancholy modern would have done, that every sin of +Tom Jones was in some way breaking the spell, or we may even say +destroying the fiction of morality. Men spoke of the sinner breaking +the law; but it was rather the law that broke him. And what modern +people call the foulness and freedom of Fielding is generally the +severity and moral stringency of Fielding. He would not have thought +that he was serving morality at all if he had written a book all about +nice people. Fielding would have considered Mr. Ian Maclaren extremely +immoral; and there is something to be said for that view. Telling the +truth about the terrible struggle of the human soul is surely a very +elementary part of the ethics of honesty. If the characters are not +wicked, the book is. This older and firmer conception of right as +existing outside human weakness and without reference to human error +can be felt in the very lightest and loosest of the works of old +English literature. It is commonly unmeaning enough to call Shakspere a +great moralist; but in this particular way Shakspere is a very typical +moralist. Whenever he alludes to right and wrong it is always with this +old implication. Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is +wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it. + + + + +THE MAID OF ORLEANS + + +A considerable time ago (at far too early an age, in fact) I read +Voltaire’s “La Pucelle,” a savage sarcasm on the traditional purity of +Joan of Arc, very dirty, and very funny. I had not thought of it again +for years, but it came back into my mind this morning because I began +to turn over the leaves of the new “Jeanne d’Arc,” by that great and +graceful writer, Anatole France. It is written in a tone of tender +sympathy, and a sort of sad reverence; it never loses touch with a +noble tact and courtesy, like that of a gentleman escorting a peasant +girl through the modern crowd. It is invariably respectful to Joan, and +even respectful to her religion. And being myself a furious admirer of +Joan the Maid, I have reflectively compared the two methods, and I come +to the conclusion that I prefer Voltaire’s. + +When a man of Voltaire’s school has to explode a saint or a great +religious hero, he says that such a person is a common human fool, or a +common human fraud. But when a man like Anatole France has to explode a +saint, he explains a saint as somebody belonging to his particular +fussy little literary set. Voltaire read human nature into Joan of Arc, +though it was only the brutal part of human nature. At least it was not +specially Voltaire’s nature. But M. France read M. France’s nature into +Joan of Arc—all the cold kindness, all the homeless sentimental sin of +the modern literary man. There is one book that it recalled to me with +startling vividness, though I have not seen the matter mentioned +anywhere; Renan’s “Vie de Jésus.” It has just the same general +intention: that if you do not attack Christianity, you can at least +patronise it. My own instinct, apart from my opinions, would be quite +the other way. If I disbelieved in Christianity, I should be the +loudest blasphemer in Hyde Park. Nothing ought to be too big for a +brave man to attack; but there are some things too big for a man to +patronise. + +And I must say that the historical method seems to me excessively +unreasonable. I have no knowledge of history, but I have as much +knowledge of reason as Anatole France. And, if anything is irrational, +it seems to me that the Renan-France way of dealing with miraculous +stories is irrational. The Renan-France method is simply this: you +explain supernatural stories that have some foundation simply by +inventing natural stories that have no foundation. Suppose that you are +confronted with the statement that Jack climbed up the beanstalk into +the sky. It is perfectly philosophical to reply that you do not think +that he did. It is (in my opinion) even more philosophical to reply +that he may very probably have done so. But the Renan-France method is +to write like this: “When we consider Jack’s curious and even perilous +heredity, which no doubt was derived from a female greengrocer and a +profligate priest, we can easily understand how the ideas of heaven and +a beanstalk came to be combined in his mind. Moreover, there is little +doubt that he must have met some wandering conjurer from India, who +told him about the tricks of the mango plant, and how it is sent up to +the sky. We can imagine these two friends, the old man and the young, +wandering in the woods together at evening, looking at the red and +level clouds, as on that night when the old man pointed to a small +beanstalk, and told his too imaginative companion that this also might +be made to scale the heavens. And then, when we remember the quite +exceptional psychology of Jack, when we remember how there was in him a +union of the prosaic, the love of plain vegetables, with an almost +irrelevant eagerness for the unattainable, for invisibility and the +void, we shall no longer wonder that it was to him especially that was +sent this sweet, though merely symbolic, dream of the tree uniting +earth and heaven.” That is the way that Renan and France write, only +they do it better. But, really, a rationalist like myself becomes a +little impatient and feels inclined to say, “But, hang it all, what do +you know about the heredity of Jack or the psychology of Jack? You know +nothing about Jack at all, except that some people say that he climbed +up a beanstalk. Nobody would ever have thought of mentioning him if he +hadn’t. You must interpret him in terms of the beanstalk religion; you +cannot merely interpret religion in terms of him. We have the materials +of this story, and we can believe them or not. But we have not got the +materials to make another story.” + +It is no exaggeration to say that this is the manner of M. Anatole +France in dealing with Joan of Arc. Because her miracle is incredible +to his somewhat old-fashioned materialism, he does not therefore +dismiss it and her to fairyland with Jack and the Beanstalk. He tries +to invent a real story, for which he can find no real evidence. He +produces a scientific explanation which is quite destitute of any +scientific proof. It is as if I (being entirely ignorant of botany and +chemistry) said that the beanstalk grew to the sky because nitrogen and +argon got into the subsidiary ducts of the corolla. To take the most +obvious example, the principal character in M. France’s story is a +person who never existed at all. All Joan’s wisdom and energy, it +seems, came from a certain priest, of whom there is not the tiniest +trace in all the multitudinous records of her life. The only foundation +I can find for this fancy is the highly undemocratic idea that a +peasant girl could not possibly have any ideas of her own. It is very +hard for a freethinker to remain democratic. The writer seems +altogether to forget what is meant by the moral atmosphere of a +community. To say that Joan must have learnt her vision of a virgin +overthrowing evil from _a_ priest, is like saying that some modern girl +in London, pitying the poor, must have learnt it from _a_ Labour +Member. She would learn it where the Labour Member learnt it—in the +whole state of our society. + +But that is the modern method: the method of the reverent sceptic. When +you find a life entirely incredible and incomprehensible from the +outside, you pretend that you understand the inside. As Renan, the +rationalist, could not make any sense out of Christ’s most public acts, +he proceeded to make an ingenious system out of His private thoughts. +As Anatole France, on his own intellectual principle, cannot believe in +what Joan of Arc did, he professes to be her dearest friend, and to +know exactly what she meant. I cannot feel it to be a very rational +manner of writing history; and sooner or later we shall have to find +some more solid way of dealing with those spiritual phenomena with +which all history is as closely spotted and spangled as the sky is with +stars. + +Joan of Arc is a wild and wonderful thing enough, but she is much saner +than most of her critics and biographers. We shall not recover the +common sense of Joan until we have recovered her mysticism. Our wars +fail, because they begin with something sensible and obvious—such as +getting to Pretoria by Christmas. But her war succeeded—because it +began with something wild and perfect—the saints delivering France. She +put her idealism in the right place, and her realism also in the right +place: we moderns get both displaced. She put her dreams and her +sentiment into her aims, where they ought to be; she put her +practicality into her practice. In modern Imperial wars, the case is +reversed. Our dreams, our aims are always, we insist, quite practical. +It is our practice that is dreamy. + +It is not for us to explain this flaming figure in terms of our tired +and querulous culture. Rather we must try to explain ourselves by the +blaze of such fixed stars. Those who called her a witch hot from hell +were much more sensible than those who depict her as a silly +sentimental maiden prompted by her parish priest. If I have to choose +between the two schools of her scattered enemies, I could take my place +with those subtle clerks who thought her divine mission devilish, +rather than with those rustic aunts and uncles who thought it +impossible. + + + + +A DEAD POET + + +With Francis Thompson we lose the greatest poetic energy since +Browning. His energy was of somewhat the same kind. Browning was +intellectually intricate because he was morally simple. He was too +simple to explain himself; he was too humble to suppose that other +people needed any explanation. But his real energy, and the real energy +of Francis Thompson, was best expressed in the fact that both poets +were at once fond