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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/27347-8.txt b/27347-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..380dad1 --- /dev/null +++ b/27347-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5601 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Appearances, by Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson + +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: Appearances + Being Notes of Travel + +Author: Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson + +Release Date: November 28, 2008 [EBook #27347] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APPEARANCES *** + + + + +Produced by Ronald Lee + + + + + + + + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + + A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. + + THE MEANING OF GOOD. + + JUSTICE & LIBERTY, A POLITICAL DIALOGUE. + + + _PROBLEMS OF THE DAY SERIES_ + + RELIGION & IMMORTALITY. + + LETTERS FROM JOHN CHINAMAN. + + RELIGION: A FORECAST. + + + + + APPEARANCES + + + + + APPEARANCES + BEING + NOTES OF TRAVEL + + + BY + + G. LOWES DICKINSON + AUTHOR OF "A MODERN SYMPOSIUM," + "JUSTICE AND LIBERTY," ETC. + + + [Illustration] + + MCMXIV + + + LONDON & TORONTO + J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED + NEW YORK: DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. + + + + + All rights reserved + + + + +PREFACE + + +The articles included in this book have already appeared, those from the +East in the _Manchester Guardian_, those from America in the _English +Review_. In reprinting them, I have chosen a title which may serve also +as an apology. What I offer is not Reality; but appearances to me. From +such appearances perhaps, in time, Reality may be constructed. I claim +only to make my contribution. I do so because the new contact between +East and West is perhaps the most important fact of our age; and the +problems of action and thought which it creates can only be solved as +each civilisation tries to understand the others, and, by so doing, +better to understand itself. These articles represent at any rate a good +will to understand; and they may, I hope, for that reason throw one +gleam of light on the darkness. + +For the opportunity of travelling in the East I am indebted to the +munificence of Mr. Albert Kahn of Paris, who has founded what are known +in this country as the Albert Kahn Travelling Fellowships.[1] The +existence of this endowment is perhaps not as widely known as it should +be. And if this volume should be the occasion of leading others to take +advantage of the founder's generosity it will not have been written in +vain. + +I have hesitated long before deciding to republish the letters on +America. They were written in 1909, before the election of President +Wilson, and all that led up to and is implied in that event. It was not, +however, the fact that, so far, they are out of date, that caused me to +hesitate. For they deal only incidentally with current politics, and +whatever value they may have is as a commentary on phases of American +civilisation which are of more than transitory significance. Much has +happened in the United States during the last few years which is of +great interest and importance. The conflict between democracy and +plutocracy has become more conscious and more acute; there have been +important developments in the labour movement; and capital has been so +"harassed" by legislation that it may, for the moment, seem odd to +capitalists to find America called "the paradise of Plutocracy." No +doubt the American public has awakened to its situation since 1909. But +such awakenings take a long time to transform the character of a +civilisation and all that has occurred serves only to confirm the +contention in the text that in the new world the same situation is +arising that confronts the old one. + +What made me hesitate was something more important than the date at +which the letters were written. There is in them a note of exasperation +which I would have wished to remove if I could. But I could not, without +a complete rewriting, by which, even if it were possible to me, more +would have been lost than gained. It is this note of exasperation which +has induced me hitherto to keep the letters back, in spite of requests +to the contrary from American friends and publishers. But the +opportunity of adding them as a pendant to letters from the East, where +they fall naturally into their place as a complement and a contrast, has +finally overcome my scruples; the more so, as much that is said of +America is as typical of all the West, as it is foreign to all the East. +That this Western civilisation, against which I have so much to say, is +nevertheless the civilisation in which I would choose to live, in which +I believe, and about which all my hopes centre, I have endeavoured to +make clear in the concluding essay. And my readers, I hope, if any of +them persevere to the end, will feel that they have been listening, +after all, to the voice of a friend, even if the friend be of that +disagreeable kind called "candid." + + + Footnotes: + + [Footnote 1: These Fellowships, each of the value of £660, were + established to enable the persons appointed to them to travel + round the world. The Trust is administered at the University of + London, and full information regarding it can be obtained from + the Principal, Sir Henry Miers, F.R.S., who is Honorary + Secretary to the Trustees.] + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PART I + + INDIA + + PAGE + + I. IN THE RED SEA. 3 + + II. AJANTA. 7 + + III. ULSTER IN INDIA 12 + + IV. ANGLO-INDIA. 16 + + V. A MYSTERY PLAY. 20 + + VI. AN INDIAN SAINT. 24 + + VII. A VILLAGE IN BENGAL 28 + + VIII. SRI RAMAKRISHNA. 32 + + IX. THE MONSTROUS REGIMEN OF WOMEN 38 + + X. THE BUDDHA AT BURUPUDUR 42 + + XI. A MALAY THEATRE 47 + + + PART II + + CHINA + + I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA 55 + + II. NANKING 60 + + III. IN THE YANGTSE GORGES 65 + + IV. PEKIN 72 + + V. THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD 79 + + VI. CHINA IN TRANSITION 87 + + VII. A SACRED MOUNTAIN 95 + + + PART III + + JAPAN + + I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 105 + + II. A "NO" DANCE 111 + + III. NIKKO 116 + + IV. DIVINE RIGHT IN JAPAN 122 + + V. FUJI 129 + + VI. JAPAN AND AMERICA 136 + + VII. HOME 142 + + + PART IV + + AMERICA + + I. THE "DIVINE AVERAGE" 149 + + II. A CONTINENT OF PIONEERS 153 + + III. NIAGARA 160 + + IV. "THE MODERN PULPIT" 164 + + V. IN THE ROCKIES 171 + + VI. IN THE ADIRONDACKS 178 + + VII. THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS 184 + + VIII. RED-BLOODS AND "MOLLYCODDLES" 192 + + IX. ADVERTISEMENT 199 + + X. CULTURE 205 + + XI. ANTĈUS 211 + + CONCLUDING ESSAY 218 + + + + +PART I + +INDIA + + + + +I + +IN THE RED SEA + + +"But why do you do it?" said the Frenchman. From the saloon above came a +sound of singing, and I recognised a well-known hymn. The sun was +blazing on a foam-flecked sea; a range of islands lifted red rocks into +the glare; the wind blew fresh; and, from above, + + "Nothing in my hand I bring, + Simply to Thy cross I cling." + +Male voices were singing; voices whose owners, beyond a doubt, had no +idea of clinging to anything. Female voices, too, of clingers, perhaps, +but hardly to a cross. "Why do you do it?"--I began to explain. "For the +same reason that we play deck-quoits and shuffle-board; for the same +reason that we dress for dinner. It's the system." "The system?" "Yes. +What I call Anglicanism. It's a form of idealism. It consists in doing +the proper thing." "But why should the proper thing be done?" "That +question ought not to be asked. Anglicanism is an idealistic creed. It +is anti-utilitarian and anti-rational. It does not ask questions; it has +faith. The proper thing is the proper thing, and because it is the +proper thing it is done." "At least," he said, "you do not pretend that +this is religion?" "No. It has nothing to do with religion. But neither +is it, as you too simply suppose, hypocrisy. Hypocrisy implies that you +know what religion is, and counterfeit it. But these people do not know, +and they are not counterfeiting. When they go to church they are not +thinking of religion. They are thinking of the social system. The +officers and civilians singing up there first learned to sing in the +village church. They walked to the church from the great house; the +great house stood in its park; the park was enclosed by the estate; and +the estate was surrounded by other estates. The service in the village +church stood for all that. And the service in the saloon stands for it +still. At bottom, what that hymn means is not that these men are +Christians, but that they are carrying England to India, to Burma, to +China." "It is a funny thing," the Frenchman mused, "to carry to 300 +million Hindus and Mahometans, and 400 million Confucians, Buddhists, +and devil-worshippers. What do they do with it when they get there?" +"They plant it down in little oases all over the country, and live in +it. It is the shell that protects them in those oceans of impropriety. +And from that shell they govern the world." "But how can they govern +what they can't even see?" "They govern all the better. If once they +could see, they would be lost. Doubt would enter in. And it is the +virtue of the Englishman that he never doubts. That is what the system +does for him." + +At this moment a voice was borne down the breeze. It was that of my +travelling companion, and it appeared, as he approached, that he was +discoursing to the captain on the merits of Dostoievsky's novels. He is +no respecter of persons; he imposes his own conversation; and the +captain, though obviously puzzled, was polite. "Russians may be like +that," he was remarking as he passed, "but Englishmen aren't." "No," +said my friend, "but don't you wish they were?" "I do _not_," said the +captain with conviction. I looked at the Frenchman. "There," I said, +"behold the system." "But your friend?" "Ah, but he, like myself, is a +pariah. Have you not observed? They are quite polite. They have even a +kind of respect--such as our public school boys have--for anyone who is +queer, if only he is queer enough. But we don't "belong," and they know +it. We are outside the system. At bottom we are dangerous, like +foreigners. And they don't quite approve of our being let loose in +India." "Besides, you talk to the Indians." "Yes, we talk to the +Indians." "And that is contrary to the system?" "Yes, on board the boat; +it's all very well while you're still in England." "A strange system--to +perpetuate between rulers and ruled an impassable gulf!" "Yes. But, as +Mr. Podsnap remarked, 'so it is.'" + +We had penetrated to the bows of the ship and hung looking over. +Suddenly, just under the surf, there was an emerald gleam; another; then +a leap and a dive; a leap and a dive again. A pair of porpoises were +playing round the bows with the ease, the spontaneity, the beauty of +perfect and happy life. As we watched them the same mood grew in us till +it forced expression. And "Oh," I said, "the ship's a prison!" "No," +said the Frenchman, "it's the system." + + + + +II + +AJANTA + + +A dusty road running through an avenue across the great plateau of the +Deccan; scanty crops of maize and cotton; here and there low hills, +their reddish soil sparsely clothed with trees; to the north, a receding +line of mountains; elsewhere infinite space and blazing light. Our +"tonga," its pair of wheels and its white awning rolling and jolting +behind two good horses, passes long lines of bullock-carts. Indians, +walking beside them with their inimitable gait, make exquisite gestures +of abjection to the clumsy white Sahibs huddled uncomfortably on the +back seat. Their robes of vivid colour, always harmoniously blent, leave +bare the slender brown legs and often the breast and back. Children +stark naked ride on their mothers' hips or their fathers' shoulder. Now +and again the oxen are unyoked at a dribble of water, and a party rests +and eats in the shade. Otherwise it is one long march with bare feet +over the burning soil. + +We are approaching a market. The mud walls of a village appear. And +outside, by a stream shrunk now into muddy pools, shimmers and wimmers +a many-coloured crowd, buzzing among their waggons and awnings and +improvised stalls. We ford the shallow stream, where women are washing +clothes, cleaning their teeth, and drinking from the same water, and +pass among the bags of corn, the sugar-cane, and sweetmeats, saluted +gravely but unsolicited. + +Then on again for hours, the road now solitary, till as day closes we +reach Fardapur. A cluster of mud-walled compounds and beehive huts lies +about a fortified enclosure, where the children sprawl and scream, and a +Brahmin intones to silent auditors. Outside they are drawing water from +the puddles of the stream. And gradually over the low hills and the +stretches of yellow grass the after-glow spreads a transfiguring light. +Out of a rosy flush the evening star begins to shine; the crickets cry; +a fresh breeze blows; and another pitiless day drops into oblivion. + +Next day, at dawn, we walk the four miles to the famous caves, guided by +a boy who wears the Nizam's livery, and explains to us, in a language we +do not know, but with perfect lucidity, that it is to him, and no one +else, that backsheesh is due. He sings snatches of music as old and +strange as the hills; picks us balls of cotton, and prickly pear; and +once stops to point to the fresh tracks of a panther. We are in the +winding gorge of a watercourse; and presently, at a turn, in a +semicircle facing south, we see in the cliff the long line of caves. As +we enter the first an intolerable odour meets us, and a flight of bats +explains the cause. Gradually our eyes accustom themselves to the light, +and we become conscious of a square hall, the flat roof resting on squat +pillars elaborately carved, fragments of painting on the walls and +ceiling, narrow slits opening into dark cells, and opposite the +entrance, set back in a shrine, a colossal Buddha, the light falling +full on the solemn face, the upturned feet, the expository hands. This +is a monastery, and most of the caves are on the same plan; but one or +two are long halls, presumably for worship, with barrel-vaulted roofs, +and at the end a great solid globe on a pedestal. + +Of the art of these caves I will not speak. What little can be seen of +the painting--and only ill-lighted fragments remain--is full of +tenderness, refinement, and grace; no touch of drama; no hint of +passion. The sculpture, stripped of its stucco surface, is rude but +often impressive. But what impresses most is not the art but the +religion of the place. In this terrible country, where the great forces +of nature, drought and famine and pestilence, the intolerable sun, the +intolerable rain, and the exuberance of life and death, have made of +mankind a mere passive horde cowering before inscrutable Powers--here, +more than anywhere, men were bound under a yoke of observance and ritual +to the gods they had fashioned and the priests who interpreted their +will. Then came the Deliverer to set them free not _for_ but _from_ +life, teaching them how to escape from that worst of all evils, rebirth +again and again into a world of infinite suffering, unguided by any +reason to any good end. "There is no god," said this strange master, +"there is no soul; but there is life after death, life here in this +hell, unless you will learn to deliver yourselves by annihilating +desire." They listened; they built monasteries; they meditated; and now +and again, here, perhaps, in these caves, one or other attained +enlightenment. But the cloud of Hinduism, lifted for a moment, rolled +back heavier than ever. The older gods were seated too firmly on their +thrones. Shiva--creator, preserver, destroyer--expelled the Buddha. And +that passive figure, sublime in its power of mind, sits for ever alone +in the land of his birth, exiled from light, in a cloud of clinging +bats. + +But outside proceeds the great pageant of day and night, and the +patient, beautiful people labour without hope, while universal nature, +symbolised by Shiva's foot, presses heavily on their heads and forbids +them the stature of man. Only the white man here, bustling, ungainly, +aggressive, retains his freedom and acts rather than suffers. One +understands at last the full meaning of the word "environment." Because +of this sun, because of this soil, because of their vast numbers, these +people are passive, religious, fatalistic. Because of our cold and rain +in the north, our fresh springs and summers, we are men of action, of +science, of no reflection. The seed is the same, but according to the +soil it brings forth differently. Here the patience, the beauty, the +abjection before the Devilish-Divine; there the defiance, the cult of +the proud self. And these things have met. To what result? + + + + +III + +ULSTER IN INDIA + + +"Are you a Home Ruler?" "Yes. Are you?" Instantly a torrent of protest. +He was a Mahometan, eminent in law and politics; clever, fluent, +forensic, with a passion for hearing himself talk, and addressing one +always as if one were a public meeting. He approached his face close to +mine, gradually backing me into the wall. And I realised the full +meaning of Carlyle's dictum "to be a mere passive bucket to be pumped +into can be agreeable to no human being." + +It was not, naturally, the Irish question for its own sake that +interested him. But he took it as a type of the Indian question. Here, +too, he maintained, there is an Ulster, the Mahometan community. Here, +too, there are Nationalists, the Hindus. Here, too, a "loyal" minority, +protected by a beneficent and impartial Imperial Government. Here, too, +a majority of "rebels" bent on throwing off that Government in order +that they may oppress the minority. Here, too, an ideal of independence +hypocritically masked under the phrase "self-government." "It is a law +of political science that where there are two minorities they should +stand together against the majority. The Hindus want to get rid of you, +as they want to get rid of us. And for that reason alone, if there were +not a thousand others"--there were, he hinted, but, rhetorically, he +"passed them over in silence"--"for that reason alone I am loyal to the +British raj." It had never occurred to me to doubt it. But I questioned, +when I got a moment's breathing space, whether really the Hindu +community deliberately nourished this dark conspiracy. He had no doubt, +so far as the leaders were concerned; and he mistrusted the "moderates" +more than the extremists, because they were cleverer. He "multiplied +examples"--it was his phrase. The movement for primary education, for +example. It had nothing to do with education. It was a plot to teach the +masses Hindi, in order that they might be swept into the anti-British, +anti-Mahometan current. As to minor matters, no Hindu had ever voted for +a Mahometan, no Hindu barrister ever sent a client to a Mahometan +colleague. Whereas in all these matters, one was led to infer, +Mahometans were conciliation and tolerance itself. I knew that the +speaker himself had secured the election of Mahometans to all the seats +in the Council. But I refrained from referring to the matter. Then there +was caste. A Hindu will not eat with a Mahometan, and this was taken as +a personal insult. I suggested that the English were equally boycotted; +but that we regarded the boycott as a religious obligation, not as a +social stigma. But, like the Irish Ulstermen, he was not there to listen +to argument. He rolled on like a river. None of us could escape. He +detected the first signs of straying, and beckoned us back to the flock. +"Mr. Audubon, this is important." "Mr. Coryat, you must listen to this." +Coryat, at last, grew restive, and remarked rather tartly that no doubt +there was friction between the two communities, but that the worst way +to deal with it was by recrimination. He agreed; with tears in his eyes +he agreed. There was nothing he had not done, no advance he had not +made, to endeavour to bridge the gulf. All in vain! Never were such +obstinate fellows as these Hindus. And he proceeded once more to +"multiply examples." As we said "Good-bye" in the small hours of the +morning he pressed into our hands copies of his speeches and addresses. +And we left him perorating on the steps of the hotel. + +A painfully acquired mistrust of generalisation prevents me from saying +that this is _the_ Mahometan point of view. Indeed, I have reason to +know that it is not. But it is a Mahometan point of view in one +province. And it was endorsed, more soberly, by less rhetorical members +of the community. Some twenty-five years ago, they say, Mahometans woke +to the fact that they were dropping behind in the race for influence and +power. They started a campaign of education and organisation. At every +point they found themselves thwarted; and always, behind the obstacle, +lurked a Hindu. Lord Morley's reform of the Councils, intended to unite +all sections, had had the opposite effect. Nothing but the separate +electorates had saved Mahometans from political extinction. And +precisely because they desired that extinction Hindus desired mixed +electorates. The elections to the Councils have exasperated the +antagonism between the two communities. And an enemy might accuse the +Government of being actuated, in that reform, by the Machiavellian maxim +"Divide et impera." + +What the Hindus have to say to all this I have not had an opportunity of +learning. But they too, I conceive, can "multiply examples" for their +side. To a philosophic observer two reflections suggest themselves. One, +that representative government can only work when there is real give and +take between the contending parties. The other, that to most men, and +most nations, religion means nothing more than antagonism to some other +religion. Witness Ulster in Ireland; and witness, equally, Ulster in +India. + + + + +IV + +ANGLO-INDIA + + +From the gallery of the high hall we look down on the assembled society +of the cantonment. The scene is commonplace enough; twaddle and tea, +after tennis; "frivolling"--it is their word; women too empty-headed and +men too tired to do anything else. This mill-round of work and exercise +is maintained like a religion. The gymkhana represents the "compulsory +games" of a public school. It is part of the "white man's burden." He +plays, as he works, with a sense of responsibility. He is bored, but +boredom is a duty, and there's nothing else to do. + +The scene is commonplace. Yes! But this afternoon a band is playing. The +music suits the occasion. It is soft, melodious, sentimental. It +provokes a vague sensibility, and makes no appeal to the imagination. At +least it should not, from its quality. But the power of music is +incalculable. It has an essence independent of its forms. And by virtue +of that essence its poorest manifestations can sink a shaft into the +springs of life. So as I listen languidly the scene before me detaches +itself from actuality and floats away on the stream of art. It becomes +a symbol; and around and beyond it, in some ideal space, other symbols +arise and begin to move. I see the East as an infinite procession. Huge +Bactrian camels balance their bobbing heads as they pad deliberately +over the burning dust. Laden asses, cattle, and sheep and goats move on +in troops. Black-bearded men, men with beard and hair dyed red, women +pregnant or carrying babies on their hips, youths like the Indian +Bacchus with long curling hair, children of all ages, old men +magnificent and fierce, all the generations of Asia pass and pass on, +seen like a frieze against a rock background, blazing with colour, +rhythmical and fluent, marching menacingly down out of infinite space on +to this little oasis of Englishmen. Then, suddenly, they are an ocean; +and the Anglo-Indian world floats upon it like an Atlantic liner. It has +its gymnasium, its swimming-bath, its card-rooms, its concert-room. It +has its first and second class and steerage, well marked off. It dresses +for dinner every night; it has an Anglican service on Sunday; it flirts +mildly; it is bored; but above all it is safe. It has water-tight +compartments. It is "unsinkable." The band is playing; and when the +crash comes it will not stop. No; it will play this music, this, which +is in my ears. Is it Gounod's "Faust" or an Anglican hymn? No matter! It +is the same thing, sentimental, and not imaginative. And sentimentally, +not imaginatively, the Englishman will die. He will not face the event, +but he will stand up to it. He will realise nothing, but he will shrink +from nothing. Of all the stories about the loss of the _Titanic_ the +best and most characteristic is that of the group of men who sat +conversing in the second-class smoking-room, till one of them said, "Now +she's going down. Let's go and sit in the first-class saloon." And they +did. How touching! How sublime! How English! The _Titanic_ sinks. With a +roar the machinery crashes from stem to bow. Dust on the water, cries on +the water, then vacuity and silence. The East has swept over this colony +of the West. And still its generations pass on, rhythmically swinging; +slaves of Nature, not, as in the West, rebels against her; cyclical as +her seasons and her stars; infinite as her storms of dust; identical as +the leaves of her trees; purposeless as her cyclones and her +earthquakes. + +The music stops and I rub my eyes. Yes, it is only the club, only tea +and twaddle! Or am I wrong? There is more in these men and women than +appears. They stand for the West, for the energy of the world, for all, +in this vast Nature, that is determinate and purposive, not passively +repetitionary. And if they do not know it, if they never hear the strain +that transposes them and their work into a tragic dream, if tennis is +tennis to them, and a valse a valse, and an Indian a native, none the +less they are what a poet would see them to be, an oasis in the desert, +a liner on the ocean, ministers of the life within life that is the +hope, the inspiration, and the meaning of the world. In my heart of +hearts I apologise as I prolong the banalities of parting, and almost +vow never again to abuse Gounod's music. + + + + +V + +A MYSTERY PLAY + + +A few lamps set on the floor lit up the white roof. On either side the +great hall was open to the night; and now and again a bird flew across, +or a silent figure flitted from dark to dark. On a low platform sat the +dancers, gorgeously robed. All were boys. The leader, a peacock-fan +flashing in his head-dress, personated Krishna. Beside him sat Rhada, +his wife. The rest were the milkmaids of the legend. They sat like +statues, and none of them moved at our entry. But the musicians, who +were seated on the ground, rose and salaamed, and instantly began to +play. There were five instruments--a miniature harmonium (terrible +innovation), two viols, of flat, unresonant tone, a pair of cymbals, and +a small drum. The ear, at first, detected little but discordant chaos, +but by degrees a form became apparent--short phrases, of strong rhythm, +in a different scale from ours, repeated again and again, and strung on +a thread of loose improvisation. Every now and again the musicians burst +into song. Their voices were harsh and nasal, but their art was +complicated and subtle. Clearly, this was not barbarous music, it was +only strange, and its interest increased, as the ear became accustomed +to it. Suddenly, as though they could resist no longer, the dancers, who +had not moved, leapt from the platform and began their dance. It was +symbolical; Krishna was its centre, and the rest were wooing him. Desire +and its frustration and fulfilment were the theme. Yet it was not +sensual, or not merely so. The Hindus interpret in a religious spirit +this legendary sport of Krishna with the milkmaids. It symbolises the +soul's wooing of God. And so these boys interpreted it. Their passion, +though it included the flesh, was not of the flesh. The mood was +rapturous, but not abandoned; ecstatic, but not orgiastic. There were +moments of a hushed suspense when hardly a muscle moved; only the arms +undulated and the feet and hands vibrated. Then a break into swift +whirling, on the toes or on the knees, into leaping and stamping, swift +flight and pursuit. A pause again; a slow march; a rush with twinkling +feet; and always, on those young faces, even in the moment of most +excitement, a look of solemn rapture, as though they were carried out of +themselves into the divine. I have seen dancing more accomplished, more +elaborate, more astonishing than this. But never any that seemed to me +to fulfil so well the finest purposes of the art. The Russian ballet, in +the retrospect, seems trivial by comparison. It was secular; but this +was religious. For the first time I seemed to catch a glimpse of what +the tragic dance of the Greeks might have been like. The rhythms were +not unlike those of Greek choruses, the motions corresponded strictly to +the rhythms, and all was attuned to a high religious mood. In such +dancing the flesh becomes spirit, the body a transparent emblem of the +soul. + +After that the play, I confess, was a drop into bathos. We descended to +speech, even to tedious burlesque. But the analogy was all the closer to +mediĉval mysteries. In ages of Faith religion is not only sublime; it is +intimate, humorous, domestic; it sits at the hearth and plays in the +nursery. So it is in India where the age of Faith has never ceased. What +was represented that night was an episode in the story of Krishna. The +characters were the infant god, his mother, Jasodha, and an ancient +Brahmin who has come from her own country to congratulate her on the +birth of a child. He is a comic character--the sagging belly and the +painted face of the pantomime. He answers Jasodha's inquiries after +friends and relations at home. She offers him food. He professes to have +no appetite, but, on being pressed, demands portentous measures of rice +and flour. While she collects the material for his meal, he goes to +bathe in the Jumna; and the whole ritual of his ablutions is elaborately +travestied, even a crocodile being introduced in the person of one of +the musicians, who rudely pulls him by the leg as he is rolling in +imaginary water. His bathing finished, he retires and cooks his food. +When it is ready he falls into prayer. But during his abstraction the +infant Krishna crawls up and begins devouring the food. Returning to +himself, the Brahmin, in a rage, runs off into the darkness of the hall. +Jasodha pursues him and brings him back. And he begins once more to cook +his food. This episode was repeated three times in all its detail, and I +confess I found it insufferably tedious. The third time Jasodha scolds +the child and asks him why he does it. He replies--and here comes the +pretty point of the play--that the Brahmin, in praying to God and +offering him the food, unwittingly is praying to him and offering to +him, and in eating the food he has but accepted the offering. The mother +does not understand, but the Brahmin does, and prostrates himself before +his Lord. + +This is crude enough art, but at any rate it is genuine. Like all +primitive art, it is a representation of what is traditionally believed +and popularly felt. The story is familiar to the audience and intimate +to their lives. It represents details which they witness every day, and +at the same time it has religious significance. Out of it might grow a +great drama, as once in ancient Greece. And perhaps from no other origin +can such a drama arise. + + + + +VI + +AN INDIAN SAINT + + +It was at Benares that we met him. He led us through the maze of the +bazaars, his purple robe guiding us like a star, and brought us out by +the mosque of Aurungzebe. Thence a long flight of stairs plunged sheer +to the Ganges, shining below in the afternoon sun. We descended; but, +turning aside before we reached the shore, came to a tiny house perched +on a terrace above the ghat. We took off our shoes in the anteroom and +passed through a second chamber, with its riverside open to the air, and +reached a tiny apartment, where he motioned us to a divan. We squatted +and looked round. Some empty bottles were the only furniture. But on the +wall hung the picture we had come to see. It was a symbolic tree, and +perhaps as much like a tree as what it symbolised was like the universe. +Embedded in its trunk and branches were coloured circles and signs, and +from them grew leaves and flowers of various hues. Below was a garden +lit by a rising sun, and a black river where birds and beasts pursued +and devoured one another. At our request he took a pointer and began to +explain. I am not sure that I well understood or well remember, but +something of this kind was the gist of it. In the beginning was +Parabrahma, existing in himself, a white circle at the root of the tree. +Whence sprang, following the line of the trunk, the egg of the universe, +pregnant with all potentialities. Thence came the energy of Brahma; and +of this there were three aspects, the Good, the Evil, and the Neuter, +symbolised by three triangles in a circle. Thence the trunk continued, +but also thence emerged a branch to the right and one to the left. The +branch to the right was Illusion and ended in God; the branch to the +left was Ignorance and ended in the Soul. Thus the Soul contemplates +Illusion under the form of her gods. Up the line of the trunk came next +the Energy of Nature; then Pride; then Egotism and Individuality; whence +branched to one side Mind, to the other the senses and the passions. +Then followed the elements, fire, air, water, and earth; then the +vegetable creation; then corn; and then, at the summit of the tree, the +primitive Man and Woman, type of Humanity. The garden below was Eden, +until the sun rose; but with light came discord and conflict, symbolised +by the river and the beasts. Evil and conflict belong to the nature of +the created world; and the purpose of religion is by contemplation to +enable the Soul to break its bodies, and the whole creation to return +again to Parabrahma, whence it sprung. + +Why did it spring? He did not know. For good or for evil? He could not +say. What he knew he knew, and what he did not know he did not. "Some +say there is no God and no Soul." He smiled. "Let them!" His certainty +was complete. "Can the souls of men be reincarnated as animals?" He +shrugged his shoulders. "Who can say?" I tried to put in a plea for the +life of action, but he was adamant; contemplation and contemplation +alone can deliver us. "Our good men," I said, "desire to make the world +better, rather than to save their own souls." "Our sages," he replied, +"are sorry for the world, but they know they cannot help it." His +religion, I urged, denied all sense to the process of history. "There +may be process in matter," he replied, "but there is none in God." I +protested that I loved individual souls, and did not want them absorbed +in Parabrahma. He laughed his good cheery laugh, out of his black beard, +but it was clear that he held me to be a child, imprisoned in the Ego. I +felt like that, and I hugged my Ego; so presently he ministered to it +with sweetmeats. He even ate with us, and smoked a cigarette. He was the +most human of men; so human that I thought his religion could not be as +inhuman as it sounded. But it was the religion of the East, not of the +West. It refused all significance to the temporal world; it took no +account of society and its needs; it sought to destroy, not to develop, +the sense and the power of Individuality. It did not say, but it +implied, that creation was a mistake; and if it did not profess +pessimism, pessimism was its logical outcome. I do not know whether it +is the religion of a wise race; but I am sure it could never be that of +a strong one. + +But I loved the saint, and felt that he was a brother. Next morning, as +we drifted past the long line of ghats, watching the bright figures on +the terraces and stairs, the brown bodies in the water, and the Brahmins +squatting on the shore, we saw him among the bathers, and he called to +us cheerily. We waved our hands and passed on, never to see him again. +East had not met West, but at least they had shaken hands across the +gulf. The gulf, however, was profound; for many and many incarnations +will be needed before one soul at least can come even to wish to +annihilate itself in the Universal. + + + + +VII + +A VILLAGE IN BENGAL + + +At 6 A.M. we got out of the train at a station on the Ganges; and after +many delays found ourselves drifting down the river in a houseboat. To +lie on cushions, sheltered from the sun, looking out on the moving +shore, to the sound of the leisurely plash of oars, is elysium after a +night in the train. We had seven hours of it and I could have wished it +were more. But towards sunset we reached our destination. At the wharf a +crowd of servants were waiting to touch the feet of our hosts who had +travelled with us. They accompanied us through a tangle of palms, +bananas, mangoes, canes, past bamboo huts raised on platforms of hard, +dry mud, to the central place where a great banyan stood in front of the +temple. We took off our shoes and entered the enclosure, followed by +half the village, silent, dignified, and deferential. Over ruined +shrines of red brick, elaborately carved, clambered and twined the +sacred peepul tree. And within a more modern building were housed images +of Krishna and Rhada, and other symbols of what we call too hastily +idolatry. Outside was a circular platform of brick where these dolls +are washed in milk at the great festivals of the year. We passed on, and +watched the village weaver at his work, sitting on the ground with his +feet in a pit working the pedals of his loom; while outside, in the +garden, a youth was running up and down setting up, thread by thread, +the long strands of the warp. By the time we reached the house it was +dusk. A lamp was brought into the porch. Musicians and singers squatted +on the floor. Behind them a white-robed crowd faded into the night. And +we listened to hymns composed by the village saint, who had lately +passed away. + +First there was a prayer for forgiveness. "Lord, forgive us our sins. +You _must_ forgive, for you are called the merciful. And it's so easy +for you! And, if you don't, what becomes of your reputation?" Next, a +call to the ferry. "Come and cross over with me. Krishna is the boat and +Rhada the sail. No storms can wreck us. Come, cross over with me." Then +a prayer for deliverance from the "well" of the world where we are +imprisoned by those dread foes the five senses of the mind. Then a +rhapsody on God, invisible, incomprehensible. "He speaks, but He is not +seen. He lives in the room with me, but I cannot find Him. He brings to +market His moods, but the marketer never appears. Some call Him fire, +some ether. But I ask His name in vain. I suppose I am such a fool that +they will not tell it me." Then a strange ironical address to Krishna. +"Really, sir, your conduct is very odd! You flirt with the Gopis! You +put Rhada in a sulk, and then ask to be forgiven! You say you are a god, +and yet you pray to God! Really, sir, what are we to think?" Lastly, a +mystic song, how Krishna has plunged into the ocean of Rhada; how he is +there drifting, helpless and lost. Can we not save him? But no! It is +because his love is not perfect and pure. And that is why he must be +incarnated again and again in the avatars. + +Are these people idolaters, these dignified old men, these serious +youths, these earnest, grave musicians? Look at their temple, and you +say "Yes." Listen to their hymns, and you say "No." Reformers want to +educate them, and, perhaps, they are right. But if education is to mean +the substitution of the gramophone and music-hall songs for this +traditional art, these native hymns? I went to bed pondering, and was +awakened at six by another chorus telling us it was time to get up. We +did so, and visited the school, set up by my friend as an experiment; a +mud floor, mud-lined walls, all scrupulously clean; and squatting round +the four sides children of all ages, all reciting their lessons at once, +and all the lessons different. They were learning to read and write +their native language, and that, at least, seemed harmless enough. But +parents complained that it unfitted them for the fields. "Our fathers +did not do it"--that, said my impatient young host, is their reply to +every attempt at reform. In his library were all the works of Nietzsche, +Tolstoy, Wells, and Shaw, as well as all the technical journals of +scientific agriculture. He lectured them on the chemical constituents of +milk and the crossing of sugar-canes. They embraced his feet, sang their +hymns, and did as their fathers had done. He has a hard task before him, +but one far better worth attempting than the legal and political +activities in which most young Zemindars indulge. And, as he said, here +you see the fields and hear the birds, and here you can bathe in the +Ganges. We did; and then breakfasted; and then set out in palanquins for +the nearest railway station. The bearers sang a rhythmic chant as they +bore us smoothly along through mustard and pulses, yellow and orange and +mauve. The sun blazed hot; the bronzed figures streamed with sweat; the +cheerful voices never failed or flagged. I dozed and drowsed, while East +and West in my mind wove a web whose pattern I cannot trace. But a +pattern there is. And some day historians will be able to find it. + + + + +VIII + +SRI RAMAKRISHNA + + +As we dropped down the Hooghly they pointed to a temple on the shore as +lately the home of Sri Ramakrishna. He was only a name to me, and I did +not pay much attention, though I had his "Gospel" [2] actually under my +arm. I was preoccupied with the sunset, burning behind a veil of smoke; +and presently, as we landed, with the great floating haystacks +smouldering at the wharf in the red afterglow. As we waited for the +tram, someone said, "Would you like to see Kali?" and we stepped aside +to the little shrine. Within it was the hideous idol, black and +many-armed, decked with tinsel and fed with the blood of goats; and +there swept over me a wave of the repulsion I had felt from the first +for the Hindu religion, its symbols, its cult, its architecture, even +its philosophy. Seated in the tram, it was with an effort that I opened +the "Gospel" of Sri Ramakrishna. But at once my attention was arrested. +This was an account by a disciple of the life and sayings of his master. +And presently I read the following: + + "_Disciple._ Then, sir, one may hold that God is 'with form.' + But surely He is not the earthen image that is worshipped! + + "_Master._ But, my dear sir, why should you call it an earthen + image? Surely the Image Divine is made of the Spirit! + + "The disciple cannot follow this. He goes on: But is it not + one's duty, sir, to make it clear to those who worship images + that God is not the same as the clay form they worship, and that + in worshipping they should keep God Himself in view and not the + clay images? + + * * * * * + + "_Master._ You talk of 'images made of clay.' Well, there often + comes a necessity of worshipping even such images as these. God + Himself has provided these various forms of worship. The Lord + has done all this--to suit different men in different stages of + knowledge. + + "The mother so arranges the food for her children that every one + gets what agrees with him. Suppose she has five children. Having + a fish to cook, she makes different dishes out of it. She can + give each one of the children what suits him exactly. One gets + rich _polow_ with the fish, while she gives only a little soup + to another who is of weak digestion; she makes a sauce of sour + tamarind for the third, fries the fish for the fourth, and so + on, exactly as it happens to agree with the stomach. Don't you + see? + + "_Disciple._ Yes, sir, now I do. The Lord is to be worshipped in + the image of clay as a spirit by the beginner. The devotee, as + he advances, may worship Him independently of the image. + + "_Master._ Yes. And again, when he sees God he realises that + everything--image and all--is a manifestation of the Spirit. To + him the image is made of Spirit--not of clay. God is a Spirit." + +As I read this, I remembered the answer invariably given to me when I +asked about Hindu idolatry. The people, I was told, even the humblest +and most ignorant, worshipped not the idol but what it symbolised. +Actually, this hideous Kali stood to them for the Divine Mother. And I +was told of an old woman, racked with rheumatism, who had determined at +last to seek relief from the goddess. She returned with radiant face. +She had seen the Mother! And she had no more rheumatism. In this popular +religion, it would seem, the old cosmic elements have dropped out, and +the human only persist. So that even the terrifying form of Shiva, the +Destroyer, stands only for the divine husband of Parvati, the divine +wife. Hinduism, I admitted, is not as inhuman and superstitious as it +looks. But I admitted it reluctantly and with many reserves, remembering +all I had seen and heard of obscene rites and sculptures, of the +perpetual repetition of the names of God, of parasitic Brahmins and +self-torturing ascetics. + +What manner of man, then, was this Sri Ramakrishna? I turned the pages +and read: + + "The disciples were walking about the garden. M. walked by + himself at the cluster of five trees. It is about five in the + afternoon. Coming back to the verandah, north of the Master's + chamber, M. comes upon a strange sight. The Master is standing + still. Narendra is singing a hymn. He and three or four other + disciples are standing with the Master in their midst. M. is + charmed with their song. Never in his life has he heard a + sweeter voice. Looking at the Master, M. marvels and becomes + speechless. The Master stands motionless. His eyes are fixed. It + is hard to say whether he is breathing or not. This state of + ecstasy, says a disciple in low tones, is called Samadhi. M. has + never seen or heard of anything like this. He thinks to himself, + 'Is it possible that the thought of God can make a man forget + the world? How great must be his faith and love for God who is + thrown into such a state!'" + +"Yes," I said, "that is the Hindu ideal--ecstatic contemplation." +Something in me leapt to approve it; but the stronger pull was to +Hellenism and the West. "Go your way, Ramakrishna," I said, "but your +way is not mine. For me and my kind action not meditation; the temporal +not the eternal; the human not the ultra-divine; Socrates not +Ramakrishna!" But hardly had I said the words when I read on: + + "M. enters. Looking at him the Master laughs and laughs. He + cries out, 'Why, look! There he is again!' The boys all join in + the merriment. M. takes his seat, and the Master tells Narendra + and the other disciples what has made him laugh. He says: + + "'Once upon a time a small quantity of opium was given to a + certain peacock at four o'clock in the afternoon. Well, + punctually at four the next afternoon who should come in but the + selfsame peacock, longing for a repetition of the + favour--another dose of opium!'