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diff --git a/23347.txt b/23347.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee8c1ad --- /dev/null +++ b/23347.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2715 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mental Efficiency, by Arnold Bennett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mental Efficiency + And Other Hints to Men and Women + +Author: Arnold Bennett + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23347] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MENTAL EFFICIENCY *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + * * * * * + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | + | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + * * * * * + + + + +MENTAL EFFICIENCY + + + + + +--------------------------------------------+ + | BY ARNOLD BENNETT | + | | + | _Novels_ | + | | + | THE OLD WIVES' TALE | + | HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND | + | THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA | + | BURIED ALIVE | + | A GREAT MAN | + | LEONORA | + | WHOM GOD HATH JOINED | + | A MAN FROM THE NORTH | + | ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS | + | THE GLIMPSE | + | | + | _Pocket Philosophies_ | + | | + | HOW TO LIVE ON 24 HOURS A DAY | + | THE HUMAN MACHINE | + | LITERARY TASTE | + | MENTAL EFFICIENCY | + | | + | _Miscellaneous_ | + | | + | CUPID AND COMMONSENSE: A Play | + | WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS: A Play | + | THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR | + | THE FEAST OF ST. FRIEND | + | | + | GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY | + | NEW YORK | + +--------------------------------------------+ + + + + +MENTAL EFFICIENCY + +AND OTHER HINTS +TO +MEN AND WOMEN + +BY + +ARNOLD BENNETT + +Author of "How to Live on 24 Hours a Day" +"The Old Wives' Tale," etc. + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + + + +Copyright, 1911 +By George H. Doran Company + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Page + +I. Mental Efficiency 7 + The Appeal 7 + The Replies 13 + The Cure 19 + Mental Calisthenics 24 + +II. Expressing One's Individuality 32 + +III. Breaking with the Past 39 + +IV. Settling Down in Life 45 + +V. Marriage 53 + The Duty of It 53 + The Adventure of It 59 + The Two Ways of It 65 + +VI. Books 72 + The Physical Side 72 + The Philosophy of Book Buying 78 + +VII. Success 84 + Candid Remarks 84 + The Successful and the Unsuccessful 91 + The Inwardness of Success 97 + +VIII. The Petty Artificialities 104 + +IX. The Secret of Content 112 + + + + +I + +MENTAL EFFICIENCY + + +THE APPEAL + +If there is any virtue in advertisements--and a journalist should be +the last person to say that there is not--the American nation is +rapidly reaching a state of physical efficiency of which the world has +probably not seen the like since Sparta. In all the American +newspapers and all the American monthlies are innumerable illustrated +announcements of "physical-culture specialists," who guarantee to make +all the organs of the body perform their duties with the mighty +precision of a 60 h.p. motor-car that never breaks down. I saw a book +the other day written by one of these specialists, to show how perfect +health could be attained by devoting a quarter of an hour a day to +certain exercises. The advertisements multiply and increase in size. +They cost a great deal of money. Therefore they must bring in a great +deal of business. Therefore vast numbers of people must be worried +about the non-efficiency of their bodies, and on the way to achieve +efficiency. In our more modest British fashion, we have the same +phenomenon in England. And it is growing. Our muscles are growing +also. Surprise a man in his bedroom of a morning, and you will find +him lying on his back on the floor, or standing on his head, or +whirling clubs, in pursuit of physical efficiency. I remember that +once I "went in" for physical efficiency myself. I, too, lay on the +floor, my delicate epidermis separated from the carpet by only the +thinnest of garments, and I contorted myself according to the fifteen +diagrams of a large chart (believed to be the _magna charta_ of +physical efficiency) daily after shaving. In three weeks my collars +would not meet round my prize-fighter's neck; my hosier reaped immense +profits, and I came to the conclusion that I had carried physical +efficiency quite far enough. + +A strange thing--was it not?--that I never had the idea of devoting a +quarter of an hour a day after shaving to the pursuit of mental +efficiency. The average body is a pretty complicated affair, sadly +out of order, but happily susceptible to culture. The average mind is +vastly more complicated, not less sadly out of order, but perhaps even +more susceptible to culture. We compare our arms to the arms of the +gentleman illustrated in the physical efficiency advertisement, and we +murmur to ourselves the classic phrase: "This will never do." And we +set about developing the muscles of our arms until we can show them +off (through a frock coat) to women at afternoon tea. But it does not, +perhaps, occur to us that the mind has its muscles, and a lot of +apparatus besides, and that these invisible, yet paramount, mental +organs are far less efficient than they ought to be; that some of them +are atrophied, others starved, others out of shape, etc. A man of +sedentary occupation goes for a very long walk on Easter Monday, and +in the evening is so exhausted that he can scarcely eat. He wakes up +to the inefficiency of his body, caused by his neglect of it, and he +is so shocked that he determines on remedial measures. Either he will +walk to the office, or he will play golf, or he will execute the +post-shaving exercises. But let the same man after a prolonged +sedentary course of newspapers, magazines, and novels, take his mind +out for a stiff climb among the rocks of a scientific, philosophic, or +artistic subject. What will he do? Will he stay out all day, and +return in the evening too tired even to read his paper? Not he. It is +ten to one that, finding himself puffing for breath after a quarter of +an hour, he won't even persist till he gets his second wind, but will +come back at once. Will he remark with genuine concern that his mind +is sadly out of condition and that he really must do something to get +it into order? Not he. It is a hundred to one that he will tranquilly +accept the _status quo_, without shame and without very poignant +regret. Do I make my meaning clear? + +I say, without a _very poignant_ regret, because a certain vague +regret is indubitably caused by realizing that one is handicapped by a +mental inefficiency which might, without too much difficulty, be +cured. That vague regret exudes like a vapour from the more cultivated +section of the public. It is to be detected everywhere, and especially +among people who are near the half-way house of life. They perceive +the existence of immense quantities of knowledge, not the smallest +particle of which will they ever make their own. They stroll forth +from their orderly dwellings on a starlit night, and feel dimly the +wonder of the heavens. But the still small voice is telling them that, +though they have read in a newspaper that there are fifty thousand +stars in the Pleiades, they cannot even point to the Pleiades in the +sky. How they would like to grasp the significance of the nebular +theory, the most overwhelming of all theories! And the years are +passing; and there are twenty-four hours in every day, out of which +they work only six or seven; and it needs only an impulse, an effort, +a system, in order gradually to cure the mind of its slackness, to +give "tone" to its muscles, and to enable it to grapple with the +splendours of knowledge and sensation that await it! But the regret is +not poignant enough. They do nothing. They go on doing nothing. It is +as though they passed for ever along the length of an endless table +filled with delicacies, and could not stretch out a hand to seize. Do +I exaggerate? Is there not deep in the consciousness of most of us a +mournful feeling that our minds are like the liver of the +advertisement--sluggish, and that for the sluggishness of our minds +there is the excuse neither of incompetence, nor of lack of time, nor +of lack of opportunity, nor of lack of means? + +Why does not some mental efficiency specialist come forward and show +us how to make our minds do the work which our minds are certainly +capable of doing? I do not mean a quack. All the physical efficiency +specialists who advertise largely are not quacks. Some of them achieve +very genuine results. If a course of treatment can be devised for the +body, a course of treatment can be devised for the mind. Thus we might +realize some of the ambitions which all of us cherish in regard to the +utilization in our spare time of that magnificent machine which we +allow to rust within our craniums. We have the desire to perfect +ourselves, to round off our careers with the graces of knowledge and +taste. How many people would not gladly undertake some branch of +serious study, so that they might not die under the reproach of having +lived and died without ever really having known anything about +anything! It is not the absence of desire that prevents them. It is, +first, the absence of will-power--not the will to begin, but the will +to continue; and, second, a mental apparatus which is out of +condition, "puffy," "weedy," through sheer neglect. The remedy, then, +divides itself into two parts, the cultivation of will-power, and the +getting into condition of the mental apparatus. And these two branches +of the cure must be worked concurrently. + +I am sure that the considerations which I have presented to you must +have already presented themselves to tens of thousands of my readers, +and that thousands must have attempted the cure. I doubt not that many +have succeeded. I shall deem it a favour if those readers who have +interested themselves in the question will communicate to me at once +the result of their experience, whatever its outcome. I will make such +use as I can of the letters I receive, and afterwards I will give my +own experience. + + +THE REPLIES + +The correspondence which I have received in answer to my appeal shows +that at any rate I did not overstate the case. There is, among a vast +mass of reflecting people in this country, a clear consciousness of +being mentally less than efficient, and a strong (though ineffective) +desire that such mental inefficiency should cease to be. The desire is +stronger than I had imagined, but it does not seem to have led to +much hitherto. And that "course of treatment for the mind," by means +of which we are to "realize some of the ambitions which all of us +cherish in regard to the utilization in our spare time of the +magnificent machine which we allow to rust within our craniums"--that +desiderated course of treatment has not apparently been devised by +anybody. The Sandow of the brain has not yet loomed up above the +horizon. On the other hand, there appears to be a general expectancy +that I personally am going to play the role of the Sandow of the +brain. Vain thought! + +I have been very much interested in the letters, some of which, as a +statement of the matter in question, are admirable. It is perhaps not +surprising that the best of them come from women--for (genius apart) +woman is usually more touchingly lyrical than man in the yearning for +the ideal. The most enthusiastic of all the letters I have received, +however, is from a gentleman whose notion is that we should be +hypnotised into mental efficiency. After advocating the establishment +of "an institution of practical psychology from whence there can be +graduated fit and proper people whose efforts would be in the +direction of the subconscious mental mechanism of the child or even +the adult," this hypnotist proceeds: "Between the academician, whose +specialty is an inconsequential cobweb, the medical man who has got it +into his head that he is the logical foster-father for psychonomical +matters, and the blatant 'professor' who deals with monkey tricks on a +few somnambules on the music-hall stage, you are allowing to go +unrecognized one of the most potent factors of mental development." Am +I? I have not the least idea what this gentleman means, but I can +assure him that he is wrong. I can make more sense out of the remarks +of another correspondent who, utterly despising the things of the +mind, compares a certain class of young men to "a halfpenny bloater +with the roe out," and asserts that he himself "got out of the groove" +by dint of having to unload ten tons of coal in three hours and a half +every day during several years. This is interesting and it is +constructive, but it is just a little beside the point. + +A lady, whose optimism is indicated by her pseudonym, "Esperance," +puts her finger on the spot, or, rather, on one of the spots, in a +very sensible letter. "It appears to me," she says, "that the great +cause of mental inefficiency is lack of concentration, perhaps +especially in the case of women. I can trace my chief failures to this +cause. Concentration, is a talent. It may be in a measure cultivated, +but it needs to be inborn.... The greater number of us are in a state +of semi-slumber, with minds which are only exerted to one-half of +their capability." I thoroughly agree that inability to concentrate is +one of the chief symptoms of the mental machine being out of +condition. "Esperance's" suggested cure is rather drastic. She says: +"Perhaps one of the best cures for mental sedentariness is arithmetic, +for there is nothing else which requires greater power of +concentration." Perhaps arithmetic might be an effective cure, but it +is not a practical cure, because no one, or scarcely any one, would +practise it. I cannot imagine the plain man who, having a couple of +hours to spare of a night, and having also the sincere desire but not +the will-power to improve his taste and knowledge, would deliberately +sit down and work sums by way of preliminary mental calisthenics. As +Ibsen's puppet said: "People don't do these things." Why do they not? +The answer is: Simply because they won't; simply because human nature +will not run to it. "Esperance's" suggestion of learning poetry is +slightly better. + +Certainly the best letter I have had is from Miss H. D. She says: +"This idea [to avoid the reproach of 'living and dying without ever +really knowing anything about anything'] came to me of itself from +somewhere when I was a small girl. And looking back I fancy that the +thought itself spurred me to do something in this world, to get into +line with people who did things--people who painted pictures, wrote +books, built bridges, or did something beyond the ordinary. This only +has seemed to me, all my life since, worth while." Here I must +interject that such a statement is somewhat sweeping. In fact, it +sweeps a whole lot of fine and legitimate ambitions straight into the +rubbish heap of the Not-worth-while. I think the writer would wish to +modify it. She continues: "And when the day comes in which I have not +done some serious reading, however small the measure, or some writing +... or I have been too sad or dull to notice the brightness of colour +of the sun, of grass and flowers, of the sea, or the moonlight on the +water, I think the day ill-spent. So I must think the _incentive_ to +do a little each day beyond the ordinary towards the real culture of +the mind, is the beginning of the cure of mental inefficiency." This +is very ingenious and good. Further: "The day comes when the mental +habit has become a part of our life, and we value mental work for the +work's sake." But I am not sure about that. For myself, I have never +valued work for its own sake, and I never shall. And I only value such +mental work for the more full and more intense consciousness of being +alive which it gives me. + +Miss H. D.'s remedies are vague. As to lack of will-power, "the first +step is to realize your weakness; the next step is to have ordinary +shame that you are defective." I doubt, I gravely doubt, if these +steps would lead to anything definite. Nor is this very helpful: "I +would advise reading, observing, writing. I would advise the use of +every sense and every faculty