of immensity and also fond of detail. Any common +Imperialist can have large ideas so long as he is not called upon to +have small ideas also. Any common scientific philosopher can have small +ideas so long as he is not called upon to have large ideas as well. But +great poets use the telescope and also the microscope. Great poets are +obscure for two opposite reasons; now, because they are talking about +something too large for any one to understand, and now again because +they are talking about something too small for any one to see. Francis +Thompson possessed both these infinities. He escaped by being too +small, as the microbe escapes; or he escaped by being too large, as the +universe escapes. Any one who knows Francis Thompson’s poetry knows +quite well the truth to which I refer. For the benefit of any person +who does not know it, I may mention two cases taken from memory. I have +not the book by me, so I can only render the poetical passages in a +clumsy paraphrase. But there was one poem of which the image was so +vast that it was literally difficult for a time to take it in; he was +describing the evening earth with its mist and fume and fragrance, and +represented the whole as rolling upwards like a smoke; then suddenly he +called the whole ball of the earth a thurible, and said that some +gigantic spirit swung it slowly before God. That is the case of the +image too large for comprehension. Another instance sticks in my mind +of the image which is too small. In one of his poems, he says that +abyss between the known and the unknown is bridged by “Pontifical +death.” There are about ten historical and theological puns in that one +word. That a priest means a pontiff, that a pontiff means a +bridge-maker, that death is certainly a bridge, that death may turn out +after all to be a reconciling priest, that at least priests and bridges +both attest to the fact that one thing can get separated from another +thing—these ideas, and twenty more, are all actually concentrated in +the word “pontifical.” In Francis Thompson’s poetry, as in the poetry +of the universe, you can work infinitely out and out, but yet +infinitely in and in. These two infinities are the mark of greatness; +and he was a great poet. + +Beneath the tide of praise which was obviously due to the dead poet, +there is an evident undercurrent of discussion about him; some charges +of moral weakness were at least important enough to be authoritatively +contradicted in the _Nation_; and, in connection with this and other +things, there has been a continuous stir of comment upon his attraction +to and gradual absorption in Catholic theological ideas. This question +is so important that I think it ought to be considered and understood +even at the present time. It is, of course, true that Francis Thompson +devoted himself more and more to poems not only purely Catholic, but, +one may say, purely ecclesiastical. And it is, moreover, true that (if +things go on as they are going on at present) more and more good poets +will do the same. Poets will tend towards Christian orthodoxy for a +perfectly plain reason; because it is about the simplest and freest +thing now left in the world. On this point it is very necessary to be +clear. When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they +seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing +there is) has these vices much more. The Church has been cruel; but the +world has been much more cruel. The Church has plotted; but the world +has plotted much more. The Church has been superstitious; but it has +never been so superstitious as the world is when left to itself. + +Now, poets in our epoch will tend towards ecclesiastical religion +strictly because it is just a little more free than anything else. +Take, for instance, the case of symbol and ritualism. All reasonable +men believe in symbol; but some reasonable men do not believe in +ritualism; by which they mean, I imagine, a symbolism too complex, +elaborate, and mechanical. But whenever they talk of ritualism they +always seem to mean the ritualism of the Church. Why should they not +mean the ritual of the world? It is much more ritualistic. The ritual +of the Army, the ritual of the Navy, the ritual of the Law Courts, the +ritual of Parliament are much more ritualistic. The ritual of a +dinner-party is much more ritualistic. Priests may put gold and great +jewels on the chalice; but at least there is only one chalice to put +them on. When you go to a dinner-party they put in front of you five +different chalices, of five weird and heraldic shapes, to symbolise +five different kinds of wine; an insane extension of ritual from which +Mr. Percy Dearmer would fly shrieking. A bishop wears a mitre; but he +is not thought more or less of a bishop according to whether you can +see the very latest curves in his mitre. But a swell is thought more or +less of a swell according to whether you can see the