--(Laughter.) + + "M. sat watching the Master as he amused himself with the boys. + He kept up a running fire of chaff, and it seemed as if these + boys were his own age and he was playing with them. Peals of + laughter and brilliant flashes of humour follow upon one + another, calling to mind the image of a fair when the Joy of the + World is to be had for sale." + +I rubbed my eyes. Was this India or Athens? Is East East? Is West West? +Are there any opposites that exclude one another? Or is this +all-comprehensive Hinduism, this universal toleration, this refusal to +recognise ultimate antagonisms, this "mush," in a word, as my friends +would dub it--is this, after all, the truest and profoundest vision? + +And I read in my book: + + "M.'s egotism is now completely crushed. He thinks to himself: + What this God-man says is indeed perfectly true. What business + have I to go about preaching to others? Have I myself known God? + Do I love God? About God I know nothing. It would indeed be the + height of folly and vulgarity itself, of which I should be + ashamed, to think of teaching others! This is not mathematics, + or history, or literature; it is the science of God! Yes, I see + the force of the words of this holy man." + + + Footnotes: + + [Footnote 2: _Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna._ Second Edition. Part + 1. Madras: Published by the Ramakrishna Mission. 1912.] + + + + +IX + +THE MONSTROUS REGIMEN OF WOMEN + + +Here at Cape Comorin, at India's southernmost point, among the sands and +the cactuses and the palms rattling in the breeze, comes to us news of +the Franchise Bill and of militant suffragettes. And I reflect that in +this respect England is a "backward" country and Travancore an +"advanced" one. Women here--except the Brahmin women--are, and always +have been, politically and socially on an equality and more than an +equality with men. For this is one of the few civilised States--for +aught I know it is the only one--in which "matriarchy" still prevails. +That doesn't mean--though the word suggests it--that women govern, +though, in fact, the succession to the throne passes to women equally +with men. But it means that woman is the head of the family, and that +property follows her line, not the man's. All women own property equally +with men, and own it in their own right. The mother's property passes to +her children, but the father's passes to his mother's kin. The husband, +in fact, is not regarded as related to the wife. Relationship means +descent from a common mother, whereas descent from a common father is a +negligible fact, no doubt because formerly it was a questionable one. +Women administer their own property, and, as I am informed, administer +it more prudently than the men. + +Not only so; they have in marriage the superior position occupied by men +in the West. The Nair woman chooses her own husband; he comes to her +house, she does not go to his; and, till recently, she could dismiss him +as soon as she was tired of him. The law--man-made, no doubt!--has +recently altered this, and now mutual consent is required for a valid +divorce. Still the woman is, at least on this point, on an equality with +the man. And the heavens have not yet fallen. As to the vote, it is not +so important or so general here as at home. The people live under a +paternal monarchy "by right divine." The Rajah who consolidated the +kingdom, early in the eighteenth century, handed it over formally to the +god of the temple, and administers it in his name. Incidentally this +gave him access to temple revenues. It also makes his person sacred. So +much so that in a recent prison riot, when the convicts escaped and +marched to the police with their grievances, the Rajah had only to +appear and tell them to march back to prison, and they did so to a man, +and took their punishment. The government, it will be seen, is not by +votes. Still there are votes for local councils, and women have them +equally with men. Any other arrangement would have seemed merely +preposterous to the Nairs; and perhaps if any exclusion had been +contemplated it would have been of men rather than of women. + +Other incidental results follow from the equality of the sexes. The +early marriages which are the curse of India do not prevail among the +Nairs. Consequently the schooling of girls is continued later. And this +State holds the record in all India for female education. We visited a +school of over 600 girls, ranging from infancy to college age, and +certainly I never saw school-girls look happier, keener, or more alive. +Society, clearly, has not gone to pieces under "the monstrous regimen of +women." Travancore claims, probably with justice, to be the premier +native State; the most advanced, the most prosperous, the most happy. +Because of the position of women? Well, hardly. The climate is +delightful, the soil fertile, the natural resources considerable. Every +man sits under his own palm tree, and famine is unknown. The people, and +especially the children, are noticeably gay, in a land where gaiety is +not common. But one need not be a suffragette to hold that the equality +of the sexes is one element that contributes to its well-being, and to +feel that in this respect England lags far behind Travancore. + +Echoes of the suffrage controversy at home have led me to dwell upon +this matter of the position of women. But, to be candid, it will not be +that that lingers in my mind when I look back upon my sojourn here. What +then? Perhaps a sea of palm leaves, viewed from the lighthouse top, +stretching beside the sea of blue waves; perhaps a sandy river bed, with +brown nude figures washing clothes in the shining pools; perhaps the +oiled and golden skins glistening in the sun; perhaps naked children +astride on their mothers' hips, or screaming with laughter as they race +the motor-car; perhaps the huge tusked elephant that barred our way for +a moment yesterday; perhaps the jungle teeming with hidden and menacing +life; perhaps the seashore and its tumbling waves. One studies +institutions, but one does not love them. Often one must wish that they +did not exist, or existed in such perfection that their existence might +be unperceived. Still, as institutions go, this, which regulates the +relations of men and women, is, I suppose, the most important. So from +the surf of the Arabian sea and the blaze of the Indian sun I send this +little object lesson. + + + + +X + +THE BUDDHA AT BURUPUDUR + + +To the north the cone of a volcano, rising sharp and black. To the east +another. South and west a jagged chain of hills. In the foreground +ricefields and cocoa palms. Everywhere intense green, untoned by grey; +and in the midst of it this strange erection. Seen from below and from a +distance it looks like a pyramid that has been pressed flat. In fact, it +is a series of terraces built round a low hill. Six of them are +rectangular; then come three that are circular; and on the highest of +these is a solid dome, crowned by a cube and a spire. Round the circular +terraces are set, close together, similar domes, but hollow, and pierced +with lights, through which is seen in each a seated Buddha. Seated +Buddhas, too, line the tops of the parapets that run round the lower +terraces. And these parapets are covered with sculpture in high relief. +One might fancy oneself walking round one of the ledges of Dante's +"Purgatorio" meditating instruction on the walls. Here the instruction +would be for the selfish and the cruel. For what is inscribed is the +legend and cult of the lord of tenderness. Much of it remains +undeciphered and unexplained. But on the second terrace is recorded, on +one side, the life of Sakya-Muni; on the other, his previous +incarnations. The latter, taken from the "Jatakas," are naïve and +charming apologues. + +For example: Once the Buddha lived upon earth as a hare. In order to +test him Indra came down from heaven in the guise of a traveller. +Exhausted and faint, he asked the animals for help. An otter brought +fish, a monkey fruit, a jackal a cup of milk. But the hare had nothing +to give. So he threw himself into a fire, that the wanderer might eat +his roasted flesh. Again: Once the Buddha lived upon earth as an +elephant. He was met by seven hundred travellers, lost and exhausted +with hunger. He told them where water would be found, and, near it, the +body of an elephant for food. Then, hastening to the spot, he flung +himself over a precipice, that he might provide the meal himself. Again: +Once the Buddha lived upon earth as a stag. A king, who was hunting him, +fell into a ravine. Whereupon the stag halted, descended, and helped him +home. All round the outer wall run these pictured lessons. And opposite +is shown the story of Sakya-Muni himself. We see the new-born child with +his feet on lotuses. We see the fatal encounter with poverty, sickness, +and death. We see the renunciation, the sojourn in the wilderness, the +attainment under the bo-tree, the preaching of the Truth. And all this +sculptured gospel seems to bring home to one, better than the volumes of +the learned, what Buddhism really meant to the masses of its followers. +It meant, surely, not the denial of the soul or of God, but that warm +impulse of pity and love that beats still in these tender and human +pictures. It meant not the hope or desire for extinction, but the +charming dream of thousands of lives, past and to come, in many forms, +many conditions, many diverse fates. The pessimism of the master is as +little likely as his high philosophy to have reached the mind or the +heart of the people. The whole history of Buddhism, indeed, shows that +it did not, and does not. What touched them in him was the saint and the +lover of animals and men. And this love it was that flowed in streams +over the world, leaving wherever it passed, in literature and art, in +pictures of flowers or mountains, in fables and poems and tales, the +trace of its warm and humanising flood. + +Still, there is the other Buddhism, the Buddhism of the thinker; his +theory of human life, its value and purpose. And it was this that filled +my mind later as I sat on the summit next to a solemn Buddha against the +setting sun. For a long time I was silent, meditating his doctrine. Then +I spoke of children, and he said, "They grow old." I spoke of strong +men, and he said, "They grow weak." I spoke of their work and +achievement, and he said, "They die." The stars came out, and I spoke of +eternal law. He said, "One law concerns you--that which binds you to the +wheel of life." The moon rose, and I spoke of beauty. He said, "There is +one beauty--that of a soul redeemed from desire." Thereupon the West +stirred in me, and cried "No!" "Desire," it said, "is the heart and +essence of the world. It needs not and craves not extinction. It needs +and craves perfection. Youth passes; strength passes; life passes. Yes! +What of it? We have access to the youth, the strength, the life of the +world. Man is born to sorrow. Yes! But he feels it as tragedy and +redeems it. Not round life, not outside life, but through life is the +way. Desire more and more intense, because more and more pure; not +peace, but the plenitude of experience. Your foundation was false. You +thought man wanted rest. He does not. We at least do not, we of the +West. We want more labour; we want more stress; we want more passion. +Pain we accept, for it stings us into life. Strife we accept, for it +hardens us to strength We believe in action; we believe in desire. And +we believe that by them we shall attain." So the West broke out in me; +and I looked at him to see if he was moved. But the calm eye was +untroubled, unruffled the majestic brow, unperplexed the sweet, solemn +mouth. Secure in his Nirvana, he heard or he heard me not. He had +attained the life-in-death he sought. But I, I had not attained the life +in life. Unhelped by him, I must go my way. The East, perhaps, he had +understood. He had not understood the West. + + + + +XI + +A MALAY THEATRE + + +It seems to be a principle among shipping companies so to arrange their +connections that the traveller should be compelled to spend some days in +Singapore. We evaded this necessity by taking a trip to Sumatra, but +even so a day and a night remained to be disposed of. We devoted the +morning to a bathe and a lunch at the Sea View Hotel, and the afternoon +to the Botanical Gardens, where the most attractive flowers are the +children and the most interesting gardeners their Chinese nurses. There +remained the evening, and we asked about amusements. There was a +bioscope, of course; there is always a bioscope; we had found one even +in the tiny town of Medan, in Sumatra. There was also an opera company, +performing the "Pink Girl." We seemed to know all about her without +going to see her. Was there nothing else? Yes; a Malay theatre. That +sounded attractive. So we took the tram through the Chinese quarter, +among the "Ah Sins" and "Hup Chows," where every one was either a tailor +or a washerman, and got down at a row of red lights. This was the +Alexandra Hall, and a bill informed us that the performers were the +Straits Opera Company. This dismayed us a little. Still, we paid our +dollars, and entered a dingy, dirty room, with a few Malays occupying +the back benches and a small group of Chinese women and children in +either balcony. We took our seats with half a dozen coloured aristocrats +in the front rows, and looked about us. We were the only Europeans. But, +to console us in our isolation, on either side of the proscenium was +painted a couple of Italians in the act of embracing as one only +embraces in opera. We glanced at our programme and saw that the play was +the "Moon Princess," and that Afrid, a genie, figured in the cast. It +was then, at least, Oriental, though it could hardly be Malay, and our +spirits rose. But the orchestra quickly damped them; there was a piano, +a violin, a 'cello, a clarionet, and a cornet, and from beginning to end +of the performance they were never in tune with themselves or with the +singers. And the music? It was sometimes Italian, sometimes Spanish, +never, as far as I could detect, Oriental, and always thoroughly and +frankly bad. + +No matter! The curtain rose and displayed a garden. The Prince entered. +He was dressed in mediĉval Italian costume (a style of dress, be it said +once for all, which was adopted by the whole company). With gestures of +ecstatic astonishment he applied his nose to the paper roses. Then he +advanced and appeared to sing, for his mouth moved; but the orchestra +drowned any notes he may have emitted. The song finished, he lay down +upon a couch and slept. Whereupon there entered an ugly little girl, in +a short white frock and black stockings and ribbons, with an expression +of fixed gloom upon her face, and began to move her feet and arms in a +parody of Oriental dancing. We thought at first that she was the Moon +Princess, and felt a pang of disappointment. But she turned out to be +the Spirit of Dreams; and presently she ushered in the real Princess, +with whom, on the spot, the Prince, unlike ourselves, became violently +enamoured. She vanished, and he woke to find her a vision. Despair of +the Prince; despair of the King; despair of the Queen, not unmixed with +rage, to judge from her voice and gestures. Consultation of an +astrologer. Flight of the Prince in search of his beloved. Universal +bewilderment and incompetence, such as may be witnessed any day in the +East when anything happens at all out of the ordinary way. At this point +enter the comic relief, in the form of woodcutters. I am inclined to +suppose, from the delight of the audience, that there was something +genuine here. But whatever it was we were unable to follow it. +Eventually the woodcutters met Afrid, whether by chance or design I +could not discover. At any rate, their reception was rough. To borrow +the words of the synopsis, "a big fight arose and they were thrown to +space"; but not till they had been pulled by the hair and ears, +throttled and pummelled, to the general satisfaction, for something like +half an hour. + +The next scenes were equally vigorous. The synopsis describes them thus: +"Several young princes went to Genie Janar, the father of the Moon +Princess, to demand her in marriage. Afrid, a genie, met the princes, +and, after having a row, they were all thrown away." The row was +peculiar. Afrid took them on one by one. The combatants walked round one +another, back to back, making feints in the air. Then the Prince got a +blow in, which Afrid pretended to feel. But suddenly, with a hoarse +laugh, he rushed again upon the foe, seized him by the throat or the +arm, and (I cannot improve on the phrase) "threw him away." After all +four princes were thus disposed of I left, being assured of a happy +ending by the account of the concluding scene: "The Prince then took the +Moon Princess to his father's kingdom, where he was married to her +amidst great rejoicings." + +Comment perhaps is superfluous. But as I went home in my rickshaw my +mind went back to those evenings in India when I had seen Indian boys +perform to Indian music dances and plays in honour of Krishna, and to +the Bengal village where the assembled inhabitants had sung us hymns +composed by their native saint. And I remembered that everywhere, in +Egypt, in India, in Java, in Sumatra, in Japan, the gramophone +harmonium is displacing the native instruments; and that the +bioscope--that great instrument of education--is familiarising the +peasants of the East with all that is most vulgar and most shoddy in the +humour and sentiment of the West. + +The Westernising of the East must come, no doubt, and ought to come. But +in the process what by-products of waste, or worse! Once, surely, there +must have been a genuine "Malay theatre." This is what Europe has made +of it. + + + + +PART II + +CHINA + + + + +I + +FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA + + +Some recent travellers have expressed disappointment or even disgust +with what they saw or learned or guessed of China. My own first +impression is quite contrary. The climate, it is true, for the moment, +inclines one to gloomy views. An icy wind, a black sky, a cold drizzle. +March in England could hardly do worse. But in Canton one almost forgets +all that. Imagine a maze of narrow streets, more confused and confusing +than Venice; high houses (except in the old city); and hanging parallel +to these, in long, vertical lines, flags and wooden signs inscribed with +huge Chinese characters, gold on black, gold on red, red or blue on +white, a blaze of colour; and under it, pouring in a ceaseless stream, +yellow faces, black heads, blue jackets and trousers, all on foot or +borne on chairs, not a cart or carriage, rarely a pony, nobody crowding, +nobody hustling or jostling, an even flow of cheerful humanity, +inexhaustible, imperturbable, convincing one at first sight of the truth +of all one has heard of the order, independence, and vigour of this +extraordinary people. The shops are high and spacious, level with the +street, not, as in India, raised on little platforms; and commonly, +within, they are cut across by a kind of arch elaborately carved and +blazing with gold. Every trade may be seen plying--jade-cutters, +cloth-rollers, weavers, ring-makers, rice-pounders, a thousand others. +Whole animals, roasted, hang before the butchers' shops, ducks, +pigs--even we saw a skinned tiger! The interest is inexhaustible; and +one is lucky if one does not return with a light purse and a heavy +burden of forged curios. Even the American tourist, so painfully in +evidence at the hotel, is lost, drowned in this native sea. He passes in +his chair; but, like oneself, he is only a drop in the ocean. Canton is +China, as Benares is India. And that conjunction of ideas set me +thinking. To come from India to China is like waking from a dream. Often +in India I felt that I was in an enchanted land. Melancholy, monotony, +austerity; a sense as of perennial frost, spite of the light and heat; a +lost region peopled with visionary forms; a purgatory of souls doing +penance till the hour of deliverance shall strike; a limbo, lovely but +phantasmal, unearthly, over-earthly--that is the kind of impression +India left on my mind. I reach China, awake, and rub my eyes. This, of +course, is the real world. This is every-day. Good temper, industry, +intelligence. Nothing abnormal or overstrained. The natural man, +working, marrying, begetting and rearing children, growing middle-aged, +growing old, dying--and that is all. Here it is broad daylight; but in +India, moon or stars, or a subtler gleam from some higher heaven. +Recall, for example, Benares--the fantastic buildings rising and falling +like a sea, the stairs running up to infinity, the sacred river, the +sages meditating on its banks, the sacrificial ablutions, the squealing +temple-pipes, and, in the midst of this, columns of smoke, as the body +returns to the elements and the soul to God. This way of disposing of +the dead, when the first shock is over, lingers in the mind as something +eminently religious. Death and dissolution take place in the midst of +life, for death is no more a mystery than life. In the open air, in the +press of men, the soul takes flight. She is no stranger, for everything +is soul--houses, trees, men, the elements into which the body is +resolved. Death is not annihilation, it is change of form; and through +all changes of form the essence persists. + +But now turn back to Canton. We pass the shops of the coffin-makers. We +linger. But "No stop," says our guide; "better coffins soon." "Soon" is +what the guide-books call the "City of the Dead." A number of little +chapels; and laid in each a great lacquered coffin in which the dead man +lives. I say "lives" advisedly, for there is set for his use a table and +a chair, and every morning he is provided with a cup of tea. A bunch of +paper, yellow and white, symbolises his money; and perhaps a couple of +figures represent attendants. There he lives, quite simply and +naturally as he had always lived, until the proper time and place is +discovered in which he may be buried. It may be months, it may be, or +rather, might have been, years; for I am told that a reforming +Government has limited the time to six months. And after burial? Why, +presumably he lives still. But not with the life of the universal soul. +Oh no! There have been mystics in China, but the Chinese are not +mystical. What he was he still is, an eating and drinking creature, and, +one might even conjecture, a snob. For if one visits the family chapel +of the Changs--another of the sights of Canton--one sees ranged round +the walls hundreds of little tablets, painted green and inscribed in +gold. These are the memorials of the deceased. And they are arranged in +three classes, those who pay most being in the first and those who pay +least in the third. One can even reserve one's place--first, second, or +third--while one is still alive, by a white tablet. You die, and the +green is substituted. And so, while you yet live, you may secure your +social status after death. How--how British! Yes, the word is out; and I +venture to record a suspicion that has long been maturing in my mind. +The Chinese are not only Western; among the Western they are English. +Their minds move as ours do; they are practical, sensible, reasonable. +And that is why--as it would seem--they have more sympathy with +Englishmen, if not with the English Government, than with any other +Westerners. East may be East and West West, though I very much doubt it. +But if there be any truth in the aphorism, we must define our terms. The +East must be confined to India, and China included in the West. That as +a preliminary correction. I say nothing yet about Japan. But I shall +have more to say, I hope, about China. + + + + +II + +NANKING + + +The Chinese, one is still told, cannot and will not change. On the other +hand, Professor Ross writes a book entitled _The Changing Chinese_. And +anyone may see that the Chinese educated abroad are transformed, at any +rate externally, out of all recognition. In Canton I met some of the +officials of the new Government; and found them, to the outward sense, +pure Americans. The dress, the manners, the accent, the intellectual +outfit--all complete! Whether, in some mysterious sense, they remain +Chinese at the core I do not presume to affirm or deny. But an external +transformation so complete must imply _some_ inward change. Foreign +residents in China deplore the foreign-educated product. I have met some +who almost gnash their teeth at "young China." But this seems rather +hard on China. For nearly a century foreigners have been exhorting her, +at the point of the bayonet, to adopt Western ways and Western ideas. +And when she begins to do so, the same people turn round and accuse her +of unpardonable levity, and treachery to her own traditions. What _do_ +foreigners want? the Chinese may well ask. I am afraid the true answer +is, that they want nothing but concessions, interest on loans, and trade +profits, at all and every cost to China. + +But I must not deviate into politics. What suggested this train of +thought was the student-guide supplied me at Nanking by the American +missionary college. There he was, complete American; and, I fear I must +add, boring as only Americans can bore. Still, he showed me Nanking, and +Nanking is worth seeing, though the interest of it is somewhat tragic. A +wall 20 to 40 feet thick, 40 to 90 feet high, and 22 miles in circuit (I +take these figures on trust) encloses an area larger than that of any +other Chinese city. But the greater part of this area is fields and +ruins. You pass through the city gate in the train, and find yourself in +the country. You alight, and you are still in the country. A carriage +takes you, in time, to the squalid village, or series of villages, where +are housed the 350,000 inhabitants of modern Nanking. Among them are +quartered the khaki-clad soldiers of new China, the new national flag +draped at the gate of their barracks. Meantime old China swarms, +unregenerate, in the narrow little streets, chaffering, chattering, +laughing in its rags as though there had never been a siege, a +surrender, and a revolution. Beggars display their stumps and their +sores, grovelling on the ground like brutes. Ragged children run for +miles beside the carriage, singing for alms; and stop at last, +laughing, as though it had been a good joke to run so far and get +nothing for it. One monument in all this scene of squalor arrests +attention--the now disused examination hall. It is a kind of +rabbit-warren of tiny cells, six feet deep, four feet broad, and six +feet high; row upon row of them, opening on narrow unroofed corridors; +no doors now, nor, I should suppose, at any time, for it would be +impossible to breathe in these boxes if they had lids. Here, for a week +or a fortnight, the candidates sat and excogitated, unable to lie down +at night, sleeping, if they could, in their chairs. And no wonder if, +every now and again, one of them incontinently died and was hauled out, +a corpse, through a hole in the wall; or went mad and ran amuck among +examiners and examinees. For centuries, as is well known, this system +selected the rulers of China; and whole lives, from boyhood to extreme +old age, were spent in preparing for the examinations. Now all this is +abolished; and some people appear to regret it. Once more, what _do_ the +foreigners want? + +The old imperial city, where once the Ming dynasty reigned, was +destroyed in the Taiping Rebellion. The Tartar city, where before the +revolution 3000 mandarins lived on their pensions, was burnt in the +siege of 1911. Of these cities nothing remains but their huge walls and +gates and the ruins of their houses. The principal interest of Nanking, +the so-called "Ming tombs," lies outside the walls. And the interest is +not the tombs, but the road to them. It is lined by huge figures carved +out of monoliths. Brutes first--lions, camels, elephants, horses, a pair +of each lying down and a pair standing; then human figures, military and +civil officers. What they symbolise I cannot tell. They are said to +guard the road. And very impressive they are in the solitude. Not so +what they lead to, which is merely a hill, artificial, I suppose, piled +on a foundation of stone. Once, my guide informed me, there was a door +giving admission; and within, a complete house, with all its furniture, +in stone. But the door is sealed, and for centuries no one has explored +the interior. I suggested excavation, but was told the superstition of +the inhabitants forbade it. "Besides," said my guide, "the Chinese are +not curious." I wonder? Whether or no they are curious, they are +certainly superstitious. Apropos, a gunboat ran aground on the Yangtse. +The river was falling, and there seemed no chance of getting off for +months. The officers made up their minds to it, and fraternised with the +priest of a temple on the bank. The priest one day asked for a +photograph of the boat. They gave him one, and he asked them to dinner. +After dinner he solemnly burnt the photograph to his god. And--"would +you believe it?"--next day a freshet came down and set the vessel +afloat. Which shows how superstitions are generated and maintained in a +world so little subject to law, on the surface of it, as ours. + +My anecdote has brought me to the Yangtse, and it is on a river-boat +that I write. Hour after hour there passes by the panorama of hills and +plain, of green wheat and yellow rape, of the great flood with its +flocks of wild duck, of fishers' cabins on the shore and mud-built +thatched huts, of junks with bamboo-threaded sails skimming on flat +bottoms, of high cliffs with monasteries perched on perilous ledges, of +changing light and shade, of burning sunset and the stars. Travelling by +river is the best of all travelling--smooth, slow, quiet, and soothingly +contemplative. All China, I am informed by some pessimists, is in a +state of anarchy, actual or latent. It may be. But it is difficult to +believe it among these primitive industrious people living and working +as they have lived and worked for 4000 years. Any other country, I +suppose, in such a crisis as the present would be seething with civil +war. But China? When one puts the point to the foreigner who has been +talking of anarchy he says, "Ah! but the Chinese are so peaceable! They +don't mind whether there's a Government or no. They just go on without +it!" Exactly! That is the wonderful thing. But even that seems to annoy +the foreigner. Once more, what _does_ he want? I give it up. + + + + +III + +IN THE YANGTSE GORGES + + +At the upper end of the gorge poetically named "Ox Liver and Horse +Lungs" I watched the steamboat smoking and splashing up stream. She had +traversed in a few hours the distance I, in my houseboat, had taken +three days to cover; and certainly she is much more convenient and much +more comfortable. That, however, is not necessarily an advantage. What +may be urged with some force is that travelling by steamboat is more +humane. It dispenses with human labour of a peculiarly dangerous and +strenuous kind. Twenty-eight boatmen are attached to my single person. A +big junk may have a crew of two hundred. When the wind is not fair they +must row or tow; and towing is not like towing along the Thames! +Suddenly you see the men leap out and swarm up a precipice. Presently +they appear high above, creeping with the line along a ledge of rock. +And your "boy" remarks nonchalantly, "Plenty coolie fall here. Too high +place." Or they are clambering over boulders, one or two told off to +disentangle the line wherever it catches. Or they are struggling along +a greasy slope, their bare feet gripping the mud, hardly able to advance +a step or even to hold their own. As a labour-saving machine one must +welcome the advent of the steamboat, as one is constrained to welcome +even that of the motor-omnibus. But from the traveller's point of view +it is different. Railways and steamboats enable more of us to travel, +and to travel farther, in space. But in experience he travels the +farthest who travels the slowest. A mediĉval student or apprentice +walking through Europe on foot really did see the world. A modern +tourist sees nothing but the inside of hotels. Unless, that is, he +chooses to walk, or ride, or even cycle. Then it is different. Then he +begins to see. As now I, from my houseboat, begin to see China. Not +profoundly, of course, but somehow intimately. For instance, while my +crew eat their midday rice, I stroll up to the neighbouring village. +Contrary to all I have been taught to expect, I find it charming, +picturesque, not so dirty after all, not so squalid, not so poor. The +people, too, who, one thought, would insult or mob the foreigner, either +take no notice, or, if you greet them, respond in the friendliest way. +They may, of course, be explaining to one another that you are a foreign +devil, but nothing in their countenance or manner suggests it. The +children are far better-mannered than in most European countries. They +may follow you, and chatter and laugh; but at least they have not learnt +to beg. Curiosity they have, and gaiety, but I detect no sign of +hostility. I walk down the long street, with its shops and roomy +houses--far roomier and more prosperous-looking than in most Indian +villages--and come to the temple. Smilingly I am invited to enter. There +are no mysteries in Chinese religion. I begin to wonder, indeed, whether +there is any religion left. For everywhere I find the temples and +monasteries either deserted or turned into schools or barracks. This one +is deserted. It is like a series of lumber-rooms, full of dusty idols. +The idols were once gaudy, brightly painted "to look like life," with +beards and whiskers of real hair. But now their splendour is dimmed. The +demons scowl to no purpose. To no purpose the dragons coil. No +trespasser threatens the god behind his dingy curtains. In one chamber +only a priest kneels before the shrine and chants out of a book while he +taps a bronze vessel with a little hammer. Else, solitude, vacuity, and +silence. Is he Buddhist or Taoist? I have no language in which to ask. I +can only accept with mute gestures the dusty seat he offers and the cup +of lukewarm tea. What has happened to religion? So far as I can make +out, something like the "disestablishment of the Church." The Republic +has been at work; and in the next village I see what it has been doing. +For there the temple is converted into a school. Delightedly the +scholars show me round. On the outside wall, for him who runs to read, +are scored up long addition sums in our Western figures. Inside, the +walls are hung with drawings of birds and beasts, of the human skeleton +and organs, even of bacteria! There are maps of China and of the world. +The children even produce in triumph an English reading-book, though I +must confess they do not seem to have profited by it much. Still, they +can say "cat" when you show them a picture of the creature; which is +more than I could do in Chinese. And China does not change? Wait a +generation! This, remember, is a tiny village in the heart of the +country, more than 1000 miles from the coast. And this is happening all +over the Celestial Empire, I suppose. I start to return to my boat, but +have not gone a quarter of a mile before I hear a shout, and looking +back find half the school following me and escorting their teacher, who +speaks English. He regrets to have missed my visit; will I not return +and let him show me the school? I excuse myself, and he walks with me to +the boat, making what conversation he can. One remark I remember--"China +a good place now; China a republic." And I thought, as we exchanged +cards, that he represented the Republic more essentially than the +politicians whom foreigners so severely criticise. Anyhow, Republic or +no, China is being transformed. And there is something other than +steamboats to attest it. + +Which brings me back to my starting-point. On the steamboat you have no +adventures. But on the houseboat you do. For instance, the other day +the rope broke as we were towing up a rapid, and down we dashed, turning +round and round, and annihilating in five minutes the labour of an hour. +I was afraid, I confess; but the boatmen took it as a matter of course. +In some way, incomprehensible to me, they got us into the bank, and, +looking up, the first thing I saw was an embankment in construction--the +railway from Ichang to Chungking. When it is finished we shall go by +train--not even by steamboat,--and so see nothing except tunnels. +Certainly, we shall not be compelled to pass the night in a small +village; nor permitted to see the sunset behind these lovely hills and +the moon rising over the river between the cliffs of the gorge. Nor +shall we then be delayed, as I was yesterday, till the water should run +down, and so tempted to walk into the country. I made for a side valley, +forded a red torrent, and found myself among fields and orchards; green +of mulberries, green of fruit trees, green of young corn; and above, the +purple hills, with all their bony structure showing under the skin of +soil. I followed a high path, greeted by the peasants I met with a +charming smile and that delightful gesture whereby, instead of shaking +your hand, they clasp theirs and shake them _at_ you. I came at last to +a solitary place, and, sitting down there, watched the evening light on +the mountains. I watched, and they seemed to be saying something. What? + + "Rocks that are bones, earth that is flesh, what, what do you + mean + Eyeing me silently? + Streams that are voices, what, what do you say? + You are pouring an ocean into a cup. Yet pour, that all it + can hold + May at least be water of yours." + +At dusk I got back to the river, and found that a wind had sprung up and +the junks were trying to pass the rapid. There must have been fifty of +them crowded together. They could only pass one by one; and the scene +was pandemonium. The Chinese are even noisier than the Italians, and +present the same appearance of confusion. But in some mysterious way an +order is always getting evolved. On this occasion it seemed to be +perfectly understood which boat should go first. And presently there she +was, in mid-rapid, apparently not advancing an inch, the ropes held taut +from a causeway a quarter of a mile off. At last the strain suddenly +ceased, and she moved quickly up stream. Another followed. Then it was +dark. And we had to pass the night, after all, tossing uneasily in the +rough water. Soon after dawn we started again. I went across to the +causeway, and watched the trackers at work--twenty each on two ropes, +hardly advancing a step in five minutes. Then the boat's head swung into +shore, the tension ceased; something had happened. I waited half an hour +or so. "Nothing doing," in the expressive American phrase. Then I went +back. We had sprung a leak, and my cabin was converted into a +swimming-bath. Another hour or so repairing this. Then the rope had to +be brought back and attached again. At last we started for the second +time, and in half an hour got safely through the hundred yards of racing +waters into the bank above. At ten I got my breakfast, and we started to +sail with a fair wind. It dropped. Rain came on. My crew (as always in +that conjuncture) put up their awning and struck work. So here we are at +1 P.M., in a heavy thunder-shower, a mile from the place we tried to +leave at six o'clock this morning. This is the ancient method of +travelling--four thousand years old, I suppose. It is very inconvenient! +Oh, yes--BUT!