by which we at last learn the sacredness +of life." This is begging the question. If people, by merely wishing +to do so, could regularly and seriously read, observe, write, and use +every faculty and sense, there would be very little mental +inefficiency. I see that I shall be driven to construct a programme +out of my own bitter and ridiculous experiences. + + +THE CURE + + "But tasks in hours of insight willed + Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled." + +The above lines from Matthew Arnold are quoted by one of my very +numerous correspondents to support a certain optimism in this matter +of a systematic attempt to improve the mind. They form part of a +beautiful and inspiring poem, but I gravely fear that they run counter +to the vast mass of earthly experience. More often than not I have +found that a task willed in some hour of insight can _not_ be +fulfilled through hours of gloom. No, no, and no! To will is easy: it +needs but the momentary bright contagion of a stronger spirit than +one's own. To fulfil, morning after morning, or evening after evening, +through months and years--this is the very dickens, and there is not +one of my readers that will not agree with me. Yet such is the elastic +quality of human nature that most of my correspondents are quite ready +to ignore the sad fact and to demand at once: "what shall we will? +Tell us what we must will." Some seem to think that they have solved +the difficulty when they have advocated certain systems of memory and +mind-training. Such systems may be in themselves useful or +useless--the evidence furnished to me is contradictory--but were they +perfect systems, a man cannot be intellectually born again merely by +joining a memory-class. The best system depends utterly on the man's +power of resolution. And what really counts is not the system, but the +spirit in which the man handles it. Now, the proper spirit can only be +induced by a careful consideration and realization of the man's +conditions--the limitations of his temperament, the strength of +adverse influences, and the lessons of his past. + +Let me take an average case. Let me take your case, O man or woman of +thirty, living in comfort, with some cares, and some responsibilities, +and some pretty hard daily work, but not too much of any! The question +of mental efficiency is in the air. It interests you. It touches you +nearly. Your conscience tells you that your mind is less active and +less informed than it might be. You suddenly spring up from the +garden-seat, and you say to yourself that you will take your mind in +hand and do something with it. Wait a moment. Be so good as to sink +back into that garden-seat and clutch that tennis racket a little +longer. You have had these "hours of insight" before, you know. You +have not arrived at the age of thirty without having tried to carry +out noble resolutions--and failed. What precautions are you going to +take against failure this time? For your will is probably no stronger +now than it was aforetime. You have admitted and accepted failure in +the past. And no wound is more cruel to the spirit of resolve than +that dealt by failure. You fancy the wound closed, but just at the +critical moment it may reopen and mortally bleed you. What are your +precautions? Have you thought of them? No. You have not. + +I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance. But I know you because I +know myself. Your failure in the past was due to one or more of three +causes. And the first was that you undertook too much at the +beginning. You started off with a magnificent programme. You are +something of an expert in physical exercises--you would be ashamed +not to be, in these physical days--and so you would never attempt a +hurdle race or an uninterrupted hour's club-whirling without some +preparation. The analogy between the body and the mind ought to have +struck you. _This_ time, please do not form an elaborate programme. Do +not form any programme. Simply content yourself with a preliminary +canter, a ridiculously easy preliminary canter. For example (and I +give this merely as an example), you might say to yourself: "Within +one month from this date I will read twice Herbert Spencer's little +book on 'Education'--sixpence--and will make notes in pencil inside +the back cover of the things that particularly strike me." You remark +that that is nothing, that you can do it "on your head," and so on. +Well, do it. When it is done you will at any rate possess the +satisfaction of having resolved to do something and having done it. +Your mind will have gained tone and healthy pride. You will be even +justified in setting yourself some kind of a simple programme to +extend over three months. And you will have acquired some general +principles by the light of which to construct the programme. But best +of all, you will have avoided failure, that dangerous wound. + +The second possible cause of previous failure was the disintegrating +effect on the will-power of the ironic, superior smile of friends. +Whenever a man "turns over a new leaf" he has this inane giggle to +face. The drunkard may be less ashamed of getting drunk than of +breaking to a crony the news that he has signed the pledge. Strange, +but true! And human nature must be counted with. Of course, on a few +stern spirits the effect of that smile is merely to harden the +resolution. But on the majority its influence is deleterious. +Therefore don't go and nail your flag to the mast. Don't raise any +flag. Say nothing. Work as unobtrusively as you can. When you have won +a battle or two you can begin to wave the banner, and then you will +find that that miserable, pitiful, ironic, superior smile will die +away ere it is born. + +The third possible cause was that you did not rearrange your day. +Idler and time-waster though you have been, still you had done +_something_ during the twenty-four hours. You went to work with a kind +of dim idea that there were twenty-six hours in every day. _Something +large and definite has to be dropped._ Some space in the rank jungle +of the day has to be cleared and swept up for the new operations. +Robbing yourself of sleep won't help you, nor trying to "squeeze in" a +time for study between two other times. Use the knife, and use it +freely. If you mean to read or think half an hour a day, arrange for +an hour. A hundred per cent. margin is not too much for a beginner. Do +you ask me where the knife is to be used? I should say that in nine +cases out of ten the rites of the cult of the body might be +abbreviated. I recently spent a week-end in a London suburb, and I was +staggered by the wholesale attention given to physical recreation in +all its forms. It was a gigantic debauch of the muscles on every side. +It shocked me. "Poor withering mind!" I thought. "Cricket, and +football, and boating, and golf, and tennis have their 'seasons,' but +not thou!" These considerations are general and prefatory. Now I must +come to detail. + + +MENTAL CALISTHENICS + +I have dealt with the state of mind in which one should begin a +serious effort towards mental efficiency, and also with the probable +causes of failure in previous efforts. We come now to what I may call +the calisthenics of the business, exercises which may be roughly +compared to the technical exercises necessary in learning to play a +musical instrument. It is curious that a person studying a musical +instrument will have no false shame whatever in doing mere exercises +for the fingers and wrists while a person who is trying to get his +mind into order will almost certainly experience a false shame in +going through performances which are undoubtedly good for him. Herein +lies one of the great obstacles to mental efficiency. Tell a man that +he should join a memory class, and he will hum and haw, and say, as I +have already remarked, that memory isn't everything; and, in short, he +won't join the memory class, partly from indolence, I grant, but more +from false shame. (Is not this true?) He will even hesitate about +learning things by heart. Yet there are few mental exercises better +than learning great poetry or prose by heart. Twenty lines a week for +six months: what a "cure" for debility! The chief, but not the only, +merit of learning by heart as an exercise is that it compels the mind +to concentrate. And the most important preliminary to self-development +is the faculty of concentrating at will. Another excellent exercise is +to read a page of no-matter-what, and then immediately to write +down--in one's own words or in the author's--one's full recollection +of it. A quarter of an hour a day! No more! And it works like magic. + +This brings me to the department of writing. I am a writer by +profession; but I do not think I have any prejudices in favour of the +exercise of writing. Indeed, I say to myself every morning that if +there is one exercise in the world which I hate, it is the exercise of +writing. But I must assert that in my opinion the exercise of writing +is an indispensable part of any genuine effort towards mental +efficiency. I don't care much what you write, so long as you compose +sentences and achieve continuity. There are forty ways of writing in +an unprofessional manner, and they are all good. You may keep "a full +diary," as Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson says he does. This is one of +the least good ways. Diaries, save in experienced hands like those of +Mr. Benson, are apt to get themselves done with the very minimum of +mental effort. They also tend to an exaggeration of egotism, and if +they are left lying about they tend to strife. Further, one never +knows when one may not be compelled to produce them in a court of +law. A journal is better. Do not ask me to define the difference +between a journal and a diary. I will not and I cannot. It is a +difference that one feels instinctively. A diary treats exclusively of +one's self and one's doings; a journal roams wider, and notes whatever +one has observed of interest. A diary relates that one had lobster +mayonnaise for dinner and rose the next morning with a headache, +doubtless attributable to mental strain. A journal relates that +Mrs. ----, whom one took into dinner, had brown eyes, and an agreeable +trick of throwing back her head after asking a question, and gives her +account of her husband's strange adventures in Colorado, etc. A diary +is + + All I, I, I, I, itself I + +(to quote a line of the transcendental poetry of Mary Baker G. Eddy). +A journal is the large spectacle of life. A journal may be special or +general. I know a man who keeps a journal of all cases of current +superstition which he actually encounters. He began it without the +slightest suspicion that he was beginning a document of astounding +interest and real scientific value; but such was the fact. In default +of a diary or a journal, one may write essays (provided one has the +moral courage); or one may simply make notes on the book one reads. Or +one may construct anthologies of passages which have made an +individual and particular appeal to one's tastes. Anthology +construction is one of the pleasantest hobbies that a person who is +not mad about golf and bridge--that is to say, a thinking person--can +possibly have; and I recommend it to those who, discreetly mistrusting +their power to keep up a fast pace from start to finish, are anxious +to begin their intellectual course gently and mildly. In any event, +writing--the act of writing--is vital to almost any scheme. I would +say it was vital to every scheme, without exception, were I not sure +that some kind correspondent would instantly point out a scheme to +which writing was obviously not vital. + +After writing comes thinking. (The sequence may be considered odd, but +I adhere to it.) In this connexion I cannot do better than quote an +admirable letter which I have received from a correspondent who wishes +to be known only as "An Oxford Lecturer." The italics (except the +last) are mine, not his. He says: "Till a man has got his physical +brain completely under his control--_suppressing its too-great +receptivity, its tendencies to reproduce idly the thoughts of others, +and to be swayed by every passing gust of emotion_--I hold that he +cannot do a tenth part of the work that he would then be able to +perform with little or no effort. Moreover, work apart, he has not +entered upon his kingdom, and unlimited possibilities of future +development are barred to him. Mental efficiency can be gained by +constant practice in meditation--i.e., by concentrating the mind, say, +for but ten minutes daily, but with absolute regularity, on some of +the highest thoughts of which it is capable. Failures will be +frequent, but they must be regarded with simple indifference and +dogged perseverance in the path chosen. If that path be followed +_without intermission_ even for a few weeks the results will speak for +themselves." I thoroughly agree with what this correspondent says, and +am obliged to him for having so ably stated the case. But I regard +such a practice of meditation as he indicates as being rather an +"advanced" exercise for a beginner. After the beginner has got under +way, and gained a little confidence in his strength of purpose, and +acquired the skill to define his thoughts sufficiently to write them +down--then it would be time enough, in my view, to undertake what "An +Oxford Lecturer" suggests. By the way, he highly recommends Mrs. Annie +Besant's book, _Thought Power: Its Control and Culture_. He says that +it treats the subject with scientific clearness, and gives a practical +method of training the mind, I endorse the latter part of the +statement. + +So much for the more or less technical processes of stirring the mind +from its sloth and making it exactly obedient to the aspirations of +the soul. And here I close. Numerous correspondents have asked me to +outline a course of reading for them. In other words, they have asked +me to particularize for them the aspirations of their souls. My +subject, however, was not self-development My subject was mental +efficiency as a means to self-development. Of course, one can only +acquire mental efficiency in the actual effort of self-development. +But I was concerned, not with the choice of route; rather with the +manner of following the route. You say to me that I am busying myself +with the best method of walking, and refusing to discuss where to go. +Precisely. One man cannot tell another man where the other man wants +to go. + +If he can't himself decide on a goal he may as well curl up and +expire, for the root of the matter is not in him. I will content +myself with pointing out that the entire universe is open for +inspection. Too many people fancy that self-development means +literature. They associate the higher life with an intimate knowledge +of the life of Charlotte Bronte, or the order of the plays of +Shakespeare. The higher life may just as well be butterflies, or +funeral customs, or county boundaries, or street names, or mosses, or +stars, or slugs, as Charlotte Bronte or Shakespeare. Choose what +interests you. Lots of finely-organized, mentally-efficient persons +can't read Shakespeare at any price, and if you asked them who was the +author of _The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_ they might proudly answer +Emily Bronte, if they didn't say they never heard of it. An accurate +knowledge of _any_ subject, coupled with a carefully nurtured sense of +the relativity of that subject to other subjects, implies an enormous +self-development. With this hint I conclude. + + + + +II + +EXPRESSING ONE'S INDIVIDUALITY + + +A most curious and useful thing to realize is that one never knows the +impression one is creating on other people. One may often guess pretty +accurately whether it is good, bad, or indifferent--some people render +it unnecessary for one to guess, they practically inform one--but that +is not what I mean. I mean much more than that. I mean that one has +one's self no mental picture corresponding to the mental picture which +one's personality leaves in the minds of one's friends. Has it ever +struck you that there is a mysterious individual going around, walking +the streets, calling at houses for tea, chatting, laughing, grumbling, +arguing, and that all your friends know him and have long since added +him up and come to a definite