very latest curves +in his hat. There is more _fuss_ about symbols in the world than in the +Church. + +And yet (strangely enough) though men fuss more about the worldly +symbols, they mean less by them. It is the mark of religious forms that +they declare something unknown. But it is the mark of worldly forms +that they declare something which is known, and which is known to be +untrue. When the Pope in an Encyclical calls himself your father, it is +a matter of faith or of doubt. But when the Duke of Devonshire in a +letter calls himself yours obediently, you know that he means the +opposite of what he says. Religious forms are, at the worst, fables; +they might be true. Secular forms are falsehoods; they are not true. +Take a more topical case. The German Emperor has more uniforms than the +Pope. But, moreover, the Pope’s vestments all imply a claim to be +something purely mystical and doubtful. Many of the German Emperor’s +uniforms imply a claim to be something which he certainly is not and +which it would be highly disgusting if he were. The Pope may or may not +be the Vicar of Christ. But the Kaiser certainly is not an English +Colonel. If the thing were reality it would be treason. If it is mere +ritual, it is by far the most unreal ritual on earth. + +Now, poetical people like Francis Thompson will, as things stand, tend +away from secular society and towards religion for the reason above +described: that there are crowds of symbols in both, but that those of +religion are simpler and mean more. To take an evident type, the Cross +is more poetical than the Union Jack, because it is simpler. The more +simple an idea is, the more it is fertile in variations. Francis +Thompson could have written any number of good poems on the Cross, +because it is a primary symbol. The number of poems which Mr. Rudyard +Kipling could write on the Union Jack is, fortunately, limited, because +the Union Jack is too complex to produce luxuriance. The same principle +applies to any possible number of cases. A poet like Francis Thompson +could deduce perpetually rich and branching meanings out of two plain +facts like bread and wine; with bread and wine he can expand everything +to everywhere. But with a French menu he cannot expand anything; except +perhaps himself. Complicated ideas do not produce any more ideas. +Mongrels do not breed. Religious ritual attracts because there is some +sense in it. Religious imagery, so far from being subtle, is the only +simple thing left for poets. So far from being merely superhuman, it is +the only human thing left for human beings. + + + + +CHRISTMAS + + +There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating +Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article. It is the +very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and +abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment +the great day is. Up to a certain specific instant you are feeling +ordinary and sad; for it is only Wednesday. At the next moment your +heart leaps up and your soul and body dance together like lovers; for +in one burst and blaze it has become Thursday. I am assuming (of +course) that you are a worshipper of Thor, and that you celebrate his +day once a week, possibly with human sacrifice. If, on the other hand, +you are a modern Christian Englishman, you hail (of course) with the +same explosion of gaiety the appearance of the English Sunday. But I +say that whatever the day is that is to you festive or symbolic, it is +essential that there should be a quite clear black line between it and +the time going before. And all the old wholesome customs in connection +with Christmas were to the effect that one should not touch or see or +know or speak of something before the actual coming of Christmas Day. +Thus, for instance, children were never given their presents until the +actual coming of the appointed hour. The presents were kept tied up in +brown-paper parcels, out of which an arm of a doll or the leg of a +donkey sometimes accidentally stuck. I wish this principle were adopted +in respect of modern Christmas ceremonies and publications. Especially +it ought to be observed in connection with what are called the +Christmas numbers of magazines. The editors of the magazines bring out +their Christmas numbers so long before the time that the reader is more +likely to be still lamenting for the turkey of last year than to have +seriously settled down to a solid anticipation of the turkey which is +to come. Christmas numbers of magazines ought to be tied up in brown +paper and kept for Christmas Day. On consideration, I should favour the +editors being tied up in brown paper. Whether the leg or arm of an +editor should ever be allowed to protrude I leave to individual choice. + +Of course, all this secrecy about Christmas is merely sentimental and +ceremonial; if you do not like what is sentimental and ceremonial, do +not celebrate Christmas at