---- + + + + +IV + +PEKIN + + +Professor Giles tells us, no doubt truly, that the Chinese are not a +religious nation. No nation, I think, ever was, unless it be the +Indians. But religious impulses sweep over nations and pass away, +leaving deposits--rituals, priesthoods, and temples. Such an impulse +once swept over China, in the form of Buddhism; and I am now visiting +its deposit in the neighbourhood of Pekin. Scattered over the hills to +the west of the city are a number of monastery temples. Some are +deserted; some are let as villas to Europeans; some, like the one where +I am staying, have still their complement of monks--in this temple, I am +told, some three to four hundred. But neither here nor anywhere have I +seen anything that suggests vitality in the religion. I entered one of +the temples yesterday at dusk and watched the monks chanting and +processing round a shrine from which loomed in the shadow a gigantic +bronze-gold Buddha. They began to giggle like children at the entrance +of the foreigner and never took their eyes off us. Later, individual +monks came running round the shrines, beating a gong as though to call +the attention of the deity, and shouting a few words of perfunctory +praise or prayer. Irreverence more complete I have not seen even in +Italy, nor beggary more shameless. Such is the latter end of the gospel +of Buddha in China. It seems better that he should sit deserted in his +Indian caves than be dishonoured by such mummeries. + +But once it must have been otherwise. Once this religion was alive. And +then it was that men chose these exquisite sites for contemplation. The +Chinese Buddhists had clearly the same sense for the beauty of nature +that the Italian Franciscans had. In secluded woods and copses their +temples nestle, courts and terraces commanding superb views over the +great plain to Pekin. The architecture is delicate and lovely; tiled +roofs, green or gold or grey, cornices elaborately carved and painted in +lovely harmonies of blue and green; fine trees religiously preserved; +the whole building so planned and set as to enhance, not destroy, the +lines and colour of the landscape. To wander from one of these temples +to another, to rest in them in the heat of the day and sleep in them at +night, is to taste a form of travel impossible in Europe now, though +familiar enough there in the Middle Ages. Specially delightful is it to +come at dusk upon a temple apparently deserted; to hear the bell tinkle +as the wind moves it; to enter a dusky hall and start to see in a dark +recess huge figures, fierce faces, glimmering maces and swords that seem +to threaten the impious intruder. + +This morning there was a festival, and the people from the country +crowded into the temple. Very bright and gay they looked in their gala +clothes. The women especially were charming; painted, it is true, but +painted quite frankly, to better nature, not to imitate her. Their +cheeks were like peaches or apples, and their dresses correspondingly +gay. Why they had come did not appear; not, apparently, to worship, for +their mood was anything but religious. Some perhaps came to carry away a +little porcelain boy or girl as guarantee of a baby to come. For the +Chinese, by appropriate rites, can determine the sex of a child--a +secret unknown as yet to the doctors of Europe! Some, perhaps, came to +cure their eyes, and will leave at the shrine a picture on linen of the +organs affected. Some are merely there for a jaunt, to see the sights +and the country. We saw a group on their way home, climbing a steep hill +for no apparent purpose except to look at the view. What English +agricultural labourer would do as much? But the Chinese are not +"agricultural labourers"; they are independent peasants; and a people so +gay, so friendly, so well-mannered and self-respecting I have found +nowhere else in the world. + +The country round Pekin has the beauty we associate with Italy. First +the plain, with its fresh spring green, its dusty paths, its grey and +orange villages, its cypress groves, its pagodas, its memorial slabs. +Then the hills, swimming in amethyst, bare as those of Umbria, fine and +clean in colour and form. For this beauty I was unprepared. I have even +read that there is no natural beauty in China. And I was unprepared for +Pekin too. How can I describe it? At this time of year, seen from above, +it is like an immense green park. You mount the tremendous wall, 40 feet +high, 14 miles round, as broad at the top as a London street, and you +look over a sea of spring-green tree-tops, from which emerge the +orange-gold roofs of palaces and temples. You descend, and find the +great roads laid out by Kubla Khan, running north and south, east and +west, and thick, as the case may be, with dust or mud; and opening out +of them a maze of streets and lanes, one-storeyed houses, grey walls and +roofs, shop fronts all ablaze with gilt carving, all trades plying, all +goods selling, rickshaws, mule-carts canopied with blue, swarming +pedestrians, eight hundred thousand people scurrying like ants in this +gigantic framework of Cyclopean walls and gates. Never was a medley of +greatness and squalor more strange and impressive. One quarter only is +commonplace, that of the Legations. There is the Wagon-lits Hotel, with +its cosmopolitan stream of Chinese politicians, European tourists, +concession-hunters, and the like. There are the Americans, occupying +and guarding the great north gate, and playing baseball in its +precincts. There are the Germans, the Dutch, the French, the Italians, +the Russians, the Japanese; and there, in a magnificent Chinese palace, +are the British, girt by that famous wall of the siege on which they +have characteristically written "Lest we forget!" Forget what? The one +or two children who died in the Legation, and the one or two men who +were killed? Or the wholesale massacre, robbery, and devastation which +followed when the siege was relieved? This latter, I fear, the Chinese +are not likely to forget soon. Yet it would be better if they could. And +better if the Europeans could remember much that they forget--could +remember that they forced their presence and their trade on China +against her will; that their treaties were extorted by force, and their +loans imposed by force, since they exacted from China what are +ironically called "indemnities" which she could not pay except by +borrowing from those who were robbing her. If Europeans could remember +and realise these facts they would perhaps cease to complain that China +continues to evade their demands by the only weapon of the +weak--cunning. When you have knocked a man down, trampled on him, and +picked his pocket, you can hardly expect him to enter into social +relations with you merely because you pick him up and, retaining his +property, propose that you should now be friends and begin to do +business. The obliquity of vision of the European residents on all these +points is extraordinary. They cannot see that wrong has been done, and +that wrong engenders wrong. They repeat comfortable formulĉ about the +duplicity and evasiveness of the Chinese; they charge them with +dishonesty at the very moment that they are dismembering their country; +they attach intolerable conditions to their loans, and then complain if +their victims attempt to find accommodation elsewhere. Of all the Powers +the United States alone have shown some generosity and fairness, and +they are reaping their reward in the confidence of Young China. The +Americans had the intelligence to devote some part of the excessive +indemnity they exacted after the Boxer riots to educating Chinese +students in America. Hundreds of these young men are now returned to +China, with the friendliest feeling to America, and, naturally, anxious +to develop political and commercial relations with her rather than with +other Powers. British trade may suffer because British policy has been +less generous. But British trade, I suppose, would suffer in any case. +For the British continue to maintain their ignorance and contempt of +China and all things Chinese, while Germans and Japanese are travelling +and studying indefatigably all over the country. "We see too much of +things Chinese!" was the amazing remark made to me by a business man in +Shanghai. Too much! They see nothing at all, and want to see nothing. +They live in the treaty ports, dine, dance, play tennis, race. China is +in birth-throes, and they know and care nothing. A future in China is +hardly for them. + + + + +V + +THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD + + +To write from China about the Englishman may seem an odd choice. But to +see him abroad is to see him afresh. At home he is the air one breathes; +one is unaware of his qualities. Against a background of other races you +suddenly perceive him, and can estimate him--fallaciously or no--as you +estimate foreigners. + +So seen the Englishman appears as the eternal school-boy. I mean no +insult; I mean to express his qualities as well as his defects. He has +the pluck, the zest, the sense of fair play, the public spirit of our +great schools. He has also their narrowness and their levity. Enter his +office, and you will find him not hurried or worried, not scheming, +skimping, or hustling, but cheery, genial, detached, with an air of +playing at work. As likely as not, in a quarter of an hour he will have +asked you round to the club and offered you a whisky and soda. Dine with +him, and the talk will turn on golf or racing, on shooting, fishing, and +the gymkhana. Or, if you wish to divert it, you must ask him definite +questions about matters of fact. Probably you will get precise and +intelligent replies. But if you put a general question he will flounder +resentfully; and if you generalise yourself you will see him dismissing +you as a windbag. Of the religion, the politics, the manners and customs +of the country in which he lives he will know and care nothing, except +so far as they may touch his affairs. He will never, if he can help it, +leave the limits of the foreign settlement. Physically he oscillates +between his home, his office, the club, and the racecourse; mentally, +between his business and sport. On all general topics his opinions are +second or third hand. They are the ghosts of old prejudices imported +years ago from England, or taken up unexamined from the English +community abroad. And these opinions pass from hand to hand till they +are as similar as pebbles on the shore. In an hour or so you will have +acquired the whole stock of ideas current in the foreign community +throughout a continent. Your only hope of new light is in particular +instances and illustrations. And these, of course, may be had for the +asking. + +But the Englishman abroad in some points is the Englishman at his best. +For he is or has been a pioneer, at any rate in China. And pioneering +brings out his most characteristic qualities. He loves to decide +everything on his own judgment, on the spur of the moment, directly on +the immediate fact, and in disregard of remoter contingencies and +possibilities. He needs adventure to bring out his powers, and only +really takes to business when business is something of a "lark." To +combine the functions of a trader with those of an explorer, a soldier, +and a diplomat is what he really enjoys. So, all over the world, he +opens the ways, and others come in to reap the fruit of his labours. +This is true in things intellectual as in things practical. In science, +too, he is a pioneer. Modern archĉology was founded by English +travellers. Darwin and Wallace and Galton in their youth pursued +adventure as much as knowledge. When the era of routine arrives, when +laboratory work succeeds to field work, the Englishman is apt to retire +and leave the job to the German. The Englishman, one might say, "larks" +into achievement, the German "grinds" into it. The one, accordingly, is +free-living, genial, generous, careless; the other laborious, exact, +routine-ridden. It is hard for an Englishman to be a pedant; it is not +easy for a German to be anything else. For philosophy no man has less +capacity than the Englishman. He does not understand even how such +questions can be put, still less how anyone can pretend to answer them. +The philosopher wants to know whether, how, and why life ought to be +lived before he will consent to live it. The Englishman just lives +ahead, not aware that there is a problem; or convinced that, if there is +one, it will only be solved "by walking." The philosopher proceeds from +the abstract to the concrete. The Englishman starts with the concrete, +and may or, more probably, may not arrive at the abstract. No general +rules are of any use to him except such as he may have elaborated for +himself out of his own experience. That is why he mistrusts education. +For education teaches how to think in general, and that isn't what he +wants or believes in. So, when he gets into affairs, he discards all his +training and starts again at the beginning, learning to think, if he +ever does learn it, over his own particular job. And his own way, he +opines, must be the right way for every one. Hence his contempt and even +indignation for individuals or nations who are moved by "ideas." At this +moment his annoyance with the leaders of "Young China" is provoked +largely by the fact that they are proceeding on general notions of how a +nation should be governed and organised, instead of starting with the +particularities of their own society, and trying to mend it piece by +piece and from hand to mouth. Before they make a Constitution, he +thinks, they ought to make roads; and before they draw up codes, to +extirpate consumption. The conclusion lies near at hand, and I have +heard it drawn--"What they want is a few centuries of British rule." +And, indeed, it is curious how constantly the Englishman abroad is +opposed, in the case of other nations, to all the institutions and +principles he is supposed to be proud of at home. Partly, no doubt, this +is due to his secret or avowed belief that the whole world ought to be +governed despotically by the English. But partly it is because he does +not believe that the results the English have achieved can be achieved +in any other way than theirs. They arrived at them without intention or +foresight, by a series of detached steps, each taken without prescience +of the one that would follow. So, and so only, can other nations arrive +at them. He does not believe in short cuts, nor in learning by the +experience of others. And so the watchwords "Liberty," "Justice," +"Constitution," so dear to him at home, leave him cold abroad. Or, +rather, they make him very warm, but warm not with zeal but with +irritation. + +Never was such a pourer of cold water on other people's enthusiasms. He +cannot endure the profession that a man is moved by high motives. His +annoyance, for example, with the "anti-opium" movement is not due to the +fact that he supports the importation into China of Indian opium. Very +commonly he does not. But the movement is an "agitation" (dreadful +word!). It is "got up" by missionaries. It purports to be based on moral +grounds, and he suspects everything that so purports. Not that he is not +himself moved by moral considerations. Almost invariably he is. But he +will never admit it for himself, and he deeply suspects it in others. +The words "hypocrite," "humbug," "sentimentalist" spring readily to his +lips. But let him work off his steam, sit quiet and wait, and you will +find, often enough, that he has arrived at the same conclusion as the +"sentimentalist"--only, of course, for quite different reasons! For +intellect he has little use, except so far as it issues in practical +results. He will forgive a man for being intelligent if he makes a +fortune, but hardly otherwise. Still, he has a queer, half-contemptuous +admiration for a definite intellectual accomplishment which he knows it +is hard to acquire and is not sure he could acquire himself. That, for +instance, is his attitude to those who know Chinese. A "sinologue," he +will tell you, must be an imbecile, for no one but a fool would give so +much time to a study so unprofitable. Still, in a way, he is proud of +the sinologue--as a public school is proud of a boy so clever as to +verge upon insanity, or a village is proud of the village idiot. +Something of the same feeling, I sometimes think, underlies his respect +for Shakspere. "If you want that kind of thing," he seems to say to the +foreigner, "and it's the kind of thing you _would_ want, _we_ can do it, +you see, better than you can!" + +So with art. He is never a connoisseur, but he is often a collector. +Partly, no doubt, because there is money in it, but that is a secondary +consideration. Mainly because collecting and collectors appeal to his +sporting instinct. His knowledge about his collection will be precise +and definite, whether it be postage stamps or pictures. He will know all +about it, except its ĉsthetic value. That he cannot know, for he cannot +see it. He has the _flair_ of the dealer, not the perception of the +amateur. And he does not know or believe that there is any distinction +between them. + +But these, from his point of view, are trifles. What matters is that he +has pre-eminently the virtues of active life. He is fair-minded, and +this, oddly, in spite of his difficulty in seeing another man's point of +view. When he _does_ see it he respects it. Whereas nimbler-witted +nations see it only to circumvent and cheat it. He is honest; as honest, +at least, as the conditions of modern business permit. He hates bad +work, even when, for the moment, bad work pays. He hates skimping and +paring. And these qualities of his make it hard for him to compete with +rivals less scrupulous and less generous. He is kind-hearted--much more +so than he cares to admit. And at the bottom of all his qualities he has +the sense of duty. He will shoulder loyally all the obligations he has +undertaken to his country, to his family, to his employer, to his +employees. The sense of duty, indeed, one might say with truth, is his +religion. For on the rare occasions on which he can be persuaded to +broach such themes you will find, I think, at the bottom of his mind +that what he believes in is Something, somehow, somewhere, in the +universe, which helps him, and which he is helping, when he does right. +There must, he feels, be some sense in life. And what sense would there +be if duty were nonsense? + +Poets, artists, philosophers can never be at home with the Englishman. +His qualities and his defects alike are alien to them. In his company +they live as in prison, for it is not an air in which wings can soar. +But for solid walking on the ground he has not his equal. The phrase +"Solvitur ambulando" must surely have been coined for him. And no doubt +on his road he has passed, and will pass again, the wrecks of many a +flying-machine. + + + + +VI + +CHINA IN TRANSITION + + +The Chinese Revolution has proceeded, so far, with less disturbance and +bloodshed than any great revolution known to history. There has been +little serious fighting and little serious disorder; nothing comparable +to that which accompanied, for instance, the French Revolution of 1789. +And this, no doubt, is due to the fact that the Chinese are alone among +nations of the earth in detesting violence and cultivating reason. Their +instinct is always to compromise and save everybody's face. And this is +the main reason why Westerners despise them. The Chinese, they aver, +have "no guts." And when hard pressed as to the policy of the Western +Powers in China, they will sometimes quite frankly confess that they +consider the West has benefited China by teaching her the use of force. +That this should be the main contribution of Christian to Pagan +civilisation is one of the ironies of history. But it is part of the +greater irony which gave the Christian faith to precisely those nations +whose fundamental instincts and convictions were and are in radical +antagonism to its teaching. + +Though, however, it is broadly true that the Chinese have relied on +reason and justice in a way and to a degree which is inconceivable in +the West, they have not been without their share of original sin. +Violence, anarchy, and corruption have played a part in their history, +though a less part than in the history of most countries. And these +forces have been specially evident in that department to which +Westerners are apt to pay the greatest attention--in the department of +government. Government has always been less important in China than in +the Western world; it has always been rudimentary in its organisation; +and for centuries it has been incompetent and corrupt. Of this +corruption Westerners, it is true, make more than they fairly should. +China is no more corrupt (to say the least) than the United States or +Italy or France, or than England was in the eighteenth century. And much +that is called corruption is recognised and established "squeeze," +necessary, and understood to be necessary, to supplement the inadequate +salaries of officials. A Chinese official is corrupt much as Lord +Chancellor Bacon was corrupt; and whether the Chancellor ought properly +to be called corrupt is still matter of controversy. Moreover, the +people have always had their remedy. When the recognised "squeeze" is +exceeded, they protest by riot. So that the Chinese system, in the most +unfavourable view, may be described as corruption tempered by anarchy. + +And this system, it is admitted, still prevails after the Revolution. +Clearly, indeed, it cannot be extirpated until officials are properly +paid; and China is not in a position to pay for any reform while the +Powers are drawing away an enormous percentage of her resources by that +particular form of robbery called by diplomatists "indemnity." The new +officials, then, are "corrupt" as the old ones were; and they are +something more. They are Jacobins. Educated abroad, they are as full of +ideas as was Robespierre or St. Just; and their ideas are even more +divorced from sentiment and tradition. A foreign education seems to make +a cut right across a Chinaman's life. He returns with a new head; and +this head never gets into normal relations with his heart. That, I +believe, is the essence of Jacobinism, ideas working with enormous +rapidity and freedom unchecked by the fly-wheel of traditional feelings. +And it is Jacobinism that accounts for the extraordinary vigour of the +campaign against opium. Many Europeans still endeavour to maintain that +this campaign is not serious. But that is because Europeans simply +cannot conceive that any body of men should be in as deadly earnest +about a moral issue as are the representatives of Young China. The +anti-opium campaign is not only serious, it is ruthless. Smokers are +flogged and executed; poppy is rooted up; and farmers who resist are +shot down. The other day in Hunan, it is credibly reported, some seventy +farmers who had protested against the destruction of their crops were +locked into a temple and burnt alive. An old man of seventy-six, falsely +accused of growing poppy, was fined 500 dollars, and when he refused to +pay was flogged to death by the orders of a young official of +twenty-two. Stories of this kind come in from every part of the country; +and though this or that story may be untrue or exaggerated, there can be +no doubt about the general state of affairs. The officials are putting +down opium with a vigour and a determination which it is inconceivable +should ever be applied in the West to the traffic in alcohol. But in +doing so they are showing a ruthlessness which does not seem to be +native to the Chinese, and which perhaps is to be accounted for by what +I have called Jacobinism, resulting from the effects of a Western +education that has been unable to penetrate harmoniously the complicated +structure of Chinese character. + +The anti-opium campaign is one example of the way in which the +Revolution has elicited and intensified violence in this peace-loving +people. Another example is the use of assassination. This has been an +accompaniment of all great revolutions. It took the form of +"proscriptions" in Rome, of the revolutionary tribunals in France. In +China it is by comparison a negligible factor; but it exists. Two months +ago a prominent leader of the southern party was assassinated; and +popular suspicion traces the murder to high Government officials, and +even to the President himself. The other day a southern general was +killed by a bomb. For the manufacture of bombs is one of the things +China has learned from the Christian West; and the President lives in +constant terror of this form of murder. China, it will be seen, does not +altogether escape the violence that accompanies all revolutions. Nor +does she altogether escape the anarchy. Anarchy, indeed, that is a +simple strike against authority, may be said to be part of the Chinese +system. It is the way they have always enforced their notions of +justice. A curious example has been recently offered by the students of +the Pekin University. For various reasons--good or bad--they have +objected to the conduct of their Chancellor. After ineffectual protests, +they called upon him in large numbers with his resignation written out, +and requested him to sign it. He refused; whereupon they remarked that +they would call again the next day with revolvers; and in the interval +he saw wisdom and signed. Last week there was a similar episode. The new +Chancellor proved as unpalatable as his predecessor. The students once +more presented themselves with his resignation written out. He refused +to resign, and, as the students aver, scurrilously abused them. They +proceeded to the Minister of Education, who refused to see them. +Thereupon they camped out in his courtyard, and stayed all day and all +night, sending a message to the professors dated "from under the trees +of the Education Office" to explain that they were unfortunately unable +to attend lectures. This Chancellor, too, it would seem, has seen wisdom +and resigned. + +How strange it all seems to Western eyes! A country, we should suppose, +where such things occur, is incapable of organisation. But it is certain +that we are wrong. Our notion is that everything must be done by +authority, and that unless authority is maintained there will be +anarchy. The Chinese notion is that authority is there to carry out what +the people recognise to be common sense and justice; if it does +otherwise, it must be resisted; and if it disappears life will still go +on--as it is going on now in the greater part of China--on the basis of +the traditional and essentially reasonable routine. Almost certainly the +students of the University had justice on their side; otherwise such +action would not be taken; and when they get justice they will be more +docile and orderly than our own undergraduates at home. + +Another thing surprising to European observers is the apparent belief of +the Chinese in verbal remonstrance. Under the present régime officials +and public men are allowed the free use of the telegraph. The +consequence is that telegrams of advice, admonition, approval, blame, +fear, hope, doubt pour in daily to the Government from civil and +military governors, from members of Parliament and party leaders. In the +paper to-day, for example, is a telegram from the Governors of +seventeen provinces addressed to the National Assembly. It begins as +follows: + + "To the President, the Cabinet, the Tsan Yi Yuan, the Chung Yi + Yuan, and the Press Association,--When the revolution took place + at Wuchang, the various societies and groups responded, and when + the Republic was inaugurated the troops raised among these + bodies were gradually disbanded. For fear that, being driven by + hunger, these disbanded soldiers would become a menace to the + place, the various societies and groups have established a + society at Shanghai called the Citizens' Progressive Society, to + promote the means of livelihood for the people, and the + advancement of society, and the establishment has been + registered in the offices of the Tutuhs of the provinces." + +Then follows a statement of the "six dangers" to which the country is +exposed, an appeal to the Assembly to act more reasonably and +competently, and then the following peroration: + + "The declarations of us, Yuan-hung and others, are still there, + our wounds have not yet been fully recovered, and should the sea + and ocean be dried up, our original hearts will not be changed. + We will protect the Republic with our sinews and blood of brass + and iron, we will take the lead of the province, and be their + backbone, and we will not allow the revival of the monarchy and + the suppression of the powers of the people. Let Heaven and + earth be witness to our words. You gentlemen are pillars of the + political parties, or the representatives of the people, and you + should unite together and not become inconsistent. You first + determined that the Loan is necessary, but such opinion is now + changed, and you now reject the Loan. Can the ice be changed + into red coal in your hearts? Thus even those who love and + admire you will not be able to defend your position. However, if + you have any extraordinary plan or suggestion to save the + present situation, you can show it to us." + +Some of the strange effect produced by this document is due, no doubt, +to translation. But it, like the many others of the kind I have read, +seems to indicate what is at the root of the Chinese attitude to life--a +belief in the power of reason and persuasion. I have said enough to show +that this attitude does not exclude the use of violence; but I feel sure +that it limits it far more than it has ever been limited in Europe. Even +in time of revolution the Chinese are peaceable and orderly to an extent +unknown and almost unbelievable in the West. And the one thing the West +is teaching them and priding itself on teaching them is the absurdity of +this attitude. Well, one day it is the West that will repent because +China has learnt the lesson too well. + + + + +VII + +A SACRED MOUNTAIN + + +It was midnight when the train set us down at Tai-an-fu. The moon was +full. We passed across fields, through deserted alleys where sleepers +lay naked on the ground, under a great gate in a great wall, by halls +and pavilions, by shimmering tree-shadowed spaces, up and down steps, +and into a court where cypresses grew. We set up our beds in a verandah, +and woke to see leaves against the morning sky. We explored the vast +temple and its monuments--iron vessels of the Tang age, a great tablet +of the Sungs, trees said to date from before the Christian era, stones +inscribed with drawings of these by the Emperor Chien Lung, hall after +hall, court after court, ruinous, overgrown, and the great crumbling +walls and gates and towers. Then in the afternoon we began the ascent of +Tai Shan, the most sacred mountain in China, the most frequented, +perhaps, in the world. There, according to tradition, legendary emperors +worshipped God. Confucius climbed it six centuries before Christ, and +sighed, we are told, to find his native State so small. The great +Chin-Shih-Huang was there in the third century B.C. Chien Lung in the +eighteenth century covered it with inscriptions. And millions of humble +pilgrims for thirty centuries at least have toiled up the steep and +narrow way. Steep it is, for it makes no détours, but follows straight +up the bed of a stream, and the greater part of the five thousand feet +is ascended by stone steps. A great ladder of eighteen flights climbs +the last ravine, and to see it from below, sinuously mounting the +precipitous face to the great arch that leads on to the summit, is +enough to daunt the most ardent walker. We at least were glad to be +chaired some part of the way. A wonderful way! On the lower slopes it +passes from portal to portal, from temple to temple. Meadows shaded with +aspen and willow border the stream as it falls from green pool to green +pool. Higher up are scattered pines Else the rocks are bare--bare, but +very beautiful, with that significance of form which I have found +everywhere in the mountains in China. + +To such beauty the Chinese are peculiarly sensitive. All the way up the +rocks are carved with inscriptions recording the charm and the sanctity +of the place. Some of them were written by emperors; many, especially, +by Chien Lung, the great patron of art in the eighteenth century. They +are models, one is told, of caligraphy as well as of literary +composition. Indeed, according to Chinese standards, they could not be +the one without the other. The very names of favourite spots are poems +in themselves. One is "the pavilion of the phoenixes"; another "the +fountain of the white cranes." A rock is called "the tower of the +quickening spirit"; the gate on the summit is "the portal of the +clouds." More prosaic, but not less charming, is an inscription on a +rock in the plain, "the place of the three smiles," because there some +mandarins, meeting to drink and converse, told three peculiarly funny +stories. Is not that delightful? It seems so to me. And so peculiarly +Chinese! + +It was dark before we reached the summit. We put up in the temple that +crowns it, dedicated to Yü Huang, the "Jade Emperor" of the Taoists; and +his image and those of his attendant deities watched our slumbers. But +we did not sleep till we had seen the moon rise, a great orange disc, +straight from the plain, and swiftly mount till she made the river, five +thousand feet below, a silver streak in the dim grey levels. + +Next morning, at sunrise, we saw that, north and east, range after range +of lower hills stretched to the horizon, while south lay the plain, with +half a hundred streams gleaming down to the river from the valleys. Full +in view was the hill where, more than a thousand years ago, the great +Tang poet Li-tai-po retired with five companions to drink and make +verses. They are still known to tradition as the "six idlers of the +bamboo grove"; and the morning sun, I half thought, still shines upon +their symposium. We spent the day on the mountain; and as the hours +passed by, more and more it showed itself to be a sacred place. Sacred +to what god? No question is harder to answer of any sacred place, for +there are as many ideas of the god as there are worshippers. There are +temples here to various gods: to the mountain himself; to the Lady of +the mountain, Pi-hsia-yüen, who is at once the Venus of +Lucretius--"goddess of procreation, gold as the clouds, blue as the +sky," one inscription calls her--and the kindly mother who gives +children to women and heals the little ones of their ailments; to the +Great Bear; to the Green Emperor, who clothes the trees with leaves; to +the Cloud-compeller; to many others. And in all this, is there no room +for God? It is a poor imagination that would think so. When men worship +the mountain, do they worship a rock, or the spirit of the place, or the +spirit that has no place? It is the latter, we may be sure, that some +men adored, standing at sunrise on this spot. And the Jade Emperor--is +he a mere idol? In the temple where we slept were three inscriptions set +up by the Emperor Chien Lung. They run as follows:-- + + "Without labour, oh Lord, Thou bringest forth the greatest things." + + "Thou leadest Thy company of spirits to guard the whole world." + + "In the company of Thy spirits Thou art wise as a mighty Lord to + achieve great works." + +These might be sentences from the Psalms; they are as religious as +anything Hebraic. And if it be retorted that the mass of the +worshippers on Tai Shan are superstitious, so are, and always have been, +the mass of worshippers anywhere. Those who rise to religion in any +country are few. India, I suspect, is the great exception. But I do not +know that they are fewer in China than elsewhere. For that form of +religion, indeed, which consists in the worship of natural beauty and +what lies behind it--for the religion of a Wordsworth--they seem to be +pre-eminently gifted. The cult of this mountain, and of the many others +like it in China, the choice of sites for temples and monasteries, the +inscriptions, the little pavilions set up where the view is +loveliest--all goes to prove this. In England we have lovelier hills, +perhaps, than any in China. But where is our sacred mountain? Where, in +all the country, that charming mythology which once in Greece and Italy, +as now in China, was the outward expression of the love of nature? + + "Great God, I'd rather be + A pagan suckled in a creed outworn + So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, + Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn." + +That passionate cry of a poet born into a naked world would never have +been wrung from him had he been born in China. + +And that leads me to one closing reflection. When lovers of +China--"pro-Chinese," as they are contemptuously called in the +East--assert that China is more civilised than the modern West, even +the candid Westerner, who is imperfectly acquainted with the facts, is +apt to suspect insincere paradox. Perhaps these few notes on Tai Shan +may help to make the matter clearer. A people that can so consecrate a +place of natural beauty is a people of fine feeling for the essential +values of life. That they should also be dirty, disorganised, corrupt, +incompetent, even if it were true--and it is far from being true in any +unqualified sense--would be irrelevant to this issue. On a foundation of +inadequate material prosperity they reared, centuries ago, the +superstructure of a great culture. The West, in rebuilding its +foundations, has gone far to destroy the superstructure. Western +civilisation, wherever it penetrates, brings with it water-taps, sewers, +and police; but it brings also an ugliness, an insincerity, a vulgarity +never before known to history, unless it be under the Roman Empire. It +is terrible to see in China the first wave of this Western flood +flinging along the coasts and rivers and railway lines its scrofulous +foam of advertisements, of corrugated iron roofs, of vulgar, meaningless +architectural forms. In China, as in all old civilisations I have seen, +all the building of man harmonises with and adorns nature. In the West +everything now built is a blot. Many men, I know, sincerely think that +this destruction of beauty is a small matter, and that only decadent +ĉsthetes would pay any attention to it in a world so much in need of +sewers and hospitals. I believe this view to be profoundly mistaken. +The ugliness of the West is a symptom of a disease of the Soul. It +implies that the end has been lost sight of in the means. In China the +opposite is the case. The end is clear, though the means be inadequate. +Consider what the Chinese have done to Tai Shan, and what the West will +shortly do, once the stream of Western tourists begins to flow strongly. +Where the Chinese have constructed a winding stairway of stone, +beautiful from all points of view, Europeans or Americans will run up a +funicular railway, a staring scar that will never heal. Where the +Chinese have written poems in exquisite caligraphy, _they_ will cover +the rocks with advertisements. Where the Chinese have built a series of +temples, each so designed and placed as to be a new beauty in the +landscape, _they_ will run up restaurants and hotels like so many scabs +on the face of nature. I say with confidence that they _will_, because +they _have_ done it wherever there is any chance of a paying investment. +Well, the Chinese need, I agree, our science, our organisation, our +medicine. But is it affectation to think they may have to pay too high a +price for it, and to suggest that in acquiring our material advantages +they may lose what we have gone near to lose, that fine and sensitive +culture which is one of the forms of spiritual life? The West talks of +civilising China. Would that China could civilise the West! + + + + +PART III + +JAPAN + + + + +I + +FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN + + +Japan, surely, must be a mirage created by enchantment. Nothing so +beautiful could be real. Take the west coast of Scotland, bathe it in +Mediterranean light and sun, and let its waves be those of the Pacific. +Take the best of Devonshire, enlarge the hills, extend the plains, and +dominate all with the only perfect mountain in the world--a mountain +that catches at your breath like a masterpiece of art. Make the copses +woods, and the woods forests. For our fields with their hedgerows +substitute the vivid green of rice, shining across the gleam of flooded +plains. Everywhere let water flow; and at every waterfall and cave erect +a little shrine to hallow the spot. Over the whole pour a flood of pure +white light, and you have a faint image of Japan. Perhaps it is not, +naturally, more beautiful than the British Isles--few countries are. But +it is unspoilt by man, or almost so. Osaka, indeed, is as ugly as +Manchester, Yokohama as Liverpool. But these are small blots. For the +rest, Japan is Japan of the Middle Ages, and lovely as England may have +been, when England could still be called merry. + +And the people are lovely, too. I do not speak of facial beauty. Some +may think, in that respect, the English or the Americans handsomer. But +these people have the beauty of life. Instead of the tombstone masques +that pass for faces among Anglo-Saxons, they have human features, quick, +responsive, mobile. Instead of the slow, long limbs creaking in stiff +integuments, they have active members, for the most bare or moving +freely in loose robes. Instead of a mumbled, monotonous, machine-like +emission of sound they have real speech, vivacious, varied, musical. +Their children are the loveliest in the world; so gay, so sturdy, so +cheeky, yet never rude. It is a pure happiness merely to walk in the +streets and look at them. It is a pure happiness, I might almost say, to +look at anyone, so gay is their greeting, so radiant their smile, so +full of vitality their gestures. I do not know what they think of the +foreigner, but at least they betray no animosity. They let his stiff, +ungainly presence move among them unchallenged. Perhaps they are sorry +for him; but I think they are never rude. I am speaking, of course, of +Old Japan, of the Japan that is all in evidence, if one lands, as I did, +in the south, avoids Osaka, and postpones Yokohama and Tokio. It is +still the Japan of feudalism; a system in which I, for my part, do not +believe; which, in its essence, in Japan as in Europe, was harsh, +unjust, and cruel; but which had the art of fostering, or at least of +not destroying beauty. + +And in this point feudalism in Japan was finer and more sensitive, if it +was less grandiose, than feudalism in Europe. There is nothing in Japan +to compare with the churches and cathedrals of the West, for there is no +stone architecture at all. But there is nothing in the West to compare +with the living-rooms of Japan. Suites of these dating from the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are to be seen in Kyoto and +elsewhere. And till I saw them I had no idea how exquisite human life +might be made. The Japanese, as is well known, discovered the secret of +emptiness. Their rooms consist of a floor of spotless matting, paper +walls, and a wooden roof. But the paper walls, in these old palatial +rooms, are masterpieces by great artists. From a background of gold-leaf +emerge and fade away suggestions of river and coast and hill, of +peonies, chrysanthemums, lotuses, of wild geese and swans, of reeds and +pools, of all that is elusive and choice in nature; decorations that are +also lyric poems, hints of landscape that yet never pretend to be a +substitute for the real thing. The real thing is outside, and perhaps it +will not intrude; for where we should have glass windows the Japanese +have white paper screens. But draw back, if you choose, one of these +screens, and you will see a little landscape garden, a little lake, a +little bridge, a tiny rockery, a few goldfish, a cluster of irises, a +bed of lotus, and, above and beyond, the great woods. These are royal +apartments; but all the cost, it will be seen, is lavished on the work +of art. The principle is the same in humbler homes. + +People who could so devise life, we may be sure, are people with a +fineness of perception unknown to the West, unless it were once in +ancient Greece. The Japanese indeed, I suspect, are the Greeks of the +East. In the theatre at Kyoto this was curiously borne in upon me. On +the floor of the house reclined figures in loose robes, bare-necked and +barefooted. On the narrow stage were one or two actors, chanting in +measured speech, and moving slowly from pose to pose. From boxes on +either side of the stage intoned a kind of chorus; and a flute and +pizzicato strings accompanied the whole in the solemn strains of some +ancient mode. I have seen nothing so like what a Greek play may have +been, though doubtless even this was far enough away. And still more was +I struck by the resemblance when a comedy succeeded to the tragedy, and +I found the young and old Japan confronting one another exactly as the +young and old Athens met in debate, two thousand years ago, in the +_Frogs_ of Aristophanes. The theme was an ascent of Mount Fuji; the +actors two groups of young girls, one costumed as virgin priestesses of +the Shinto cult, the other in modern European dress. The one set were +climbing the mountain as a pilgrimage, the other as a lark; and they +meet and exchange sharp dialectics (unintelligible to me, but not +unguessable) on the lower slopes. The sympathies of the author, like +those of Aristophanes, were with the old school. It is the pilgrims who +reach the top and the modern young women who collapse. And the modern +young man fares no better; he is beaten by a coolie and frightened by a +ghost. The playwright had at least Aristophanes' gift of lampoon, though +I doubt whether he had a touch of his genius. Perhaps, however, he had a +better cause. For, I doubt, modern Japan may deserve lampooning more +than the Athens of Aristophanes. For modern Japan is the modern West. +And that--well, it seemed to be symbolised to me yesterday in the train. +In my carriage were two Japanese. One was loosely wrapt in a kimono, +bare throat and feet, fine features, fine gestures, everything +aristocratic and distinguished. The other was clad in European dress, +sprigged waistcoat, gold watch-chain, a coarse, thick-lipped face, a +podgy figure. It was a hot July day, and we were passing through some of +the loveliest scenery in the world. He first closed all doors and +windows, and then extended himself at full length and went to sleep. +There he lay, his great paunch sagging--prosperity exuding from every +pore--an emblem and type of what in the West we call a "successful" man. +And the other? The other, no doubt, was going downhill. Both, of course, +were Japanese types; but the civilisation of the West chose the one and +rejected the other. And if civilisation is to be judged, as it fairly +may be, by the kind of men it brings to the top, there is much to be +said for the point of view of my Tory playwright. + + + + +II + +A "NO" DANCE + + +On entering the theatre I was invaded by a sense of serenity and peace. +There was no ornament, no upholstery, no superfluity at all. A square +building of unvarnished wood; a floor covered with matting, exquisitely +clean, and divided into little boxes, or rather trays (so low were the +partitions), in which the audience knelt on their heels, beautiful in +loose robes; running out from the back wall a square stage, with a roof +supported by pillars; a passage on the same level, by which the actors +entered, on the left; the screens removed from the outer walls, so that +the hall was open to the air, and one looked out on sky and trees, or +later on darkness, against which shone a few painted lanterns. Compare +this with the Queen's Hall in London, or with any of our theatres, and +realise the effect on one's mood of the mere setting of the drama. Drama +was it? Or opera? Or what? It is called a "dance." But there was very +little dancing. What mainly remains in my mind is a series of visual +images, one more beautiful than another; figures seated motionless for +minutes, almost for half-hours, with a stillness of statues, not an +eyelash shaking; or passing very slowly across the stage, with that +movement of bringing one foot up to the other and pausing before the +next step which is so ridiculous in our opera, but was here so right and +so impressive; or turning slowly, or rising and sitting with immense +deliberation; each figure right in its relation to the stage and to the +others. All were clothed in stiff brocade, sumptuous but not gorgeous. +One or two were masked; and all of them, I felt, ought to have been. The +mask, in fact, the use of which in Greek drama I had always felt to be +so questionable, was here triumphantly justified. It completed the +repudiation of actuality which was the essence of the effect. It was a +musical sound, as it were, made visible. It symbolised humanity, but it +was not human, still less inhuman. I would rather call it divine. And +this whole art of movement and costume required that completion. Once I +had seen a mask I missed it in all the characters that were without it. + +To me, then, this visual spectacle was the essence of the "No" dance. +The dancing itself, when it came, was but a slight intensification of +the slow and solemn posing I have described. There was no violence, no +leaping, no quick steps; rather a turning and bending, a slow sweep of +the arm, a walking a little more rhythmical, on the verge, at most, of +running. It was never exciting, but I could not say it was never +passionate. It seemed to express a kind of frozen or petrified passion; +rather, perhaps, a passion run into a mould of beauty and turned out a +statue. I have never seen an art of such reserve and such distinction. +"Or of such tediousness," I seem to hear an impatient reader exclaim. +Well, let me be frank. Like all Westerners, I am accustomed to life in +quick time, and to an art full of episode, of intellectual content, of +rapid change and rapid development. I have lost to a great extent that +power of prolonging an emotion which seems to be the secret of Eastern +art. I am bored--subconsciously, as it were--where an Oriental is lulled +into ecstasy. His case is the better. But also, in this matter of the No +dance he has me at a disadvantage. In the first place he can understand +the words. These, it is true, have far less importance than in a drama +of Shakspere. They are only a lyric or narrative accompaniment to the +music and the dance. Still they have, one is informed, a beauty much +appreciated by Japanese, and one that the stranger, ignorant of the +language, misses. And secondly, what is worse, the music failed to move +me. Whether this is my own fault, or that of the music, I do not presume +to decide, for I do not know whether, as so often is the case, I was +defeated by a convention unfamiliar to me, or whether the convention has +really become formal and artificial. In any case, after the first shock +of interest, I found the music monotonous. It was solemn and religious +in character, and reminded me more of Gregorian chants than of anything +else. But it had one curious feature which seemed rather to be primitive +and orgiastic. The two musicians who played the drums accompanied the +performers, almost unceasingly, by a kind of musical ejaculation, +starting on a low note and swooping up to a high, long-held falsetto +cry. This over and over again, through the dialogue and through the +singing. The object, I suppose, and perhaps, to Japanese, the effect, is +to sustain a high emotional tone. In my case it failed, as the music +generally failed. My interest, as I began by saying, was maintained by +the visual beauty; and that must have been very great to be able to +maintain itself independently of the words and the music. + +As to the drama, it is not drama at all in the sense in which we have +come to understand the term in the West. There is no "construction," no +knot tied and untied, no character. Rather there is a succession of +scenes selected from a well-known story for some quality of poignancy, +or merely of narrative interest. The form, I think, should be called +epic or lyric rather than dramatic. And it is in this point that it most +obviously differs from the Greek drama. It has no intellectual content, +or very little. And, perhaps for that reason, it has had no development, +but remains fossilised where it was in the fifteenth century. On the +other hand, these actors, I felt, are the only ones who could act Greek +drama. They have, I think, quite clearly the same tradition and aim as +the Greeks. They desire not to