conclusion about him--without saying +more than a chance, cautious word to you; and that that person is +_you_? Supposing that _you_ came into a drawing-room where you were +having tea, do you think you would recognize yourself as an +individuality? I think not. You would be apt to say to yourself, as +guests do when disturbed in drawing-rooms by other guests: "Who's this +chap? Seems rather queer, I hope he won't be a bore." And your first +telling would be slightly hostile. Why, even when you meet yourself in +an unsuspected mirror in the very clothes that you have put on that +very day and that you know by heart, you are almost always shocked by +the realization that you are you. And now and then, when you have gone +to the glass to arrange your hair in the full sobriety of early +morning, have you not looked on an absolute stranger, and has not that +stranger piqued your curiosity? And if it is thus with precise +external details of form, colour, and movement, what may it not be +with the vague complex effect of the mental and moral individuality? + +A man honestly tries to make a good impression. What is the result? +The result merely is that his friends, in the privacy of their minds, +set him down as a man who tries to make a good impression. If much +depends on the result of a single interview, or a couple of +interviews, a man may conceivably force another to accept an +impression of himself which he would like to convey. But if the +receiver of the impression is to have time at his disposal, then the +giver of the impression may just as well sit down and put his hands in +his pockets, for nothing that he can do will modify or influence in +any way the impression that he will ultimately give. The real impress +is, in the end, given unconsciously, not consciously; and further, it +is received unconsciously, not consciously. It depends partly on both +persons. And it is immutably fixed beforehand. There can be no final +deception. Take the extreme case, that of the mother and her son. One +hears that the son hoodwinks his mother. Not he! If he is cruel, +neglectful, overbearing, she is perfectly aware of it. He does not +deceive her, and she does not deceive herself. I have often thought: +If a son could look into a mother's heart, what an eye-opener he would +have! "What!" he would cry. "This cold, impartial judgment, this keen +vision for my faults, this implacable memory of little slights, and +injustices, and callousnesses committed long ago, in the breast of my +mother!" Yes, my friend, in the breast of your mother. The only +difference between your mother and another person is that she takes +you as you are, and loves you for what you are. She isn't blind: do +not imagine it. + +The marvel is, not that people are such bad judges of character, but +that they are such good judges, especially of what I may call +fundamental character. The wiliest person cannot for ever conceal his +fundamental character from the simplest. And people are very stern +judges, too. Think of your best friends--are you oblivious of their +defects? On the contrary, you are perhaps too conscious of them. When +you summon them before your mind's eye, it is no ideal creation that +you see. When you meet them and talk to them you are constantly making +reservations in their disfavour--unless, of course, you happen to be a +schoolgirl gushing over like a fountain with enthusiasm. It is well, +when one is judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with +the same godlike and superior impartiality. It is well to grasp the +fact that you are going through life under the scrutiny of a band of +acquaintances who are subject to very few illusions about you, whose +views of you are, indeed, apt to be harsh and even cruel. Above all +it is advisable to comprehend thoroughly that the things in your +individuality which annoy your friends most are the things of which +you are completely unconscious. It is not until years have passed that +one begins to be able to form a dim idea of what one has looked like +to one's friends. At forty one goes back ten years, and one says +sadly, but with a certain amusement: "I must have been pretty blatant +then. I can see how I must have exasperated 'em. And yet I hadn't the +faintest notion of it at the time. My intentions were of the best. +Only I didn't know enough." And one recollects some particularly crude +action, and kicks one's self.... Yes, that is all very well; and the +enlightenment which has come with increasing age is exceedingly +satisfactory. But you are forty now. What shall you be saying of +yourself at fifty? Such reflections foster humility, and they foster +also a reluctance, which it is impossible to praise too highly, to +tread on other people's toes. + +A moment ago I used the phrase "fundamental character." It is a +reminiscence of Stevenson's phrase "fundamental decency." And it is +the final test by which one judges one's friends. "After all, he's a +decent fellow." We must be able to use that formula concerning our +friends. Kindliness of heart is not the greatest of human +qualities--and its general effect on the progress of the world is not +entirely beneficent--but it is the greatest of human qualities in +friendship. It is the least dispensable quality. We come back to it +with relief from more brilliant qualities. And it has the great +advantage of always going with a broad mind. Narrow-minded people are +never kind-hearted. You may be inclined to dispute this statement: +please think it over; I am inclined to uphold it. + +We can forgive the absence of any quality except kindliness of heart. +And when a man lacks that, we blame him, we will not forgive him. This +is, of course, scandalous. A man is born as he is born. And he can as +easily add a cubit to his stature as add kindliness to his heart. The +feat never has been done, and never will be done. And yet we blame +those who have not kindliness. We have the incredible, insufferable, +and odious audacity to blame them. We think of them as though they had +nothing to do but go into a shop and buy kindliness. I hear you say +that kindliness of heart can be "cultivated." Well, I hate to have +even the appearance of contradicting you, but it can only be +cultivated in the botanical sense. You can't cultivate violets on a +nettle. A philosopher has enjoined us to suffer fools gladly. He had +more usefully enjoined us to suffer ill-natured persons gladly.... I +see that in a fit of absentmindedness I have strayed into the pulpit. +I descend. + + + + +III + +BREAKING WITH THE PAST + + +On that dark morning we woke up, and it instantly occurred to us--or +at any rate to those of us who have preserved some of our illusions +and our _naivete_--that we had something to be cheerful about, some +cause for a gay and strenuous vivacity; and then we remembered that it +was New Year's Day, and there were those Resolutions to put into +force! Of course, we all smile in a superior manner at the very +mention of New Year's Resolutions; we pretend they are toys for +children, and that we have long since ceased to regard them seriously +as a possible aid to conduct. But we are such deceivers, such +miserable, moral cowards, in such terror of appearing naive, that I +for one am not to be taken in by that smile and that pretence. The +individual who scoffs at New Year's Resolutions resembles the woman +who says she doesn't look under the bed at nights; the truth is not in +him, and in the very moment of his lying, could his cranium suddenly +become transparent, we should see Resolutions burning brightly in his +brain like lamps in Trafalgar Square. Of this I am convinced, that +nineteen-twentieths of us got out of bed that morning animated by that +special feeling of gay and strenuous vivacity which Resolutions alone +can produce. And nineteen-twentieths of us were also conscious of a +high virtue, forgetting that it is not the making of Resolutions, but +the keeping of them, which renders pardonable the consciousness of +virtue. + +And at this hour, while the activity of the Resolution is yet in full +blast, I would wish to insist on the truism, obvious perhaps, but apt +to be overlooked, that a man cannot go forward and stand still at the +same time. Just as moralists have often animadverted upon the tendency +to live in the future, so I would animadvert upon the tendency to live +in the past. Because all around me I see men carefully tying +themselves with an unbreakable rope to an immovable post at the bottom +of a hill and then struggling to climb the hill. If there is one +Resolution more important than another it is the Resolution to break +with the past. If life is not a continual denial of the past, then it +is nothing. This may seem a hard and callous doctrine, but you know +there are aspects of common sense which decidedly are hard and +callous. And one finds constantly in plain common-sense persons (O +rare and select band!) a surprising quality of ruthlessness mingled +with softer traits. Have you not noticed it? The past is absolutely +intractable. One can't do anything with it. And an exaggerated +attention to it is like an exaggerated attention to sepulchres--a sign +of barbarism. Moreover, the past is usually the enemy of cheerfulness, +and cheerfulness is a most precious attainment. + +Personally, I could even go so far as to exhibit hostility towards +grief, and a marked hostility towards remorse--two states of mind +which feed on the past instead of on the present. Remorse, which is +not the same thing as repentance, serves no purpose that I have ever +been able to discover. What one has done, one has done, and there's an +end of it. As a great prelate unforgettably said, "Things are what +they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be. Why, +then, attempt to deceive ourselves"--that remorse for wickedness is a +useful and praiseworthy exercise? Much better to forget. As a matter +of fact, people "indulge" in remorse; it is a somewhat vicious form of +spiritual pleasure. Grief, of course, is different, and it must be +handled with delicate consideration. Nevertheless, when I see, as one +does see, a man or a woman dedicating existence to sorrow for the loss +of a beloved creature, and the world tacitly applauding, my feeling is +certainly inimical. To my idea, that man or woman is not honouring, +but dishonouring, the memory of the departed; society suffers, the +individual suffers, and no earthly or heavenly good is achieved. Grief +is of the past; it mars the present; it is a form of indulgence, and +it ought to be bridled much more than it often is. The human heart is +so large that mere remembrance should not be allowed to tyrannize over +every part of it. + +But cases of remorse and absorbing grief are comparatively rare. What +is not rare is that misguided loyalty to the past which dominates the +lives of so many of us. I do not speak of leading principles, which +are not likely to incommode us by changing; I speak of secondary yet +still important things. We will not do so-and-so because we have never +done it--as if that was a reason! Or we have always done so-and-so, +therefore we must always do it--as if _that_ was logic! This +disposition to an irrational Toryism is curiously discoverable in +advanced Radicals, and it will show itself in the veriest trifles. I +remember such a man whose wife objected to his form of hat (not that I +would call so crowning an affair as a hat a trifle!). "My dear," he +protested, "I have always worn this sort of hat. It may not suit me, +but it is absolutely impossible for me to alter it now." However, she +took him by means of an omnibus to a hat shop and bought him another +hat and put it on his head, and made a present of the old one to the +shop assistant, and marched him out of the shop. "There!" she said, +"you see how impossible it is." This is a parable. And I will not +insult your intelligence by applying it. + +The faculty that we chiefly need when we are in the resolution-making +mood is the faculty of imagination, the faculty of looking at our +lives as though we had never looked at them before--freshly, with a +new eye. Supposing that you had been born mature and full of +experience, and that yesterday had been the first day of your life, +you would regard it to-day as an experiment, you would challenge each +act in it, and you would probably arrange to-morrow in a manner that +showed a healthy disrespect for yesterday. You certainly would not +say: "I have done so-and-so once, therefore I must keep on doing it." +The past is never more than an experiment. A genuine appreciation of +this fact will make our new Resolutions more valuable and drastic than +they usually are. I have a dim notion that the most useful Resolution +for most of us would be to break quite fifty per cent. of all the vows +we have ever made. "Do not accustom yourself to enchain your +_volatility_ with vows.... Take this warning; it is of great +importance." (The wisdom is Johnson's, but I flatter myself on the +italics.) + + + + +IV + +SETTLING DOWN IN LIFE + + +The other day a well-known English novelist asked me how old I thought +she was, _really_. "Well," I said to myself, "since she has asked for +it, she shall have it; I will be as true to life as her novels." So I +replied audaciously: "Thirty-eight." I fancied I was erring if at all, +on the side of "really," and I trembled. She laughed triumphantly. "I +am forty-three," she said. The incident might have passed off entirely +to my satisfaction had she not proceeded: "And now tell me how old +_you_ are." That was like a woman. Women imagine that men have no +reticences, no pretty little vanities. What an error! Of course I +could not be beaten in candour by a woman. I had to offer myself a +burnt sacrifice to her curiosity, and I did it, bravely but not +unflinchingly. And then afterwards the fact of my age remained with +me, worried me, obsessed me. I saw more clearly than ever before that +age was telling on me. I could not be blind to the deliberation of my +movements in climbing stairs and in dressing. Once upon a time the +majority of persons I met in the street seemed much older than myself. +It is different now. The change has come unperceived. There is a +generation younger than mine that smokes cigars and falls in love. +Astounding! Once I could play left-wing forward for an hour and a half +without dropping down dead. Once I could swim a hundred and fifty feet +submerged at the bottom of a swimming-bath. Incredible! Simply +incredible!... Can it be that I have already lived? + +And lo! I, at the age of nearly forty, am putting to myself the old +questions concerning the intrinsic value of life, the fundamentally +important questions: What have I got out of it? What am I likely to +get out of it? In a word, what's it worth? If a man can ask himself a +question more momentous, radical, and critical than these questions, I +would like to know what it is. Innumerable philosophers have tried to +answer these questions in a general way for the average individual, +and possibly they have succeeded pretty well. Possibly I might derive +benefit from a perusal of their answers. But do you suppose I am going +to read them? Not I! Do you suppose that I can recall the wisdom that +I happen already to have read? Not I! My mind is a perfect blank at +this moment in regard to the wisdom of others on the essential +question. Strange, is it not? But quite a common experience, I +believe. Besides, I don't actually care twopence what any other +philosopher has replied to my question. In this, each man must be his +own philosopher. There is an instinct in the profound egoism of human +nature which prevents us from accepting such ready-made answers. What +is it to us what Plato thought? Nothing. And thus the question remains +ever new, and ever unanswered, and ever of dramatic interest. The +singular, the highly singular thing is--and here I arrive at my +point--that so few people put the question to themselves in time, that +so many put it too late, or even die without putting it. + +I am firmly convinced that an immense proportion of my instructed +fellow-creatures do not merely omit to strike the balance-sheet of +their lives, they omit even the preliminary operation of taking +stock. They go on, and on, and on, buying and selling they know not +what, at unascertained prices, dropping money into the till and taking +it out. They don't know what goods are in the shop, nor what amount is +in the till, but they have a clear impression that the living-room +behind the shop is by no means as luxurious and as well-ventilated as +they would like it to be. And the years pass, and that beautiful +furniture and that system of ventilation are not achieved. And then +one day they die, and friends come to the funeral and remark: "Dear +me! How stuffy this room is, and the shop's practically full of +trash!" Or, some little time before they are dead, they stay later +than usual in the shop one evening, and make up their minds to take +stock and count the till, and the disillusion lays them low, and they +struggle into the living-room and murmur: "I shall never have that +beautiful furniture, and I shall never have that system of +ventilation. If I had known earlier, I would have at least got a few +inexpensive cushions to go on with, and I would have put my fist +through a pane in the window. But it's too late now. I'm used to +Windsor chairs, and I should feel the draught horribly." + +If I were a preacher, and if I hadn't got more than enough to do in +minding my own affairs, and if I could look any one in the face and +deny that I too had pursued for nearly forty years the great British +policy of muddling through and hoping for the best--in short, if +things were not what they are, I would hire the Alhambra Theatre or +Exeter Hall of a Sunday night--preferably the Alhambra, because more +people would come to my entertainment--and I would invite all men and +women over twenty-six. I would supply the seething crowd with what +they desired in the way of bodily refreshment (except spirits--I would +draw the line at poisons), and having got them and myself into a nice +amiable expansive frame of mind, I would thus address them--of course +in ringing eloquence that John Bright might have envied: + + Men and women (I would say), companions in the universal pastime + of hiding one's head in the sand,--I am about to impart to you the + very essence of human wisdom. It is not abstract. It is a + principle of daily application, affecting the daily round in its + entirety, from the straphanging on the District Railway in the + morning to the straphanging on the District Railway the next + morning. Beware of hope, and beware of ambition! Each is + excellently tonic, like German competition, in moderation. But all + of you are suffering from self-indulgence in the first, and very + many of you are ruining your constitutions with the second. Be it + known unto you, my dear men and women, that existence rightly + considered is a fair compromise between two instincts--the + instinct of hoping one day to live, and the instinct to live here + and now. In most of you the first instinct has simply got the + other by the throat and is throttling it. Prepare to live by all + means, but for heaven's sake do not forget to live. You will never + have a better chance than you have at present. You may think you + will have, but you are mistaken. Pardon this bluntness. Surely you + are not so naive as to imagine that the road on the other side of + that hill there is more beautiful than the piece you are now + traversing! Hopes are never realized; for in the act of + realization they become something else. Ambitions may be attained, + but ambitions attained are rather like burnt coal, ninety per + cent. of the heat generated has gone up the chimney instead of + into the room. Nevertheless, indulge in hopes and ambitions, + which, though deceiving, are agreeable deceptions; let them cheat + you a little, a lot. But do not let them cheat you too much. This + that you are living now is life itself--it is much more life + itself than that which you will be living twenty years hence. + Grasp that truth. Dwell on it. Absorb it. Let it influence your + conduct, to the end that neither the present nor the future be + neglected. You search for happiness? Happiness is chiefly a matter + of temperament. It is exceedingly improbable that you will by + struggling gain more happiness than you already possess. In fine, + settle down at once into _life_. (Loud cheers.) + +The cheers would of course be for the refreshments. + +There is no doubt that the mass of the audience would consider that I +had missed my vocation, and ought to have been a caterer instead of a +preacher. But, once started, I would not be discouraged. I would keep +on, Sunday night after Sunday night. Our leading advertisers have +richly proved that the public will believe anything if they are told +of it often enough. I would practise iteration, always with +refreshments. In the result, it would dawn upon the corporate mind +that there was some glimmering of sense in my doctrine, and people +would at last begin to perceive the folly of neglecting to savour the +present, the folly of assuming that the future can be essentially +different from the present, the fatuity of dying before they have +begun to live. + + + + +V + +MARRIAGE + + +THE DUTY OF IT + +Every now and then it becomes necessary to deal faithfully with that +immortal type of person, the praiser of the past at the expense of the +present. I will not quote Horace, as by all the traditions of letters +I ought to do, because Horace, like the incurable trimmer that he was, +"hedged" on this question; and I do not admire him much either. The +praiser of the past has been very rife lately. He has told us that +pauperism and lunacy are mightily increasing, and though the exact +opposite has been proved to be the case and he has apologized, he will +have forgotten the correction in a few months, and will break out +again into renewed lamentation. He has told us that we are physically +deteriorating, and in such awful tones that we have shuddered, and +many of us have believed. And considering that the death-rate is +decreasing, that slums are decreasing, that disease is decreasing, +that the agricultural labourer eats more than ever he did, our +credence does not do much credit to our reasoning powers, does it? Of +course, there is that terrible "influx" into the towns, but I for one +should be much interested to know wherein the existence of the rustic +in times past was healthier than the existence of the town-dwellers of +to-day. The personal appearance of agricultural veterans does not help +me; they resemble starved 'bus-drivers twisted out of shape by +lightning. + +But the _piece de resistance_ of the praiser of the past is now +marriage, with discreet hints about the birth-rate. The praiser of the +past is going to have a magnificent time with the subject of marriage. +The first moanings of the tempest have already been heard. Bishops +have looked askance at the birth-rate, and have mentioned their +displeasure. The matter is serious. As the phrase goes, "it strikes at +the root." We are marrying later, my friends. Some of us, in the hurry +and pre-occupation of business, are quite forgetting to marry. It is +the duty of the citizen to marry and have children, and we are +neglecting our duty, we are growing selfish! No longer are produced +the glorious "quiverfuls" of old times! Our fathers married at twenty; +we marry at thirty-five. Why? Because a gross and enervating luxury +has overtaken us. What will become of England if this continues? There +will be no England! Hence we must look to it! And so on, in the same +strain. + +I should like to ask all those who have raised and will raise such +outcries. Have you read "X"? Now, the book that I refer to as "X" is a +mysterious work, written rather more than a hundred years ago by an +English curate. It is a classic of English science; indeed, it is one +of the great scientific books of the world. It has immensely +influenced all the scientific thought of the nineteenth century, +especially Darwin's. Mr. H.G. Wells, as cited in "Chambers's +Cyclopaedia of English Literature," describes it as "the most +'shattering' book that ever has or will be written." If I may make a +personal reference, I would say that it affected me more deeply than +any other scientific book that I have read. Although it is perfectly +easy to understand, and free from the slightest technicality, it is +the most misunderstood book in English literature, simply because it +is _not_ read. The current notion about it is utterly false. It might +be a powerful instrument of education, general and sociological, but +publishers will not reprint it--at least, they do not. And yet it is +forty times more interesting and four hundred times more educational +than Gilbert White's remarks on the birds of Selborne. I will leave +you to guess what "X" is, but I do not offer a prize for the solution +of a problem which a vast number of my readers will certainly solve at +once. + +If those who are worrying themselves about the change in our system of +marriage would read "X," they would probably cease from worrying. For +they would perceive that they had been putting the cart before the +horse; that they had elevated to the dignity of fundamental principles +certain average rules of conduct which had sprung solely from certain +average instincts in certain average conditions, and that they were +now frightened because, the conditions having changed, the rules of +conduct had changed with them. One of the truths that "X" makes clear +is that conduct conforms to conditions, and not conditions to conduct. + +The payment of taxes is a duty which the citizen owes to the state. +Marriage, with the begetting of children, is not a duty which the +citizen owes to the state. Marriage, with its consequences, is a +matter of personal inclination and convenience. It never has been +anything else, and it never will be anything else. How could it be +otherwise? If a man goes against inclination and convenience in a +matter where inclination is "of the essence of the contract," he +merely presents the state with a discontented citizen (if not two) in +exchange for a contented one! The happiness of the state is the sum of +the happiness of all its citizens; to decrease one's own happiness, +then, is a singular way of doing one's duty to the state! Do you +imagine that when people married early and much they did so from a +sense of duty to the state--a sense of duty which our "modern luxury" +has weakened? I imagine they married simply because it suited 'em. +They married from sheer selfishness, as all decent people do marry. +And do those who clatter about the duty of marriage kiss the girls of +their hearts with an eye to the general welfare? I can fancy them +saying, "My angel, I love you--from a sense of duty to the state. Let +us rear innumerable progeny--from a sense of duty to the state." How +charmed the girls would be! + +If the marrying age changes, if the birth-rate shows a sympathetic +tendency to follow the death-rate (as it must--see "X"), no one need +be alarmed. Elementary principles of right and wrong are not trembling +on their bases. The human conscience is not silenced. The nation is +not going to the dogs. Conduct is adjusting itself to new conditions, +and that is all. We may not be able to see exactly _how_ conditions +are changing; that is a detail; our descendants will see exactly; +meanwhile the change in our conduct affords us some clew. And although +certain nervous persons do get alarmed, and do preach, and do "take +measures," the rest of us may remain placid in the sure faith that +"measures" will avail nothing whatever. If there are two things set +high above legislation, "movements," crusades, and preaching, one is +the marrying age and the other is the birth-rate. For there the +supreme instinct comes along and stamps ruthlessly on all insincere +reasonings and sham altruisms; stamps on everything, in fact, and +blandly remarks: "I shall suit my own convenience, and no one but +Nature herself (with a big, big N) shall talk to _me_. Don't pester me +with Right and Wrong. I _am_ Right and Wrong...." Having thus +attempted to clear the ground a little of fudge, I propose next to +offer a few simple remarks on marriage. + + +THE ADVENTURE OF IT + +Having endeavoured to show that men do not, and should not, marry from +a sense of duty to the state or to mankind, but simply and solely from +an egoistic inclination to marry, I now proceed to the individual case +of the man who is "in a position to marry" and whose affections are +not employed. Of course, if he has fallen in love, unless he happens +to be a person of extremely powerful will, he will not weigh the pros +and cons of marriage; he will merely marry, and forty thousand cons +will not prevent him. And he will be absolutely right and justified, +just as the straw as it rushes down the current is absolutely right +and justified. But the privilege of falling in love is not given to +everybody, and the inestimable privilege of falling deeply in love is +given to few. However, the man whom circumstances permit to marry but +who is not in love, or is only slightly amorous, will still think of +marriage. How will he think of it? + +I will tell you. In the first place, if he has reached the age of +thirty unscathed by Aphrodite, he will reflect that that peculiar +feeling of romantic expectation with which he gets up every morning +would cease to exist after marriage--and it is a highly agreeable +feeling! In its stead, in moments of depression, he would have the +feeling of having done something irremediable, of having definitely +closed an avenue for the outlet of his individuality. (Kindly remember +that I am not describing what this human man ought to think. I am +describing what he does think.) In the second place, he will reflect +that, after marriage, he could no longer expect the charming welcomes +which bachelors so often receive from women; he would be "done with" +as a possibility, and he does not relish the prospect of being done +with as a possibility. Such considerations, all connected more or +less with the loss of "freedom" (oh, mysterious and thrilling word!), +will affect his theoretical attitude. And be it known that even the +freedom to be lonely and melancholy is still freedom. + +Other ideas will suggest themselves. One morning while brushing his +hair he will see a gray hair, and, however young he may be, the +anticipation of old age will come to him. A solitary old age! A +senility dependent for its social and domestic requirements on +condescending nephews and nieces, or even more distant relations! +Awful! Unthinkable! And his first movement, especially if he has read +that terrible novel, "_Fort comme la Mort_," of De Maupassant, is to +rush out into the street and propose to the first girl he encounters, +in order to avoid this dreadful nightmare of a solitary old age. But +before he has got as far as the doorstep he reflects further. Suppose +he marries, and after twenty years his wife dies and leaves him a +widower! He will still have a solitary old age, and a vastly more +tragical one than if he had remained single. Marriage is not, +therefore, a sure remedy for a solitary old age; it may intensify the +evil. Children? But suppose he doesn't have any children! Suppose, +there being children, they die--what anguish! Suppose merely that they +are seriously ill and recover--what an ageing experience! Suppose they +prove a disappointment--what endless regret! Suppose they "turn out +badly" (children do)--what shame! Suppose he finally becomes dependent +upon the grudging kindness of an ungrateful child--what a supreme +humiliation! All these things are occurring constantly everywhere. +Suppose his wife, having loved him, ceased to love him, or suppose he +ceased to love his wife! _Ces choses ne se commandent pas_--these +things do not command themselves. Personally, I should estimate that +in not one per cent. even of romantic marriages are the husband and +wife capable of _passion_ for each other after three years. So brief +is the violence of love! In perhaps thirty-three per cent. passion +settles down into a tranquil affection--which is ideal. In fifty per +cent. it sinks into sheer indifference, and one becomes used to one's +wife or one's husband as to one's other habits. And in the remaining +sixteen per cent. it develops into dislike or detestation. Do you +think my percentages are wrong, you who have been married a long time +and know what the world is? Well, you may modify them a little--you +won't want to modify them much. + +The