all. You will not be punished if you don’t; +also, since we are no longer ruled by those sturdy Puritans who won for +us civil and religious liberty, you will not even be punished if you +do. But I cannot understand why any one should bother about a +ceremonial except ceremonially. If a thing only exists in order to be +graceful, do it gracefully or do not do it. If a thing only exists as +something professing to be solemn, do it solemnly or do not do it. +There is no sense in doing it slouchingly; nor is there even any +liberty. I can understand the man who takes off his hat to a lady +because it is the customary symbol. I can understand him, I say; in +fact, I know him quite intimately. I can also understand the man who +refuses to take off his hat to a lady, like the old Quakers, because he +thinks that a symbol is superstition. But what point would there be in +so performing an arbitrary form of respect that it was not a form of +respect? We respect the gentleman who takes off his hat to the lady; we +respect the fanatic who will not take off his hat to the lady. But what +should we think of the man who kept his hands in his pockets and asked +the lady to take his hat off for him because he felt tired? + +This is combining insolence and superstition; and the modern world is +full of the strange combination. There is no mark of the immense +weak-mindedness of modernity that is more striking than this general +disposition to keep up old forms, but to keep them up informally and +feebly. Why take something which was only meant to be respectful and +preserve it disrespectfully? Why take something which you could easily +abolish as a superstition and carefully perpetuate it as a bore? There +have been many instances of this half-witted compromise. Was it not +true, for instance, that the other day some mad American was trying to +buy Glastonbury Abbey and transfer it stone by stone to America? Such +things are not only illogical, but idiotic. There is no particular +reason why a pushing American financier should pay respect to +Glastonbury Abbey at all. But if he is to pay respect to Glastonbury +Abbey, he must pay respect to Glastonbury. If it is a matter of +sentiment, why should he spoil the scene? If it is not a matter of +sentiment, why should he ever have visited the scene? To call this kind +of thing Vandalism is a very inadequate and unfair description. The +Vandals were very sensible people. They did not believe in a religion, +and so they insulted it; they did not see any use for certain +buildings, and so they knocked them down. But they were not such fools +as to encumber their march with the fragments of the edifice they had +themselves spoilt. They were at least superior to the modern American +mode of reasoning. They did not desecrate the stones because they held +them sacred. + +Another instance of the same illogicality I observed the other day at +some kind of “At Home.” I saw what appeared to be a human being dressed +in a black evening-coat, black dress-waistcoat, and black +dress-trousers, but with a shirt-front made of Jaegar wool. What can be +the sense of this sort of thing? If a man thinks hygiene more important +than convention (a selfish and heathen view, for the beasts that perish +are more hygienic than man, and man is only above them because he is +more conventional), if, I say, a man thinks that hygiene is more +important than convention, what on earth is there to oblige him to wear +a shirt-front at all? But to take a costume of which the only +conceivable cause or advantage is that it is a sort of uniform, and +then not wear it in the uniform way—this is to be neither a Bohemian +nor a gentleman. It is a foolish affectation, I think, in an English +officer of the Life Guards never to wear his uniform if he can help it. +But it would be more foolish still if he showed himself about town in a +scarlet coat and a Jaeger breast-plate. It is the custom nowadays to +have Ritual Commissions and Ritual Reports to make rather unmeaning +compromises in the ceremonial of the Church of England. So perhaps we +shall have an ecclesiastical compromise by which all the Bishops shall +wear Jaeger copes and Jaeger mitres. Similarly the King might insist on +having a Jaeger crown. But I do not think he will, for he understands +the logic of the matter better than that. The modern monarch, like a +reasonable fellow, wears his crown as seldom as he can; but if he does +it at all, then the only point of a crown is that it is a crown. So let +me assure the unknown gentleman in the woollen vesture that the only +point of a white shirt-front is that it is a white shirt-front. +Stiffness may be its impossible defect; but it is certainly its only +possible merit. + +Let us be consistent, therefore, about Christmas, and either keep +customs or not keep them. If you do not like sentiment and symbolism, +you do not like Christmas; go away and celebrate something else; I +should