reproduce but to symbolise actuality; and +their conception of acting is the very opposite of ours. The last thing +they aim at is to be "natural." To be unnatural rather is their object. +Hence the costume, hence the mask, hence the movement and gesture. And +how effective such "unnaturalness" can be in evoking natural passion +only those will understand who have realised how ineffective for that +purpose is our "naturalness" when we are concerned with Sophocles or +Shakspere. The Japanese have in their No dance a great treasure. For out +of it they might, if they have the genius, develop a modern poetic +drama. How thankful would hundreds of young men be, starving for poetry +in England, if we had as a living tradition anything analogous to work +upon! + + + + +III + +NIKKO + + +Waking in the night, I heard the sound of running water. Across my +window I saw, stretching dimly, the branch of a pine, and behind it +shone the stars. I remembered that I was in Japan and felt that all the +essence of it was there. Running water, pine trees, sun and moon and +stars. All their life, as all their art, seems to be a mood of these. +For to them their life and their art are inseparable. The art is not an +accomplishment, an ornament, an excrescence. It is the flower of the +plant. Some men, some families of men, feeling beauty as every one felt +it, had the power also to express it. Or perhaps I should say--it is the +Japanese view--to suggest it. To them the branch of a tree stands for a +forest, a white disk on gold for night and the moon, a quivering reed +for a river, a bamboo stalk for a grove. Their painters are poets. By +passionate observation they have learnt what expression of the part most +inevitably symbolises the whole. That they give; and their admirers, +trained like them in feeling, fill in the rest. This art presupposes, +what it has always had, a public not less sensitive than the artist; a +similar mood, a similar tradition, a similar culture. Feel as they do, +and you must create as they do, or at least appreciate their creations. + +It was with this in my mind that I wandered about this exquisite place, +where Man has made a lovely nature lovelier still. More even than by the +famous and sumptuous temples I was moved by the smaller and humbler +shrines, so caressing are they of every choice spot, so expressive, not +of princely, but of popular feeling. Here is one, for instance, standing +under a cliff beside a stream, where women offer bits of wood in the +faith that so they will be helped to pass safely through the pangs of +childbirth. Here in a ravine is another where men who want to develop +their calves hang up sandals to a once athletic saint. "The Lord," our +Scripture says, "delighteth not in any man's legs." How pleasant, then, +it must be to have a saint who does! Especially for the Japanese, whose +legs are so finely made, and who display them so delightfully. Such, all +over the world, is the religion of the people, when they have any +religion at all. And how human it is, and how much nearer to life than +the austerities and abstractions of a creed! + +Hour after hour I strolled through these lovely places, so beautifully +ordered that the authorities, one feels, must themselves delight in the +nature they control. I had proof of it, I thought, in a notice which +ran as follows: + + "FAMOUS TAKINO TEMPLE STANDS NOT FAR AWAY, AND SOMEN FALL TOO. + IT IS WORTH WHILE TO BE THERE ONCE." + +It is indeed, and many times! But can you imagine a rural council in +England breaking into this personal note? And how reserved! Almost like +Japanese art. Compare the invitation I once saw in Switzerland, to visit +"das schönste Schwärm- und Aussichtspunkt des ganzen Schweitzerischen +Reichs." There speaks the advertiser. But beside the Somen Fall there +was no restaurant. + +Northerners, and Anglo-Saxons in particular, have always at the back of +their minds a notion that there is something effeminate about the sense +for beauty. That is reserved for decadent Southern nations. _Tu regere +imperio populos, Romane memento_ they would say, if they knew the tag; +and translate it "Britain rules the waves"! But history gives the lie to +this complacent theory. No nations were ever more virile than the Greeks +or the Italians. They have left a mark on the world which will endure +when Anglo-Saxon civilisation is forgotten. And none have been, or are, +more virile than the Japanese. That they have the delicacy of women, +too, does not alter the fact. The Russian War proved it, if proof so +tragic were required; and so does all their mediĉval history. Japanese +feudalism was as bloody, as ruthless, as hard as European. It was even +more gallant, stoical, loyal. But it had something else which I think +Europe missed, unless it were once in Provence. It had in the midst of +its hardness a consciousness of the pathos of life, of its beauty, its +brevity, its inexplicable pain. I think in no other country has anything +arisen analogous to the Zen sect of Buddhism, when knights withdrew from +battle to a garden and summerhouse, exquisitely ordered to symbolise the +spiritual life, and there, over a cup of tea served with an elaborate +ritual, looking out on a lovely nature, entered into mystic communion +with the spirit of beauty which was also the spirit of life. From that +communion, with that mood about them, they passed out to kill or to +die--to die, it might be, by their own hand, by a process which I think +no Western man can bear even to think of, much less conceive himself as +imitating. + +This sense at once of the beauty and of the tragedy of life, this power +of appreciating the one and dominating the other, seems to be the +essence of the Japanese character. In this place, it will be remembered, +is the tomb of Iyeyasu, the greatest statesman Japan has produced. +Appropriately, after his battles and his labours, he sleeps under the +shade of trees, surrounded by chapels and oratories more sumptuous and +superb than anything else in Japan, approached for miles and miles by a +road lined on either side with giant cryptomerias. His spirit, if it +could know, would appreciate, we may be sure, this habitation of beauty. +For these men, ruthless as they were, were none the less sensitive. For +example, the traveller is shown (in Kyoto, I think) a little pavilion in +a garden where Hideyoshi used to sit and contemplate the moon. I believe +it. I think Iyeyasu did the same. And also he wrote this, on a roll here +preserved: + + "Life is like unto a long journey with a heavy load. Let thy + steps be slow and steady, that thou stumble not. Persuade + thyself that privations are the natural lot of mortals, and + there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. When + ambitious desires arise in thy heart, recall the days of + extremity thou hast passed through. Forbearance is the root of + quietness and assurance for ever. Look upon wrath as thy enemy. + If thou knowest only what it is to conquer, and knowest not what + it is to be defeated, woe unto thee! It will fare ill with thee. + Find fault with thyself rather than with others. Better the less + than the more." + +Marcus Aurelius might have said that. But Marcus Aurelius belonged to a +race peculiarly insensitive to beauty. The Japanese stoics were also +artists and poets. Their earliest painters were feudal lords, and it was +feudal lords who fostered and acted the No dances. If Nietzsche had +known Japan--I think he did not?--he would surely have found in these +Daimyos and Samurai the forerunners of his Superman. A blood-red blossom +growing out of the battlefield, that, I think, was his ideal. It is one +which, I hope, the world has outlived. I look for the lily flowering +over the fields of peace. + + + + +IV + +DIVINE RIGHT IN JAPAN + + +When Japan was opened to the West, after more than two centuries of +seclusion, she was in possession of a national spirit which had been +enabled, by isolation, to become and remain simple and homogeneous. All +public feeling, all public morals centred about the divinity of the +Emperor; an idea which, by a process unique in history, had hibernated +through centuries of political obscuration, and emerged again to the +light with its prestige unimpaired in the middle of the nineteenth +century. In the Emperor, one may say, Japan was incarnate. And to this +faith the Japanese, as well as foreign observers, attribute their great +achievement in the Russian War. The little book of Captain Sakurai, +_Human Bullets_, testifies to this fact in every sentence: "Through the +abundant grace of Heaven and the illustrious virtue of his Majesty, the +Imperial forces defeated the great enemy both on land and sea." ... "I +jumped out of bed, cleansed my person with pure water, donned my best +uniform, bowed to the East where the great Sire resides, solemnly read +his proclamation of war, and told his Majesty that his humble subject +was just starting to the front. When I offered my last prayers--the last +I then believed they were--before the family shrine of my ancestors I +felt a thrill going all through me, as if they were giving me a solemn +injunction, saying: 'Thou art not thy own. For his Majesty's sake, thou +shalt go to save the nation from calamity, ready to bear the crushing of +thy bones and the tearing of thy flesh. Disgrace not thy ancestors by an +act of cowardice.'" This, it is clear, is an attitude quite different +from that of an Englishman towards the King. The King, to us, is at most +a symbol. The Emperor, to the Japanese, is, or was, a god. And the +difference may be noted in small matters. For instance, a Japanese, +writing from England, observes with astonishment that we put the head of +the King on our stamps and cover it with postmarks. That, to a Japanese, +seems to be blasphemy. Again, he is puzzled, at the Coronation in +Westminster Abbey, to find the people looking down from above on the +King. That, again, seems to him blasphemy. Last year, when the Emperor +was dying, crowds knelt hour after hour, day and night, on the road +beside the palace praying for him. And a photographer who took a picture +of them by flashlight was literally torn to pieces. One could multiply +examples, but the thing is plain. The national spirit of Japan centres +about the divinity of the Emperor. And precisely therein lies their +present problem. For one may say, I think, with confidence that this +attitude cannot endure, and is already disappearing. Western thought is +an irresistible solvent of all irrational and instinctive ideas. Men +cannot be engineers and pathologists and at the same time believe that a +man is a god. They cannot be historians and at the same time believe +that their first Emperor came down from heaven. Above all, they cannot +be politicians and abstain from analysing the real source and sanction +of political power. English political experience, it is true, suggests +immense possibilities in the way of clinging to fictions with the +feelings while insisting upon facts in practice. And the famous verse: + + "But I was thinking of a plan + To dye my whiskers green, + And always wear so large a fan + That they should not be seen," + +might have been written to summarise the development of the British +Constitution. But the success of that method depends upon the condition +that the fictions shall be nothing _but_ fictions. The feelings of the +English can centre about the King only because they are well assured +that he does not and will not govern. But that condition does not exist +in Japan. The Japanese Constitution is conceived on the German, not the +English, model; and it bristles with clauses which are intended to +prevent the development which has taken place in England--the shifting +of power from the Sovereign to a Parliamentary majority. The Ministers +are the Emperor's Ministers; the policy is the Emperor's policy. That is +the whole tenour of the Constitution. No Constitution, it is true, can +"trammel up" facts and put power anywhere but where nature puts it. If +an Emperor is not a strong man he will not govern, and his Ministers +will. And it seems to be well understood among Japanese politicians that +the personal will of the Emperor does not, in fact, count for very much. +But it is supposed to; and that must become an important point so soon +as conflict develops between the Parliament and the Government. And such +conflict is bound to arise, and is already arising. Japanese parties, it +is true, stand for persons rather than principles; and the real +governing power hitherto has been a body quite unknown to the +Constitution--namely, the group of "Elder Statesmen." But there are +signs that this group is disintegrating, and that its members are +beginning to recognise the practical necessity of forming and depending +upon a party in the country and the House of Representatives. The crisis +which led, the other day, to the fall of Prince Katsura was provoked by +popular tumults; and it was noticeable that, for the first time, the +name of the Emperor was introduced into political controversy. It seems +clear that in the near future either the Emperor must appear openly as a +fighting force, as the German Emperor does, or he must subside into a +figure-head and the government pass into the hands of Parliament. The +former alternative is quite incompatible with the idea of the god-king; +the latter might not be repugnant to it if other things tended to foster +it. But it is so clear that they do not! An Emperor who is titular head +of a Parliamentary Government might, and in Japan no doubt _would_, be +surrounded with affection and respect. He could never be seriously +regarded as divine. For that whole notion belongs to an age innocent of +all that is implied in the very possibility of Parliamentary government. +It belongs to the age of mythology and poetry, not to the age of reason. +Japanese patriotism in the future must depend on love of country, +unsupported by the once powerful sanction of a divine personality. + +If this be true, I question very much the wisdom of that part of the +Japanese educational system which endeavours to centre all duty about +the person of the Emperor. The Japanese are trying a great experiment in +State-imposed morality--a policy highly questionable at the best, but +becoming almost demonstrably absurd when it is based on an idea which is +foredoomed to discredit. The well-known Imperial rescript, which is kept +framed in every school, reads as follows: + + "Our Ancestors founded the State on a vast basis, and deeply + implanted virtue; and Our subjects, by their unanimity in their + great loyalty and filial affection, have in all ages shown these + qualities in perfection. Such is the essential beauty of Our + national polity, and such, too, is the true spring of Our + educational system. You, Our beloved subjects, be filial to your + parents, affectionate to your brothers, be loving husbands and + wives, and truthful to your friends. Conduct yourselves with + modesty, and be benevolent to all. Develop your intellectual + faculties and perfect your moral power by gaining knowledge and + by acquiring a profession. Further, promote the public interest + and advance the public affairs; and in case of emergency, + courageously sacrifice yourself to the public good. Thus offer + every support to Our Imperial Dynasty, which shall be as lasting + as the Universe. You will then not only be Our most loyal + subjects, but will be enabled to exhibit the noble character of + your ancestors. + + "Such are the testaments left us by Our Ancestors, which must be + observed alike by their descendants and subjects. These precepts + are perfect throughout all ages and of universal application. It + is Our desire to bear them in Our heart, in common with you Our + subjects, to the end that we may constantly possess their + virtues." + +This rescript may be read with admiration. But common sense would teach +every Westerner that a document so framed is at variance with the whole +bent of the modern mind, and, if forced upon it, could only goad it +into rebellion. And such, I have been informed, and easily believe, is +the effect it is beginning to have in Japan. Young people brought up on +Western languages and Western science demand a Western, that is a +rational, sanction for conduct. They do not believe the Emperor to be +divine, and therefore they cannot take their moral principles on trust +from him and from his ancestors. The violent reaction from this +State-imposed doctrine drives them into sheer scepticism and anarchy. +And here, as always throughout history, authority defeats its own +purposes. Western ideas cannot be taken _in part_. They cannot be +applied to the natural world and fenced off from the moral world. Japan +must go through the same crisis through which the West is passing; she +must revise the whole basis of her traditional morals. And in doing so +she must be content to lose that passionate and simple devotion which is +the good as well as the evil product of an age of uncritical faith. + + + + +V + +FUJI + + +It was raining when we reached Gotemba and took off our boots at the +entrance of the inn. I had never before stayed at a Japanese inn, and +this one, so my friend assured me, was a bad specimen of the class. +Certainly it was disorderly and dirty. It was also overcrowded. But that +was inevitable, for a thousand pilgrims in a day were landing at Gotemba +station. Men and women, young and old, grandparents, parents, children +come flocking in to climb the great mountain. The village street is +lined with inns; and in front of each stood a boy with a lantern hailing +the new arrivals. We were able, in spite of the crowd, to secure a room +to ourselves, and even, with difficulty, some water to wash in--too many +people had used and were using the one bath! A table and a chair were +provided for the foreigner, and very uncouth they looked in the pretty +Japanese room. But a bed was out of the question. One had to sleep on +the floor among the fleas. Certainly it was not comfortable; but it was +amusing. From my room in the upper storey I looked into the whole row +of rooms in the inn opposite, thrown open to the street, with their +screens drawn back. One saw families and parties, a dozen or more in a +room, dressing and undressing, naked and clothed, sleeping, eating, +talking; all, of course, squatting on the floor, with a low stool for a +table, and red-lacquered bowls for plates and dishes. How people manage +to eat rice with chopsticks will always be a mystery to me. For my own +part, I cannot even--but I will not open that humiliating chapter. + +Of the night, the less said the better. I rose with relief, but dressed +with embarrassment; for the girl who waited on us selected the moment of +my toilet to clean the room. It was still raining hard, and we had +decided to abandon our expedition, for another night in that inn was +unthinkable. But, about eleven, a gleam of sun encouraged us to proceed, +and we started on horseback for the mountain. And here I must note that +by the official tariff, approved by the police, a foreigner is charged +twice as much for a horse as a Japanese. If one asks why, one is calmly +informed that a foreigner, as a rule, is heavier! This is typical of +travel in Japan; and there have been moments when I have sympathised +with the Californians in their discrimination against the Japanese. +Those moments, however, are rare and brief, and speedily repented of. + +Naturally, as soon as we had started the weather clouded over again. We +rode for three hours at a foot-pace, and by the time we left our horses +and began the ascent on foot we were wrapped in thick, cold mist. There +is no difficulty about climbing Fuji, except the fatigue. You simply +walk for hours up a steep and ever-steeper heap of ashes. It was perhaps +as well that we did not see what lay before us, or we might have been +discouraged. We saw nothing but the white-grey mist and the purple-grey +soil. Except that, looming out of the cloud just in front of us, there +kept appearing and vanishing a long line of pilgrims, with peaked hats, +capes, and sandals, all made of straw, winding along with their staffs, +forty at least, keeping step, like figures in a frieze, like shadows on +a sheet, like spirits on the mountain of Purgatory, like anything but +solid men walking up a hill. So for hours we laboured on, the slope +becoming steeper every step, till we could go no further, and stopped at +a shelter to pass the night. Here we were lucky. The other climbers had +halted below or above, and we had the long, roomy shed to ourselves. +Blankets, a fire of wood, and a good meal restored us. We sat warming +and congratulating ourselves, when suddenly our guide at the door gave a +cry. We hurried to see. And what a sight it was! The clouds lay below us +and a starlit sky above. At our feet the mountain fell away like a +cliff, but it fell rather to a glacier than a sea--a glacier infinite as +the ocean, yawning in crevasses, billowing in ridges; a glacier not of +ice, but of vapour, changing form as one watched, opening here, closing +there, rising, falling, shifting, while far away, at the uttermost +verge, appeared a crimson crescent, then a red oval, then a yellow +globe, swimming up above the clouds, touching their lights with gold, +deepening their shadows, and spreading, where it rose, a lake of silver +fire over the surface of the tossing plain. + +We looked till it was too cold to look longer, then wrapped ourselves in +quilts and went to sleep. At midnight I woke. Outside there was a +strange moaning. The wind had risen; and the sound of it in that lonely +place gave me a shock of fear. The mountain, then, was more than a heap +of dead ashes. Presences haunted it; powers indifferent to human fate. +That wind had blown before man came into being, and would blow when he +had ceased to exist. It moaned and roared. Then it was still. But I +could not sleep again, and lay watching the flicker of the lamp on the +long wooden roof, and the streaks of moonlight through the chinks, till +the coolie lit a fire and called us to get up. We started at four. The +clouds were still below, and the moon above; but she had moved across to +the west, Orion had appeared, and a new planet blazed in the east. The +last climb was very steep and our breath very scant. But we had other +things than that to think of. Through a rift in a cloud to the eastward +dawned a salmon-coloured glow; it brightened to fire; lit up the clouds +above and the clouds below; blazed more and intolerably, till, as we +reached the summit, the sun leapt into view and sent a long line of +light down the tumultuous sea of rolling cloud. + +How cold it was! And what an atmosphere inside the highest shelter, +where sleepers had been packed like sardines and the newly kindled fire +filled the fetid air with acrid smoke! What there was to be seen we +saw--the crater, neither wide nor deep; the Shinto temple, where a +priest was intoning prayers; and the Post Office, where an enterprising +Government sells picture-postcards for triumphant pilgrims to despatch +to their friends. My friend must have written at least a dozen, while I +waited and shivered with numbed feet and hands. But after an hour we +began the descent, and quickly reached the shelter where we were to +breakfast. Thence we had to plunge again into the clouds. But before +doing so we took a long look at the marvellous scene--more marvellous +than any view of earth; icebergs tossing in a sea, mountains exhaling +and vanishing, magic castles and palaces towering across infinite space. +A step, and once more the white-grey mist and the purple-grey soil. But +the clouds had moved higher; and it was not long before we saw, to the +south, cliffs and the sea, to the east, the gleam of green fields, +running up, under cloud-shadows, to mountain ridges and peaks. And so +back to Gotemba, and our now odious inn. + +We would not stop there. So we parted, my friend for Tokyo, I for +Kyoto. But time-tables had been fallacious, and I found myself landed at +Numatsa, with four hours to wait for the night train, no comfort in the +waiting-room, and no Japanese words at my command. I understood then a +little better why foreigners are so offensive in the East. They do not +know the language; they find themselves impotent where their instinct is +to domineer; and they visit on the Oriental the ill-temper which is +really produced by their own incompetence. Yes, I must confess that I +had to remind myself severely that it was I, and not the Japanese, who +was stupid. At last the station-master came to my rescue--the +station-master always speaks English. He endured my petulance with the +unfailing courtesy and patience of his race, and sent me off at last in +a rickshaw to the beach and a Japanese hotel. But my troubles were not +ended. I reached the hotel; I bowed and smiled to the group of +kow-towing girls; but how to tell them that I wanted a bathe and a meal? +Signs were unavailing. We looked at one another and laughed, but that +did not help. At last they sent for a student who knew a little English. +I could have hugged him. "It is a great pity," he said, "that these +people do not know English." The pity, I replied, was that I did not +know Japanese, but his courtesy repudiated the suggestion. Could I have +a bathing costume? Of course! And in a quarter of an hour he brought me +a wet one. Where could I change? He showed me a room; and presently I +was swimming in the sea, with such delight as he only can know who has +ascended and descended Fuji without the chance of a bath. Returning to +the inn, I wandered about in my wet costume seeking vainly the room in +which I had changed. Laughing girls pushed me here, and pulled me there, +uncomprehending of my pantomime, till one at last, quicker than the +rest, pulled back a slide, and revealed the room I was seeking. Then +came dinner--soup, fried fish, and rice; and--for my weakness--a spoon +and fork to eat them with. The whole house seemed to be open, and one +looked into every room, watching the ways of these gay and charming +people. At last I paid--to accomplish _that_ by pantomime was easy,--and +said good-bye to my hostess and her maids, who bowed their heads to the +ground and smiled as though I had been the most honoured of guests +instead of a clumsy foreigner, fit food for mirth. A walk in a twilight +pine wood, and then back to the station, where I boarded the night +train, and slept fitfully until five, when we reached Kyoto, and my +wanderings were over. How I enjoyed the comfort of the best hotel in the +East! But also how I regretted that I had not long ago learnt to find +comfort in the far more beautiful manner of life of Japan! + + + + +VI + +JAPAN AND AMERICA + + +On the reasons, real or alleged, for the hostility of the Californians +to the Japanese this is not the place to dwell. At bottom, it is a +conflict of civilisations, a conflict which is largely due to ignorance +and misunderstanding, and which should never be allowed to develop into +avowed antagonism. For with time, patience, and sympathy it will +disappear of itself. The patience and sympathy, I think, are not lacking +on the side of the Japanese, but they are sadly lacking among the +Californians, and indeed among all white men in Western America. The +truth is that the Western pioneer knows nothing of Japan and wants to +know nothing. And he would be much astonished, not to say indignant, +were he told that the civilisation of Japan is higher than that of +America. Yet there can, I think, be no doubt that this is the case, if +real values be taken as a standard. America, and the "new" countries +generally, have contributed, so far, nothing to the world except +material prosperity. I do not under-estimate this. It is a great thing +to have subdued a continent. And it may be argued that those who are +engaged in this task have no energy to spare for other activities. But +the Japanese subdued their island centuries, even millenniums, ago. And, +having reduced it to as high a state of culture as they required, they +began to live--a thing the new countries have not yet attempted. + +To live, in the sense in which I am using the term, implies that you +reflect life in the forms of art, literature, philosophy, and religion. +To all these things the Japanese have made notable contributions; less +notable, indeed, than those of China, from whom they derived their +inspiration, but still native, genuine, and precious. To take first bare +externals, the physical life of the Japanese is beautiful. I read with +amazement the other day a quotation from a leading Californian newspaper +to the effect that "there is an instinctive sense of physical repugnance +on the part of the Western or European races towards the Japanese race"! +Had the writer, I wonder, ever been in Japan? Perhaps it would have made +no difference to him if he had, for he is evidently one of those who +cannot or will not see. But to me the first and chief impression of +Japan is the physical attractiveness of the people. The Japanese are +perfectly proportioned; their joints, their hands, their feet, their +hips are elegant and fine; and they display to the best advantage these +natural graces by a costume which is as beautiful as it is simple. To +see these perfect figures walking, running, mounting stairs, bathing, +even pulling rickshaws, is to receive a constant stream of shocks of +surprise and delight. In so much that, after some weeks in the country, +I begin to feel "a sense of physical repugnance" to Americans and +Europeans--a sense which, if I were as uneducated and inexperienced as +the writer in the _Argonaut_, I should call "instinctive," and make the +basis of a campaign of race-hatred. The misfortune is that the Japanese +abandon their own dress when they go abroad. And in European dress, +which they do not understand, and which conceals their bodies, they are +apt to look mean and vulgar. Similarly, in European dress, they lose +their own perfect manners and mis-acquire the worst of the West. So that +there may be some excuse for feeling "repugnance" to the Japanese +abroad, though, of course, it is merely absurd and barbarous to base +upon such superficial distaste a policy of persecution and insult. + +If we turn from the body to the mind and the spirit, the Japanese show +themselves in no respect inferior, and in some important respects +superior, to the Americans. New though they are to the whole mental +attitude which underlies science and its applications, they have +already, in half a century, produced physicians, surgeons, pathologists, +engineers who can hold their own with the best of Europe and America. +All that the West can do in this, its own special sphere, the Japanese, +late-comers though they be, are showing that they can do too. In +particular, to apply the only test which the Western nations seem really +to accept, they can build ships, train men, organise a campaign, and +beat a great Western Power at the West's own game of slaughter. But all +this, of science and armaments, big though it bulks in our imagination, +is secondary and subordinate in a true estimate of civilisation. The +great claim the Japanese may make, as I began by saying, is that they +have known how to live; and they have proved that by the only test--by +the way they have reflected life. + +Japanese literature and art may not be as great as that of Europe; but +it exists, whereas that of America and all the new countries is yet to +seek. While Europe was still plunged in the darkest of the dark ages, +Japanese poets were already producing songs in exquisite response to the +beauty of nature, the passion and pathos of human life. From the seventh +century on, their painting and their sculpture was reflecting in tender +and gracious forms the mysteries of their faith. Their literature and +their art changed its content and its form with the centuries, but it +continued without a break, in a stream of genuine inspiration, down to +the time when the West forced open the doors of Japan to the world. From +that moment, under the new influences, it has sickened and declined. But +what a record! And a record that is also an incontrovertible proof that +the Japanese belong to the civilised nations--the nations that can live +and express life. + +But perhaps this test may be rejected. Morals, it may be urged, is the +touchstone of civilisation, not art. Well, take morals. The question is +a large one; but, summarily, where do the Japanese fail, as compared +with the Western nations? Is patriotism the standard? In this respect +what nation can compete with them? Is it courage? What people are +braver? Is it industry? Who is more industrious? It is their very +industry that has aroused the jealous fears of the Californians. Is it +family life? Where, outside the East, is found such solidarity as in +Japan? Is it sexual purity? On that point, what Western nation can hold +up its head? Is it honesty? What of the honesty of the West? No; no +Westerner, knowing the facts, could for a moment maintain that, all +round and on the whole, the morals of the Japanese are inferior to those +of Europe or America. It would probably be easier to maintain the +opposite. Judged by every real test the Japanese civilisation is not +lower, it is higher than that of any of the new countries who refuse to +permit the Japanese to live among them. + +That, I admit, does not settle the question. Competent and impartial men +like Admiral Mahan, who would admit all that I have urged, still +maintain that the Japanese ought not to be allowed to settle in the +West. This conclusion I do not now discuss. The point I wish to make is +that the question can never be fairly faced, in a dry light, and with +reference only to the simple facts, until the prejudice is broken up and +destroyed that the Japanese, and all other Orientals, are "inferior" +races. It is this prejudice which distorts all the facts and all the +values, which makes Californians and British Columbians and Australians +sheerly unreasonable, and causes them to jump at one argument after +another, each more fallacious than the last, to defend an attitude which +at bottom is nothing but the childish and ignorant hatred of the +uncultivated man for everything strange. If the Japanese had had white +skins, should we ever have heard of the economic argument? And should we +ever have been presented with that new shibboleth "unassimilable"? + + + + +VII + +HOME + + +Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London! What a crescendo of life! What a +quickening of the flow! What a gathering intensity! "Whatever else we +may think of the West," I said to the young French artist, "it is, at +any rate, the centre of life." "Yes," he replied, "but the curious thing +is that that Life produces only Death. Dead things, and dead people." I +reflected. Yes! The _things_ certainly were dead. Look at the Louvre! +Look at the Madeleine! Look at any of the streets! Machine-men had made +it all, not human souls. The men were dead, then, too? "Certainly!" he +insisted. "Their works are a proof. Where there is life there is art. +And there is no art in the modern world--neither in the East nor in the +West." "Then what is this that looks like Life?" I said, looking at the +roaring streets. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Steam." + +With that in my mind, I crossed to England, and forgot criticism and +speculation in the gleam of the white cliffs, in the trim hedgerows and +fields, in the sound of English voices and the sight of English faces. +In London it was the same. The bright-cheeked messenger boys, the +discreetly swaggering chauffeurs, the quiet, competent young men in City +offices who reassured me about my baggage, the autumn sun on the maze of +misty streets, the vast picturesqueness of London, its beauty as of a +mountain or the sea, fairly carried me off my feet. And passing St. +Paul's--"Dead," I muttered, as I looked at its derivative facade,--I +went in to take breath. From the end of the vast, cold space came the +dreary wail I remembered so well. I had heard Church music at Moscow, +and knew what it ought to be. But the tremendous passion of that Eastern +plain-song would have offended these discreet walls. I was in a "sacred +edifice"; and with a pang of regret I recalled the wooden shrines of +Japan under the great trees, the solemn Buddhas, and the crowds of +cheerful worshippers. I walked down the empty nave and came under the +dome. Then something happened--the thing that always happens when one +comes into touch with the work of a genius. And Wren's dome proves that +he was that. I sat down, and the organ began to play; or rather, the +dome began to sing. And down the stream of music floated in fragments +visions of my journey--Indians nude like bronzes, blue-coated Chinese, +white robes and bare limbs from Japan, plains of corn, plains of rice, +plains of scorched grass; snow-peaks under the stars, volcanoes, green +and black; huge rivers, tumbling streams, waterfalls, lakes, the ocean; +hovels and huts of wood or sun-dried bricks, thatched or tiled; marble +palaces and baths; red lacquer, golden tiles; saints, kings, conquerors, +and, enduring or worshipping these, a myriad generations of peasants +through long millenniums, toiling, suffering, believing, in one +unchanging course of life, before the dawn of history on and down to +here and now. As they were, so they are; and I heard them sound as with +the drone of Oriental music. Then above that drone something new +appeared. Late in time, Western history emerged, and--astonishing +thing--began to move and change! "Why," I said, "there's something +trying to happen! What is it? Is there going to be a melody?" There was +not one. But there was--has the reader ever heard the second--or is it +the third?--overture to "Leonora"? A scale begins to run up, first on +the violins; then one by one the other instruments join in, till the +great basses are swept into the current and run and scale too. So it was +here. The West began; but the East caught it up. The unchanging drone +began to move and flow. Faster and faster, louder and louder, more and +more intensely, crying and flaming towards--what? Beethoven knew, and +put it into his music. We cannot put it into ideas or words. We can see +the problem, not the solution; and the problem is this. To reconcile the +Western flight down Time with the Eastern rest in Eternity; the Western +multiformity with the Eastern identity; the Western energy with the +Eastern peace. For God is neither Time nor Eternity, but Time in +Eternity; neither One nor Many, but One in Many; neither Spirit nor +Matter, but Matter-Spirit. That the great artists know, and the great +saints; the modern artists and the modern saints, who have been or who +will be. Goethe was one; Beethoven was one; and there will be greater, +when the contact between East and West becomes closer, and the sparks +from pole to pole fly faster. + +I had dropped into mere thinking, and realised that the organ had +stopped. I left the great church and came out upon the back of Queen +Anne, which made me laugh. Still, it was quite religious; so were the +'buses, and the motor-cars, and the shops and offices, and the Law +Courts, and the top-hats, and the crossing-sweepers. "Dear people," I +said, "you are not dead, any more than I am. You think you are, as I too +often do. When you feel dead you should go to church; but not in a +'sacred edifice.' Beethoven, even in the Queen's Hall, is better." + + + + +PART IV + +AMERICA + + + + +I + +THE "DIVINE AVERAGE" + + +The great countries of the East have each a civilisation that is +original, if not independent. India, China, Japan, each has a peculiar +outlook on the world. Not so America, at any rate in the north. America, +we might say, does not exist; there exists instead an offshoot of +Europe. Nor does an "American spirit" exist; there exists instead the +spirit of the average Western man. Americans are immigrants and +descendants of immigrants. Putting aside the negroes and a handful of +orientals, there is nothing to be found here that is not to be found in +Western Europe; only here what thrives is not what is distinctive of the +different European countries, but what is common to them all. What +America does, not, of course, in a moment, but with incredible rapidity, +is to obliterate distinctions. The Scotchman, the Irishman, the German, +the Scandinavian, the Italian, even, I suppose, the Czech, drops his +costume, his manner, his language, his traditions, his beliefs, and +retains only his common Western humanity. Transported to this continent +all the varieties developed in Europe revert to the original type, and +flourish in unexampled vigour and force. It is not a new type that is +evolved; it is the fundamental type, growing in a new soil, in luxuriant +profusion. Describe the average Western man and you describe the +American; from east to west, from north to south, everywhere and always +the same--masterful, aggressive, unscrupulous, egotistic, at once +good-natured and brutal, kind if you do not cross him, ruthless if you +do, greedy, ambitious, self-reliant, active for the sake of activity, +intelligent and unintellectual, quick-witted and crass, contemptuous of +ideas but amorous of devices, valuing nothing but success, recognising +nothing but the actual, Man in the concrete, undisturbed by spiritual +life, the master of methods and slave of things, and therefore the +conqueror of the world, the unquestioning, the undoubting, the child +with the muscles of a man, the European stripped bare, and shown for +what he is, a predatory, unreflecting, naïf, precociously accomplished +brute. + +One does not then find in America anything one does not find in Europe; +but one finds in Europe what one does not find in America. One finds, as +well as the average, what is below and what is above it. America has, +broadly speaking, no waste products. The wreckage, everywhere evident in +Europe, is not evident there. Men do not lose their self-respect, they +win it; they do not drop out, they work in. This is the great result not +of American institutions or ideas, but of American opportunities. It is +the poor immigrant who ought to sing the praises of this continent. He +alone has the proper point of view; and he, unfortunately, is dumb. But +often, when I have contemplated with dreary disgust, in the outskirts of +New York, the hideous wooden shanties planted askew in wastes of +garbage, and remembered Naples or Genoa or Venice, suddenly it has been +borne in upon me that the Italians living there feel that they have +their feet on the ladder leading to paradise; that for the first time +they have before them a prospect and a hope; and that while they have +lost, or are losing, their manners, their beauty and their charm, they +have gained something which, in their eyes, and perhaps in reality, more +than compensates for losses they do not seem to feel, they have gained +self-respect, independence, and the allure of the open horizon. "The +vision of America," a friend writes, "is the vision of the lifting up of +the millions." This, I believe, is true, and it is America's great +contribution to civilisation. I do not forget it; but neither shall I +dwell upon it; for though it is, I suppose, the most important thing +about America, it is not what I come across in my own experience. What +strikes more often and more directly home to me is the other fact that +America, if she is not burdened by masses lying below the average, is +also not inspired by an élite rising above it. Her distinction is the +absence of distinction. No wonder Walt Whitman sang the "Divine +Average." There was nothing else in America for him to sing. But he +should not have called it divine; he should have called it "human, all +too human." + +Or _is_ it divine? Divine somehow in its potentialities? Divine to a +deeper vision than mine? I was writing this at Brooklyn, in a room that +looks across the East River to New York. And after putting down those +words, "human, all too human," I stepped out on to the terrace. Across +the gulf before me went shooting forward and back interminable rows of +fiery shuttles; and on its surface seemed to float blazing basilicas. +Beyond rose into the darkness a dazzling tower of light, dusking and +shimmering, primrose and green, up to a diadem of gold. About it hung +galaxies and constellations, outshining the firmament of stars; and +all the air was full of strange voices, more than human, ingeminating +Babylonian oracles out of the bosom of night. This is New York. This +it is that the average man has done, he knows not why; this is the +symbol of his work, so much more than himself, so much more than what +seems to be itself in the common light of day. America does not know +what she is doing, neither do I know, nor any man. But the impulse that +drives her, so mean and poor to the critic's eye, has perhaps more +significance in the eye of God; and the optimism of this continent, so +seeming-frivolous, is justified, may be, by reason lying beyond its +ken. + + + + +II + +A CONTINENT OF PIONEERS + + +The American, I said, in the previous letter, is the average Western +man. It should be added, he is the average man in the guise of pioneer. +Much that surprises or shocks Europeans in the American character is to +be explained, I believe, by this fact. Among pioneers the individual is +everything and the society nothing. Every man relies on himself and on +his personal relations. He is a friend, and an enemy; he is never a +citizen. Justice, order, respect for law, honesty even and honour are to +him mere abstract names; what is real is intelligence and force, the +service done or the injury inflicted, the direct emotional reaction to +persons and deeds. And still, as it seems to the foreign observer, even +in the long-settled east, still more in the west, this attitude +prevails. To the American politician or business man, that a thing is +right or wrong, legal or illegal, seems a pale and irrelevant +consideration. The real question is, will it pay? will it please +Theophilus P. Polk or vex Harriman Q. Kunz? If it is illegal, will it be +detected? If detected, will it be prosecuted? What are our resources +for evading or defeating the law? And all this with good temper and good +conscience. What stands in the way, says the pioneer, must be swept out +of it; no matter whether it be the moral or the civil law, a public +authority or a rival in business. "The strong business man" has no use +for scruples. Public or social considerations do not appeal to him. Or +if they do present themselves, he satisfies himself with the belief +that, from activities so strenuous and remarkable as his, Good must +result to the community. If he break the law, that is the fault of the +law, for being stupid and obstructive; if he break individuals, that is +their fault for being weak. _Vae victis!