risk of finding one's self ultimately among the sixteen per cent. +can be avoided by the simple expedient of not marrying. And by the +same expedient the other risks can be avoided, together with yet +others that I have not mentioned. It is entirely obvious, then (in +fact, I beg pardon for mentioning it), that the attitude towards +marriage of the heart-free bachelor must be at best a highly cautious +attitude. He knows he is already in the frying-pan (none knows +better), but, considering the propinquity of the fire, he doubts +whether he had not better stay where he is. His life will be calmer, +more like that of a hibernating snake; his sensibilities will be +dulled; but the chances of poignant suffering will be very materially +reduced. + +So that the bachelor in a position to marry but not in love will +assuredly decide in theory against marriage--that is to say, if he is +timid, if he prefers frying-pans, if he is lacking in initiative, if +he has the soul of a rat, if he wants to live as little as possible, +if he hates his kind, if his egoism is of the miserable sort that +dares not mingle with another's. But if he has been more happily +gifted he will decide that the magnificent adventure is worth plunging +into; the ineradicable and fine gambling instinct in him will urge him +to take, at the first chance, a ticket in the only lottery permitted +by the British Government. Because, after all, the mutual sense of +ownership felt by the normal husband and the normal wife is something +unique, something the like of which cannot be obtained without +marriage. I saw a man and a woman at a sale the other day; I was too +far off to hear them, but I could perceive they were having a most +lively argument--perhaps it was only about initials on pillowcases; +they were _absorbed_ in themselves; the world did not exist for them. +And I thought: "What miraculous exquisite Force is it that brings +together that strange, sombre, laconic organism in a silk hat and a +loose, black overcoat, and that strange, bright, vivacious, querulous, +irrational organism in brilliant fur and feathers?" And when they +moved away the most interesting phenomenon in the universe moved away. +And I thought: "Just as no beer is bad, but some beer is better than +other beer, so no marriage is bad." The chief reward of marriage is +something which marriage is bound to give--companionship whose +mysterious _interestingness_ nothing can stale. A man may hate his +wife so that she can't thread a needle without annoying him, but when +he dies, or she dies, he will say: "Well, _I was interested_." And one +always is. Said a bachelor of forty-six to me the other night: +"Anything is better than the void." + + +THE TWO WAYS OF IT + +Sabine and other summary methods of marrying being now abandoned by +all nice people, there remain two broad general ways. The first is the +English way. We let nature take her course. We give heed to the +heart's cry. When, amid the hazards and accidents of the world, two +souls "find each other," we rejoice. Our instinctive wish is that they +shall marry, if the matter can anyhow be arranged. We frankly +recognise the claim of romance in life, and we are prepared to make +sacrifices to it. We see a young couple at the altar; they are in +love. Good! They are poor. So much the worse! But nevertheless we feel +that love will pull them through. The revolting French system of +bargain and barter is the one thing that we can neither comprehend nor +pardon in the customs of our great neighbours. We endeavour to be +polite about that system; we simply cannot. It shocks our finest, +tenderest feelings. It is so obviously contrary to nature. + +The second is the French way, just alluded to as bargain and barter. +Now, if there is one thing a Frenchman can neither comprehend nor +pardon in the customs of a race so marvellously practical and sagacious +as ourselves, it is the English marriage system. He endeavours to be +polite about it, and he succeeds. But it shocks his finest, tenderest +feelings. He admits that it is in accordance with nature; but he is apt +to argue that the whole progress of civilisation has been the result of +an effort to get away from nature. "What! Leave the most important +relation into which a man can enter to the mercy of chance, when a mere +gesture may arouse passion, or the colour of a corsage induce desire! +No, you English, you who are so self-controlled, you are not going +seriously to defend that! You talk of love as though it lasted for +ever. You talk of sacrificing to love; but what you really sacrifice, +or risk sacrificing, is the whole of the latter part of married +existence for the sake of the first two or three years. Marriage is not +one long honeymoon. We wish it were. When _you_ agree to a marriage you +fix your eyes on the honeymoon. When _we_ agree to a marriage we try to +see it as it will be five or ten years hence. We assert that, in the +average instance, five years after the wedding it doesn't matter +whether or not the parties were in love on the wedding-day. Hence we +will not yield to the gusts of the moment. Your system is, moreover, if +we may be permitted the observation, a premium on improvidence; it is, +to some extent, the result of improvidence. You can marry your +daughters without dowries, and the ability to do so tempts you to +neglect your plain duty to your daughters, and you do not always resist +the temptation. Do your marriages of 'romance' turn out better than our +marriages of prudence, of careful thought, of long foresight? We do not +think they do." + +So much for the two ways. Patriotism being the last refuge of a +scoundrel, according to Doctor Johnson, I have no intention of +judging between them, as my heart prompts me to do, lest I should be +accused of it. Nevertheless, I may hint that, while perfectly +convinced by the admirable logic of the French, I am still, with the +charming illogicalness of the English, in favour of romantic marriages +(it being, of course, understood that dowries _ought_ to be far more +plentiful than they are in England). If a Frenchman accuses me of +being ready to risk sacrificing the whole of the latter part of +married life for the sake of the first two or three years, I would +unhesitatingly reply: "Yes, I _am_ ready to risk that sacrifice. I +reckon the first two or three years are worth it." But, then, I am +English, and therefore romantic by nature. Look at London, that city +whose outstanding quality is its romantic quality; and look at the +Englishwomen going their ways in the wonderful streets thereof! Their +very eyes are full of romance. They may, they do, lack _chic_, but +they are heroines of drama. Then look at Paris; there is little +romance in the fine right lines of Paris. Look at the Parisiennes. +They are the most astounding and adorable women yet invented by +nature. But they aren't romantic, you know. They don't know what +romance is. They are so matter-of-fact that when you think of their +matter-of-factness it gives you a shiver in the small of your back. + +To return. One may view the two ways in another light. Perhaps the +difference between them is, fundamentally, less a difference between +the ideas of two races than a difference between the ideas of two +"times of life"; and in France the elderly attitude predominates. As +people get on in years, even English people, they are more and more in +favour of the marriage of reason as against the marriage of romance. +Young people, even French people, object strongly to the theory and +practice of the marriage of reason. But with them the unique and +precious ecstasy of youth is not past, whereas their elders have +forgotten its savour. Which is right? No one will ever be able to +decide. But neither the one system nor the other will apply itself +well to all or nearly all cases. There have been thousands of romantic +marriages in England of which it may be said that it would have been +better had the French system been in force to prevent their existence. +And, equally, thousands of possible romantic marriages have been +prevented in France which, had the English system prevailed there, +would have turned out excellently. The prevalence of dowries in +England would not render the English system perfect (for it must be +remembered that money is only one of several ingredients in the French +marriage), but it would considerably improve it. However, we are not a +provident race, and we are not likely to become one. So our young men +must reconcile themselves to the continued absence of dowries. + +The reader may be excused for imagining that I am at the end of my +remarks. I am not. All that precedes is a mere preliminary to what +follows. I want to regard the case of the man who has given the +English system a fair trial and found it futile. Thus, we wait on +chance in England. We wait for love to arrive. Suppose it doesn't +arrive? Where is the English system then? Assume that a man in a +position to marry reaches thirty-five or forty without having fallen +in love. Why should he not try the French system for a change? Any +marriage is better than none at all. Naturally, in England, he +couldn't go up to the Chosen Fair and announce: "I am not precisely in +love with you, but will you marry me?" He would put it differently. +And she would understand. And do you think she would refuse? + + + + +VI + +BOOKS + + +THE PHYSICAL SIDE + +The chief interest of many of my readers is avowedly books; they may, +they probably do, profess other interests, but they are primarily +"bookmen," and when one is a bookman one is a bookman during about +twenty-three and three-quarter hours in every day. Now, bookmen are +capable of understanding things about books which cannot be put into +words; they are not like mere subscribers to circulating libraries; +for them a book is not just a book--it is a _book_. If these lines +should happen to catch the eye of any persons not bookmen, such +persons may imagine that I am writing nonsense; but I trust that the +bookmen will comprehend me. And I venture, then, to offer a few +reflections upon an aspect of modern bookishness that is becoming +more and more "actual" as the enterprise of publishers and the +beneficent effects of education grow and increase together. I refer to +"popular editions" of classics. + +Now, I am very grateful to the devisers of cheap and handy editions. +The first book I ever bought was the first volume of the first modern +series of presentable and really cheap reprints, namely, Macaulay's +"Warren Hastings," in "Cassell's National Library" (sixpence, in +cloth). That foundation stone of my library has unfortunately +disappeared beneath the successive deposits, but another volume of the +same series, F.T. Palgrave's "Visions of England" (an otherwise scarce +book), still remains to me through the vicissitudes of seventeen years +of sale, purchase, and exchange, and I would not care to part with it. +I have over two hundred volumes of that inestimable and incomparable +series, "The Temple Classics," besides several hundred assorted +volumes of various other series. And when I heard of the new +"Everyman's Library," projected by that benefactor of bookmen, Mr. +J.M. Dent, my first impassioned act was to sit down and write a +postcard to my bookseller ordering George Finlay's "The Byzantine +Empire," a work which has waited sixty years for popular recognition. +So that I cannot be said to be really antagonistic to cheap reprints. + +Strong in this consciousness, I beg to state that cheap and handy +reprints are "all very well in their way"--which is a manner of saying +that they are not the Alpha and Omega of bookishness. By expending L20 +yearly during the next five years a man might collect, in cheap and +handy reprints, all that was worth having in classic English +literature. But I for one would not be willing to regard such a +library as a real library. I would regard it as only a cheap edition +of a library. There would be something about it that would arouse in +me a certain benevolent disdain, even though every volume was well +printed on good paper and inoffensively bound. Why? Well, although it +is my profession in life to say what I feel in plain words, I do not +know that in this connection I _can_ say what I feel in plain words. I +have to rely on a sympathetic comprehension of my attitude in the +bookish breasts of my readers. + +In the first place, I have an instinctive antipathy to a "series." I +do not want "The Golden Legend" and "The Essays of Elia" uniformed +alike in a regiment of books. It makes me think of conscription and +barracks. Even the noblest series of reprints ever planned (not at all +cheap, either, nor heterogeneous in matter), the Tudor Translations, +faintly annoys me in the mass. Its appearances in a series seems to me +to rob a book of something very delicate and subtle in the aroma of +its individuality--something which, it being inexplicable, I will not +try to explain. + +In the second place, most cheap and handy reprints are small in size. +They may be typographically excellent, with large type and opaque +paper; they may be convenient to handle; they may be surpassingly +suitable for the pocket and the very thing for travel; they may save +precious space where shelf-room is limited; but they are small in +size. And there is, as regards most literature, a distinct moral value +in size. Do I carry my audience with me? I hope so. Let "Paradise +Lost" be so produced that you can put it in your waistcoat pocket, and +it is no more "Paradise Lost." Milton needs a solid octavo form, with +stoutish paper and long primer type. I have "Walpole's Letters" in +Newnes's "Thin Paper Classics," a marvellous volume of near nine +hundred pages, with a portrait and a good index and a beautiful +binding, for three and six, and I am exceedingly indebted to Messrs. +Newnes for creating that volume. It was sheer genius on their part to +do so. I get charming sensations from it, but sensations not so +charming as I should get from Mrs. Paget Toynbee's many-volumed and +grandiose edition, even aside from Mrs. Toynbee's erudite notes and +the extra letters which she has been able to print. The same letter in +Mrs. Toynbee's edition would have a higher aesthetic and moral value +for me than in the "editionlet" of Messrs. Newnes. The one cheap +series which satisfies my desire for size is Macmillan's "Library of +English Classics," in which I have the "Travels" of that mythical +personage, Sir John Mandeville. But it is only in paying for it that +you know this edition to be cheap, for it measures nine inches by six +inches by two inches. + +And in the third place, when one buys series, one only partially +chooses one's books; they are mainly chosen for one by the publisher. +And even if they are not chosen for one by the publisher, they are +suggested _to_ one by the publisher. Not so does the genuine bookman +form his library. The genuine bookman begins by having specific +desires. His study of authorities gives him a demand, and the demand +forces him to find the supply. He does not let the supply create the +demand. Such a state of affairs would be almost humiliating, almost +like the _parvenu_ who calls in the wholesale furnisher and decorator +to provide him with a home. A library must be, primarily, the +expression of the owner's personality. + +Let me assert again that I am strongly in favour of cheap series of +reprints. Their influence though not the very finest, is undisputably +good. They are as great a boon as cheap bread. They are indispensable +where money or space is limited, and in travelling. They decidedly +help to educate a taste for books that are neither cheap nor handy; +and the most luxurious collectors may not afford to ignore them +entirely. But they have their limitations, their disadvantages. They +cannot form the backbone of a "proper" library. They make, however, +admirable embroidery to a library. My own would look rather plain if +it was stripped of them. + + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF BOOK-BUYING + +For some considerable time I have been living, as regards books, with +the minimum of comfort and decency--with, in fact, the bare +necessaries of life, such necessaries being, in my case, sundry +dictionaries, Boswell, an atlas, Wordsworth, an encyclopaedia, +Shakespere, Whitaker, some De Maupassant, a poetical