suggest the birthday of Mr. M’Cabe. No doubt you could have a +sort of scientific Christmas with a hygienic pudding and highly +instructive presents stuffed into a Jaeger stocking; go and have it +then. If you like those things, doubtless you are a good sort of +fellow, and your intentions are excellent. I have no doubt that you are +really interested in humanity; but I cannot think that humanity will +ever be much interested in you. Humanity is unhygienic from its very +nature and beginning. It is so much an exception in Nature that the +laws of Nature really mean nothing to it. Now Christmas is attacked +also on the humanitarian ground. Ouida called it a feast of slaughter +and gluttony. Mr. Shaw suggested that it was invented by poulterers. +That should be considered before it becomes more considerable. + +I do not know whether an animal killed at Christmas has had a better or +a worse time than it would have had if there had been no Christmas or +no Christmas dinners. But I do know that the fighting and suffering +brotherhood to which I belong and owe everything, Mankind, would have a +much worse time if there were no such thing as Christmas or Christmas +dinners. Whether the turkey which Scrooge gave to Bob Cratchit had +experienced a lovelier or more melancholy career than that of less +attractive turkeys is a subject upon which I cannot even conjecture. +But that Scrooge was better for giving the turkey and Cratchit happier +for getting it I know as two facts, as I know that I have two feet. +What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul +of Scrooge and the body of Cratchit are my business. Nothing shall +induce me to darken human homes, to destroy human festivities, to +insult human gifts and human benefactions for the sake of some +hypothetical knowledge which Nature curtained from our eyes. We men and +women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other +a terrible and tragic loyalty. If we catch sharks for food, let them be +killed most mercifully; let any one who likes love the sharks, and pet +the sharks, and tie ribbons round their necks and give them sugar and +teach them to dance. But if once a man suggests that a shark is to be +valued against a sailor, or that the poor shark might be permitted to +bite off a nigger’s leg occasionally; then I would court-martial the +man—he is a traitor to the ship. + +And while I take this view of humanitarianism of the anti-Christmas +kind, it is cogent to say that I am a strong anti-vivisectionist. That +is, if there is any vivisection, I am against it. I am against the +cutting-up of conscious dogs for the same reason that I am in favour of +the eating of dead turkeys. The connection may not be obvious; but that +is because of the strangely unhealthy condition of modern thought. I am +against cruel vivisection as I am against a cruel anti-Christmas +asceticism, because they both involve the upsetting of existing +fellowships and the shocking of normal good feelings for the sake of +something that is intellectual, fanciful, and remote. It is not a human +thing, it is not a humane thing, when you see a poor woman staring +hungrily at a bloater, to think, not of the obvious feelings of the +woman, but of the unimaginable feelings of the deceased bloater. +Similarly, it is not human, it is not humane, when you look at a dog to +think about what theoretic discoveries you might possibly make if you +were allowed to bore a hole in his head. Both the humanitarians’ fancy +about the feelings concealed inside the bloater, and the +vivisectionists’ fancy about the knowledge concealed inside the dog, +are unhealthy fancies, because they upset a human sanity that is +certain for the sake of something that is of necessity uncertain. The +vivisectionist, for the sake of doing something that may or may not be +useful, does something that certainly is horrible. The anti-Christmas +humanitarian, in seeking to have a sympathy with a turkey which no man +can have with a turkey, loses the sympathy he has already with the +happiness of millions of the poor. + +It is not uncommon nowadays for the insane extremes in reality to meet. +Thus I have always felt that brutal Imperialism and Tolstoian +non-resistance were not only not opposite, but were the same thing. +They are the same contemptible thought that conquest cannot be +resisted, looked at from the two standpoints of the conqueror and the +conquered. Thus again teetotalism and the really degraded gin-selling +and dram-drinking have exactly the same moral philosophy. They are both +based on the idea that fermented liquor is not a drink, but a drug. But +I am specially certain that the extreme of vegetarian humanity is, as I +have said, akin to the extreme of scientific cruelty—they both permit a +dubious speculation to interfere with their ordinary charity. The sound +moral rule in such matters as vivisection always presents itself to me +in this way. There is