_ Never has that principle, or +rather instinct, ruled more paramount than it does in America. + +To say this, is to say that American society is the most individualistic +in the modern world. This follows naturally from the whole situation of +the country. The pioneer has no object save to get rich; the government +of pioneers has no object save to develop the country quickly. To this +object everything is sacrificed, including the interests of future +generations. All new countries have taken the most obvious and easy +course. They have given away for nothing, or for a song, the whole of +their natural resources to anybody who will undertake to exploit them. +And those who have appropriated this wealth have judged it to be theirs +by a kind of natural right. "These farms, mines, forests, +oilsprings--of course they are ours. Did not we discover them? Did not +we squat upon them? Have we not 'mixed our labour with them'?" If +pressed as to the claims of later comers they would probably reply that +there remains "as much and as good" for others. And this of course is +true for a time; but for a very short time, even when it is a continent +that is being divided up. Practically the whole territory of the United +States is now in private ownership. Still, the owners have made such +good use of their opportunities that they have created innumerable +opportunities for non-owners. Artisans get good wages; lawyers make +fortunes; stock and share holders get high dividends. Every one feels +that he is nourishing, and flourishing by his own efforts. He has no +need to combine with his fellows; or, if he does combine, is ready to +desert them in a moment when he sees his own individual chance. + +But this is only a phase; and inevitably, by the logic of events, there +supervenes upon it another on which, it would appear, America is just +now entering. With all her natural resources distributed among +individuals or corporations, and with the tide of immigration unchecked, +she begins to feel the first stress of the situation of which the +tension in Europe has already become almost intolerable. It is the +situation which cannot fail to result from the system of private +property and inheritance established throughout the Western world. +Opportunities diminish, classes segregate. There arises a caste of +wage-earners never to be anything but wage-earners; a caste of +property-owners, handing on their property to their descendants; and +substantially, after all deductions have been made for exaggeration and +simplification, a division of society into capitalists and proletarians. +American society is beginning to crystallise out into the forms of +European society. For, once more, America is nothing new; she is a +repetition of the old on a larger scale. And, curiously, she is less +"new" than the other new countries. Australia and New Zealand for years +past have been trying experiments in social policy; they are determined +to do what they can to prevent the recurrence there of the European +situation. But in America, there is no sign of such tendencies. The +political and social philosophy of the United States is still that of +the early English individualists. And, no doubt, there are adequate +causes, if not good reasons for this. The immense wealth and size of the +country, the huge agricultural population, the proportionally smaller +aggregation in cities has maintained in the mass of the people what I +have called the "pioneer" attitude. Opportunity has been, and still is, +more open than in any other country; and, in consequence, there has +hardly emerged a definite "working class" with a class consciousness. +This, however, is a condition that cannot be expected to continue. +America will develop on the lines of Europe, because she has European +institutions; and "labour" will assert itself more and more as an +independent factor in politics. + +Whether it will assert itself successfully is another matter. At +present, as is notorious, American politics are controlled by wealth, +more completely, perhaps, than those of any other country, even of +England. The "corporations" make it a main part of their business to +capture Congress, the Legislatures, the Courts and the city governments; +and they are eminently successful. The smallest country town has its +"boss," in the employ of the Railway; the Public Service Corporations +control the cities; and the protected interests dominate the Senate. +Business governs America; and business does not include labour. In no +civilised country except Japan is labour-legislation so undeveloped as +in the States; in none is capital so uncontrolled; in none is justice so +openly prostituted to wealth. America is the paradise of plutocracy; for +the rich there enjoy not only a real power but a social prestige such as +can hardly have been accorded to them even in the worst days of the +Roman Empire. Great fortunes and their owners are regarded with a +respect as naïf and as intense as has ever been conceded to birth in +Europe. No American youth of ambition, I am told, leaves college with +any less or greater purpose in his heart than that of emulating Mr. +Carnegie or Mr. Rockefeller. And, on the other hand, it must be +conceded, rich men feel an obligation to dispose of their wealth for +public purposes, to a degree quite unknown in Europe. By these lavish +gifts the people are dazzled. They feel that the millionaire has paid +his ransom; and are ready to forgive irregularities in the process of +acquiring wealth when they are atoned for by such splendid penance. Thus +the rich man in America comes to assume the position of a kind of +popular dictator. He is admired on account of his prowess and forgiven +on account of his beneficence. And, since every one feels that one day +he may have the chance of imitating him, no one judges him too severely. +He is regarded not as the "exploiter," the man grown fat on the labour +of others. Rather he is the type, the genius of the American people; and +they point to him with pride as "one of our strong men," "one of our +conservative men of business." + +Individualism, then, is stronger and deeper rooted in America than +elsewhere. And, it must be added, socialism is weaker. It is an imported +article, and it does not thrive on the new soil. The formulĉ of Marx are +even less congenial to the American than to the English mind; and +American conditions have not yet given rise to a native socialism, based +on local conditions and adapted to local habits of thought. Such a +native socialism, I believe, is bound to come before long, perhaps is +arising even now. But I would not hazard the assertion that it is likely +to prevail. America, it would seem, stands at the parting of the ways. +Either she may develop on democratic lines; and Democracy, as I think, +demonstrably implies some kind of socialism. Or she may fossilise in the +form of her present Plutocracy, and realise that new feudalism of +industry which was dreamt of by Saint-Simon, by Comte, and by Carlyle. +It would be a strange consummation, but stranger things have happened; +and it seems more probable that this should happen in America than that +it should happen in any European country. It is an error to think of +America as democratic; her Democracy is all on the surface. But in +Europe, Democracy is penetrating deeper and deeper. And, in particular, +there can be little doubt that England is now more democratic than the +United States. + + + + +III + +NIAGARA + + +I shall not describe Niagara; instead I shall repeat a conversation. + +After a day spent in visiting the falls and the rapids, I was sitting +to-night on a bench on the river bank. The racing water-ridges glimmered +faintly in the dusk and the roar of the falls droned in unwavering +monotony. I fell, I think, into a kind of stupor; anyhow, I cannot +remember when it was that some one took a seat beside me, and began to +talk. I seemed to wake and feel him speaking; and the first remark I +definitely heard was this: "All America is Niagara." "All America is +Niagara," the voice repeated--I could see no face. "Force without +direction, noise without significance, speed without accomplishment. All +day and all night the water rushes and roars. I sit and listen; and it +does nothing. It is Nature; and Nature has no significance. It is we +poets who create significance, and for that reason Nature hates us. She +is afraid of us, for she knows that we condemn her. We have standards +before which she shrinks abashed. But she has her revenge; for poets +are incarnate. She owns our bodies; and she hurls us down Niagara with +the rest, with the others that she loves, and that love her, the virile +big-jawed men, trampling and trampled, hustling and hustled, working and +asking no questions, falling as water and dispersing as spray. Nature is +force, loves force, wills force alone. She hates the intellect, she +hates the soul, she hates the spirit. Nietszche understood her aright, +Nietszche the arch-traitor, who spied on the enemy, learned her secrets, +and then went over to her side. Force rules the world." + +I must have said something banal about progress, for the voice broke +out: + +"There is no progress! It is always the same river! New waves succeed +for ever, but always in the old forms. History tells, from beginning to +end, the same tale--the victory of the strong over the sensitive, of the +active over the reflective, of intelligence over intellect. Rome +conquered Greece, the Germans the Italians, the English the French, and +now, the Americans the world! What matters the form of the struggle, +whether it be in arms or commerce, whether the victory go to the sword, +or to shoddy, advertisement, and fraud? History is the perennial +conquest of civilisation by barbarians. The little islands before us, +lovely with trees and flowers, green oases in the rushing river, it is +but a few years and they will be engulfed. So Greece was swallowed up, +so Italy, and so will it be with England. Not, as your moralists +maintain, because of her vices, but because of her virtues. She is +becoming just, scrupulous, humane, and therefore she is doomed. Ignoble +though she be, she is yet too noble to survive; for Germany and America +are baser than she. Hark, Hark to Niagara! Force, at all costs! Do you +hear it? Do you see it? I can see it, though it is dark. It is a river +of mouths and teeth, of greedy outstretched hands, of mirthless +laughter, of tears and of blood. I am there, you are there; we are +hurrying over the fall; we are going up in spray." + +"Yes," I cried as one cries in a nightmare, "and in that spray hangs the +rainbow." + +He caught at the phrase. "It is true. The rainbow hangs in the spray! It +is the type of the Ideal, hanging always above the Actual, never in it, +never controlling it. We poets make the rainbow; we do not shape the +world." + +"We do not make the rainbow," I said. "The sun makes it, shining against +it. What is the sun?" + +"The sun is the Platonic Good; it lights the world, but does not warm +it. By its illumination we see the river in which we are involved; see +and judge, and condemn, and are swept away. That we can condemn is our +greatness; by that we are children of the sun. But our vision is never +fruitful. The sun cannot breed out of matter; no, not even maggots by +kissing carrion. Between Force and Light, Matter and Good, there is no +interchange. Good is not a cause, it is only an idea." + +"To illuminate," I said, "is to transform." + +"No! it is only to reveal! Light dances on the surface; but not the +tiniest wave was ever dimpled or crisped by its rays. Matter alone moves +matter; and the world is matter. Best not cry, best not even blaspheme. +Pass over the fall in silence. Perhaps, at the bottom, there is +oblivion. It is the best we can hope, we who see." + +And he was gone! Had there been anyone? Was there a real voice? I do not +know. Perhaps it was only the roar of Niagara. When I returned to the +hotel, I heard that this very afternoon, while I was sunning myself on +one of the islands, a woman had thrown herself into the rapids and been +swept over the fall. Niagara took her, as it takes a stick or a stone. +Soon it will take the civilisation of America, as it has taken that of +the Indians. Centuries will pass, millenniums will pass, mankind will +have come and gone, and still the river will flow and the sun shine, and +they will communicate to one another their stern immortal joy, in which +there is no part for ephemeral men. + + + + +IV + +"THE MODERN PULPIT" + + +It is a bright July morning. As I sit in the garden I look out, over a +tangle of wild roses, to a calm sea and a flock of white sails. +Everything invites to happy thought and innocent reverie. Moreover, it +is the day of rest, and every one is at leisure to turn his mind towards +pleasant things. To what, in fact, are most people on this continent +turning theirs? To this, which I hold in my hand, the Sunday newspaper. + +Let us analyse this production, peculiar to the New World. It comprises +eight sections and eighty-eight pages, and very likely does really, as +it boasts, contain "more reading matter than the whole Bible." + +Opening Section 1, I read the following headings: + + "Baron Shot as Bank-teller--Ends Life with Bullet." + + "Two fatally Hurt in Strike Riots at Pittsburg." + + "Steals a Look at Busy Burglars." + + "Drowned in Surf at Narragansett." + + "Four of a Family fear a Dogs' bite" (_sic_). + + "Two are Dead, Two Dying; Fought over Cow." + +Section 2 appears to be concerned with similar matter, for example: + + "Struck by Blast, Woman is Dying." + + "Hard Shell Crabs help in giving Burglar Alarm." + + "Man who has been Married three times denies the Existence of + God." + +But here I notice further the interesting and enigmatic heading: + + "Will 'boost' not 'knock' New York," + +and roused for the first time to something like curiosity, read: + +"To lock horns with the muckrakes and to defend New York against all who +defame and censure it the Association for New York was incorporated +yesterday." + +I notice also "Conferences agree to short rates on woollen goods," and +am reminded of the shameless bargaining of which, for many weeks past, +Washington has been the centre; which leads me to reflect on the +political advantages of a Tariff and its wholesome effect on the +national life. + +Section 3 deals with Aviation and seaside resorts: + + "Brave Lake Placid," I read, "Planning New Hotel." + + "Haines Falls entertaining a Great Throng of People." + + "Resound with the Laughter and Shout of Summer Throngs." + +Section 4 consists entirely of advertisements: + +"Tuning-up Sale," I read. "Buff-and-crimson cards will mark the trail of +all goods ready for the sale. We are tuning up. By September it is our +intention to have assembled in these two great buildings the most +fashionable merchandise ever shown. No one piece of goods will be +permitted to linger that lacks, in any detail, the ĉsthetic beauty +demanded by New York women of fashion. Everything will be better and a +definite percentage lower in price than New York will find in any other +store. Do not expect a sale of ordinary proportions. To-morrow you will +find the store alive with enthusiasm. This is not a summer hurrah." And +so on, to the end of the page. Twelve pages of advertisements, +uninterrupted by any item of news. + +Section 5 is devoted to automobile gossip and automobile advertisements. + +Thereupon follows the _Special Sporting Section_: + + "Rumsom Freebooters defeat Devon's first." + + "'Young Corbett' is chipped in the 8th." + + "Doggett and Cubs each win shut out." + + "Brockett is easy for Detroit Nine." + +Glancing at the small type I read:-- + +"Englewood was the first to tally. This was in the fourth inning. W. +Merritt, the first man up, was safe on Williams' error, and he got round +to third on another miscue by Williams. Charley Clough was on deck with +a timely single, which scored Merritt. Curran's out at first put Clough +on third, from whence he tallied on Cuming's single. Cuming got to +second, when Wiley grounded out along the first base line and scored on +Reinmund's single. Every other time Reinmund came to the bat he struck +out." + +I pass to the _Magazine Section_. + +On the first page is the mysterious heading "E. of K. and E." Several +huge portraits of a bald clean-shaven man in shirt sleeves partially +explain. E. is Mr. Erlanger, a theatrical impresario, and K. and E. +presumably is his firm. The article describes "the accomplishment of a +busy man on one of his ordinary days," and makes one hope no day is ever +extraordinary. The interviewer who tells about him is almost speechless +with emotion. He searches for a phrase to express his feelings, finds it +at last, and comes triumphantly to his close--Mr. Erlanger is a man +"with trained arms, trained legs, a trained body and a trained mind." +There follows: "The Story of a Society Girl," in which we are told +"there is a confession of love and the startling discovery that Dolly +was a professional model"; "The Doctor's Story," with a picture of a +corpse, "whose white shapely hands were clasped one over the other"; +and "Would you Convict on Circumstantial Evidence?--A Scaffold +Confession. A True Story." I glance at this, and read, "While the crowd +watched in strained, breathless silence there came a sharp agonised +voice and a commotion near the steps of the scaffold. 'Stop! Stop! The +man is not guilty. I mean it. It is I who should stand there. Let me +speak.'" You can now reconstruct the story for yourself. Next comes "Get +the Man! Craft and courage of old-time and modern express robbers +matched by organised secret service and the mandate that makes capture +alone the end of an unflagging man-hunt." This is accompanied by +portraits of famous detectives and train-robbers. + +There follows "_Thrilling Lines_," with a picture of a man who seems to +be looping the loop on a bicycle. + +And the conclusion of the section is a poem, entitled "Cynthianna +Blythe," with coloured illustrations apparently intended for children, +and certainly successful in not appealing to adults. + +Comment, I suppose, is superfluous. But it is only fair to say that the +whole of the press of America is not of this character. Among the +thousands of papers daily produced on that continent, it would be +possible, I believe, to name ten--I myself could mention five--which +contain in almost every issue some piece of information or comment which +an intelligent man might care to peruse. There are to be found, now and +again, passing references to European and even to Asiatic politics; for +it cannot be said that the press of America wholly ignored the recent +revolutions in Persia and in Turkey. I myself saw a reference to the new +Sultan as a man "fat, but not fleshy." England looms big enough on the +American horizon to be treated to an occasional gibe; and the doings of +fashionable Americans in London are reported somewhat fully. Still, on +the whole, the American daily press is typified by the specimen I have +analysed. Sensations, personalities and fiction are its stock-in-trade. +Why? The causes are well known, but are worth recapitulating, for they +are part of the system of modern civilisation. + +The newspaper press is a business intended to make money. This is its +primary aim, which may, or may not, include the subordinate purpose of +advocating some line of public policy. Now, to make money, it is +essential to secure advertisements; and to secure advertisements it is +essential to have a large circulation. But a large circulation can only +be obtained by lowering the price of the paper, and adapting it to the +leisure mood of the mass of people. But this leisure mood is usually one +of sheer vacuity, incapable of intellectual effort or imaginative +response. The man is there, waiting to be filled, and to be filled with +the stuff easiest to digest. The rest follows. The newspapers supply the +demand and by supplying extend and perpetuate it. Among the possible +appeals open to them they deliberately choose the lowest. For people are +capable of Good as well as of Bad; and if they cannot get the Bad they +will sometimes take the Good. Newspapers, probably, could exist, even +under democratic conditions, by maintaining a certain standard of +intelligence and morals. But it is easier to exist on melodrama, +fatuity and sport. And one or two papers adopting that course force the +others into line; for here, as in so many departments of modern life, +"The Bad drives out the Good." This process of deterioration of the +press is proceeding rapidly in England, with the advent of the halfpenny +newspaper. It has not gone so far as in America; but there is no reason +why it should not, and every reason why it should; for the same causes +are at work. + +I have called the process "deterioration," but that, of course, is +matter of opinion. A Cabinet Minister, at a recent Conference in London, +is reported to have congratulated the press on its progressive +improvement during recent years. And Lord Northcliffe is a peer. The +more the English press approximates to the American, the more, it would +seem, it may hope for public esteem and honour. And that is natural, for +the American method pays. + +Well, the sun still shines and the sky is still blue. But between it and +the American people stretches a veil of printed paper. Curious! the +fathers of this nation read nothing but the Bible. That too, it may be +said, was a veil; but a veil woven of apocalyptic visions, of lightning +and storm, of Leviathan, and the wrath of Jehovah. What is the stuff of +the modern veil, we have seen. And surely the contrast is calculated to +evoke curious reflections. + + + + +V + +IN THE ROCKIES + + +Walking alone in the mountains to-day I came suddenly upon the railway. +There was a little shanty of a station 8000 feet above the sea; and, +beyond, the great expanse of the plains. It was beginning to sleet, and +I determined to take shelter. The click of a telegraph operator told me +there was some one inside the shed. I knocked and knocked again, in +vain; and it was a quarter of an hour before the door was opened by a +thin, yellow-faced youth chewing gum, who looked at me without a sign of +recognition or a word of greeting. I have learnt by this time that +absence of manners in an American is intended to signify not surliness +but independence, so I asked to be allowed to enter. He admitted me, and +resumed his operations. I listened to the clicking, while the sleet fell +faster and the evening began to close in. What messages were they, I +wondered, that were passing across the mountains? I connected them, idly +enough, with the corner in wheat a famous speculator was endeavouring to +establish in Chicago; and reflected upon the disproportion between the +achievements of Man and the use he puts them to. He invents wireless +telegraphy, and the ships call to one another day and night, to tell the +name of the latest winner. He is inventing the flying-machine, and he +will use it to advertise pills and drop bombs. And here, he has +exterminated the Indians, and carried his lines and his poles across the +mountains, that a gambler may fill his pockets by starving a continent. +"Click--click--click--Pick--pick--pick--Pock--pock--pockets." So the +west called to the east, and the east to the west, while the winds +roared, and the sleet fell, over the solitary mountains and the desolate +iron road. + +It was too late now for me to reach my hotel that evening, and I was +obliged to beg a night's rest. The yellow youth assented, with his air +of elaborate indifference, and proceeded to make me as comfortable as he +could. About sunset, the storm passed away over the plains. Behind its +flying fringes shot the last rays of the sun; and for a moment the +prairie sea was all bared to view, as wide as the sky, as calm and as +profound, a thousand miles of grass where men and cattle crept like +flies, and towns and houses were swallowed and lost in the infinite +monotony. We had supper and then my host began to talk. He was a +democrat, and we discussed the coming presidential election. From one +newspaper topic to another we passed to the talk about signalling to +Mars. Signalling interested the youth; he knew all about that; but he +knew nothing about Mars, or the stars. These were now shining bright +above us; and I told him what I knew of suns and planets, of double +stars, of the moons, of Jupiter, of nebulae and the galaxy, and the +infinity of space, and of worlds. He chewed and meditated, and presently +remarked: "Gee! I guess then it doesn't matter two cents after all who +gets elected president!" Whereupon we turned in, he to sleep and I to +lie awake, for I was disturbed by the mystery of the stars. It is long +since the notion of infinite space and infinite worlds has impressed my +imagination with anything but discomfort and terror. The Ptolemaic +scheme was better suited to human needs. Our religious sense demands not +only order but significance; a world not merely great, but relevant to +our destinies. Copernicus, it is true, gave us liberty and space; but he +bereft us of security and intimacy. And I thought of the great vision of +Dante, so terrible and yet so beautiful, so human through and +through,--that vision which, if it contracts space, expands the fate of +man, and relates him to the sun and the moon and the stars. I thought of +him as he crossed the Apennines by night, or heard from the sea at +sunset the tinkling of the curfew bell, or paced in storm the forest of +Ravenna, always, beyond and behind the urgency of business, the chances +of war, the bitterness of exile, aware of the march of the sun about the +earth, of its station in the Zodiac, of the solemn and intricate +wheeling of the spheres. Aware, too, of the inner life of those bright +luminaries, the dance and song of spirits purged by fire, the glow of +Mars, the milky crystal of the moon, and Jupiter's intolerable blaze; +and beyond these, kindling these, setting them their orbits and their +order, by attraction not of gravitation, but of love, the ultimate +Essence, imaged by purest light and hottest fire, whereby all things and +all creatures move in their courses and their fates, to whom they tend +and in whom they rest. + +And I recalled the passage: + + "Frate, la nostra volontà quieta + Virtù di carità, che fa volerne + Sol quel ch'avemo, e d'altro non ci asseta. + + Se disiassimo esser più superne, + Fôran discordi gli nostri disiri + Dal voler di Colui che qui ne cerne; + + Che vedrai non capere in questi giri, + S'essere in caritate è qui necesse, + E se la sua natura ben rimiri; + + Anzi è formale ad esto beato esse + Tenersi dentro alia divina voglia, + Perch'una fansi nostre voglie stesse. + + Si che, come noi siam di soglia in soglia + Per questo regno, a tutto il regno piace, + Com'allo re, che in suo voler ne invoglia. + + E la sua volontade è nostra pace: + Ella è quel mare al qual tutto si muove + Cio ch' ella crea o che natura face."[3] + +And then, with a leap, I was back to what we call reality--to the +clicking needle, to the corner in wheat, to Chicago and Pittsburg and +New York. In all this continent, I thought, in all the western world, +there is not a human soul whose will seeks any peace at all, least of +all the peace of God. All move, but about no centre; they move on, to +more power, to more wealth, to more motion. There is not one of them who +conceives that he has a place, if only he could find it, a rank and +order fitted to his nature, higher than some, lower than others, but +right, and the only right for him, his true position in the cosmic +scheme, his ultimate relation to the Power whence it proceeds. Life, +like astronomy, has become Copernican. It has no centre, no +significance, or, if any, one beyond our ken. Gravitation drives us, not +love. We are attracted and repelled by a force we cannot control, a +force that resides in our muscles and our nerves, not in our will and +spirit. "Click--click--click--tick--tick--tick," so goes the economic +clock. And that clock, with its silly face, has shut us out from the +stars. It tells us the time; but behind the dial of the hours is now for +us no vision of the solemn wheeling spheres, of spirit flames and that +ultimate point of light "pinnacled dim in the intense inane." "America +is a clock," I said; and then I remembered the phrase, "America is +Niagara." And like a flake of foam, dizzy and lost, I was swept away, +out into the infinite, out into unconsciousness. + +The sun was shining brightly when I woke, and I had slept away my mood +of the night. I took leave of my host, and under his directions, after +half a mile along the line, plunged down into a gorge, and followed for +miles, crossing and re-crossing, a mountain brook, between cliffs of red +rocks, by fields of mauve anemones, in the shadow and fragrance of +pines; till suddenly, after hours of rough going, I was confronted by a +notice, set up, apparently, in the desert: + + "Keep out. Avoid trouble. This means you." + +I laughed. "Keep out!" I said. "If only there were a chance of my +getting in!" "Avoid trouble! Ah, what trouble would I not face, could I +but get in!" And I went on, but not in, and met no trouble, and +returned to the hotel, and had dinner, and watched for a solitary hour, +in the hall, the shifting interminable array of vacant eyes and blank +faces, and then retired to write this letter; "and so to bed." + + + Footnotes: + + [Footnote 3: + + "Brother, the quality of love stilleth our will, and maketh us + long only for what we have, and giveth us no other thirst, + + "Did we desire to be more aloft, our longings were discordant + from his will who here assorteth us, + + "And for that, thou wilt see, there is no room within these + circles, if of necessity we have our being here in love, and if + thou think again what is love's nature. + + "Nay, 'tis the essence of this blessed being to hold ourselves + within the divine will, whereby our own wills are themselves + made one. + + "So that our being thus, from threshold unto threshold, + throughout the realm, is a joy to all the realm as to the King, + who draweth our wills to what he willeth; + + "And his will is our peace; it is that sea to which all moves + that it createth and that nature maketh." + + DANTE, _Purgatorio_, iii. 70-87 (trans. by Rev. Philip H. + Wicksteed, in the "Temple Classics" edition).] + + + + +VI + +IN THE ADIRONDACKS + + +For the last few days I have been living in camp on a mountain lake in +the Adirondacks. All about me are mountains and unlumbered forest. The +tree lies where it falls; the undergrowth chokes the trails; and on the +hottest day it is cool in the green, sun-chequered wilderness. Deer +start in the thickets or steal down to drink in the lake. The only +sounds are the wood-pecker's scream, the song of the hermit-thrush, the +thrumming and drumming of bull-frogs in the water. My friend is a +sportsman; I am not; and while he catches trout I have been reading +Homer and Shelley. Shelley I have always understood; but now, for the +first time, I seem to understand Homer. Our guide here, I feel, might +have been Homer, if he had had imagination; but he could never have been +Shelley. Homer, I conceive, had from the first the normal bent for +action. What his fellows did he too wanted to do. He learned to hunt, to +sail a boat, to build a house, to use a spear and bow. He had his +initiation early, in conflict, in danger, and in death. He loved the +feast, the dance, and the song. But also he had dreams. He used to sit +alone and think. And, as he grew, these moods grew, till he came to live +a second life, a kind of double of the first. The one was direct, +unreflective, and purposeful. In it he hunted wild beasts that he might +kill them, fought battles that he might win them, sailed boats that he +might arrive somewhere. So far, he was like his fellows, and like our +guide, with his quick observation, his varied experience, his practical +skill. But then, on the other hand, he had imagination. This active life +he reproduced; not by recapitulating it--that the guide can do; but by +recreating it. He detached it, as it were, from himself as centre; +ceased, indeed, to be a self; and became all that he contemplated--the +victor and the vanquished, the hunter and the hunted, the house and its +builder, Thersites and Achilles. He became the sun and the moon and the +stars, the gods and the laughter of the gods. He took no sides, +pronounced no judgment, espoused no cause. He became pure vision; but +not passive vision. To see, he had to re-create; and the material his +observation had amassed he offered up as a holocaust on the altar of his +imagination. Fused in that fierce fire, like drew to like, parts ran +together and formed a whole. Did he see a warrior fall? In a moment the +image arose of "a stately poplar falling by the axe in a meadow by the +riverside." Did a host move out to meet the foe? It recalled the ocean +shore where "wave follows wave far out at sea until they break in +thunder on the beach." Was battle engaged? "The clash of the weapons +rang like the din of woodcutters in the mountain-glades." Did a wounded +hero fall? The combatants gathered about him "like flies buzzing round +the brimming milk-pails in the spring." All commonest things, redeemed +from isolation and irrelevance, revealed the significance with which +they were charged. The result was the actual made real, a reflexion +which was a disclosure, a reproduction which was a recreation. And if +experience, as we know it, is the last word of life, if there is nothing +beyond and nothing behind, if there is no meaning, no explanation, no +purpose or end, then the poetry of Homer is the highest reach of human +achievement. + +For, observe, Homer is not a critic. His vision transmutes life, but +does not transcend it. Experience is ultimate; all the poet does is to +experience fully. Common men live, but do not realise life; he realises +it. But he does not question it; it is there and it is final; glorious, +lovely, august, terrible, sordid, cruel, unjust. And the partial, +smiling, unmoved, unaccountable Olympians are the symbol of its brute +actuality. Not only is there no explanation, there is not even a +question to be asked. So it is, so it has been, so it will be. Homer's +outlook is that of the modern realist. That he wrote an epic, and they +novels, is an accident of time and space. Turgeneff or Balzac writing +1000 years before Christ would have been Homer; and Homer, writing now, +would have been Turgeneff or Balzac. + +But Shelley could never have been Homer; for he was born a critic and a +rebel. From the first dawn of consciousness he challenged and defied the +works and ways of men and the apparent order of the universe. Never for +a moment anywhere was he at home in the world. There was nothing +attainable he cared to pursue, nothing actual he cared to represent. He +could no more see what is called fact than he could act upon it. His +eyes were dazzled by a different vision. Life and the world not only are +intolerable to him, they are unreal. Beyond and behind lies Reality, and +it is good. Now it is a Perfectibility lying in the future; now a +Perfection existing eternally. In any case, whatever it be, however and +wherever to be found, it is the sole object of his quest and of his +song. Whatever of good or lovely or passionate gleams here and there, on +the surface or in the depths of the actual, is a ray of that Sun, an +image of that Beauty. His imagination is kindled by Appearance only to +soar away from it. The landscape he depicts is all light, all fountains +and caverns. The Beings with which it is peopled are discarnate Joys and +Hopes; Justice and Liberty, Peace and Love and Truth. Among these only +is he at home; in the world of men he is an alien captive; and Human +Life presents itself as an "unquiet dream." + + "'Tis we that, lost in stormy visions, keep + With phantoms an unprofitable strife, + And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife + Invulnerable nothings." + +When we die, we awake into Reality--that Reality to which, from the +beginning, Shelley was consecrated: + + "I vowed that I would dedicate my powers + To thee and thine--have I not kept my vow?" + +He calls it "intellectual Beauty"; he impersonates it as Asia, and sings +it in verse that passes beyond sense into music: + + "Life of Life! thy lips enkindle + With their love the breath between them; + And thy smiles before they dwindle + Make the cold air fire; then screen them + In those looks, where whoso gazes + Faints, entangled in their mazes. + + Child of Light! thy limbs are burning + Through the vest which seems to hide them; + As the radiant lines of morning + Through the clouds ere they divide them; + And this atmosphere divinest + Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest. + + Fair are others; none beholds thee, + But thy voice sounds low and tender + Like the fairest, for it folds thee + From the sight, that liquid splendour, + And all feel, yet see thee never, + As I feel now, lost for ever! + + Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest + Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, + And the souls of whom thou lovest + Walk upon the winds with lightness, + Till they fail, as I am failing, + Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!" + +This we call poetry; and we call the Iliad poetry. But the likeness is +superficial, and the difference profound. Was it Homer or Shelley that +grasped Reality? This is not a question of literary excellence; it is a +question of the sense of life. And--oddly enough--it is a question to +which the intellect has no answer. The life in each of us takes hold of +it and answers it empirically. The normal man is Homeric, though he is +not aware of the fact. Especially is the American Homeric; naïf, +spontaneous, at home with fact, implicitly denying the Beyond. Is he +right? This whole continent, the prairies, the mountains and the coast, +the trams and trolleys, the sky-scrapers, the factories, elevators, +automobiles, shout to that question one long deafening Yes. But there is +another country that speaks a different tongue. Before America was, +India is. + + + + +VII + +THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS + + +In the house in which I am staying hangs an old coloured print, +representing two couples, one young and lusty, the other decrepit, the +woman carrying an hour-glass, the man leaning on a stick; and +underneath, the following inscription: + + "My father and mother that go so stuping to your grave, + Pray tell me what good I may in this world expect to have?" + + "My son, the good you can expect is all forlorn, + Men doe not gather grapes from of a thorn." + +This dialogue, I sometimes think, symbolises the attitude of the new +world to the old, and the old to the new. Not seldom I feel among +Americans as the Egyptian is said to have felt among the Greeks, that I +am moving in a world of precocious and inexperienced children, bearing +on my own shoulders the weight of the centuries. Yet it is not exactly +that Americans strike one as young in spirit; rather they strike one as +undeveloped. It is as though they had never faced life and asked +themselves what it is; as though they were so occupied in running that +it has never occurred to them to inquire where they started and whither +they are going. They seem to be always doing and never experiencing. A +dimension of life, one would say, is lacking, and they live in a plane +instead of in a solid. That missing dimension I shall call religion. Not +that Americans do not, for aught I know, "believe" as much as or more +than Europeans; but they appear neither to believe nor to disbelieve +religiously. That, I admit, is true almost everywhere of the mass of the +people. But even in Europe--and far more in India--there has always +been, and still is, a minority who open windows to the stars; and +through these windows, in passing, the plain man sometimes looks. The +impression America makes on me is that the windows are blocked up. It +has become incredible that this continent was colonised by the Pilgrim +Fathers. That intense, narrow, unlovely but genuine spiritual life has +been transformed into industrial energy; and this energy, in its new +form, the churches, oddly enough, are endeavouring to recapture and use +to drive their machines. Religion is becoming a department of practical +business. The Churches--orthodox and unorthodox, old and new, Christian, +Christian-Scientific, theosophic, higher-thinking--vie with one another +in advertising goods which are all material benefits: "Follow me, and +you will get rich," "Follow me, and you will get well," "Follow me, and +you will be cheerful, prosperous, successful." Religion in America is +nothing if not practical. It does not concern itself with a life beyond; +it gives you here and now what you want. "What _do_ you want? Money? +Come along!--Success? This is the shop!