anthology, +Verlaine, Baudelaire, a natural history of my native county, an old +directory of my native town, Sir Thomas Browne, Poe, Walpole's +Letters, and a book of memoirs that I will not name. A curious list, +you will say. Well, never mind! We do not all care to eat beefsteak +and chip potatoes off an oak table, with a foaming quart to the right +hand. We have our idiosyncrasies. The point is that I existed on the +bare necessaries of life (very healthy--doctors say) for a long time. +And then, just lately, I summoned energy and caused fifteen hundred +volumes to be transported to me; and I arranged them on shelves; and +I re-arranged them on shelves; and I left them to arrange themselves +on shelves. + +Well, you know, the way that I walk up and down in front of these +volumes, whose faces I had half-forgotten, is perfectly infantile. It +is like the way of a child at a menagerie. There, in its cage, is that +1839 edition of Shelley, edited by Mrs. Shelley, that I once nearly +sold to the British Museum because the Keeper of Printed Books thought +he hadn't got a copy--only he had! And there, in a cage by himself, +because of his terrible hugeness, is the 1652 Paris edition of +Montaigne's Essays. And so I might continue, and so I would continue, +were it not essential that I come to my argument. + +Do you suppose that the presence of these books, after our long +separation, is making me read more than I did? Do you suppose I am +engaged in looking up my favourite passages? Not a bit. The other +evening I had a long tram journey, and, before starting, I tried to +select a book to take with me. I couldn't find one to suit just the +tram-mood. As I had to _catch_ the tram I was obliged to settle on +something, and in the end I went off with nothing more original than +"Hamlet," which I am really too familiar with.... Then I bought an +evening paper, and read it all through, including advertisements. So I +said to myself: "This is a nice result of all my trouble to resume +company with some of my books!" However, as I have long since ceased +to be surprised at the eccentric manner in which human nature refuses +to act as one would have expected it to act, I was able to keep calm +and unashamed during this extraordinary experience. And I am still +walking up and down in front of my books and enjoying them without +reading them. + +I wish to argue that a great deal of cant is talked (and written) +about reading. Papers such as the "Anthenaeum," which nevertheless I +peruse with joy from end to end every week, can scarcely notice a new +edition of a classic without expressing, in a grieved and pessimistic +tone, the fear that more people buy these agreeable editions than read +them. And if it is so? What then? Are we only to buy the books that we +read? The question has merely to be thus bluntly put, and it answers +itself. All impassioned bookmen, except a few who devote their whole +lives to reading, have rows of books on their shelves which they have +never read, and which they never will read. I know that I have +hundreds such. My eye rests on the works of Berkeley in three volumes, +with a preface by the Right Honourable Arthur James Balfour. I cannot +conceive the circumstances under which I shall ever read Berkeley; but +I do not regret having bought him in a good edition, and I would buy +him again if I had him not; for when I look at him some of his virtue +passes into me; I am the better for him. A certain aroma of philosophy +informs my soul, and I am less crude than I should otherwise be. This +is not fancy, but fact. + +Taking Berkeley simply as an instance, I will utilise him a little +further. I ought to have read Berkeley, you say; just as I ought to +have read Spenser, Ben Jonson, George Eliot, Victor Hugo. Not at all. +There is no "ought" about it. If the mass of obtainable first-class +literature were, as it was perhaps a century ago, not too large to be +assimilated by a man of ordinary limited leisure _in_ his leisure and +during the first half of his life, then possibly there might be an +"ought" about it. But the mass has grown unmanageable, even by those +robust professional readers who can "grapple with whole libraries." +And I am not a professional reader. I am a writer, just as I might be +a hotel-keeper, a solicitor, a doctor, a grocer, or an earthenware +manufacturer. I read in my scanty spare time, and I don't read in all +my spare time, either. I have other distractions. I read what I feel +inclined to read, and I am conscious of no duty to finish a book that +I don't care to finish. I read in my leisure, not from a sense of +duty, not to improve myself, but solely because it gives me pleasure +to read. Sometimes it takes me a month to get through one book. I +expect my case is quite an average case. But am I going to fetter my +buying to my reading? Not exactly! I want to have lots of books on my +shelves because I know they are good, because I know they would amuse +me, because I like to look at them, and because one day I might have a +caprice to read them. (Berkeley, even thy turn may come!) In short, I +want them because I want them. And shall I be deterred from possessing +them by the fear of some sequestered and singular person, some person +who has read vastly but who doesn't know the difference between a J.S. +Muria cigar and an R.P. Muria, strolling in and bullying me with the +dreadful query: "_Sir, do you read your books?_" + +Therefore I say: In buying a book, be influenced by two considerations +only. Are you reasonably sure that it is a good book? Have you a +desire to possess it? Do not be influenced by the probability or the +improbability of your reading it. After all, one does read a certain +proportion of what one buys. And further, instinct counts. The man who +spends half a crown on Stubbs's "Early Plantagenets" instead of going +into the Gaiety pit to see "The Spring Chicken," will probably be the +sort of man who can suck goodness out of Stubbs's "Early Plantagenets" +years before he bestirs himself to read it. + + + + +VII + +SUCCESS + + +CANDID REMARKS + +There are times when the whole free and enlightened Press of the +United Kingdom seems to become strangely interested in the subject of +"success," of getting on in life. We are passing through such a period +now. It would be difficult to name the prominent journalists who have +not lately written, in some form or another, about success. Most +singular phenomenon of all, Dr. Emil Reich has left Plato, duchesses, +and Claridge's Hotel, in order to instruct the million readers of a +morning paper in the principles of success! What the million readers +thought of the Doctor's stirring and strenuous sentences I will not +imagine; but I know what I thought, as a plain man. After taking due +cognizance of his airy play with the "constants" and "variables" of +success, after watching him treat "energetics" (his wonderful new +name for the "science" of success) as though because he had made it +end in "ics" it resembled mathematics, I thought that the sublime and +venerable art of mystification could no further go. If my +fellow-pilgrim through this vale of woe, the average young man who +arrives at Waterloo at 9.40 every morning with a cigarette in his +mouth and a second-class season over his heart and vague aspirations +in his soul, was half as mystified as I was, he has probably ere this +decided that the science of success has all the disadvantages of +algebra without any of the advantages of cricket, and that he may as +well leave it alone lest evil should befall him. On the off-chance +that he has come as yet to no decision about the science of success, I +am determined to deal with the subject in a disturbingly candid +manner. I feel that it is as dangerous to tell the truth about success +as it is to tell the truth about the United States; but being +thoroughly accustomed to the whistle of bullets round my head, I will +nevertheless try. + +Most writers on success are, through sheer goodness of heart, wickedly +disingenuous. For the basis of their argument is that nearly any one +who gives his mind to it can achieve success. This is, to put it +briefly, untrue. The very central idea of success is separation from +the multitude of plain men; it is perhaps the only idea common to all +the various sorts of success--differentiation from the crowd. To +address the population at large, and tell it how to separate itself +from itself, is merely silly. I am now, of course, using the word +success in its ordinary sense. If human nature were more perfect than +it is, success in life would mean an intimate knowledge of one's self +and the achievement of a philosophic inward calm, and such a goal +might well be reached by the majority of mortals. But to us success +signifies something else. It may be divided into four branches: (1) +Distinction in pure or applied science. This is the least gross of all +forms of success as we regard it, for it frequently implies poverty, +and it does not by any means always imply fame. (2) Distinction in the +arts. Fame and adulation are usually implied in this, though they do +not commonly bring riches with them. (3) Direct influence and power +over the material lives of other men; that is to say, distinction in +politics, national or local. (4) Success in amassing money. This last +is the commonest and easiest. Most forms of success will fall under +one of these heads. Are they possible to that renowned and +much-flattered person, the man in the street? They are not, and well +you know it, all you professors of the science of success! Only a +small minority of us can even become rich. + +Happily, while it is true that success in its common acceptation is, +by its very essence, impossible to the majority, there is an +accompanying truth which adjusts the balance; to wit, that the +majority do not desire success. This may seem a bold saying, but it is +in accordance with the facts. Conceive the man in the street suddenly, +by some miracle, invested with political power, and, of course, under +the obligation to use it. He would be so upset, worried, wearied, and +exasperated at the end of a week that he would be ready to give the +eyes out of his head in order to get rid of it. As for success in +science or in art, the average person's interest in such matters is so +slight, compared with that of the man of science or the artist, that +he cannot be said to have an interest in them. And supposing that +distinction in them were thrust upon him he would rapidly lose that +distinction by simple indifference and neglect. The average person +certainly wants some money, and the average person does not usually +rest until he has got as much as is needed for the satisfaction of his +instinctive needs. He will move the heaven and earth of his +environment to earn sufficient money for marriage in the "station" to +which he has been accustomed; and precisely at that point his genuine +desire for money will cease to be active. The average man has this in +common with the most exceptional genius, that his career in its main +contours is governed by his instincts. The average man flourishes and +finds his ease in an atmosphere of peaceful routine. Men destined for +success flourish and find their ease in an atmosphere of collision and +disturbance. The two temperaments are diverse. Naturally the average +man dreams vaguely, upon occasion; he dreams how nice it would be to +be famous and rich. We all dream vaguely upon such things. But to +dream vaguely is not to desire. I often tell myself that I would give +anything to be the equal of Cinquevalli, the juggler, or to be the +captain of the largest Atlantic liner. But the reflective part of me +tells me that my yearning to emulate these astonishing personages is +not a genuine desire, and that its realization would not increase my +happiness. + +To obtain a passably true notion of what happens to the mass of +mankind in its progress from the cradle to the grave, one must not +attempt to survey a whole nation, nor even a great metropolis, nor +even a very big city like Manchester or Liverpool. These panoramas are +so immense and confusing that they defeat the observing eye. It is +better to take a small town of, say, twenty or thirty thousand +inhabitants--such a town as most of us know, more or less intimately. +The extremely few individuals whose instincts mark them out to take +part in the struggle for success can be identified at once. For the +first thing they do is to leave the town. The air of the town is not +bracing enough for them. Their nostrils dilate for something keener. +Those who are left form a microcosm which is representative enough of +the world at large. Between the ages of thirty and forty they begin to +sort themselves out. In their own sphere they take their places. A +dozen or so politicians form the town council and rule the town. Half +a dozen business men stand for the town's commercial activity and its +wealth. A few others teach science and art, or are locally known as +botanists, geologists, amateurs of music, or amateurs of some other +art. These are the distinguished, and it will be perceived that they +cannot be more numerous than they are. What of the rest? Have they +struggled for success and been beaten? Not they. Do they, as they grow +old, resemble disappointed men? Not they. They have fulfilled +themselves modestly. They have got what they genuinely tried to get. +They have never even gone near the outskirts of the battle for +success. But they have not failed. The number of failures is +surprisingly small. You see a shabby, disappointed, ageing man flit +down the main street, and someone replies to your inquiry: "That's +So-and-so, one of life's failures, poor fellow!" And the very tone in +which the words are uttered proves the excessive rarity of the real +failure. It goes without saying that the case of the handful who have +left the town in search of the Success with the capital S has a +tremendous interest of curiosity for the mass who remain. I will +consider it. + + +THE SUCCESSFUL AND THE UNSUCCESSFUL + +Having boldly stated that success is not, and cannot be, within grasp +of the majority, I now proceed to state, as regards the minority, that +they do not achieve it in the manner in which they are commonly +supposed to achieve it. And I may add an expression of my thankfulness +that they do not. The popular delusion is that success is attained by +what I may call the "Benjamin Franklin" method. Franklin was a very +great man; he united in his character a set of splendid qualities as +various, in their different ways, as those possessed by Leonardo da +Vinci. I have an immense admiration for him. But his Autobiography +does make me angry. His Autobiography is understood to be a classic, +and if you say a word against it in the United States you are apt to +get killed. I do not, however, contemplate an immediate visit to the +United States, and I shall venture to assert that Benjamin Franklin's +Autobiography is a detestable book and a misleading book. I can recall +only two other volumes which I would more willingly revile. One is +_Samuel Budgett: The Successful Merchant_, and the other is _From Log +Cabin to White House_, being the history of President Garfield. Such +books may impose on boys, and it is conceivable that they do not harm +boys (Franklin, by the way, began his Autobiography in the form of a +letter to his son), but the grown man who can support them without +nausea ought to go and see a doctor, for there is something wrong with +him. + +"I began now," blandly remarks Franklin, "to have some acquaintance +among the young people of the town that were lovers of reading, with +whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly; _and gained money by my +industry and frugality_." Or again: "It was about this time I +conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral +perfection.... I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for +each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have +seven columns, one for each day of the week.... I crossed these +columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line +with the first letter of one of the virtues; on which line, and in its +proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I +found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue, +upon that day." Shade of Franklin, where'er thou art, this