no ethical necessity more essential and vital +than this: that casuistical exceptions, though admitted, should be +admitted as exceptions. And it follows from this, I think, that, though +we may do a horrid thing in a horrid situation, we must be quite +certain that we actually and already are in that situation. Thus, all +sane moralists admit that one may sometimes tell a lie; but no sane +moralist would approve of telling a little boy to practise telling +lies, in case he might one day have to tell a justifiable one. Thus, +morality has often justified shooting a robber or a burglar. But it +would not justify going into the village Sunday school and shooting all +the little boys who looked as if they might grow up into burglars. The +need may arise; but the need must have arisen. It seems to me quite +clear that if you step across this limit you step off a precipice. + +Now, whether torturing an animal is or is not an immoral thing, it is, +at least, a dreadful thing. It belongs to the order of exceptional and +even desperate acts. Except for some extraordinary reason I would not +grievously hurt an animal; with an extraordinary reason I would +grievously hurt him. If (for example) a mad elephant were pursuing me +and my family, and I could only shoot him so that he would die in +agony, he would have to die in agony. But the elephant would be there. +I would not do it to a hypothetical elephant. Now, it always seems to +me that this is the weak point in the ordinary vivisectionist argument, +“Suppose your wife were dying.” Vivisection is not done by a man whose +wife is dying. If it were it might be lifted to the level of the +moment, as would be lying or stealing bread, or any other ugly action. +But this ugly action is done in cold blood, at leisure, by men who are +not sure that it will be of any use to anybody—men of whom the most +that can be said is that they may conceivably make the beginnings of +some discovery which may perhaps save the life of some one else’s wife +in some remote future. That is too cold and distant to rob an act of +its immediate horror. That is like training the child to tell lies for +the sake of some great dilemma that may never come to him. You are +doing a cruel thing, but not with enough passion to make it a kindly +one. + +So much for why I am an anti-vivisectionist; and I should like to say, +in conclusion, that all other anti-vivisectionists of my acquaintance +weaken their case infinitely by forming this attack on a scientific +speciality in which the human heart is commonly on their side, with +attacks upon universal human customs in which the human heart is not at +all on their side. I have heard humanitarians, for instance, speak of +vivisection and field sports as if they were the same kind of thing. +The difference seems to me simple and enormous. In sport a man goes +into a wood and mixes with the existing life of that wood; becomes a +destroyer only in the simple and healthy sense in which all the +creatures are destroyers; becomes for one moment to them what they are +to him—another animal. In vivisection a man takes a simpler creature +and subjects it to subtleties which no one but man could inflict on +him, and for which man is therefore gravely and terribly responsible. + +Meanwhile, it remains true that I shall eat a great deal of turkey this +Christmas; and it is not in the least true (as the vegetarians say) +that I shall do it because I do not realise what I am doing, or because +I do what I know is wrong, or that I do it with shame or doubt or a +fundamental unrest of conscience. In one sense I know quite well what I +am doing; in another sense I know quite well that I know not what I do. +Scrooge and the Cratchits and I are, as I have said, all in one boat; +the turkey and I are, to say the most of it, ships that pass in the +night, and greet each other in passing. I wish him well; but it is +really practically impossible to discover whether I treat him well. I +can avoid, and I do avoid with horror, all special and artificial +tormenting of him, sticking pins in him for fun or sticking knives in +him for scientific investigation. But whether by feeding him slowly and +killing him quickly for the needs of my brethren, I have improved in +his own solemn eyes his own strange and separate destiny, whether I +have made him in the sight of God a slave or a martyr, or one whom the +gods love and who die young—that is far more removed from my +possibilities of knowledge than the most abstruse intricacies of +mysticism or theology. A turkey is more occult and awful than all the +angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an +angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has +never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live +turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the +enigma has rather increased than diminished. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11505 *** |