--Health? Here you are! Better +than patent medicines!" The only part of the Gospels one would suppose +that interests the modern American is the miracles; for the miracles +really did _do_ something. As for the Sermon on the Mount--well, no +Westerner ever took that seriously. + +This conversion of religion into business is interesting enough. But +even more striking is what looks like a conversion of business into +religion. Business is so serious that it sometimes assumes the shrill +tone of a revivalist propaganda. There has recently been brought to my +attention a circular addressed to the agents of an insurance society, +urging them to rally round the firm, with a special effort, in what I +can only call a "mission-month." I quote--with apologies to the unknown +author--part of this production: + + THE CALL TO ACTION. + + "How about these beautiful spring days for hustling? Everything + is on the move. New life and force is apparent everywhere. The + man who can stand still when all creation is on the move is + literally and hopelessly a dead one. + + "These are ideal days for the insurance field-man. Weather like + this has a tremendously favourable effect on business. In the + city and small town alike there is a genuine revival of + business. The farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer, are + beginning to work overtime. Spring is in the footstep of the + ambitious man as well as in the onward march of nature. This is + the day of growth, expansion, creation, and re-creation. + + "Consciously or unconsciously every one responds to the glad + call to new life and vigour. Men who are cold and selfish, who + are literally frozen up the winter through, yield to the warm, + invigorating, energising touch of spring. + + "Gentlemen of the field force, now is the psychological moment + to force your prospects to action as indicated by the dotted + line. As in nature, some plants and trees are harder to force + than others, so in the nature of human prospects, some are more + difficult than others. Sunshine and rain will produce results in + the field of life-underwriting. + + "Will it not be possible for you during these five remaining + days not only to increase the production from regular sources, + but to go out into the highways and hedges and compel others to + sign their applications, if for only a small amount? + + "Everything is now in full swing, and we are going to close up + the month + + "IN A BLAZE OF GLORY." + +Might not this almost as well have been an address from the +headquarters of the Salvation Army? And is not the following exactly +parallel to a denunciation, from the mission-pulpit, of the unprofitable +servant? + + "A few days ago we heard of a general agent who has one of the + largest and most prosperous territories in this country. He has + been in the business for years, and yet that man, for some + unknown reason, rather apologises for his vocation. He said he + was a little ashamed of his calling. Such a condition is almost + a crime, and I am sure that the men of the Eastern Department + will say, that man ought to get out of the business. + + "_Instead of being ashamed of his calling, he should be mortally + ashamed of his not calling._ + + "Are you happy in your work? If not, give it up and go into some + business more to your liking." + + WHY IS IT? + + "So many times the question is asked, 'Why is it, and how is it, + that Mr. So-and-so writes so much business? There is not a week + but he procures new applications.' Gentlemen, there's but one + answer to this question. There is a great gulf between the man + who is in earnest and works persistently every day and the man + who seems to be in earnest and makes believe he is working + persistently every day. + + "One of the most successful personal producers said to the + writer the other day: 'No wonder certain agents do not write + more business. I couldn't accomplish very much either if I did + not work longer hours than they do. Some insurance agents live + like millionaires and keep bankers' hours. You cannot expect + much business from efforts like that.' This man speaks from + practical knowledge of the business. He has written + + $147,500 _in personal business in the last six weeks_. + + "It does seem rather strange, sometimes, that half of the men in + the Eastern Department should be writing twice as much business + as the other half. They are representing the same company; + presenting the same propositions; are supposed to be talking to + practically the same number of men; have the same rates, same + guarantees, and the same twenty-four hours in each day, and yet + are doing twice the business. In other words, making more money. + What really makes this difference? I will tell you. They put + heart into their work. There is an enthusiasm and earnestness + about them that carries conviction. They are business through + and through, and everybody knows it. + + "Are you getting your share of applications? If some other agent + is up early, wide-awake and alert, putting in from ten to + fifteen hours per day, he is bound to do business, isn't he? + This is a plain, every-day horse-sense business fact. No one has + a patent on time or the use of it. To work and to succeed is + common property. It is your capital, and the use of it will + determine your worth." + +I think, really, this is one of the most remarkable documents that could +be produced in evidence of the character of American civilisation. There +is all the push, initiative, and enterprise on which they justly pride +themselves; there is also the reduction of all values to terms of +business, the concentration of what, at other times, have been moral and +religious forces upon the one aim of material progress. In such an +atmosphere it is easy to see how those who care for spiritual values are +led to protest that these are really material; to pack up their goods, +so to speak, as if they were biscuits or pork, and palm them off in that +guise on an unsuspecting public. In a world where every one is hustling, +the Churches feel they must hustle too; when all the firms advertise, +they must advertise too; when only one thing is valued, power, they must +pretend they can offer power; they must go into business, because +business is going into religion! + +It is a curious spectacle! How long will it last? How real is it, even +now? That withered couple, I half believe, hanging on the wall, descend +at night and wander through the land, whispering to all the sleepers +their disquieting warning; and all day long there hovers at the back of +the minds of these active men a sense of discomfort which, if it became +articulate, might express itself in the ancient words: + + "My son, the good you can expect is all forlorn, + Men doe not gather grapes from of a thorn." + + + + +VIII + +RED-BLOODS AND "MOLLYCODDLES" + + +I am staying at a pleasant place in New Hampshire. The country is hilly +and wooded, like a larger and wilder Surrey; and through it flows what, +to an Englishman, seems a large river, the Connecticut. Charming villas +are dotted about, well designed and secluded in pretty gardens. I +mention this because, in my experience of America, it is unique. Almost +everywhere the houses stare blankly at one another and at the public +roads, ugly, unsheltered, and unashamed, as much as to say, "Every one +is welcome to see what goes on here. We court publicity. See how we eat, +drink, and sleep. Our private life is the property of the American +people." It was not, however, to describe the country that I began this +letter, but to elaborate a generalisation developed by my host and +myself as a kind of self-protection against the gospel of +"strenuousness." + +We have divided men into Red-bloods and Mollycoddles. "A Red-blood man" +is a phrase which explains itself, "Mollycoddle" is its opposite. We +have adopted it from a famous speech of Mr. Roosevelt, and redeemed +it--perverted it, if you will--to other uses. A few examples will make +the notion clear. Shakespeare's Henry V. is a typical Red-blood; so was +Bismarck; so was Palmerston; so is almost any business man. On the other +hand, typical Mollycoddles were Socrates, Voltaire, and Shelley. The +terms, you will observe, are comprehensive, and the types very broad. +Generally speaking, men of action are Red-bloods. Not but what the +Mollycoddle may act, and act efficiently. But, if so, he acts from +principle, not from the instinct of action. The Red-blood, on the other +hand, acts as the stone falls, and does indiscriminately anything that +comes to hand. It is thus he that carries on the business of the world. +He steps without reflection into the first place offered him and goes to +work like a machine. The ideals and standards of his family, his class, +his city, his country and his age, he swallows as naturally as he +swallows food and drink. He is therefore always "in the swim"; and he is +bound to "arrive," because he has set before himself the attainable. You +will find him everywhere in all the prominent positions. In a military +age he is a soldier, in a commercial age a business man. He hates his +enemies, and he may love his friends; but he does not require friends to +love. A wife and children he does require, for the instinct to propagate +the race is as strong in him as all other instincts. His domestic life, +however, is not always happy; for he can seldom understand his wife. +This is part of his general incapacity to understand any point of view +but his own. He is incapable of an idea and contemptuous of a principle. +He is the Samson, the blind force, dearest to Nature of her children. He +neither looks back nor looks ahead. He lives in present action. And when +he can no longer act, he loses his reason for existence. The Red-blood +is happiest if he dies in the prime of life; otherwise, he may easily +end with suicide. For he has no inner life; and when the outer life +fails, he can only fail with it. The instinct that animated him being +dead, he dies too. Nature, who has blown through him, blows elsewhere. +His stops are dumb; he is dead wood on the shore. + +The Mollycoddle, on the other hand, is all inner life. He may indeed +act, as I said, but he acts, so to speak, by accident; just as the +Red-blood may reflect, but reflects by accident. The Mollycoddle in +action is the Crank: it is he who accomplishes reforms; who abolished +slavery, for example, and revolutionised prisons and lunatic asylums. +Still, primarily, the Mollycoddle is a critic, not a man of action. He +challenges all standards and all facts. If an institution is +established, that is a reason why he will not accept it; if an idea is +current, that is a reason why he should repudiate it. He questions +everything, including life and the universe. And for that reason Nature +hates him. On the Red-blood she heaps her favours; she gives him a good +digestion, a clear complexion, and sound nerves. But to the Mollycoddle +she apportions dyspepsia and black bile. In the universe and in society +the Mollycoddle is "out of it" as inevitably as the Red-blood is "in +it." At school, he is a "smug" or a "swat," while the Red-blood is +captain of the Eleven. At college, he is an "intellectual," while the +Red-blood is in the "best set." In the world, he courts failure while +the Red-blood achieves success. The Red-blood sees nothing; but the +Mollycoddle sees through everything. The Red-blood joins societies; the +Mollycoddle is a non-joiner. Individualist of individualists, he can +only stand alone, while the Red-blood requires the support of a crowd. +The Mollycoddle engenders ideas, and the Red-blood exploits them. The +Mollycoddle discovers, and the Red-blood invents. The whole structure of +civilisation rests on foundations laid by Mollycoddles; but all the +building is done by Red-bloods. The Red-blood despises the Mollycoddle; +but, in the long run, he does what the Mollycoddle tells him. The +Mollycoddle also despises the Red-blood, but he cannot do without him. +Each thinks he is master of the other, and, in a sense, each is right. +In his lifetime the Mollycoddle may be the slave of the Red-blood; but +after his death, he is his master, though the Red-blood know it not. + +Nations, like men, may be classified roughly as Red-blood and +Mollycoddle. To the latter class belong clearly the ancient Greeks, the +Italians, the French, and probably the Russians; to the former the +Romans, the Germans, and the English. But the Red-blood nation _par +excellence_ is the American; so that, in comparison with them, Europe as +a whole might almost be called Mollycoddle. This characteristic of +Americans is reflected in the predominant physical type,--the great jaw +and chin, the huge teeth, and predatory mouth; in their speech, where +beauty and distinction are sacrificed to force; in their need to live +and feel and act in masses. To be born a Mollycoddle in America is to be +born to a hard fate. You must either emigrate or succumb. This, at +least, hitherto has been the alternative practised. Whether a +Mollycoddle will ever be produced strong enough to breathe the American +atmosphere and live, is a crucial question for the future. It is the +question whether America will ever be civilised. For civilisation, you +will have perceived, depends on a just balance of Red-bloods and +Mollycoddles. Without the Red-blood there would be no life at all, no +stuff, so to speak, for the Mollycoddle to work upon; without the +Mollycoddle, the stuff would remain shapeless and chaotic. The Red-blood +is the matter, the Mollycoddle the form; the Red-blood the dough, the +Mollycoddle the yeast. On these two poles turns the orb of human +society. And if, at this point, you choose to say that poles are points +and have no dimensions, that strictly neither the Mollycoddle nor the +Red-blood exist, and that real men contain elements of both mixed in +different proportions, I have no quarrel with you except such as one has +with the man who states the obvious. I am satisfied to have +distinguished the ideal extremes between which the Actual vibrates. The +detailed application of the conception I must leave to more patient +researchers. + +One point more before I close. This Dichotomy, so far as I can see, +applies only to man. Woman appears to be a kind of hybrid. Regarded as a +creature of instinct, she resembles the Red-blood, and it is to him that +she is first attracted. The hero of her youth is the athlete, the +soldier, the successful man of business; and this predilection of hers +accounts for much of human history, and in particular for the +maintenance of the military spirit. On the other hand, as a creature +capable of and craving sympathy, she has affinities with the +Mollycoddle. This dual nature is the tragedy of her life. The Red-blood +awakens her passion, but cannot satisfy it. He wins her by his virility, +but cannot retain her by his perception. Hence the fact, noted by a +cynic, that it is the Mollycoddle who cuckolds the Red-blood. For the +woman, married to the Red-blood, discovers too late that she is to him +only a trophy, a scalp. He hangs her up in the hall, and goes about his +business. Then comes the Mollycoddle, divining all, possessing and +offering all. And if the Red-blood is an American, and the Mollycoddle +an European, then the situation is tense indeed. For the American +Red-blood despises woman in his heart as profoundly as he respects her +in outer observance. He despises her because of the Mollycoddle he +divines in her. Therefore he never understands her; and that is why +European Mollycoddles carry off American women before the very eyes of +the exasperated Red-blood. "Am I not clean?" he cries. "Am I not +healthy? Am I not athletic and efficient?" He is, but it does not help +him, except with young girls. He may win the body; but he cannot win the +soul. Can it be true then that most women would like two husbands, one +Red-blood, the other Mollycoddle, one to be the father of their +children, the other to be the companion of their souls? Women alone can +answer; and, for the first time in history, they are beginning to be +articulate. + + + + +IX + +ADVERTISEMENT + + +The last two days and nights I spent in a railway train. We passed +through some beautiful country; that, I believe, is the fact; but my +feeling is that I have emerged from a nightmare. In my mind is a jumbled +vision of huge wooden cows cut out in profile and offering from dry +udders a fibrous milk; of tins of biscuits portrayed with a ghastly +realism of perspective, and mendaciously screaming that I needed +them--U-need-a biscuit; of gigantic quakers, multiplied as in an +interminable series of mirrors and offering me a myriad meals of +indigestible oats; of huge painted bulls in a kind of discontinuous +frieze bellowing to the heavens a challenge to produce a better tobacco +than theirs; of the head of a gentleman, with pink cheeks and a black +moustache, recurring, like a decimal, _ad infinitum_ on the top of a +board, to inform me that his beauty is the product of his own toilet +powder; of cod-fish without bones--"the kind you have always bought"; of +bacon packed in glass jars; of whiz suspenders, sen-sen throat-ease, +sure-fit hose, and the whole army of patent medicines. By river, wood, +and meadow, hamlet or city, mountain or plain, hovers and flits this +obscene host; never to be escaped from, never to be forgotten, fixing, +with inexorable determination, a fancy that might be tempted to roam to +that one fundamental fact of life, the operation of the bowels. + +Nor, of course, are these incubi, these ghostly emanations of the One +God Trade, confined to the American continent. They haunt with equal +pertinacity the lovelier landscapes of England; they line the route to +Venice; they squat on the Alps and float on the Rhine; they are +beginning to occupy the very air, and with the advent of the air-ship, +will obliterate the moon and the stars, and scatter over every lonely +moor and solitary mountain peak memorials of the stomach, of the liver +and the lungs. Never, in effect, says modern business to the soul of +man, never and nowhere shall you forget that you are nothing but a body; +that you require to eat, to salivate, to digest, to evacuate; that you +are liable to arthritis, blood-poisoning, catarrh, colitis, calvity, +constipation, consumption, diarrhoea, diabetes, dysmenorrhoea, epilepsy, +eczema, fatty degeneration, gout, goitre, gastritis, headache, +hĉmorrhage, hysteria, hypertrophy, idiocy, indigestion, jaundice, +lockjaw, melancholia, neuralgia, ophthalmia, phthisis, quinsey, +rheumatism, rickets, sciatica, syphilis, tonsilitis, tic doloureux, and +so on to the end of the alphabet and back again to the beginning. Never +and nowhere shall you forget that you are a trading animal, buying in +the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. Never shall you forget +that nothing matters--nothing in the whole universe--except the +maintenance and extension of industry; that beauty, peace, harmony are +not commercial values, and cannot be allowed for a moment to stand in +the way of the advance of trade; that nothing, in short, matters except +wealth, and that there is no wealth except money in the pocket. +This--did it ever occur to you--is the real public education every +country is giving, on every hoarding and sky-sign, to its citizens of +every age, at every moment of their lives. And that being so, is it not +a little ironical that children should be taught for half an hour in +school to read a poem of Wordsworth or a play of Shakespeare, when for +the rest of the twenty-four hours there is being photographed on their +minds the ubiquitous literature of Owbridge and of Carter? + +But of course advertisement cannot be interfered with! It is the +life-blood of the nation. All traders, all politicians, all journalists +say so. They sometimes add that it is really, to an unprejudiced spirit, +beautiful and elevating. Thus only this morning I came across an article +in a leading New York newspaper, which remarks that: "The individual +advertisement is commonly in good taste, both in legend and in +illustration. Many are positively beautiful; and, as a wit has truly +said, the cereal advertisements in the magazines are far more +interesting than the serial stories." This latter statement I can easily +believe; but when I read the former there flitted across my mind a +picture of a lady lightly clad reclining asleep against an open window, +a full moon rising in the distance over a lake, with the legend +attached, "Cascarella--it works while you sleep." + +The article from which I have quoted is interesting not only as +illustrating the diversity of taste, but as indicating the high degree +of development which has now been attained by what is at once the art +and the science of advertisement. "The study of advertisement," it +begins, "seems to have a perennial charm for the American public. Hardly +a month passes but some magazine finds a new and inviting phase of this +modern art to lay before its readers. The solid literature of +advertisement is also growing rapidly.... The technique of the subject +is almost as extensive as that of scientific agriculture. Whole volumes +have been compiled on the art of writing advertisements. Commercial +schools and colleges devote courses of study to the subject. Indeed the +corner-stone of the curriculum of a well-known business college is an +elective upon 'Window-dressing.'" That you may be under no +misapprehension, I must add that this article appears in what is +admittedly the most serious and respectable of the New York newspapers; +and that it is not conceived in the spirit of irony or hyperbole. To the +American, advertisement is a serious, important, and elevating +department of business, and those who make it their speciality endeavour +to base their operations on a profound study of human nature. One of +these gentlemen has expounded, in a book which has a wide circulation, +the whole philosophy of his liberal profession. He calls the book +"Imagination in Business";[4] and I remark incidentally that the use of +the word "imagination," like that of "art," in this connection, shows +where the inquirer ought to look for the manifestation, on this +continent, of the ĉsthetic spirit. "The imaginative man," says the +writer, "sends his thought through all the instincts, passions, and +prejudices of men, he knows their desires and their regrets, he knows +every human weakness and its sure decoy." It is this latter clause that +is relevant to his theme. Poets in earlier ages wrote epics and dramas, +they celebrated the strength and nobility of men; but the poet of the +modern world "cleverly builds on the frailties of mankind." Of these the +chief is "the inability to throw away an element of value, even though +it cannot be utilised." On this great principle is constructed the whole +art and science of advertisement. And my author proceeds to give a +series of illustrations, "each of which is an actual fact, either in my +experience, or of which I have been cognisant." Space and copyright +forbid me to quote. I must refer the reader to the original source. +Nowhere else will be found so lucid an expression of the whole theory +and practice of modern trade. That theory and practice is being taught +in schools of commerce throughout the Union; and there are many, I +suppose, who would like to see it taught in English universities. But, +really, does anyone--does any man of business--think it a better +education than Greek? + + + Footnotes: + + [Footnote 4: _Imagination in Business_ (Harper & Brothers).] + + + + +X + +CULTURE + + +Scene, a club in a Canadian city; persons, a professor, a doctor, a +business man, and a traveller (myself). Wine, cigars, anecdotes; and +suddenly, popping up, like a Jack-in-the-box absurdly crowned with ivy, +the intolerable subject of education. I do not remember how it began; +but I know there came a point at which, before I knew where I was, I +found myself being assailed on the subject of Oxford and Cambridge. Not, +however, in the way you may anticipate. Those ancient seats of learning +were not denounced as fossilised, effete, and corrupt. On the contrary, +I was pressed, urged, implored almost with tears in the eye--to reform +them? No! to let them alone! + +"For heaven's sake, keep them as they are! You don't know what you've +got, and what you might lose! We know! We've had to do without it! And +we know that without it everything else is of no avail. We bluster and +brag about education on this side of the Atlantic. But in our heart of +hearts we know that we have missed the one thing needful, and that you, +over in England, have got it." + +"And that one thing?" + +"Is Culture! Yes, in spite of Matthew Arnold, Culture, and Culture, and +always Culture!" + +"Meaning by Culture?" + +"Meaning Aristotle instead of Agriculture, Homer instead of Hygiene, +Shakespeare instead of the Stock Exchange, Bacon instead of Banking, +Plato instead of Pĉdagogics! Meaning intellect before intelligence, +thought before dexterity, discovery before invention! Meaning the only +thing that is really practical, ideas; and the only thing that is really +human, the Humanities!" + +Rather apologetically, I began to explain. At Oxford, I said, no doubt +the Humanities still hold the first place. But at Cambridge they have +long been relegated to the second or the third. There we have schools of +Natural Science, of Economics, of Engineering, of Agriculture. We have +even a Training College in Pĉdagogics. Their faces fell, and they +renewed their passionate appeal. + +"Stop it," they cried. "For heaven's sake, stop it! In all those things +we've got you skinned alive over here! If you want Agriculture go to +Wisconsin! If you want Medicine, go to the Rockefeller Institute! If you +want Engineering, go to Pittsburg! But preserve still for the +English-speaking world what you alone can give! Preserve liberal +culture! Preserve the Classics! Preserve Mathematics! Preserve the +seed-ground of all practical inventions and appliances! Preserve the +integrity of the human mind!" + +Interesting, is it not? These gentlemen, no doubt, were not typical +Canadians. But they were not the least intelligent men I have met on +this continent. And when they had finally landed me in my sleeping-berth +in the train, and I was left to my own reflections in that most +uncomfortable of all situations, I began to consider how odd it was that +in matters educational we are always endeavouring to reform the only +part of our system that excites the admiration of foreigners. + +I do not intend, however, to plunge into that controversy. The point +that interests me is the view of my Canadian friends that in America +there is no "culture." And, in the sense they gave to that term, I think +they are right. There _is_ no culture in America. There is instruction; +there is research; there is technical and professional training; there +is specialisation in science and industry; there is every possible +application of life, to purposes and ends; but there is no life for its +own sake. Let me illustrate. It is, I have read, a maxim of American +business that "a man is damned who knows two things." "He is almost a +dilettante," it was said of a student, "he reads Dante and Shakespeare"! +"The perfect professor," said a College President, "should be willing to +work hard eleven months in the year." These are straws, if you like, but +they show the way the wind blows. Again, you will find, if you travel +long in America, that you are suffering from a kind of atrophy. You will +not, at first, realise what it means. But suddenly it will flash upon +you that you are suffering from lack of conversation. You do not +converse; you cannot; you can only talk. It is the rarest thing to meet +a man who, when a subject is started, is willing or able to follow it +out into its ramifications, to play with it, to embroider it with pathos +or with wit, to penetrate to its roots, to trace its connexions and +affinities. Question and answer, anecdote and jest are the staple of +American conversation; and, above all, information. They have a hunger +for positive facts. And you may hear them hour after hour rehearsing to +one another their travels, their business transactions, their +experiences in trains, in hotels, on steamers, till you begin to feel +you have no alternatives before you but murder or suicide. An American, +broadly speaking, never detaches himself from experience. His mind is +embedded in it; it moves wedged in fact. His only escape is into humour; +and even his humour is but a formula of exaggeration. It implies no +imagination, no real envisaging of its object. It does not illuminate a +subject, it extinguishes it, clamping upon every topic the same +grotesque mould. That is why it does not really much amuse the English. +For the English are accustomed to Shakespeare, and to the London cabby. + +This may serve to indicate what I mean by lack of culture. I admit, of +course, that neither are the English cultured. But they have culture +among them. They do not, of course, value it; the Americans, for aught I +know, value it more; but they produce it, and the Americans do not. I +have visited many of their colleges and universities, and everywhere, +except perhaps at Harvard--unless my impressions are very much at +fault--I have found the same atmosphere. It is the atmosphere known as +the "Yale spirit," and it is very like that of an English Public School. +It is virile, athletic, gregarious, all-penetrating, all-embracing. It +turns out the whole university to sing rhythmic songs and shout rhythmic +cries at football matches. It praises action and sniffs at speculation. +It exalts morals and depresses intellect. It suspects the solitary +person, the dreamer, the loafer, the poet, the prig. This atmosphere, of +course, exists in English universities. It is imported there from the +Public Schools. But it is not all-pervading. Individuals and cliques +escape. And it is those who escape that acquire culture. In America, no +one escapes, or they are too few to count. I know Americans of culture, +know and love them; but I feel them to be lost in the sea of +philistinism. They cannot draw together, as in England, and leaven the +lump. The lump is bigger, and they are fewer. All the more honour to +them; and all the more loss to America. + +Whether, from all this, any conclusion is to be drawn about the proper +policy to be pursued at our universities, is a question I will not here +discuss. Culture, I think, is one of those precious things that are +achieved by accident, and by accident may be destroyed. The things we do +to maintain it might kill it; the things we do to kill it might preserve +it. My Canadian friends may be quite wrong in their diagnosis of the +causes that engender or destroy it. But they are right in their sense of +its importance; and it will be an interesting result of imperial unity +if we find, to our astonishment, that the Dominions beyond the seas +rally round exactly those things in England which we expect them to +declare effete. The Rhodes scholars go to Oxford, not to Birmingham or +Liverpool. And it is Cambridge that peoples the universities of the +Empire with professors. + + + + +XI + +ANTĈUS + + +I saw to-day some really remarkable landscapes by an American artist. +So, at least, they seem to me. They have, at any rate, a quality of +imagination which one does not expect to find in this country. "One does +not expect"--why not? Why, in this respect, is America, as undoubtedly +she is, so sterile? Artists must be born here as much as elsewhere. +American civilisation, it is true, repels men of reflection and +sensitiveness, just as it attracts men of action; so that, as far as +immigration is concerned, there is probably a selection working against +the artistic type. But, on the other hand, men of action often produce +sons with a genius for the arts; and it is to be supposed that they do +so as much in America as elsewhere. It must be the environment that is +unfavourable. Artists and poets belong to the genus I have named +"Mollycoddle"; and in America the Mollycoddle is hardly allowed to +breathe. Nowhere on that continent, so far as I have been able to see, +is there to be found a class or a clique of men, respected by others and +respecting themselves, who also respect not merely art but the artistic +calling. Broadly, business is the only respectable pursuit; including +under business Politics and Law, which in this country are only +departments of business. Business holds the place in popular esteem that +is held by arms in Germany, by letters in France, by Public Life in +England. The man therefore whose bent is towards the arts meets no +encouragement; he meets everywhere the reverse. His father, his uncles, +his brothers, his cousins, all are in business. Business is the only +virile pursuit for people of education and means, who cannot well become +chauffeurs. There is, no doubt, the professorial career; but that, it is +agreed, is adopted only by men of "no ambition." Americans believe in +education, but they do not believe in educators. There is no money to be +made in that profession, and the making of money is the test of +character. The born poet or artist is thus handicapped to a point which +may easily discourage him from running at all. At the best, he emigrates +to Europe, and his achievement is credited to that continent. Or, +remaining in America, he succumbs to the environment, puts aside his +creative ambition, and enters business. It is not for nothing that +Americans are the most active people in the world. They pay the penalty +in an atrophy of the faculties of reflection and representation. + +Things are different in Europe, and even in England. There, not only +are artists and men of letters honoured when they are successful--they +are, of course, honoured at that stage in America; but the pursuit of +literature and art is one which a young man need not feel it +discreditable to adopt. The contemporaries of a brilliant youth at +Oxford or at Cambridge do not secretly despise him if he declines to +enter business. The first-class man does not normally aspire to start +life as a drummer. Public life and the Church offer honourable careers; +and both of them have traditional affinities with literature. So has the +Law, still in England a profession and not a trade. One may even be a +don or a schoolmaster without serious discredit. Under these conditions +a young man can escape from the stifling pressure of the business point +of view. He can find societies like-minded with himself, equally +indifferent to the ideal of success in business, equally inspired by +intellectual or ĉsthetic ambitions. He can choose to be poor without +feeling that he will therefore become despicable. The attitude of the +business classes in England, no doubt, is much the same as that of the +business classes in America. But in England there are other classes and +other traditions, havens of refuge from the prevalent commercialism. In +America the trade-wind blows broad, steady, universal over the length +and breadth of the continent. + +This, I believe, is one reason for the sterility of America in Art. But +it is not the only one. Literature and Art in Europe rest on a long +tradition which has not only produced books and pictures, but has left +its mark on the language, the manners, the ideas, the architecture, the +physical features of the country. The books and the pictures can be +transplanted, but the rest cannot. Thus, even though in every art the +technical tradition has been interrupted, there remains in Europe what I +will call the tradition of feeling; and it is this that is absent in +America. Art in Europe is rooted; and there still persists into the +present something of the spirit which fostered it in the past. Not only +is Nature beautiful, she is humanised by the works of Man. Politics are +mellowed by history, business tempered by culture. Classes are more +segregated, types more distinct, ideals and aims more varied. The ghost +of a spiritual life still hovers over the natural, shadowing it with the +beat of solemn wings. There are finer overtones for a sensitive ear to +catch; rainbow hues where the spray of life goes up. All this, it is +true, is disappearing in Europe; but in America it has never existed. A +sensitive European, travelling there, feels at once starved and flayed. +Nothing nourishes, and everything hurts. There is natural beauty, but it +has not been crowned and perfected by the hand of man. Whatever he has +touched he has touched only to defile. There is one pursuit, commerce; +one type, the business man; one ideal, that of increasing wealth. +Monotony of talk, monotony of ideas, monotony of aim, monotony of +outlook on the world. America is industrialism pure and simple; Europe +is industrialism superimposed on feudalism; and, for the arts, the +difference is vital. + +But the difference is disappearing. Not that America is becoming like +Europe, but Europe is becoming like America. This is not a case of the +imitation that is a form of flattery; it is a case of similar causes +producing similar results. The disease--or shall we say, to use a +neutral term--the diathesis of commercialism found in America an open +field and swept through it like a fire. In Europe, its course was +hampered by the structures of an earlier civilisation. But it is +spreading none the less surely. And the question arises--In the future, +when the European environment is as unfavourable to Art as the American, +will there be, in the West, any Art at all? I do not know; no one knows; +but there is this to remark. What I am calling commercialism is the +infancy, not the maturity of a civilisation. The revolution in morals, +in manners, and in political and social institutions which must +accompany the revolution in industry, has hardly yet begun its course. +It has gone further in Europe than in America; so that, oddly enough, +Europe is at once behind and in front of this continent, overlaps it, so +to speak, at both ends. But it has not gone very far even in Europe; and +for generations, I conceive, political and social issues will draw away +much of the creative talent that might have been available for Art. In +the end, one may suppose, something like a stable order will arise; an +order, that is, in which people will feel that their institutions +correspond sufficiently with their inner life, and will be able to +devote themselves with a free mind to reflecting their civilisation in +Art. + +But will their civilisation be of a kind to invite such reflection? It +will be, if the present movement is not altogether abortive, a +civilisation of security, equity, and peace; where there is no +indigence, no war, and comparatively little disease. Such society, +certainly, will not offer a field for much of the kind of Art that has +been or is now being produced. The primitive folk-song, the epic of war, +the novel or play inspired by social strife, will have passed +irrecoverably away. And more than that, it is sometimes urged, there +will be such a dearth of those tense moments which alone engender the +artistic mood, that Art of any kind will have become impossible. If that +were true, it would not, in my opinion, condemn the society. Art is +important, but there are things more important; and among those things +are justice and peace. I do not, however, accept the view that a +peaceable and just society would necessarily also be one that is +uninspired. That view seems to me to proceed from our incurable +materialism. We think there is no conflict except with arms; no rivalry +except for bread; no aspiration except for money and rank. It is my own +belief that the removal of the causes of the material strife in which +most men are now plunged would liberate the energies for spiritual +conflict; that the passion to know, the passion to feel, the passion to +love, would begin at last to take their proper place in human life; and +would engender the forms of Art appropriate to their expression. + +To return to America, what I am driving at is this. America may have an +Art, and a great Art. But it will be after she has had her social +revolution. Her Art has first to touch ground; and before it can do +that, the ground must be fit for it to touch. It was not till the tenth +century that the seed of Mediĉval Art could be sown; it was not till the +thirteenth that the flower bloomed. So now, our civilisation is not ripe +for its own Art. What America imports from Europe is useless to her. It +is torn from its roots; and it is idle to replant it; it will not grow. +There must be a native growth, not so much of America, as of the modern +era. That growth America, like Europe, must will. She has her prophet of +it, Walt Whitman. In the coming centuries it is her work to make his +vision real. + + + + +CONCLUDING ESSAY + + +The preceding pages were written in the course of travel and convey the +impressions and reflections of the moment. Whatever interest they may +have depends upon this immediacy, and for that reason I have reprinted +them substantially as they first appeared. Perhaps, however, some +concluding reflections of a more considered nature may be of some +interest to my readers. I do not advance them in a dogmatic spirit nor +as final judgments, but as the first tentative results of my gropings +into a large and complicated subject. I will ask the reader, therefore, +be he Western or Oriental, to follow me in a spirit at once critical and +sympathetic, challenging my suggestions as much as he will, but rather +as a fellow-seeker than as an opponent bent upon refutation. For I am +trying to comprehend rather than to judge, and to comprehend as +impartially as is compatible with having an attitude of one's own at +all. + +Ever since Mr. Rudyard Kipling wrote a famous line it has become a +commonplace of popular thought in England and America that there is an +East and a West, and an impassable gulf between them. But Mr. Kipling +was thinking of India, and India is not all the East: he was thinking +of England, and England is not all the West. As soon as one approaches +the question more particularly it becomes a complicated matter to decide +whether there is really an East and a West, and what either stands for. +That there is a West, in a real sense, with a unity of its own, is, I +think, true. But it must be limited in time to the last two centuries, +and in space to the countries of Western Europe and the continent of +America. So understood, the West forms, in all the most important +respects, a homogeneous system. True, it is divided into different +nations, speaking different languages, and pursuing different, and often +conflicting, policies; and these distinctions are still so important, +that they colour our fears and hopes and sympathies, and take form in +the burden of armaments and the menace of war. Nevertheless, seen in the +perspective of history, they are survivals, atrophying and disappearing. +Behind and despite of them there is a common Western mind and a common +Western organisation. Finance is cosmopolitan; industry is cosmopolitan; +trade is cosmopolitan. There is one scientific method, and the results +achieved by it are common. There is one system of industry, that known +as Capitalism; and the problems arising from it and the solutions +propounded appear alike in every nation. There is one political +tendency, or fact, that of popular government. There are cognate aims +and similar achievements in literature and art. There is, in brief, a +Western movement, a Western problem, a Western mentality; and the +particular happenings of particular nations are all parts of this one +happening. Nor is this all. There is in the West a common religion. I do +not refer to Christianity, for the religion I mean is held by hundreds +and thousands who are not Christians, and indeed does not very readily +find in Christianity an expression at once coherent and pure. It has not +been formulated in a creed; but it is to be felt and heard in all the +serious work and all the serious thought of the West. It is the religion +of Good and Evil, of Time and the process in Time. If it tried to draw +up a confession of faith perhaps it would produce, as its first attempt, +something of this kind:-- + + "I believe in the ultimate distinction between Good and Evil, + and in a real process in a real Time. I believe it to be my duty + to increase Good and diminish Evil; I believe that in doing this + I am serving the purpose of the world. I know this; I do not + know anything else; and I am reluctant to put questions to which + I have no answer, and to which I do not believe that anyone has + an answer. Action, as defined above, is my creed. Speculation + weakens action. I do not wish to speculate, I wish to live. And + I believe the true life to be the life I have described." + +In saying that this is the real creed of the modern Western man I do not +pretend that he always knows or would admit it to be so. But if his +actions, his words, and his thoughts be sympathetically interpreted, +where all are at their best, I think they will be found to imply +something of this kind. And this attitude I call religious, not merely +ethical, because of its conviction that the impulse towards Good is of +the essence of the World, not only of men, or of Man. To believe this is +an act of faith, not of reason; though it is not contrary to reason, as +no faith should be or long can be. Many men do _not_ believe it, for +many are not religious; others, while believing it, may believe also +many other things. But it is the irreducible minimum of religion in the +modern West, the justification of our life, the faith of our works. I +call it the Religion of Time, and distinguish it thus from the Religion +of Eternity. + +In this sense, then, this profound sense, of a common aim and a common +motive, there is really a West. Is there also an East? That is not so +clear. In some important respects, no doubt, the Eastern civilisations +are alike. They are still predominantly agricultural. Their industry is +manual not mechanical. Their social unit is the extended family. To +travel in the East is to realise that life on the soil and in the +village is there still the normal life, as it has been almost everywhere +and always, throughout civilisation, until the last century in the West. +But though there is thus in the East a common way of life, there is not +a common organisation nor a common spirit. Economically, the great +Eastern countries are still independent of one another. Each lives for +the most part by and on itself. And their intellectual and spiritual +intercourse is now (though it was not in the past) as negligible as +their economic commerce. The influence that is beginning to be strong +upon them all is that of Western culture; and if they become alike in +their outlook on life, it will be by assimilating that. But, at present, +they are not alike. It is easy, in this matter, to be deceived by the +outward forms of religion. Because Buddhism originated in India and +spread to China and Japan, because Japan took Confucian ideals from +China, it is natural to conclude that there is a common religious spirit +throughout the East, or the Far East. But one might as reasonably infer +that the spirit of the christianised Teutons was the same as that of the +Jews or of the Christians in the East. Nations borrow religions, but +they shape them according to their own genius. And if I am not very much +mistaken the outlook of India is, and always has been, radically +distinct from and even opposed to that of China or Japan. These latter +countries, indeed, I believe, are far closer to the West than they are +to India. Let me explain. + +India is the true origin and home of what I have called the religion of +Eternity. That idea seems to have gone out from her to the rest of the +world. But nowhere else was it received with equal purity and passion. +Elsewhere than in India the claims of Time were predominant. In India +they have been subordinate. This, no doubt, is a matter of emphasis. No +society, as a whole, could believe and act upon the belief that activity +in Time is simply waste of time, and absorption in the Eternal the +direct and immediate object of life. Such a view, acted upon, would +bring the society quickly to an end. It would mean that the very +physical instinct to live was extinguished. But, as the Eternal was +first conceived by the amazing originality of India, so the passion to +realise it here and now has been the motive of her saints from the date +of the Upanishads to the twentieth century. And the method of +realisation proposed and attempted has not been the living of the +temporal life in a particular spirit, it has been the transcending of it +by a special experience. Indian saints have always believed that by +meditation and ascetic discipline, by abstaining from active life and +all its claims, and cultivating solitude and mortification, they could +reach by a direct experience union with the Infinite. This is as true of +the latest as of the earliest saints, if and so far as Western +influences have been excluded. Let me illustrate from the words of Sri +Ramakrishna, one of the most typical of Indian saints, who died late in +the nineteenth century. + +First, for the claim to pass directly into union with the Eternal: + + "I do see that Being as a Reality before my very eyes! Why then + should I reason? I do actually see that it is the Absolute Who + has become all these things about us; it is He who appears as + the finite soul and the phenomenal world. One must have such an + awakening of the Spirit within to see this Reality.... Spiritual + awakening must be followed by Samadhi. In this state one forgets + that one has a body; one loses all attachment to things of this + world."[5] + +And let it not be supposed that this state called Samadhi is merely one +of intense meditation. It is something much more abnormal, or +super-normal, than this. The book from which I am quoting contains many +accounts of its effects upon Sri Ramakrishna. Here is one of them: + + "He is now in a state of Samadhi, the superconscious or + God-conscious state. The body is again motionless. The eyes are + again fixed! The boys only a moment ago were laughing and making + merry! Now they all look grave. Their eyes are steadfastly fixed + on the master's face. They marvel at the wonderful change that + has come over him. It takes him long to come back to the sense + world. His limbs now begin to lose their stiffness. His face + beams with smiles, the organs of sense begin to come back each + to its own work. Tears of joy stand at the corners of his eyes. + He chants the sacred name of Rama."[6] + +The object, then, of this saint, and one he claims to have attained, is +to come into union with the Infinite by a process which removes him +altogether from contact with this world and from all possibility of +action in it. This world, in fact, is to him, as to all Indian saints +and most Indian philosophers, phenomenal and unreal. Of the speculative +problems raised by this conception I need not speak here. But it belongs +to my purpose to bring out its bearing upon conduct. All conduct depends +upon the conception of Good and Evil. Anti-moralists, like Nietzsche, +assume and require these ideas, just as much as moralists; they merely +attempt to give them a new content. If conduct is to have any meaning, +Good and Evil must be real in a real world. If they are held to be +appearances conduct becomes absurd. What now is Sri Ramakrishna's view +of this matter? The whole life that we Western men call real is to him a +mere game played by and for the sake of God, or, to use his phrase, of +the Divine Mother. For her pleasure she keeps men bound to Time, instead +of free in Eternity. For her pleasure, therefore, she creates and +maintains Evil. I quote the passage: + + "My Divine Mother is always in Her sportive mood. The world, + indeed, is Her toy. She will have Her own way. It is Her + pleasure to take out of the prisonhouse and set free only one or + two among a hundred thousand of her children! + + "_A Brahmo_: Sir, She can if She pleases set everybody free. + Why is it then, that She has bound us hand and foot with the + chains of the world? + + "_Sri Ramakrishna_: Well, I suppose it is her pleasure. It is + her pleasure to go on with Her sport with all these beings that + She has brought into existence. The player amongst the children + that touches the person of the Grand-dame, the same need no + longer run about. He cannot take any further part in the + exciting play of Hide and Seek that goes on. + + "The others who have not touched the goal must run about and + play to the great delight of the Grand-dame."