is really a +little bit stiff! A man may be excused even such infamies of +priggishness, but truly he ought not to go and write them down, +especially to his son. And why the detail about red ink? If Franklin's +son was not driven to evil courses by the perusal of that monstrous +Autobiography, he must have been a man almost as astounding as his +father. Now Franklin could only have written his "immortal classic" +from one of three motives: (1) Sheer conceit. He was a prig, but he +was not conceited. (2) A desire that others should profit by his +mistakes. He never made any mistakes. Now and again he emphasizes some +trifling error, but that is "only his fun." (3) A desire that others +should profit by the recital of his virtuous sagacity to reach a +similar success. The last was undoubtedly his principal motive. Honest +fellow, who happened to be a genius! But the point is that his success +was in no way the result of his virtuous sagacity. I would go further, +and say that his dreadful virtuous sagacity often hindered his +success. + +No one is a worse guide to success than your typical successful man. He +seldom understands the reasons of his own success; and when he is asked +by a popular magazine to give his experiences for the benefit of the +youth of a whole nation, it is impossible for him to be natural and +sincere. He knows the kind of thing that is expected from him, and if +he didn't come to London with half a crown in his pocket he probably +did something equally silly, and he puts _that_ down, and the note of +the article or interview is struck, and good-bye to genuine truth! +There recently appeared in a daily paper an autobiographic-didactic +article by one of the world's richest men which was the most +"inadequate" article of the sort that I have ever come across. +Successful men forget so much of their lives! Moreover, nothing is +easier than to explain an accomplished fact in a nice, agreeable, +conventional way. The entire business of success is a gigantic tacit +conspiracy on the part of the minority to deceive the majority. + +Are successful men more industrious, frugal, and intelligent than men +who are not successful? I maintain that they are not, and I have +studied successful men at close quarters. One of the commonest +characteristics of the successful man is his idleness, his immense +capacity for wasting time. I stoutly assert that as a rule successful +men are by habit comparatively idle. As for frugality, it is +practically unknown among the successful classes: this statement +applies with particular force to financiers. As for intelligence, I +have over and over again been startled by the lack of intelligence in +successful men. They are, indeed, capable of stupidities that would be +the ruin of a plain clerk. And much of the talk in those circles which +surround the successful man is devoted to the enumeration of instances +of his lack of intelligence. Another point: successful men seldom +succeed as the result of an ordered arrangement of their lives; they +are the least methodical of creatures. Naturally when they have +"arrived" they amuse themselves and impress the majority by being +convinced that right from the start, with a steady eye on the goal, +they had carefully planned every foot of the route. + +No! Great success never depends on the practice of the humbler +virtues, though it may occasionally depend on the practice of the +prouder vices. Use industry, frugality, and common sense by all +means, but do not expect that they will help you to success. Because +they will not. I shall no doubt be told that what I have just written +has an immoral tendency, and is a direct encouragement to sloth, +thriftlessness, etc. One of our chief national faults is our +hypocritical desire to suppress the truth on the pretext that to admit +it would encourage sin, whereas the real explanation is that we are +afraid of the truth. I will not be guilty of that fault. I do like to +look a fact in the face without blinking. I am fully persuaded that, +per head, there is more of the virtues in the unsuccessful majority +than in the successful minority. In London alone are there not +hundreds of miles of streets crammed with industry, frugality, and +prudence? Some of the most brilliant men I have known have been +failures, and not through lack of character either. And some of the +least gifted have been marvellously successful. It is impossible to +point to a single branch of human activity in which success can be +explained by the conventional principles that find general acceptance. +I hear you, O reader, murmuring to yourself: "This is all very well, +but he is simply being paradoxical for his own diversion." I would +that I could persuade you of my intense seriousness! I have +endeavoured to show what does not make success. I will next endeavour +to show what does make it. But my hope is forlorn. + + +THE INWARDNESS OF SUCCESS + +Of course, one can no more explain success than one can explain +Beethoven's C minor symphony. One may state what key it is written in, +and make expert reflections upon its form, and catalogue its themes, +and relate it to symphonies that preceded it and symphonies that +followed it, but in the end one is reduced to saying that the C minor +symphony is beautiful--because it is. In the same manner one is +reduced to saying that the sole real difference between success and +failure is that success succeeds. This being frankly admitted at the +outset, I will allow myself to assert that there are three sorts of +success. Success A is the accidental sort. It is due to the thing we +call chance, and to nothing else. We are all of us still very +superstitious, and the caprices of chance have a singular effect upon +us. Suppose that I go to Monte Carlo and announce to a friend my firm +conviction that red will turn up next time, and I back red for the +maximum and red does turn up; my friend, in spite of his intellect, +will vaguely attribute to me a mysterious power. Yet chance alone +would be responsible. If I did that six times running all the players +at the table would be interested in me. If I did it a dozen times all +the players in the Casino would regard me with awe. Yet chance alone +would be responsible. If I did it eighteen times my name would be in +every newspaper in Europe. Yet chance alone would be responsible. I +should be, in that department of human activity, an extremely +successful man, and the vast majority of people would instinctively +credit me with gifts that I do not possess. + +If such phenomena of superstition can occur in an affair where the +agency of chance is open and avowed, how much more probable is it that +people should refuse to be satisfied with the explanation of "sheer +accident" in affairs where it is to the interest of the principal +actors to conceal the role played by chance! Nevertheless, there can +be no doubt in the minds of persons who have viewed success at close +quarters that a proportion of it is due solely and utterly to chance. +Successful men flourish to-day, and have flourished in the past, who +have no quality whatever to differentiate them from the multitude. Red +has turned up for them a sufficient number of times, and the universal +superstitious instinct not to believe in chance has accordingly +surrounded them with a halo. It is merely ridiculous to say, as some +do say, that success is never due to chance alone. Because nearly +everybody is personally acquainted with reasonable proof, on a great +or a small scale, to the contrary. + +The second sort of success, B, is that made by men who, while not +gifted with first-class talents, have, beyond doubt, the talent to +succeed. I should describe these men by saying that, though they +deserve something, they do not deserve the dazzling reward known as +success. They strike us as overpaid. We meet them in all professions +and trades, and we do not really respect them. They excite our +curiosity, and perhaps our envy. They may rise very high indeed, but +they must always be unpleasantly conscious of a serious reservation in +our attitude towards them. And if they could read their obituary +notices they would assuredly discern therein a certain chilliness, +however kindly we acted up to our great national motto of _De mortuis +nil nist bunkum_. It is this class of success which puzzles the social +student. How comes it that men without any other talent possess a +mysterious and indefinable talent to succeed? Well, it seems to me +that such men always display certain characteristics. And the chief of +these characteristics is the continual, insatiable _wish_ to succeed. +They are preoccupied with the idea of succeeding. We others are not so +preoccupied. We dream of success at intervals, but we have not the +passion for success. We don't lie awake at nights pondering upon it. + +The second characteristic of these men springs naturally from the +first. They are always on the look-out. This does not mean that they +are industrious. I stated in a previous article my belief that as a +rule successful men are not particularly industrious. A man on a raft +with his shirt for a signal cannot be termed industrious, but he will +keep his eyes open for a sail on the horizon. If he simply lies down +and goes to sleep he may miss the chance of his life, in a very +special sense. The man with the talent to succeed is the man on the +raft who never goes to sleep. His indefatigable orb sweeps the main +from sunset to sunset. Having sighted a sail, he gets up on his hind +legs and waves that shirt in so determined a manner that the ship is +bound to see him and take him off. Occasionally he plunges into the +sea, risking sharks and other perils. If he doesn't "get there," we +hear nothing of him. If he does, some person will ultimately multiply +by ten the number of sharks that he braved: that person is called a +biographer. + +Let me drop the metaphor. Another characteristic of these men is that +they seem to have the exact contrary of what is known as common sense. +They will become enamoured of some enterprise which infallibly +impresses the average common-sense person as a mad and hopeless +enterprise. The average common-sense person will demolish the hopes of +that enterprise by incontrovertible argument. He will point out that +it is foolish on the face of it, that it has never been attempted +before, and that it responds to no need of humanity. He will say to +himself: "This fellow with his precious enterprise has a twist in his +brain. He can't reply to my arguments, and yet he obstinately persists +in going on." And the man destined to success does go on. Perhaps the +enterprise fails; it often fails; and then the average common-sense +person expends much breath in "I told you so's." But the man continues +to be on the look-out. His thirst is unassuaged; his taste for +enterprises foredoomed to failure is incurable. And one day some +enterprise foredoomed to failure develops into a success. We all hear +of it. We all open our mouths and gape. Of the failures we have heard +nothing. Once the man has achieved success, the thing becomes a habit +with him. The difference between a success and a failure is often so +slight that a reputation for succeeding will ensure success, and a +reputation for failing will ensure failure. Chance plays an important +part in such careers, but not a paramount part. One can only say that +it is more useful to have luck at the beginning than later on. These +"men of success" generally have pliable temperaments. They are not +frequently un-moral, but they regard a conscience as a good servant +and a bad master. They live in an atmosphere of compromise. + +There remains class C of success--the class of sheer high merit. I am +not a pessimist, nor am I an optimist. I try to arrive at the truth, +and I should say that in putting success C at ten per cent. of the sum +total of all successes, I am being generous to class C. Not that I +believe that vast quantities of merit go unappreciated. My reason for +giving to Class C only a modest share is the fact that there is so +little sheer high merit. And does it not stand to reason that high +merit must be very exceptional? This sort of success needs no +explanation, no accounting for. It is the justification of our +singular belief in the principle of the triumph of justice, and it is +among natural phenomena perhaps the only justification that can be +advanced for that belief. And certainly when we behold the spectacle +of genuine distinguished merit gaining, without undue delay and +without the sacrifice of dignity or of conscience, the applause of the +kind-hearted but obtuse and insensible majority of the human race, we +have fair reason to hug ourselves. + + + + +VIII + +THE PETTY ARTIFICIALITIES + + +The phrase "petty artificialities," employed by one of the +correspondents in the great Simple Life argument, has stuck in my +mind, although I gave it a plain intimation that it was no longer +wanted there. Perhaps it sheds more light than I had at first imagined +on the mental state of the persons who use it when they wish to +arraign the conditions of "modern life." A vituperative epithet is +capable of making a big show. "Artificialities" is a sufficiently +scornful word, but when you add "petty" you somehow give the quietus +to the pretensions of modern life. Modern life had better hide its +diminished head, after that. Modern life is settled and done for--in +the opinion of those who have thrown the dart. Only it isn't done for, +really, you know. "Petty," after all, means nothing in that connexion. +Are there, then, artificialities which are not "petty," which are +noble, large, and grand? "Petty" means merely that the users of the +word are just a little cross and out of temper. What they think they +object to is artificialities of any kind, and so to get rid of their +spleen they refer to "petty" artificialities. The device is a common +one, and as brilliant as it is futile. Rude adjectives are like blank +cartridge. They impress a vain people, including the birds of the air, +but they do no execution. + +At the same time, let me admit that I deeply sympathize with the +irritated users of the impolite phrase "petty artificialities." For it +does at any rate show a "divine discontent"; it does prove a high +dissatisfaction with conditions which at best are not the final +expression of the eternal purpose. It does make for a sort of crude +and churlish righteousness. I well know that feeling which induces one +to spit out savagely the phrase "petty artificialities of modern +life." One has it usually either on getting up or on going to bed. +What a petty artificial business it is, getting up, even for a male! +Shaving! Why shave? And then going to a drawer and choosing a necktie. +Fancy an immortal soul, fancy a fragment of the eternal and +indestructible energy, which exists from everlasting to everlasting, +deliberately expending its activity on the choice of a necktie! Why a +necktie? Then one goes downstairs and exchanges banal phrases with +other immortals. And one can't start breakfast immediately, because +some sleepy mortal is late. + +Why babble? Why wait? Why not say straight out: "Go to the deuce, all +of you! Here it's nearly ten o'clock, and me anxious to begin living +the higher life at once instead of fiddling around in petty +artificialities. Shut up, every one of you. Give me my bacon +instantly, and let me gobble it down quick and be off. I'm sick of +your ceremonies!" This would at any rate not be artificial. It would +save time. And if a similar policy were strictly applied through the +day, one could retire to a well-earned repose in the full assurance +that the day had been simplified. The time for living the higher life, +the time for pushing forward those vast schemes of self-improvement +which we all cherish, would decidedly have been increased. One would +not have that maddening feeling, which one so frequently does have +when the shades of night are falling fast, that the day had been +"frittered away." And yet--and yet--I gravely doubt whether this +wholesale massacre of those poor petty artificialities would bring us +appreciably nearer the millennium. + +For there is one thing, and a thing of fundamental importance, which +the revolutionists against petty artificialities always fail to +appreciate, and that is the necessity and the value of convention. I +cannot in a paragraph deal effectively with this most difficult and +complex question. I can only point the reader to analogous phenomena +in the arts. All the arts are a conventionalization, an ordering of +nature. Even in a garden you put the plants in rows, and you +subordinate the well-being of one to the general well-being. The sole +difference between a garden and the wild woods is a petty +artificiality. In writing a sonnet you actually cramp the profoundest +emotional conceptions into a length and a number of lines and a +jingling of like sounds arbitrarily fixed beforehand! Wordsworth's +"The world is too much with us" is a solid, horrid mass of petty +artificiality. Why couldn't the fellow say what he meant and have +done with it, instead of making "powers" rhyme with "ours," and +worrying himself to use exactly a hundred and forty syllables? As for +music, the amount of time that must have been devoted to petty +artificiality in the construction of an affair like Bach's Chaconne is +simply staggering. Then look at pictures, absurdly confined in frames, +with their ingenious contrasts of light and shade and mass against +mass. Nothing but petty artificiality! In other words, nothing but +"form"--"form" which is the basis of all beauty, whether material or +otherwise. + +Now, what form is in art, conventions (petty artificialities) are in +life. Just as you can have too much form in art, so you can have too +much convention in life. But no art that is not planned in form is +worth consideration, and no life that is not planned in convention can +ever be satisfactory. Convention is not the essence of life, but it is +the protecting garment and preservative of life, and it is also one +very valuable means by which life can express itself. It is largely +symbolic; and symbols, while being expressive, are also great +time-savers. The despisers of petty artificialities should think of +this. Take the striking instance of that pettiest artificiality, +leaving cards. Well, searchers after the real, what would you +substitute for it? If you dropped it and substituted nothing, the +result would tend towards a loosening of the bonds of society, and it +would tend towards the diminution of the number of your friends. And +if you dropped it and tried to substitute something less artificial +and more real, you would accomplish no more than you accomplish with +cards, you would inconvenience everybody, and waste a good deal of +your own time. I cannot too strongly insist that the basis of +convention is a symbolism, primarily meant to display a regard for the +feelings of other people. If you do not display a regard for the +feelings of other people, you may as well go and live on herbs in the +desert. And if you are to display such a regard you cannot do it more +expeditiously, at a smaller outlay of time and brains, than by +adopting the code of convention now generally practised. It comes to +this--that you cannot have all the advantages of living in the desert +while you are living in a society. It would be delightful for you if +you could, but you can't. + +There are two further reasons for the continuance of conventionality. +And one is the mysterious but indisputable fact that the full beauty +of an activity is never brought out until it is subjected to +discipline and strict ordering and nice balancing. A life without +petty artificiality would be the life of a tiger in the forest. A +beautiful life, perhaps, a life of "burning bright," but not reaching +the highest ideal of beauty! Laws and rules, forms and ceremonies are +good in themselves, from a merely aesthetic point of view, apart from +their social value and necessity. + +And the other reason is that one cannot always be at the full strain +of "self-improvement," and "evolutionary progress," and generally +beating the big drum. Human nature will not stand it. There is, if we +will only be patient, ample time for the "artificial" as well as for +the "real." Those persons who think that there isn't, ought to return +to school and learn arithmetic. Supposing that all "petty +artificialities" were suddenly swept away, and we were able to show +our regard and consideration for our fellow creatures by the swift +processes of thought alone, we should find ourselves with a terrible +lot of time hanging heavy on our hands. We can no more spend all our +waking hours in consciously striving towards higher things than we can +dine exclusively off jam. What frightful prigs we should become if we +had nothing to do but cultivate our noblest faculties! I beg the +despisers of artificiality to reflect upon these observations, however +incomplete these observations may be, and to consider whether they +would be quite content if they got what they are crying out for. + + + + +IX + +THE SECRET OF CONTENT + + +I have said lightly a propos of the conclusion arrived at by several +correspondents and by myself that the cry for the simple life was +merely a new form of the old cry for happiness, that I would explain +what it was that made life worth living for me. The word has gone +forth, and I must endeavour to redeem my promise. But I do so with +qualms and with diffidence. First, there is the natural instinct +against speaking of that which is in the core of one's mind. Second, +there is the fear, nearly amounting to certainty, of being +misunderstood or not comprehended at all. And third, there is the +absurd insufficiency of space. However!... For me, spiritual content +(I will not use the word "happiness," which implies too much) springs +essentially from no mental or physical facts. It springs from the +spiritual fact that there is something higher in man than the mind, +and that that something can control the mind. Call that something the +soul, or what you will. My sense of security amid the collisions of +existence lies in the firm consciousness that just as my body is the +servant of my mind, so is my mind the servant of _me_. An unruly +servant, but a servant--and possibly getting less unruly every day! +Often have I said to that restive brain: "Now, O mind, sole means of +communication between the divine _me_ and all external phenomena, you +are not a free agent; you are a subordinate; you are nothing but a +piece of machinery; and obey me you _shall_." + +The mind can only be conquered by regular meditation, by deciding +beforehand what direction its activity ought to take, and insisting +that its activity takes that direction; also by never leaving it idle, +undirected, masterless, to play at random like a child in the streets +after dark. This is extremely difficult, but it can be done, and it is +marvellously well worth doing. The fault of the epoch is the absence +of meditativeness. A sagacious man will strive to correct in himself +the faults of his epoch. In some deep ways the twelfth century had +advantages over the twentieth. It practised meditation. The twentieth +does Sandow exercises. Meditation (I speak only for myself) is the +least dispensable of the day's doings. What do I force my mind to +meditate upon? Upon various things, but chiefly upon one. + +Namely, that Force, Energy, Life--the Incomprehensible has many +names--is indestructible, and that, in the last analysis, there is +only one single, unique Force, Energy, Life. Science is gradually +reducing all elements to one element. Science is making it +increasingly difficult to conceive matter apart from spirit. +Everything lives. Even my razor gets "tired." And the fatigue of my +razor is no more nor less explicable than my fatigue after a passage +of arms with my mind. The Force in it, and in me, has been +transformed, not lost. All Force is the same force. Science just now +has a tendency to call it electricity; but I am indifferent to such +baptisms. The same Force pervades my razor, my cow in my field, and +the central _me_ which dominates my mind: the same force in different +stages of evolution. And that Force persists forever. In such paths +do I compel my mind to walk daily. Daily it has to recognize that the +mysterious Ego controlling it is a part of that divine Force which +exists from everlasting to everlasting, and which, in its ultimate +atoms, nothing can harm. By such a course of training, even the mind, +the coarse, practical mind, at last perceives that worldly accidents +don't count. + +"But," you will exclaim, "this is nothing but the immortality of the +soul over again!" Well, in a slightly more abstract form, it is. (I +never said I had discovered anything new.) I do not permit myself to +be dogmatic about the persistence of personality, or even of +individuality after death. But, in basing my physical and mental life +on the assumption that there is something in me which is +indestructible and essentially changeless, I go no further than +science points. Yes, if it gives you pleasure, let us call it the +immortality of the soul. If I miss my train, or my tailor disgraces +himself, or I lose that earthly manifestation of Force that happens to +be dearest to me, I say to my mind: "Mind, concentrate your powers +upon the full realization of the fact that I, your master, am immortal +and beyond the reach of accidents." And my mind, knowing by this time +that I am a hard master, obediently does so. Am I, a portion of the +Infinite Force that existed billions of years ago, and which will +exist billions of years hence, going to allow myself to be worried by +any terrestrial physical or mental event? I am not. As for the +vicissitudes of my body, that servant of my servant, it had better +keep its place, and not make too much fuss. Not that any fuss +occurring in either of these outward envelopes of the eternal _me_ +could really disturb me. The eternal is calm; it has the best reason +for being so. + +So you say to yourselves: "Here is a man in a penny weekly paper +advocating daily meditation upon the immortality of the soul as a cure +for discontent and unhappiness! A strange phenomenon!" That it should +be strange is an indictment of the epoch. My only reply to you is +this: Try it. Of course, I freely grant that such meditation, while it +"casts out fear," slowly kills desire and makes for a certain high +indifference; and that the extinguishing of desire, with an +accompanying indifference, be it high or low, is bad for youth. But I +am not a youth, and to-day I am writing for those who have tasted +disillusion: which youth has not. Yet I would not have you believe +that I scorn the brief joys of this world. My attitude towards them +would fain be that of Socrates, as stated by the incomparable Marcus +Aurelius: "He knew how to lack, and how to enjoy, those things in the +lack whereof most men show themselves weak; and in the fruition, +intemperate." + +Besides commanding my mind to dwell upon the indestructibly and final +omnipotence of the Force which is me, I command it to dwell upon the +logical consequence of that _unity_ of force which science is now +beginning to teach. The same essential force that is _me_ is also +_you_. Says the Indian proverb: "I met a hundred men on the road to +Delhi, and they were all my brothers." Yes, and they were all my twin +brothers, if I may so express it, and a thousand times closer to me +even than the common conception of twin brothers. We are all of us the +same in essence; what separates us is merely differences in our +respective stages of evolution. Constant reflection upon this fact +must produce that universal sympathy which alone can produce a +positive content. It must do away with such ridiculous feelings as +blame, irritation, anger, resentment. It must establish in the mind an +all-embracing tolerance. Until a man can look upon the drunkard in his +drunkenness, and upon the wife-beater in his brutality, with pure and +calm compassion; until his heart goes out instinctively to every other +manifestation of the unique Force; until he is surcharged with an +eager and unconquerable benevolence towards everything that lives; +until he has utterly abandoned the presumptuous practice of judging +and condemning--he will never attain real content. "Ah!" you exclaim +again, "he has nothing newer to tell us than that 'the greatest of +these is charity'!" I have not. It may strike you as excessively +funny, but I have discovered nothing newer than that. I merely remind +you of it. Thus it is, twins on the road to Delhi, by continual +meditation upon the indestructibility of Force, that I try to +cultivate calm, and by continual meditation upon the oneness of Force +that I try to cultivate charity, being fully convinced that in +calmness and in charity lies the secret of a placid if not ecstatic +happiness. It is often said that no thinking person can be happy in +this world. My view is that the more a man thinks the more happy he is +likely to be. I have spoken. I am overwhelmingly aware that I have +spoken crudely, abruptly, inadequately, confusedly. + + + + +THE END + + + + +THE NOVELS OF ARNOLD BENNETT + + +WHOM GOD HATH JOINED: + + Price $1.20 Net + +WHOM GOD HATH JOINED is a dramatic presentation of the working of the +English divorce laws. Their injustice to woman has long been +acknowledged; Arnold Bennett proves them almost as unjust to man. + +The novel is a stern morality, with laughter interspersed. It +possesses the sincerity and vitality which come of a careful study of +the problem. + +It contains passages of the most brilliant motive analysis which have +been written in recent years. It presents a vivid world of actual +personages. + + +THE GLIMPSE: + +_The Adventures of a Soul._ Price $1.20 Net + +The story is told of a man who passed over to the Other Side and +remained there long enough to gain a glimpse--only to return again. + +Written with the careful realism which distinguishes all Arnold +Bennett's work, it is curious to note the fine use that he makes of +his realistic genius in the handling of a visionary situation. + + +A MAN FROM THE NORTH: + + Price $1.20 Net + +The story of a young man from the Five Towns, who comes up London to +seek his fortune. He is grossly ignorant of life and naively curious +about love. This is the history of his adventures towards love and of +his enlightenment. + +All the loneliness, passion and quenchless curiosity of youth are in +these pages--and the magic power of youth to wrap about the +commonplace the cloak of romance. + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, Publishers + + + + +ARNOLD BENNETT: PLAYS + + +CUPID AND COMMON-SENSE: + +_A Play in Four Acts, with a Preface on the Crisis in the Theatre._ + + Price $1.00 Net + +"Cupid and Common-Sense" reads well, and reads as if it would prove +still more effective and enjoyable when acted.--_The Scotsman._ + + +WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS: A Play. + + Price $1.00 Net + +This clever comedy, based on modern neswpaperdom, reveals Arnold +Bennett in another phase. + + +POLITE FARCES: Three Plays. + + Price $1.00 Net + +The three farces which comprise this book deal with possible domestic +and refined crises of everyday life. + + +THE HONEYMOON: + +_A Comedy in Three Acts._ Price $1.00 Net + +Originality without grotesquerie and satire without malice combine to +make a play that is full of sparkle and genuine charm. + + +THE GREAT ADVENTURE: + +_A Play of Fancy in Four Acts._ Price $1.00 Net + +The play based on Mr. Bennett's successful novel, "Buried Alive." As +the novel stands out among humorous fiction so THE GREAT ADVENTURE +stands out among modern comedies. + + +ARNOLD BENNETT AND EDWARD KNOBLAUCH + +MILESTONES: + +_A Play in Three Acts._ Price $1.00 Net + +This is the play which has created a sensation because of its boldness +and novelty. It passes, in rapid survey, three generations--the +milestones of the last half century. A big New York success. + + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, Publishers + + + * * * * * + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page 110: artificialties replaced with artificialities | + | Page 114: prevades replaced with pervades | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mental Efficiency, by Arnold Bennett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MENTAL EFFICIENCY *** + +***** This file should be named 23347.txt or 23347.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/4/23347/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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