[7] + +Thus the Indian saint. Let us now try to bring his conception into +relation with what we in the West believe to be real experience. In a +railway accident a driver is pinned against the furnace and slowly +burned to death, praying the bystanders in vain to put him out of his +misery. What is this? It is the sport of God! In Putumayo innocent +natives are deprived of their land, enslaved, tortured, and murdered, +that shareholders in Europe may receive high dividends. What is this? +The sport of God! In the richest countries of the West a great +proportion of those who produce the wealth receive less than the wages +which would suffice to keep them in bare physical health. What is this? +Once more the sport of God! One might multiply examples, but it would be +idle. No Western man could for a moment entertain the view of Sri +Ramakrishna. To him such a God would be a mere devil. The Indian +position, no doubt, is a form of idealism; but an idealism conditioned +by defective experience of the life in Time. The saint has chosen +another experience. But clearly he has not transcended ours, he has +simply left it out. + +Now I am aware that it will be urged by some of the most sincere +representatives of religion in India that Sri Ramakrishna does not +typify the Indian attitude. Perhaps not, if we take contemporary India. +But then contemporary India has been profoundly influenced by Western +thought; modern Indians like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, +Rabindranath Tagore, could hardly have thought and felt as they did, and +do, were it not for this influence. The following poem of Rabindranath +Tagore may aptly symbolise this breaking in of the West upon the East, +though I do not know that that was the author's intention: + + "With days of hard travail I raised a temple. It had no + doors or windows, its walls were thickly built with + massive stones. + + I forgot all else, I shunned all the world, I gazed in rapt + contemplation at the image I had set upon the altar. + + It was always night inside, and lit by the lamps of + perfumed oil. The ceaseless smoke of incense wound + my heart in its heavy coils. + + Sleepless, I carved on the walls fantastic figures in mazy + bewildering lines--winged horses, flowers with human + faces, women with limbs like serpents. + + No passage was left anywhere through which could enter + the song of birds, the murmur of leaves, or the hum + of the busy village. + + The only sound that echoed in its dark dome was that + of incantations which I chanted. + + My mind became keen and still like a pointed flame, my + senses swooned in ecstasy. + + I knew not how time passed till the thunderstone had + struck the temple, and a pain stung me through the + heart. + + The lamp looked pale and ashamed; the carvings on + the walls, like chained dreams, stared meaningless + in the light, as they would fain hide themselves. + + I looked at the image on the altar. I saw it smiling and + alive with the living touch of God. The night I had + imprisoned spread its wings and vanished."[8] + +The closed temple, I believe, is a true image of the spiritual life of +India, if not at all times, at any rate for many centuries previous to +the advent of the English. Everything seems to point to this--the +symbolic character of Indian art; the absence of history and the +prevalence of religious legend; the cult of the fakir and the wandering +ascetic. In India one feels religion as one feels it nowhere else, +unless it were in Russia. But the religion one feels is peculiar. It is +the religion that denies the value of experience in Time. It is the +religion of the Eternal. + +But, it will be urged, how can that be, when India continues to produce +her teeming millions; when these perforce live their brief lives in a +constant and often vain struggle for a bare livelihood; when, in order +to live at all, it is necessary at every point to be straining vitality +in the pursuit of temporal goods or the avoidance of temporal evils? + +I make no attempt to disguise or to weaken this paradox. But I suggest +that it is but one of the many paradoxes set up by the conflict between +men's instinct for life and their conscious beliefs. Indians live not +because they believe in life, but because they cannot help it. Their +hold on life is certainly less than that of Western men. Thus I have +been told by administrators of famine relief or of precautions against +plague, that what they have to contend with is not so much the +resistance as the indifference of the population. "Why worry us?" they +say, in effect; "life is not worth the trouble. Let us die and be rid of +it." Life is an evil, that is the root feeling of India; and the escape +is either, for the mass, by death; or for the men of spiritual genius, +by a flight to the Eternal. How this attitude has arisen I do not here +seek to determine; race, climate, social and political conditions, all +no doubt have played their part. The spiritual attitude is probably an +effect, rather than a cause, of an enfeebled grip on life. But no one, I +think, who knows India, would dispute that this attitude is a fact; and +it is a fact that distinguishes India not only from the West but from +the Far East. + +For China and Japan, though they have had, and to a less extent still +have, religion, are not, in the Indian sense, religious. The Chinese, in +particular, strike one as secular and practical; quite as secular and +practical as the English. They have had Buddhism, as we have had +Christianity; but no one who can perceive and understand would say that +their outlook is determined by Buddhism, any more than ours is by +Christianity. It is Confucianism that expresses the Chinese attitude to +life, whenever the Chinese soul, becoming aware of itself, looks out +from the forest of animistic beliefs in which the mass of the people +wander. And Confucianism is perhaps the best and purest expression of +the practical reason that has ever been formulated. Family duty, social +duty, political duty, these are the things on which it lays stress. And +when the Chinese spirit seeks escape from these primary preoccupations, +it finds its freedom in an art that is closer to the world of fact, +imaginatively conceived, than that of any other race. Chinese art +purifies itself from symbolism to become interpretation; whereas in +India the ocean of symbolism never ceases to roll over the drowning +surface of the phenomenal world. Chinese literature, again, has this +same hold upon life. It is such as Romans or Englishmen, if equally +gifted, might have written. Much of it, indeed, is stupidly and +tediously didactic. But where it escapes into poetry it is a poetry like +Wordsworth's, revealing the beauty of actual things, rather than weaving +across them an embroidery of subjective emotions The outlook of China is +essentially the outlook of the West, only more sane, more reasonable, +more leisured and dignified. Positivism and Humanity, the dominant forms +of thought and feeling in the West, have controlled Chinese civilisation +for centuries. The Chinese have built differently from ourselves and on +a smaller scale, with less violence and less power; but they have built +on the same foundations. + +And Japan, too, at bottom is secular. Her true religion is that of the +Emperor and his divine ancestors. Her strongest passion is patriotism. A +Japanese, like an Indian, is always ready to die. But he dies for the +splendours and glories of this world of sense. It is not because he has +so little hold on life, but because he has so much, that he so readily +throws it away. The Japanese are unlike the Chinese and unlike the +Europeans and Americans; but their outlook is similar. They believe in +the world of time and change; and because of this attitude, they and the +rest of the world stand together like a mountain in the sun, +contemplating uneasily that other mysterious peak, shrouded in mist, +which is India. + +The reader by this time will have grasped the point I am trying to put. +There are in Man two religious impulses, or, if the expression be +preferred, two aspects of the religious impulse. I have called them the +religion of the Eternal and the religion of Time; and India I suggest +stands pre-eminently for the one, the West for the other, while the +other countries of the East rank rather with the West than with India. +It is not necessary to my purpose to exaggerate this antithesis. I will +say, if it be preferred, that in India the emphasis is on the Eternal, +in the West on Time. But that much at least must be said and is plainly +true. Now, as between these two attitudes, I find myself quite clearly +and definitely on the side of the West. I have said in the preceding +pages hard things about Western civilisation. I hate many of its +manifestations, I am out of sympathy with many of its purposes. I can +see no point, for instance, in the discovery of the north or the south +pole, and very little in the invention of aeroplanes; while gramophones, +machine guns, advertisements, cinematographs, submarines, dreadnoughts, +cosmopolitan hotels, seem to me merely fatuous or sheerly disastrous. +But what lies behind all this, the tenacity, the courage, the spirit of +adventure, this it is that is the great contribution of the West. It is +not the aeroplane that is valuable; probably it will never be anything +but pernicious, for its main use is likely to be for war. But the fact +that men so lightly risk their lives to perfect it, _that_ is valuable. +The West is adventurous; and, what is more, it is adventurous on a +quest. For behind and beyond all its fatuities, confusions, crimes, +lies, as the justification of it all, that deep determination to secure +a society more just and more humane which inspires all men and all +movements that are worth considering at all, and, to those who can +understand, gives greatness and significance even to some of our most +reckless enterprises. We are living very "dangerously"; all the forces +are loose, those of destruction as well as those of creation; but we are +living towards something; we are living with the religion of Time. + +So far, I daresay, most Western men will agree with me in the main. But +they may say, some of them, as the Indian will certainly say, "Is that +all? Have you no place for the Eternal and the Infinite?" To this I must +reply that I think it clear and indisputable that the religion of the +Eternal, as interpreted by Sri Ramakrishna, is altogether incompatible +with the religion of Time. And the position of Sri Ramakrishna, I have +urged, is that of most Indian, and as I think, of most Western mystics. +Not, however, of all, and not of all modern mystics, even in India. +Rabindranath Tagore, for example, in his "Sádhana," has put forward a +mysticism which does, at least, endeavour to allow for and include what +I have called the religion of Time. To him, and to other mystics of real +experience, I must leave the attempt to reconcile Eternity and Time. For +my own part, I can only approach the question from the point of view of +Time, and endeavour to discover and realise the most that can be truly +said by one who starts with the belief that that is real. The +profoundest prophets of the religion of Time are, in my judgment, Goethe +and George Meredith; and from them, and from others, and from my own +small experience, I seem to have learned this: the importance of that +process in Time in whose reality we believe does not lie merely in the +bettering of the material and social environment, though we hold the +importance of that to be great; it lies in the development of souls. And +that development consists in a constant expansion of interest away from +and beyond one's own immediate interests out into the activities of the +world at large. Such expansion may be pursued in practical life, in art, +in science, in contemplation, so long as the contemplation is of the +real processes of the real world in time. To that expansion I see no +limit except death. And I do not know what comes after death. But I am +clear that whatever comes after, the command of Life is the same--to +expand out of oneself into the life of the world. This command--I should +rather say this impulse--seems to me absolute, the one certain thing on +which everything else must build. I think it enough for religion, in the +case at least of those who have got beyond the infant need for +certitudes and dogmas. These perhaps are few; yet they may be really +more numerous than appears. And on the increase in their numbers, and +the intensity of their conviction and their life, the fate of the world +seems to me to depend. + + + Footnotes: + + [Footnote 5: _Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna_, second edition, Part + 1., p. 310.] + + [Footnote 6: _Ibid._, p. 61.] + + [Footnote 7: _Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna_, second edition, Part + 1., p. 145.] + + [Footnote 8: _The Gardener_, p. 125.] + + + + + Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. + at Paul's Work, Edinburgh + + + + +BOOKS ON THE EAST + + +THE CIVILISATION OF THE EAST. By Dr. FRITZ HOMMEL. Illustrations and +Map. Pott 8vo, with Frontispiece, 1s. net. + +_JAPAN_--THE LIFE AND THOUGHT OF JAPAN. By OKAKURA-YOSHISAURO. +Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. net. + +_INDIA_--THE CIVILISATION OF INDIA. By ROMESH C. DUTT, C.I.E. +Illustrated. Pott 8vo, with Frontispiece, 1s. net. [_Second Edition_. + +THE GREAT EPICS OF ANCIENT INDIA--RAMAYANA: THE EPIC OF RAMA, PRINCE OF +INDIA; AND MAHA-BHARATA: THE EPIC OF ANCIENT INDIA. Condensed into +English Verse and Edited by ROMESH DUTT, C.I.E. With an Introduction by +the Right Hon. F. MAX MÜLLER. With 24 Photogravure Illustrations by E. +STUART HARDY. Square demy 8vo, £2, 2s. net. + +THE MESSAGE OF ZOROASTER. By A. SORABJEE N. WADIA. Crown 8vo, 5s. net. + +REFLECTIONS ON THE PROBLEMS OF INDIA. By A. S. WADIA. Crown 8vo, 4s. +6d. net. + +PICTURESQUE BURMAH, PAST AND PRESENT. By Mrs. ERNEST HART. With 90 +Illustrations in Photogravure, &c., also 2 Maps. Super-royal 8vo, £1, +1s. net. + +RELIGIONS OF INDIA: BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM. By Rev. ALLAN MENZIES, +D.D. Square crown 16mo, 9d. net. + +BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. By ANNIE H. SMALL. 1s. net. + +ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY. By ANNIE H. SMALL. 1s. net. + +THE GODS OF INDIA. By E. OSBORN MARTIN. With 60 Illustrations from +Photographs specially taken. Small crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net. + + +J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD., LONDON + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + + +Pg. 168, added closing single quote mark for clarity. In this case it +serves to close a quote within a quote. (speak.'" You can now) + +Footnote 3, in the original text, the English translation of Dante's +poem did not preserve the line breaks in each stanza. The original +appearance has been retained. + +Footnote 3, the reference is given as Dante's "Purgatorio". In actual +fact the lines of verse come from Dante's "Paradiso". The author's +original text has been retained. + +Pg. 184 and 191, line of verse beginning "My son, the good you....". In +the original text, the fifth word was an abbreviation comprising a "y" +and a superscript "o". 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Appearances + Being Notes of Travel + +Author: Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson + +Release Date: November 28, 2008 [EBook #27347] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APPEARANCES *** + + + + +Produced by Ronald Lee + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="advert"> +<p class="center"><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></p> + +<hr class="hr3" /> + +<p class="item">A MODERN SYMPOSIUM.</p> + +<p class="item">THE MEANING OF GOOD.</p> + +<p class="item">JUSTICE & LIBERTY, <span class="smcap">a Political Dialogue</span>.</p> + +<p class="p2 center"><i>PROBLEMS OF THE DAY SERIES</i></p> + +<p class="item">RELIGION & IMMORTALITY.</p> + +<p class="item">LETTERS FROM JOHN CHINAMAN.</p> + +<p class="item">RELIGION: <span class="smcap">A Forecast</span>.</p> + +</div> + +<p> </p> + +<h1><small>APPEARANCES</small></h1> + + +<hr /> + +<h1><span style="color: red; line-height: 2.0;"><big>APPEARANCES</big></span><br /> +<span class="tiny">BEING</span><br /> +<small>NOTES OF TRAVEL</small></h1> + + +<p class="title"><span class="tiny">BY</span><br /> +<small>G. LOWES DICKINSON</small><br /> +<span class="tiny">AUTHOR OF "A MODERN SYMPOSIUM,"<br /> +"JUSTICE AND LIBERTY," ETC.</span></p> + +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/logo.png" width="80" height="132" alt="logo of publisher" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">MCMXIV</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center"><span style="color: red;">LONDON & TORONTO</span><br /> +J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED<br /> +NEW YORK: DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved</i></p> + +<p> </p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> + +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>The articles included in this book have already appeared, those from the +East in the <i>Manchester Guardian</i>, those from America in the <i>English +Review</i>. In reprinting them, I have chosen a title which may serve also +as an apology. What I offer is not Reality; but appearances to me. From +such appearances perhaps, in time, Reality may be constructed. I claim +only to make my contribution. I do so because the new contact between +East and West is perhaps the most important fact of our age; and the +problems of action and thought which it creates can only be solved as +each civilisation tries to understand the others, and, by so doing, +better to understand itself. These articles represent at any rate a good +will to understand; and they may, I hope, for that reason throw one +gleam of light on the darkness.</p> + +<p>For the opportunity of travelling in the East I am indebted to the +munificence of Mr. Albert Kahn of Paris, who has founded what are known +in this country <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>as the Albert Kahn Travelling Fellowships.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The +existence of this endowment is perhaps not as widely known as it should +be. And if this volume should be the occasion of leading others to take +advantage of the founder's generosity it will not have been written in +vain.</p> + +<p>I have hesitated long before deciding to republish the letters on +America. They were written in 1909, before the election of President +Wilson, and all that led up to and is implied in that event. It was not, +however, the fact that, so far, they are out of date, that caused me to +hesitate. For they deal only incidentally with current politics, and +whatever value they may have is as a commentary on phases of American +civilisation which are of more than transitory significance. Much has +happened in the United States during the last few years which is of +great interest and importance. The conflict between democracy and +plutocracy has become more conscious and more acute; there have been +important developments in the labour movement; and capital has been so +"harassed" by legislation that it may, for the moment, seem odd to +capitalists to find America called "the paradise of Plutocracy." No +doubt the American public has awakened to its situation <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>since 1909. But +such awakenings take a long time to transform the character of a +civilisation and all that has occurred serves only to confirm the +contention in the text that in the new world the same situation is +arising that confronts the old one.</p> + +<p>What made me hesitate was something more important than the date at +which the letters were written. There is in them a note of exasperation +which I would have wished to remove if I could. But I could not, without +a complete rewriting, by which, even if it were possible to me, more +would have been lost than gained. It is this note of exasperation which +has induced me hitherto to keep the letters back, in spite of requests +to the contrary from American friends and publishers. But the +opportunity of adding them as a pendant to letters from the East, where +they fall naturally into their place as a complement and a contrast, has +finally overcome my scruples; the more so, as much that is said of +America is as typical of all the West, as it is foreign to all the East. +That this Western civilisation, against which I have so much to say, is +nevertheless the civilisation in which I would choose to live, in which +I believe, and about which all my hopes centre, I have endeavoured to +make clear in the concluding essay. And my readers, I hope, if any of +them persevere to the end, will feel that they have been listening, +after all, to the voice of a friend, even if the friend be of that +disagreeable kind called "candid."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> These Fellowships, each of the value of £660, were +established to enable the persons appointed to them to travel round the +world. The Trust is administered at the University of London, and full +information regarding it can be obtained from the Principal, Sir Henry +Miers, F.R.S., who is Honorary Secretary to the Trustees.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of contents"> + +<tr><td class="tochead" colspan="3">PART I</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tochead2" colspan="3">INDIA</td></tr> + +<tr><td></td><td></td><td class="tocpg"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">I.</td><td class="toc">In the Red Sea.</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">II.</td><td class="toc">Ajanta</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">III.</td><td class="toc">Ulster in India</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">IV.</td><td class="toc">Anglo-India</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">V.</td><td class="toc">A Mystery Play</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">VI.</td><td class="toc">An Indian Saint</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">VII.</td><td class="toc">A Village in Bengal</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">VIII.</td><td class="toc">Sri Ramakrishna</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">IX.</td><td class="toc">The Monstrous Regimen of Women</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">X.</td><td class="toc">The Buddha at Burupudur</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">XI.</td><td class="toc">A Malay Theatre</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tochead" colspan="3">PART II</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tochead2" colspan="3">CHINA</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">I.</td><td class="toc">First Impressions of China</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">II.</td><td class="toc">Nanking</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">III.</td><td class="toc">In the Yangtse Gorges</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">IV.</td><td class="toc">Pekin</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">V.</td><td class="toc">The Englishman Abroad</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">VI.</td><td class="toc">China in Transition</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">VII.</td><td class="toc">A Sacred Mountain</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tochead" colspan="3"><span class='pagenum' style="font-size: 61%;"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>PART III</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tochead2" colspan="3">JAPAN</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">I.</td><td class="toc">First Impressions of Japan</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">II.</td><td class="toc">A "No" Dance</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">III.</td><td class="toc">Nikko</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">IV.</td><td class="toc">Divine Right in Japan</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">V.</td><td class="toc">Fuji</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">VI.</td><td class="toc">Japan and America</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">VII.</td><td class="toc">Home</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tochead" colspan="3">PART IV</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tochead2" colspan="3">AMERICA</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">I.</td><td class="toc">The "Divine Average"</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">II.</td><td class="toc">A Continent of Pioneers</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">III.</td><td class="toc">Niagara</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">IV.</td><td class="toc">"The Modern Pulpit"</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">V.</td><td class="toc">In the Rockies</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">VI.</td><td class="toc">In the Adirondacks</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">VII.</td><td class="toc">The Religion of Business</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">VIII.</td><td class="toc">Red-Bloods and "Mollycoddles"</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">IX.</td><td class="toc">Advertisement</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">X.</td><td class="toc">Culture</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt">XI.</td><td class="toc">Antæus</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdrt"></td><td class="toc">Concluding Essay</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr> + +</table> + + +<hr /> +<h2><small>PART I</small><br /> +INDIA</h2> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> +<h3>I<br /> +IN THE RED SEA</h3> + + +<p>"But why do you do it?" said the Frenchman. From the saloon above came a +sound of singing, and I recognised a well-known hymn. The sun was +blazing on a foam-flecked sea; a range of islands lifted red rocks into +the glare; the wind blew fresh; and, from above,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Nothing in my hand I bring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Simply to Thy cross I cling."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Male voices were singing; voices whose owners, beyond a doubt, had no +idea of clinging to anything. Female voices, too, of clingers, perhaps, +but hardly to a cross. "Why do you do it?"—I began to explain. "For the +same reason that we play deck-quoits and shuffle-board; for the same +reason that we dress for dinner. It's the system." "The system?" "Yes. +What I call Anglicanism. It's a form of idealism. It consists in doing +the proper thing." "But why should the proper thing be done?" "That +question ought not to be asked. Anglicanism is an idealistic creed. It +is anti-utilitarian and anti-rational. It does not ask questions; it has +faith. The proper thing is the proper <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>thing, and because it is the +proper thing it is done." "At least," he said, "you do not pretend that +this is religion?" "No. It has nothing to do with religion. But neither +is it, as you too simply suppose, hypocrisy. Hypocrisy implies that you +know what religion is, and counterfeit it. But these people do not know, +and they are not counterfeiting. When they go to church they are not +thinking of religion. They are thinking of the social system. The +officers and civilians singing up there first learned to sing in the +village church. They walked to the church from the great house; the +great house stood in its park; the park was enclosed by the estate; and +the estate was surrounded by other estates. The service in the village +church stood for all that. And the service in the saloon stands for it +still. At bottom, what that hymn means is not that these men are +Christians, but that they are carrying England to India, to Burma, to +China." "It is a funny thing," the Frenchman mused, "to carry to 300 +million Hindus and Mahometans, and 400 million Confucians, Buddhists, +and devil-worshippers. What do they do with it when they get there?" +"They plant it down in little oases all over the country, and live in +it. It is the shell that protects them in those oceans of impropriety. +And from that shell they govern the world." "But how can they govern +what they can't even see?" "They govern all the better. If once they +could see, they would be lost. Doubt would enter in. And it is the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>virtue of the Englishman that he never doubts. That is what the system +does for him."</p> + +<p>At this moment a voice was borne down the breeze. It was that of my +travelling companion, and it appeared, as he approached, that he was +discoursing to the captain on the merits of Dostoievsky's novels. He is +no respecter of persons; he imposes his own conversation; and the +captain, though obviously puzzled, was polite. "Russians may be like +that," he was remarking as he passed, "but Englishmen aren't." "No," +said my friend, "but don't you wish they were?" "I do <i>not</i>," said the +captain with conviction. I looked at the Frenchman. "There," I said, +"behold the system." "But your friend?" "Ah, but he, like myself, is a +pariah. Have you not observed? They are quite polite. They have even a +kind of respect—such as our public school boys have—for anyone who is +queer, if only he is queer enough. But we don't "belong," and they know +it. We are outside the system. At bottom we are dangerous, like +foreigners. And they don't quite approve of our being let loose in +India." "Besides, you talk to the Indians." "Yes, we talk to the +Indians." "And that is contrary to the system?" "Yes, on board the boat; +it's all very well while you're still in England." "A strange system—to +perpetuate between rulers and ruled an impassable gulf!" "Yes. But, as +Mr. Podsnap remarked, 'so it is.'"</p> + +<p>We had penetrated to the bows of the ship and hung <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>looking over. +Suddenly, just under the surf, there was an emerald gleam; another; then +a leap and a dive; a leap and a dive again. A pair of porpoises were +playing round the bows with the ease, the spontaneity, the beauty of +perfect and happy life. As we watched them the same mood grew in us till +it forced expression. And "Oh," I said, "the ship's a prison!" "No," +said the Frenchman, "it's the system."</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> +<h3>II<br /> +AJANTA</h3> + + +<p>A dusty road running through an avenue across the great plateau of the +Deccan; scanty crops of maize and cotton; here and there low hills, +their reddish soil sparsely clothed with trees; to the north, a receding +line of mountains; elsewhere infinite space and blazing light. Our +"tonga," its pair of wheels and its white awning rolling and jolting +behind two good horses, passes long lines of bullock-carts. Indians, +walking beside them with their inimitable gait, make exquisite gestures +of abjection to the clumsy white Sahibs huddled uncomfortably on the +back seat. Their robes of vivid colour, always harmoniously blent, leave +bare the slender brown legs and often the breast and back. Children +stark naked ride on their mothers' hips or their fathers' shoulder. Now +and again the oxen are unyoked at a dribble of water, and a party rests +and eats in the shade. Otherwise it is one long march with bare feet +over the burning soil.</p> + +<p>We are approaching a market. The mud walls of a village appear. And +outside, by a stream shrunk now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>into muddy pools, shimmers and wimmers +a many-coloured crowd, buzzing among their waggons and awnings and +improvised stalls. We ford the shallow stream, where women are washing +clothes, cleaning their teeth, and drinking from the same water, and +pass among the bags of corn, the sugar-cane, and sweetmeats, saluted +gravely but unsolicited.</p> + +<p>Then on again for hours, the road now solitary, till as day closes we +reach Fardapur. A cluster of mud-walled compounds and beehive huts lies +about a fortified enclosure, where the children sprawl and scream, and a +Brahmin intones to silent auditors. Outside they are drawing water from +the puddles of the stream. And gradually over the low hills and the +stretches of yellow grass the after-glow spreads a transfiguring light. +Out of a rosy flush the evening star begins to shine; the crickets cry; +a fresh breeze blows; and another pitiless day drops into oblivion.</p> + +<p>Next day, at dawn, we walk the four miles to the famous caves, guided by +a boy who wears the Nizam's livery, and explains to us, in a language we +do not know, but with perfect lucidity, that it is to him, and no one +else, that backsheesh is due. He sings snatches of music as old and +strange as the hills; picks us balls of cotton, and prickly pear; and +once stops to point to the fresh tracks of a panther. We are in the +winding gorge of a watercourse; and presently, at a turn, in a +semicircle facing south, we see in the cliff the long line <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>of caves. As +we enter the first an intolerable odour meets us, and a flight of bats +explains the cause. Gradually our eyes accustom themselves to the light, +and we become conscious of a square hall, the flat roof resting on squat +pillars elaborately carved, fragments of painting on the walls and +ceiling, narrow slits opening into dark cells, and opposite the +entrance, set back in a shrine, a colossal Buddha, the light falling +full on the solemn face, the upturned feet, the expository hands. This +is a monastery, and most of the caves are on the same plan; but one or +two are long halls, presumably for worship, with barrel-vaulted roofs, +and at the end a great solid globe on a pedestal.</p> + +<p>Of the art of these caves I will not speak. What little can be seen of +the painting—and only ill-lighted fragments remain—is full of +tenderness, refinement, and grace; no touch of drama; no hint of +passion. The sculpture, stripped of its stucco surface, is rude but +often impressive. But what impresses most is not the art but the +religion of the place. In this terrible country, where the great forces +of nature, drought and famine and pestilence, the intolerable sun, the +intolerable rain, and the exuberance of life and death, have made of +mankind a mere passive horde cowering before inscrutable Powers—here, +more than anywhere, men were bound under a yoke of observance and ritual +to the gods they had fashioned and the priests who interpreted their +will. Then came the Deliverer to set <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>them free not <i>for</i> but <i>from</i> +life, teaching them how to escape from that worst of all evils, rebirth +again and again into a world of infinite suffering, unguided by any +reason to any good end. "There is no god," said this strange master, +"there is no soul; but there is life after death, life here in this +hell, unless you will learn to deliver yourselves by annihilating +desire." They listened; they built monasteries; they meditated; and now +and again, here, perhaps, in these caves, one or other attained +enlightenment. But the cloud of Hinduism, lifted for a moment, rolled +back heavier than ever. The older gods were seated too firmly on their +thrones. Shiva—creator, preserver, destroyer—expelled the Buddha. And +that passive figure, sublime in its power of mind, sits for ever alone +in the land of his birth, exiled from light, in a cloud of clinging +bats.</p> + +<p>But outside proceeds the great pageant of day and night, and the +patient, beautiful people labour without hope, while universal nature, +symbolised by Shiva's foot, presses heavily on their heads and forbids +them the stature of man. Only the white man here, bustling, ungainly, +aggressive, retains his freedom and acts rather than suffers. One +understands at last the full meaning of the word "environment." Because +of this sun, because of this soil, because of their vast numbers, these +people are passive, religious, fatalistic. Because of our cold and rain +in the north, our fresh springs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>and summers, we are men of action, of +science, of no reflection. The seed is the same, but according to the +soil it brings forth differently. Here the patience, the beauty, the +abjection before the Devilish-Divine; there the defiance, the cult of +the proud self. And these things have met. To what result?</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> +<h3>III<br /> +ULSTER IN INDIA</h3> + + +<p>"Are you a Home Ruler?" "Yes. Are you?" Instantly a torrent of protest. +He was a Mahometan, eminent in law and politics; clever, fluent, +forensic, with a passion for hearing himself talk, and addressing one +always as if one were a public meeting. He approached his face close to +mine, gradually backing me into the wall. And I realised the full +meaning of Carlyle's dictum "to be a mere passive bucket to be pumped +into can be agreeable to no human being."</p> + +<p>It was not, naturally, the Irish question for its own sake that +interested him. But he took it as a type of the Indian question. Here, +too, he maintained, there is an Ulster, the Mahometan community. Here, +too, there are Nationalists, the Hindus. Here, too, a "loyal" minority, +protected by a beneficent and impartial Imperial Government. Here, too, +a majority of "rebels" bent on throwing off that Government in order +that they may oppress the minority. Here, too, an ideal of independence +hypocritically masked under the phrase "self-government." "It is a law +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>of political science that where there are two minorities they should +stand together against the majority. The Hindus want to get rid of you, +as they want to get rid of us. And for that reason alone, if there were +not a thousand others"—there were, he hinted, but, rhetorically, he +"passed them over in silence"—"for that reason alone I am loyal to the +British raj." It had never occurred to me to doubt it. But I questioned, +when I got a moment's breathing space, whether really the Hindu +community deliberately nourished this dark conspiracy. He had no doubt, +so far as the leaders were concerned; and he mistrusted the "moderates" +more than the extremists, because they were cleverer. He "multiplied +examples"—it was his phrase. The movement for primary education, for +example. It had nothing to do with education. It was a plot to teach the +masses Hindi, in order that they might be swept into the anti-British, +anti-Mahometan current. As to minor matters, no Hindu had ever voted for +a Mahometan, no Hindu barrister ever sent a client to a Mahometan +colleague. Whereas in all these matters, one was led to infer, +Mahometans were conciliation and tolerance itself. I knew that the +speaker himself had secured the election of Mahometans to all the seats +in the Council. But I refrained from referring to the matter. Then there +was caste. A Hindu will not eat with a Mahometan, and this was taken as +a personal insult. I suggested that the English were equally boycotted; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>but that we regarded the boycott as a religious obligation, not as a +social stigma. But, like the Irish Ulstermen, he was not there to listen +to argument. He rolled on like a river. None of us could escape. He +detected the first signs of straying, and beckoned us back to the flock. +"Mr. Audubon, this is important." "Mr. Coryat, you must listen to this." +Coryat, at last, grew restive, and remarked rather tartly that no doubt +there was friction between the two communities, but that the worst way +to deal with it was by recrimination. He agreed; with tears in his eyes +he agreed. There was nothing he had not done, no advance he had not +made, to endeavour to bridge the gulf. All in vain! Never were such +obstinate fellows as these Hindus. And he proceeded once more to +"multiply examples." As we said "Good-bye" in the small hours of the +morning he pressed into our hands copies of his speeches and addresses. +And we left him perorating on the steps of the hotel.</p> + +<p>A painfully acquired mistrust of generalisation prevents me from saying +that this is <i>the</i> Mahometan point of view. Indeed, I have reason to +know that it is not. But it is a Mahometan point of view in one +province. And it was endorsed, more soberly, by less rhetorical members +of the community. Some twenty-five years ago, they say, Mahometans woke +to the fact that they were dropping behind in the race for influence and +power. They started a campaign of education and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>organisation. At every +point they found themselves thwarted; and always, behind the obstacle, +lurked a Hindu. Lord Morley's reform of the Councils, intended to unite +all sections, had had the opposite effect. Nothing but the separate +electorates had saved Mahometans from political extinction. And +precisely because they desired that extinction Hindus desired mixed +electorates. The elections to the Councils have exasperated the +antagonism between the two communities. And an enemy might accuse the +Government of being actuated, in that reform, by the Machiavellian maxim +"Divide et impera."</p> + +<p>What the Hindus have to say to all this I have not had an opportunity of +learning. But they too, I conceive, can "multiply examples" for their +side. To a philosophic observer two reflections suggest themselves. One, +that representative government can only work when there is real give and +take between the contending parties. The other, that to most men, and +most nations, religion means nothing more than antagonism to some other +religion. Witness Ulster in Ireland; and witness, equally, Ulster in +India.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> +<h3>IV<br /> +ANGLO-INDIA</h3> + + +<p>From the gallery of the high hall we look down on the assembled society +of the cantonment. The scene is commonplace enough; twaddle and tea, +after tennis; "frivolling"—it is their word; women too empty-headed and +men too tired to do anything else. This mill-round of work and exercise +is maintained like a religion. The gymkhana represents the "compulsory +games" of a public school. It is part of the "white man's burden." He +plays, as he works, with a sense of responsibility. He is bored, but +boredom is a duty, and there's nothing else to do.</p> + +<p>The scene is commonplace. Yes! But this afternoon a band is playing. The +music suits the occasion. It is soft, melodious, sentimental. It +provokes a vague sensibility, and makes no appeal to the imagination. At +least it should not, from its quality. But the power of music is +incalculable. It has an essence independent of its forms. And by virtue +of that essence its poorest manifestations can sink a shaft into the +springs of life. So as I listen languidly the scene before me detaches +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>itself from actuality and floats away on the stream of art. It becomes +a symbol; and around and beyond it, in some ideal space, other symbols +arise and begin to move. I see the East as an infinite procession. Huge +Bactrian camels balance their bobbing heads as they pad deliberately +over the burning dust. Laden asses, cattle, and sheep and goats move on +in troops. Black-bearded men, men with beard and hair dyed red, women +pregnant or carrying babies on their hips, youths like the Indian +Bacchus with long curling hair, children of all ages, old men +magnificent and fierce, all the generations of Asia pass and pass on, +seen like a frieze against a rock background, blazing with colour, +rhythmical and fluent, marching menacingly down out of infinite space on +to this little oasis of Englishmen. Then, suddenly, they are an ocean; +and the Anglo-Indian world floats upon it like an Atlantic liner. It has +its gymnasium, its swimming-bath, its card-rooms, its concert-room. It +has its first and second class and steerage, well marked off. It dresses +for dinner every night; it has an Anglican service on Sunday; it flirts +mildly; it is bored; but above all it is safe. It has water-tight +compartments. It is "unsinkable." The band is playing; and when the +crash comes it will not stop. No; it will play this music, this, which +is in my ears. Is it Gounod's "Faust" or an Anglican hymn? No matter! It +is the same thing, sentimental, and not imaginative. And sentimentally, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>not imaginatively, the Englishman will die. He will not face the event, +but he will stand up to it. He will realise nothing, but he will shrink +from nothing. Of all the stories about the loss of the <i>Titanic</i> the +best and most characteristic is that of the group of men who sat +conversing in the second-class smoking-room, till one of them said, "Now +she's going down. Let's go and sit in the first-class saloon." And they +did. How touching! How sublime! How English! The <i>Titanic</i> sinks. With a +roar the machinery crashes from stem to bow. Dust on the water, cries on +the water, then vacuity and silence. The East has swept over this colony +of the West. And still its generations pass on, rhythmically swinging; +slaves of Nature, not, as in the West, rebels against her; cyclical as +her seasons and her stars; infinite as her storms of dust; identical as +the leaves of her trees; purposeless as her cyclones and her +earthquakes.</p> + +<p>The music stops and I rub my eyes. Yes, it is only the club, only tea +and twaddle! Or am I wrong? There is more in these men and women than +appears. They stand for the West, for the energy of the world, for all, +in this vast Nature, that is determinate and purposive, not passively +repetitionary. And if they do not know it, if they never hear the strain +that transposes them and their work into a tragic dream, if tennis is +tennis to them, and a valse a valse, and an Indian a native, none the +less they are what a poet would see <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>them to be, an oasis in the desert, +a liner on the ocean, ministers of the life within life that is the +hope, the inspiration, and the meaning of the world. In my heart of +hearts I apologise as I prolong the banalities of parting, and almost +vow never again to abuse Gounod's music.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> +<h3>V<br /> +A MYSTERY PLAY</h3> + + +<p>A few lamps set on the floor lit up the white roof. On either side the +great hall was open to the night; and now and again a bird flew across, +or a silent figure flitted from dark to dark. On a low platform sat the +dancers, gorgeously robed. All were boys. The leader, a peacock-fan +flashing in his head-dress, personated Krishna. Beside him sat Rhada, +his wife. The rest were the milkmaids of the legend. They sat like +statues, and none of them moved at our entry. But the musicians, who +were seated on the ground, rose and salaamed, and instantly began to +play. There were five instruments—a miniature harmonium (terrible +innovation), two viols, of flat, unresonant tone, a pair of cymbals, and +a small drum. The ear, at first, detected little but discordant chaos, +but by degrees a form became apparent—short phrases, of strong rhythm, +in a different scale from ours, repeated again and again, and strung on +a thread of loose improvisation. Every now and again the musicians burst +into song. Their voices were harsh and nasal, but their art was +complicated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> and subtle. Clearly, this was not barbarous music, it was +only strange, and its interest increased, as the ear became accustomed +to it. Suddenly, as though they could resist no longer, the dancers, who +had not moved, leapt from the platform and began their dance. It was +symbolical; Krishna was its centre, and the rest were wooing him. Desire +and its frustration and fulfilment were the theme. Yet it was not +sensual, or not merely so. The Hindus interpret in a religious spirit +this legendary sport of Krishna with the milkmaids. It symbolises the +soul's wooing of God. And so these boys interpreted it. Their passion, +though it included the flesh, was not of the flesh. The mood was +rapturous, but not abandoned; ecstatic, but not orgiastic. There were +moments of a hushed suspense when hardly a muscle moved; only the arms +undulated and the feet and hands vibrated. Then a break into swift +whirling, on the toes or on the knees, into leaping and stamping, swift +flight and pursuit. A pause again; a slow march; a rush with twinkling +feet; and always, on those young faces, even in the moment of most +excitement, a look of solemn rapture, as though they were carried out of +themselves into the divine. I have seen dancing more accomplished, more +elaborate, more astonishing than this. But never any that seemed to me +to fulfil so well the finest purposes of the art. The Russian ballet, in +the retrospect, seems trivial by comparison. It was secular; but this +was religious. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>For the first time I seemed to catch a glimpse of what +the tragic dance of the Greeks might have been like. The rhythms were +not unlike those of Greek choruses, the motions corresponded strictly to +the rhythms, and all was attuned to a high religious mood. In such +dancing the flesh becomes spirit, the body a transparent emblem of the +soul.</p> + +<p>After that the play, I confess, was a drop into bathos. We descended to +speech, even to tedious burlesque. But the analogy was all the closer to +mediæval mysteries. In ages of Faith religion is not only sublime; it is +intimate, humorous, domestic; it sits at the hearth and plays in the +nursery. So it is in India where the age of Faith has never ceased. What +was represented that night was an episode in the story of Krishna. The +characters were the infant god, his mother, Jasodha, and an ancient +Brahmin who has come from her own country to congratulate her on the +birth of a child. He is a comic character—the sagging belly and the +painted face of the pantomime. He answers Jasodha's inquiries after +friends and relations at home. She offers him food. He professes to have +no appetite, but, on being pressed, demands portentous measures of rice +and flour. While she collects the material for his meal, he goes to +bathe in the Jumna; and the whole ritual of his ablutions is elaborately +travestied, even a crocodile being introduced in the person of one of +the musicians, who rudely pulls him by the leg as he is rolling in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>imaginary water. His bathing finished, he retires and cooks his food. +When it is ready he falls into prayer. But during his abstraction the +infant Krishna crawls up and begins devouring the food. Returning to +himself, the Brahmin, in a rage, runs off into the darkness of the hall. +Jasodha pursues him and brings him back. And he begins once more to cook +his food. This episode was repeated three times in all its detail, and I +confess I found it insufferably tedious. The third time Jasodha scolds +the child and asks him why he does it. He replies—and here comes the +pretty point of the play—that the Brahmin, in praying to God and +offering him the food, unwittingly is praying to him and offering to +him, and in eating the food he has but accepted the offering. The mother +does not understand, but the Brahmin does, and prostrates himself before +his Lord.</p> + +<p>This is crude enough art, but at any rate it is genuine. Like all +primitive art, it is a representation of what is traditionally believed +and popularly felt. The story is familiar to the audience and intimate +to their lives. It represents details which they witness every day, and +at the same time it has religious significance. Out of it might grow a +great drama, as once in ancient Greece. And perhaps from no other origin +can such a drama arise.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> +<h3>VI<br /> +AN INDIAN SAINT</h3> + + +<p>It was at Benares that we met him. He led us through the maze of the +bazaars, his purple robe guiding us like a star, and brought us out by +the mosque of Aurungzebe. Thence a long flight of stairs plunged sheer +to the Ganges, shining below in the afternoon sun. We descended; but, +turning aside before we reached the shore, came to a tiny house perched +on a terrace above the ghat. We took off our shoes in the anteroom and +passed through a second chamber, with its riverside open to the air, and +reached a tiny apartment, where he motioned us to a divan. We squatted +and looked round. Some empty bottles were the only furniture. But on the +wall hung the picture we had come to see. It was a symbolic tree, and +perhaps as much like a tree as what it symbolised was like the universe. +Embedded in its trunk and branches were coloured circles and signs, and +from them grew leaves and flowers of various hues. Below was a garden +lit by a rising sun, and a black river where birds and beasts pursued +and devoured one another. At our request he took a pointer and began to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>explain. I am not sure that I well understood or well remember, but +something of this kind was the gist of it. In the beginning was +Parabrahma, existing in himself, a white circle at the root of the tree. +Whence sprang, following the line of the trunk, the egg of the universe, +pregnant with all potentialities. Thence came the energy of Brahma; and +of this there were three aspects, the Good, the Evil, and the Neuter, +symbolised by three triangles in a circle. Thence the trunk continued, +but also thence emerged a branch to the right and one to the left. The +branch to the right was Illusion and ended in God; the branch to the +left was Ignorance and ended in the Soul. Thus the Soul contemplates +Illusion under the form of her gods. Up the line of the trunk came next +the Energy of Nature; then Pride; then Egotism and Individuality; whence +branched to one side Mind, to the other the senses and the passions. +Then followed the elements, fire, air, water, and earth; then the +vegetable creation; then corn; and then, at the summit of the tree, the +primitive Man and Woman, type of Humanity. The garden below was Eden, +until the sun rose; but with light came discord and conflict, symbolised +by the river and the beasts. Evil and conflict belong to the nature of +the created world; and the purpose of religion is by contemplation to +enable the Soul to break its bodies, and the whole creation to return +again to Parabrahma, whence it sprung.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>Why did it spring? He did not know. For good or for evil? He could not +say. What he knew he knew, and what he did not know he did not. "Some +say there is no God and no Soul." He smiled. "Let them!" His certainty +was complete. "Can the souls of men be reincarnated as animals?" He +shrugged his shoulders. "Who can say?" I tried to put in a plea for the +life of action, but he was adamant; contemplation and contemplation +alone can deliver us. "Our good men," I said, "desire to make the world +better, rather than to save their own souls." "Our sages," he replied, +"are sorry for the world, but they know they cannot help it." His +religion, I urged, denied all sense to the process of history. "There +may be process in matter," he replied, "but there is none in God." I +protested that I loved individual souls, and did not want them absorbed +in Parabrahma. He laughed his good cheery laugh, out of his black beard, +but it was clear that he held me to be a child, imprisoned in the Ego. I +felt like that, and I hugged my Ego; so presently he ministered to it +with sweetmeats. He even ate with us, and smoked a cigarette. He was the +most human of men; so human that I thought his religion could not be as +inhuman as it sounded. But it was the religion of the East, not of the +West. It refused all significance to the temporal world; it took no +account of society and its needs; it sought to destroy, not to develop, +the sense and the power of Individuality. It did not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>say, but it +implied, that creation was a mistake; and if it did not profess +pessimism, pessimism was its logical outcome. I do not know whether it +is the religion of a wise race; but I am sure it could never be that of +a strong one.</p> + +<p>But I loved the saint, and felt that he was a brother. Next morning, as +we drifted past the long line of ghats, watching the bright figures on +the terraces and stairs, the brown bodies in the water, and the Brahmins +squatting on the shore, we saw him among the bathers, and he called to +us cheerily. We waved our hands and passed on, never to see him again. +East had not met West, but at least they had shaken hands across the +gulf. The gulf, however, was profound; for many and many incarnations +will be needed before one soul at least can come even to wish to +annihilate itself in the Universal.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> +<h3>VII<br /> +A VILLAGE IN BENGAL</h3> + + +<p>At 6 <small>A.M.</small> we got out of the train at a station on the Ganges; and after +many delays found ourselves drifting down the river in a houseboat. To +lie on cushions, sheltered from the sun, looking out on the moving +shore, to the sound of the leisurely plash of oars, is elysium after a +night in the train. We had seven hours of it and I could have wished it +were more. But towards sunset we reached our destination. At the wharf a +crowd of servants were waiting to touch the feet of our hosts who had +travelled with us. They accompanied us through a tangle of palms, +bananas, mangoes, canes, past bamboo huts raised on platforms of hard, +dry mud, to the central place where a great banyan stood in front of the +temple. We took off our shoes and entered the enclosure, followed by +half the village, silent, dignified, and deferential. Over ruined +shrines of red brick, elaborately carved, clambered and twined the +sacred peepul tree. And within a more modern building were housed images +of Krishna and Rhada, and other symbols of what we call too hastily +idolatry. Outside <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>was a circular platform of brick where these dolls +are washed in milk at the great festivals of the year. We passed on, and +watched the village weaver at his work, sitting on the ground with his +feet in a pit working the pedals of his loom; while outside, in the +garden, a youth was running up and down setting up, thread by thread, +the long strands of the warp. By the time we reached the house it was +dusk. A lamp was brought into the porch. Musicians and singers squatted +on the floor. Behind them a white-robed crowd faded into the night. And +we listened to hymns composed by the village saint, who had lately +passed away.</p> + +<p>First there was a prayer for forgiveness. "Lord, forgive us our sins. +You <i>must</i> forgive, for you are called the merciful. And it's so easy +for you! And, if you don't, what becomes of your reputation?" Next, a +call to the ferry. "Come and cross over with me. Krishna is the boat and +Rhada the sail. No storms can wreck us. Come, cross over with me." Then +a prayer for deliverance from the "well" of the world where we are +imprisoned by those dread foes the five senses of the mind. Then a +rhapsody on God, invisible, incomprehensible. "He speaks, but He is not +seen. He lives in the room with me, but I cannot find Him. He brings to +market His moods, but the marketer never appears. Some call Him fire, +some ether. But I ask His name in vain. I suppose I am such a fool that +they will not tell it me." Then a strange ironical address to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>Krishna. +"Really, sir, your conduct is very odd! You flirt with the Gopis! You +put Rhada in a sulk, and then ask to be forgiven! You say you are a god, +and yet you pray to God! Really, sir, what are we to think?" Lastly, a +mystic song, how Krishna has plunged into the ocean of Rhada; how he is +there drifting, helpless and lost. Can we not save him? But no! It is +because his love is not perfect and pure. And that is why he must be +incarnated again and again in the avatars.</p> + +<p>Are these people idolaters, these dignified old men, these serious +youths, these earnest, grave musicians? Look at their temple, and you +say "Yes." Listen to their hymns, and you say "No." Reformers want to +educate them, and, perhaps, they are right. But if education is to mean +the substitution of the gramophone and music-hall songs for this +traditional art, these native hymns? I went to bed pondering, and was +awakened at six by another chorus telling us it was time to get up. We +did so, and visited the school, set up by my friend as an experiment; a +mud floor, mud-lined walls, all scrupulously clean; and squatting round +the four sides children of all ages, all reciting their lessons at once, +and all the lessons different. They were learning to read and write +their native language, and that, at least, seemed harmless enough. But +parents complained that it unfitted them for the fields. "Our fathers +did not do it"—that, said my impatient young <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>host, is their reply to +every attempt at reform. In his library were all the works of Nietzsche, +Tolstoy, Wells, and Shaw, as well as all the technical journals of +scientific agriculture. He lectured them on the chemical constituents of +milk and the crossing of sugar-canes. They embraced his feet, sang their +hymns, and did as their fathers had done. He has a hard task before him, +but one far better worth attempting than the legal and political +activities in which most young Zemindars indulge. And, as he said, here +you see the fields and hear the birds, and here you can bathe in the +Ganges. We did; and then breakfasted; and then set out in palanquins for +the nearest railway station. The bearers sang a rhythmic chant as they +bore us smoothly along through mustard and pulses, yellow and orange and +mauve. The sun blazed hot; the bronzed figures streamed with sweat; the +cheerful voices never failed or flagged. I dozed and drowsed, while East +and West in my mind wove a web whose pattern I cannot trace. But a +pattern there is. And some day historians will be able to find it.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> +<h3>VIII<br /> +SRI RAMAKRISHNA</h3> + + +<p>As we dropped down the Hooghly they pointed to a temple on the shore as +lately the home of Sri Ramakrishna. He was only a name to me, and I did +not pay much attention, though I had his "Gospel" <a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> actually under my +arm. I was preoccupied with the sunset, burning behind a veil of smoke; +and presently, as we landed, with the great floating haystacks +smouldering at the wharf in the red afterglow. As we waited for the +tram, someone said, "Would you like to see Kali?" and we stepped aside +to the little shrine. Within it was the hideous idol, black and +many-armed, decked with tinsel and fed with the blood of goats; and +there swept over me a wave of the repulsion I had felt from the first +for the Hindu religion, its symbols, its cult, its architecture, even +its philosophy. Seated in the tram, it was with an effort that I opened +the "Gospel" of Sri Ramakrishna. But at once my attention was arrested. +This was an account by a disciple of the life and sayings of his master. +And presently I read the following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>"<i>Disciple.</i> Then, sir, one may hold that God is 'with form.' +But surely He is not the earthen image that is worshipped!</p> + +<p>"<i>Master.</i> But, my dear sir, why should you call it an earthen +image? Surely the Image Divine is made of the Spirit!</p> + +<p>"The disciple cannot follow this. He goes on: But is it not +one's duty, sir, to make it clear to those who worship images +that God is not the same as the clay form they worship, and +that in worshipping they should keep God Himself in view and +not the clay images?</p> + +<p class="tb">* * * * * * *</p> + +<p>"<i>Master.</i> You talk of 'images made of clay.' Well, there often +comes a necessity of worshipping even such images as these. God +Himself has provided these various forms of worship. The Lord +has done all this—to suit different men in different stages of +knowledge.</p> + +<p>"The mother so arranges the food for her children that every +one gets what agrees with him. Suppose she has five children. +Having a fish to cook, she makes different dishes out of it. +She can give each one of the children what suits him exactly. +One gets rich <i>polow</i> with the fish, while she gives only a +little soup to another who is of weak digestion; she makes a +sauce of sour tamarind for the third, fries the fish for the +fourth, and so on, exactly as it happens to agree with the +stomach. Don't you see?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>"<i>Disciple.</i> Yes, sir, now I do. The Lord is to be worshipped +in the image of clay as a spirit by the beginner. The devotee, +as he advances, may worship Him independently of the image.</p> + +<p>"<i>Master.</i> Yes. And again, when he sees God he realises that +everything—image and all—is a manifestation of the Spirit. To +him the image is made of Spirit—not of clay. God is a Spirit."</p></div> + +<p>As I read this, I remembered the answer invariably given to me when I +asked about Hindu idolatry. The people, I was told, even the humblest +and most ignorant, worshipped not the idol but what it symbolised. +Actually, this hideous Kali stood to them for the Divine Mother. And I +was told of an old woman, racked with rheumatism, who had determined at +last to seek relief from the goddess. She returned with radiant face. +She had seen the Mother! And she had no more rheumatism. In this popular +religion, it would seem, the old cosmic elements have dropped out, and +the human only persist. So that even the terrifying form of Shiva, the +Destroyer, stands only for the divine husband of Parvati, the divine +wife. Hinduism, I admitted, is not as inhuman and superstitious as it +looks. But I admitted it reluctantly and with many reserves, remembering +all I had seen and heard of obscene rites and sculptures, of the +perpetual repetition of the names of God, of parasitic Brahmins and +self-torturing ascetics.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>What manner of man, then, was this Sri Ramakrishna? I turned the pages +and read:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The disciples were walking about the garden. M. walked by +himself at the cluster of five trees. It is about five in the +afternoon. Coming back to the verandah, north of the Master's +chamber, M. comes upon a strange sight. The Master is standing +still. Narendra is singing a hymn. He and three or four other +disciples are standing with the Master in their midst. M. is +charmed with their song. Never in his life has he heard a +sweeter voice. Looking at the Master, M. marvels and becomes +speechless. The Master stands motionless. His eyes are fixed. +It is hard to say whether he is breathing or not. This state of +ecstasy, says a disciple in low tones, is called Samadhi. M. +has never seen or heard of anything like this. He thinks to +himself, 'Is it possible that the thought of God can make a man +forget the world? How great must be his faith and love for God +who is thrown into such a state!'"</p></div> + +<p>"Yes," I said, "that is the Hindu ideal—ecstatic contemplation." +Something in me leapt to approve it; but the stronger pull was to +Hellenism and the West. "Go your way, Ramakrishna," I said, "but your +way is not mine. For me and my kind action not meditation; the temporal +not the eternal; the human not the ultra-divine; Socrates not +Ramakrishna!" But hardly had I said the words when I read on:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>"M. enters. Looking at him the Master laughs and laughs. He +cries out, 'Why, look! There he is again!' The boys all join in +the merriment. M. takes his seat, and the Master tells Narendra +and the other disciples what has made him laugh. He says:</p> + +<p>"'Once upon a time a small quantity of opium was given to a +certain peacock at four o'clock in the afternoon. Well, +punctually at four the next afternoon who should come in but +the selfsame peacock, longing for a repetition of the +favour—another dose of opium!'—(Laughter.)</p> + +<p>"M. sat watching the Master as he amused himself with the boys. +He kept up a running fire of chaff, and it seemed as if these +boys were his own age and he was playing with them. Peals of +laughter and brilliant flashes of humour follow upon one +another, calling to mind the image of a fair when the Joy of +the World is to be had for sale."</p></div> + +<p>I rubbed my eyes. Was this India or Athens? Is East East? Is West West? +Are there any opposites that exclude one another? Or is this +all-comprehensive Hinduism, this universal toleration, this refusal to +recognise ultimate antagonisms, this "mush," in a word, as my friends +would dub it—is this, after all, the truest and profoundest vision?</p> + +<p>And I read in my book:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>"M.'s egotism is now completely crushed. He thinks to himself: +What this God-man says is indeed perfectly true. What business +have I to go about preaching to others? Have I myself known +God? Do I love God? About God I know nothing. It would indeed +be the height of folly and vulgarity itself, of which I should +be ashamed, to think of teaching others! This is not +mathematics, or history, or literature; it is the science of +God! Yes, I see the force of the words of this holy man."</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.</i> Second Edition. Part 1. +Madras: Published by the Ramakrishna Mission. 1912.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> +<h3>IX<br /> +THE MONSTROUS REGIMEN OF WOMEN</h3> + + +<p>Here at Cape Comorin, at India's southernmost point, among the sands and +the cactuses and the palms rattling in the breeze, comes to us news of +the Franchise Bill and of militant suffragettes. And I reflect that in +this respect England is a "backward" country and Travancore an +"advanced" one. Women here—except the Brahmin women—are, and always +have been, politically and socially on an equality and more than an +equality with men. For this is one of the few civilised States—for +aught I know it is the only one—in which "matriarchy" still prevails. +That doesn't mean—though the word suggests it—that women govern, +though, in fact, the succession to the throne passes to women equally +with men. But it means that woman is the head of the family, and that +property follows her line, not the man's. All women own property equally +with men, and own it in their own right. The mother's property passes to +her children, but the father's passes to his mother's kin. The husband, +in fact, is not regarded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>as related to the wife. Relationship means +descent from a common mother, whereas descent from a common father is a +negligible fact, no doubt because formerly it was a questionable one. +Women administer their own property, and, as I am informed, administer +it more prudently than the men.</p> + +<p>Not only so; they have in marriage the superior position occupied by men +in the West. The Nair woman chooses her own husband; he comes to her +house, she does not go to his; and, till recently, she could dismiss him +as soon as she was tired of him. The law—man-made, no doubt!—has +recently altered this, and now mutual consent is required for a valid +divorce. Still the woman is, at least on this point, on an equality with +the man. And the heavens have not yet fallen. As to the vote, it is not +so important or so general here as at home. The people live under a +paternal monarchy "by right divine." The Rajah who consolidated the +kingdom, early in the eighteenth century, handed it over formally to the +god of the temple, and administers it in his name. Incidentally this +gave him access to temple revenues. It also makes his person sacred. So +much so that in a recent prison riot, when the convicts escaped and +marched to the police with their grievances, the Rajah had only to +appear and tell them to march back to prison, and they did so to a man, +and took their punishment. The government, it will be seen, is not by +votes. Still there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>are votes for local councils, and women have them +equally with men. Any other arrangement would have seemed merely +preposterous to the Nairs; and perhaps if any exclusion had been +contemplated it would have been of men rather than of women.</p> + +<p>Other incidental results follow from the equality of the sexes. The +early marriages which are the curse of India do not prevail among the +Nairs. Consequently the schooling of girls is continued later. And this +State holds the record in all India for female education. We visited a +school of over 600 girls, ranging from infancy to college age, and +certainly I never saw school-girls look happier, keener, or more alive. +Society, clearly, has not gone to pieces under "the monstrous regimen of +women." Travancore claims, probably with justice, to be the premier +native State; the most advanced, the most prosperous, the most happy. +Because of the position of women? Well, hardly. The climate is +delightful, the soil fertile, the natural resources considerable. Every +man sits under his own palm tree, and famine is unknown. The people, and +especially the children, are noticeably gay, in a land where gaiety is +not common. But one need not be a suffragette to hold that the equality +of the sexes is one element that contributes to its well-being, and to +feel that in this respect England lags far behind Travancore.</p> + +<p>Echoes of the suffrage controversy at home have led <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>me to dwell upon +this matter of the position of women. But, to be candid, it will not be +that that lingers in my mind when I look back upon my sojourn here. What +then? Perhaps a sea of palm leaves, viewed from the lighthouse top, +stretching beside the sea of blue waves; perhaps a sandy river bed, with +brown nude figures washing clothes in the shining pools; perhaps the +oiled and golden skins glistening in the sun; perhaps naked children +astride on their mothers' hips, or screaming with laughter as they race +the motor-car; perhaps the huge tusked elephant that barred our way for +a moment yesterday; perhaps the jungle teeming with hidden and menacing +life; perhaps the seashore and its tumbling waves. One studies +institutions, but one does not love them. Often one must wish that they +did not exist, or existed in such perfection that their existence might +be unperceived. Still, as institutions go, this, which regulates the +relations of men and women, is, I suppose, the most important. So from +the surf of the Arabian sea and the blaze of the Indian sun I send this +little object lesson.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> +<h3>X<br /> +THE BUDDHA AT BURUPUDUR</h3> + + +<p>To the north the cone of a volcano, rising sharp and black. To the east +another. South and west a jagged chain of hills. In the foreground +ricefields and cocoa palms. Everywhere intense green, untoned by grey; +and in the midst of it this strange erection. Seen from below and from a +distance it looks like a pyramid that has been pressed flat. In fact, it +is a series of terraces built round a low hill. Six of them are +rectangular; then come three that are circular; and on the highest of +these is a solid dome, crowned by a cube and a spire. Round the circular +terraces are set, close together, similar domes, but hollow, and pierced +with lights, through which is seen in each a seated Buddha. Seated +Buddhas, too, line the tops of the parapets that run round the lower +terraces. And these parapets are covered with sculpture in high relief. +One might fancy oneself walking round one of the ledges of Dante's +"Purgatorio" meditating instruction on the walls. Here the instruction +would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>be for the selfish and the cruel. For what is inscribed is the +legend and cult of the lord of tenderness. Much of it remains +undeciphered and unexplained. But on the second terrace is recorded, on +one side, the life of Sakya-Muni; on the other, his previous +incarnations. The latter, taken from the "Jatakas," are naïve and +charming apologues.</p> + +<p>For example: Once the Buddha lived upon earth as a hare. In order to +test him Indra came down from heaven in the guise of a traveller. +Exhausted and faint, he asked the animals for help. An otter brought +fish, a monkey fruit, a jackal a cup of milk. But the hare had nothing +to give. So he threw himself into a fire, that the wanderer might eat +his roasted flesh. Again: Once the Buddha lived upon earth as an +elephant. He was met by seven hundred travellers, lost and exhausted +with hunger. He told them where water would be found, and, near it, the +body of an elephant for food. Then, hastening to the spot, he flung +himself over a precipice, that he might provide the meal himself. Again: +Once the Buddha lived upon earth as a stag. A king, who was hunting him, +fell into a ravine. Whereupon the stag halted, descended, and helped him +home. All round the outer wall run these pictured lessons. And opposite +is shown the story of Sakya-Muni himself. We see the new-born child with +his feet on lotuses. We see the fatal encounter with poverty, sickness, +and death. We see the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>renunciation, the sojourn in the wilderness, the +attainment under the bo-tree, the preaching of the Truth. And all this +sculptured gospel seems to bring home to one, better than the volumes of +the learned, what Buddhism really meant to the masses of its followers. +It meant, surely, not the denial of the soul or of God, but that warm +impulse of pity and love that beats still in these tender and human +pictures. It meant not the hope or desire for extinction, but the +charming dream of thousands of lives, past and to come, in many forms, +many conditions, many diverse fates. The pessimism of the master is as +little likely as his high philosophy to have reached the mind or the +heart of the people. The whole history of Buddhism, indeed, shows that +it did not, and does not. What touched them in him was the saint and the +lover of animals and men. And this love it was that flowed in streams +over the world, leaving wherever it passed, in literature and art, in +pictures of flowers or mountains, in fables and poems and tales, the +trace of its warm and humanising flood.</p> + +<p>Still, there is the other Buddhism, the Buddhism of the thinker; his +theory of human life, its value and purpose. And it was this that filled +my mind later as I sat on the summit next to a solemn Buddha against the +setting sun. For a long time I was silent, meditating his doctrine. Then +I spoke of children, and he said, "They grow old." I spoke of strong +men, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>he said, "They grow weak." I spoke of their work and +achievement, and he said, "They die." The stars came out, and I spoke of +eternal law. He said, "One law concerns you—that which binds you to the +wheel of life." The moon rose, and I spoke of beauty. He said, "There is +one beauty—that of a soul redeemed from desire." Thereupon the West +stirred in me, and cried "No!" "Desire," it said, "is the heart and +essence of the world. It needs not and craves not extinction. It needs +and craves perfection. Youth passes; strength passes; life passes. Yes! +What of it? We have access to the youth, the strength, the life of the +world. Man is born to sorrow. Yes! But he feels it as tragedy and +redeems it. Not round life, not outside life, but through life is the +way. Desire more and more intense, because more and more pure; not +peace, but the plenitude of experience. Your foundation was false. You +thought man wanted rest. He does not. We at least do not, we of the +West. We want more labour; we want more stress; we want more passion. +Pain we accept, for it stings us into life. Strife we accept, for it +hardens us to strength We believe in action; we believe in desire. And +we believe that by them we shall attain." So the West broke out in me; +and I looked at him to see if he was moved. But the calm eye was +untroubled, unruffled the majestic brow, unperplexed the sweet, solemn +mouth. Secure in his Nirvana, he heard or he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>heard me not. He had +attained the life-in-death he sought. But I, I had not attained the life +in life. Unhelped by him, I must go my way. The East, perhaps, he had +understood. He had not understood the West.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> +<h3>XI<br /> +A MALAY THEATRE</h3> + + +<p>It seems to be a principle among shipping companies so to arrange their +connections that the traveller should be compelled to spend some days in +Singapore. We evaded this necessity by taking a trip to Sumatra, but +even so a day and a night remained to be disposed of. We devoted the +morning to a bathe and a lunch at the Sea View Hotel, and the afternoon +to the Botanical Gardens, where the most attractive flowers are the +children and the most interesting gardeners their Chinese nurses. There +remained the evening, and we asked about amusements. There was a +bioscope, of course; there is always a bioscope; we had found one even +in the tiny town of Medan, in Sumatra. There was also an opera company, +performing the "Pink Girl." We seemed to know all about her without +going to see her. Was there nothing else? Yes; a Malay theatre. That +sounded attractive. So we took the tram through the Chinese quarter, +among the "Ah Sins" and "Hup Chows," where every one was either a tailor +or a washerman, and got down at a row of red <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>lights. This was the +Alexandra Hall, and a bill informed us that the performers were the +Straits Opera Company. This dismayed us a little. Still, we paid our +dollars, and entered a dingy, dirty room, with a few Malays occupying +the back benches and a small group of Chinese women and children in +either balcony. We took our seats with half a dozen coloured aristocrats +in the front rows, and looked about us. We were the only Europeans. But, +to console us in our isolation, on either side of the proscenium was +painted a couple of Italians in the act of embracing as one only +embraces in opera. We glanced at our programme and saw that the play was +the "Moon Princess," and that Afrid, a genie, figured in the cast. It +was then, at least, Oriental, though it could hardly be Malay, and our +spirits rose. But the orchestra quickly damped them; there was a piano, +a violin, a 'cello, a clarionet, and a cornet, and from beginning to end +of the performance they were never in tune with themselves or with the +singers. And the music? It was sometimes Italian, sometimes Spanish, +never, as far as I could detect, Oriental, and always thoroughly and +frankly bad.</p> + +<p>No matter! The curtain rose and displayed a garden. The Prince entered. +He was dressed in mediæval Italian costume (a style of dress, be it said +once for all, which was adopted by the whole company). With gestures of +ecstatic astonishment he applied his nose to the paper roses. Then he +advanced and appeared <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>to sing, for his mouth moved; but the orchestra +drowned any notes he may have emitted. The song finished, he lay down +upon a couch and slept. Whereupon there entered an ugly little girl, in +a short white frock and black stockings and ribbons, with an expression +of fixed gloom upon her face, and began to move her feet and arms in a +parody of Oriental dancing. We thought at first that she was the Moon +Princess, and felt a pang of disappointment. But she turned out to be +the Spirit of Dreams; and presently she ushered in the real Princess, +with whom, on the spot, the Prince, unlike ourselves, became violently +enamoured. She vanished, and he woke to find her a vision. Despair of +the Prince; despair of the King; despair of the Queen, not unmixed with +rage, to judge from her voice and gestures. Consultation of an +astrologer. Flight of the Prince in search of his beloved. Universal +bewilderment and incompetence, such as may be witnessed any day in the +East when anything happens at all out of the ordinary way. At this point +enter the comic relief, in the form of woodcutters. I am inclined to +suppose, from the delight of the audience, that there was something +genuine here. But whatever it was we were unable to follow it. +Eventually the woodcutters met Afrid, whether by chance or design I +could not discover. At any rate, their reception was rough. To borrow +the words of the synopsis, "a big fight arose and they were thrown to +space"; but not till they had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>been pulled by the hair and ears, +throttled and pummelled, to the general satisfaction, for something like +half an hour.</p> + +<p>The next scenes were equally vigorous. The synopsis describes them thus: +"Several young princes went to Genie Janar, the father of the Moon +Princess, to demand her in marriage. Afrid, a genie, met the princes, +and, after having a row, they were all thrown away." The row was +peculiar. Afrid took them on one by one. The combatants walked round one +another, back to back, making feints in the air. Then the Prince got a +blow in, which Afrid pretended to feel. But suddenly, with a hoarse +laugh, he rushed again upon the foe, seized him by the throat or the +arm, and (I cannot improve on the phrase) "threw him away." After all +four princes were thus disposed of I left, being assured of a happy +ending by the account of the concluding scene: "The Prince then took the +Moon Princess to his father's kingdom, where he was married to her +amidst great rejoicings."</p> + +<p>Comment perhaps is superfluous. But as I went home in my rickshaw my +mind went back to those evenings in India when I had seen Indian boys +perform to Indian music dances and plays in honour of Krishna, and to +the Bengal village where the assembled inhabitants had sung us hymns +composed by their native saint. And I remembered that everywhere, in +Egypt, in India, in Java, in Sumatra, in Japan, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>gramophone +harmonium is displacing the native instruments; and that the +bioscope—that great instrument of education—is familiarising the +peasants of the East with all that is most vulgar and most shoddy in the +humour and sentiment of the West.</p> + +<p>The Westernising of the East must come, no doubt, and ought to come. But +in the process what by-products of waste, or worse! Once, surely, there +must have been a genuine "Malay theatre." This is what Europe has made +of it.</p> + + +<hr /> +<h2><small>PART II</small><br /> +CHINA</h2> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p> +<h3>I<br /> +FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA</h3> + + +<p>Some recent travellers have expressed disappointment or even disgust +with what they saw or learned or guessed of China. My own first +impression is quite contrary. The climate, it is true, for the moment, +inclines one to gloomy views. An icy wind, a black sky, a cold drizzle. +March in England could hardly do worse. But in Canton one almost forgets +all that. Imagine a maze of narrow streets, more confused and confusing +than Venice; high houses (except in the old city); and hanging parallel +to these, in long, vertical lines, flags and wooden signs inscribed with +huge Chinese characters, gold on black, gold on red, red or blue on +white, a blaze of colour; and under it, pouring in a ceaseless stream, +yellow faces, black heads, blue jackets and trousers, all on foot or +borne on chairs, not a cart or carriage, rarely a pony, nobody crowding, +nobody hustling or jostling, an even flow of cheerful humanity, +inexhaustible, imperturbable, convincing one at first sight of the truth +of all one has heard of the order, independence, and vigour of this +extraordinary people. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>The shops are high and spacious, level with the +street, not, as in India, raised on little platforms; and commonly, +within, they are cut across by a kind of arch elaborately carved and +blazing with gold. Every trade may be seen plying—jade-cutters, +cloth-rollers, weavers, ring-makers, rice-pounders, a thousand others. +Whole animals, roasted, hang before the butchers' shops, ducks, +pigs—even we saw a skinned tiger! The interest is inexhaustible; and +one is lucky if one does not return with a light purse and a heavy +burden of forged curios. Even the American tourist, so painfully in +evidence at the hotel, is lost, drowned in this native sea. He passes in +his chair; but, like oneself, he is only a drop in the ocean. Canton is +China, as Benares is India. And that conjunction of ideas set me +thinking. To come from India to China is like waking from a dream. Often +in India I felt that I was in an enchanted land. Melancholy, monotony, +austerity; a sense as of perennial frost, spite of the light and heat; a +lost region peopled with visionary forms; a purgatory of souls doing +penance till the hour of deliverance shall strike; a limbo, lovely but +phantasmal, unearthly, over-earthly—that is the kind of impression +India left on my mind. I reach China, awake, and rub my eyes. This, of +course, is the real world. This is every-day. Good temper, industry, +intelligence. Nothing abnormal or overstrained. The natural man, +working, marrying, begetting and rearing children, growing middle-aged, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>growing old, dying—and that is all. Here it is broad daylight; but in +India, moon or stars, or a subtler gleam from some higher heaven. +Recall, for example, Benares—the fantastic buildings rising and falling +like a sea, the stairs running up to infinity, the sacred river, the +sages meditating on its banks, the sacrificial ablutions, the squealing +temple-pipes, and, in the midst of this, columns of smoke, as the body +returns to the elements and the soul to God. This way of disposing of +the dead, when the first shock is over, lingers in the mind as something +eminently religious. Death and dissolution take place in the midst of +life, for death is no more a mystery than life. In the open air, in the +press of men, the soul takes flight. She is no stranger, for everything +is soul—houses, trees, men, the elements into which the body is +resolved. Death is not annihilation, it is change of form; and through +all changes of form the essence persists.</p> + +<p>But now turn back to Canton. We pass the shops of the coffin-makers. We +linger. But "No stop," says our guide; "better coffins soon." "Soon" is +what the guide-books call the "City of the Dead." A number of little +chapels; and laid in each a great lacquered coffin in which the dead man +lives. I say "lives" advisedly, for there is set for his use a table and +a chair, and every morning he is provided with a cup of tea. A bunch of +paper, yellow and white, symbolises his money; and perhaps a couple of +figures represent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>attendants. There he lives, quite simply and +naturally as he had always lived, until the proper time and place is +discovered in which he may be buried. It may be months, it may be, or +rather, might have been, years; for I am told that a reforming +Government has limited the time to six months. And after burial? Why, +presumably he lives still. But not with the life of the universal soul. +Oh no! There have been mystics in China, but the Chinese are not +mystical. What he was he still is, an eating and drinking creature, and, +one might even conjecture, a snob. For if one visits the family chapel +of the Changs—another of the sights of Canton—one sees ranged round +the walls hundreds of little tablets, painted green and inscribed in +gold. These are the memorials of the deceased. And they are arranged in +three classes, those who pay most being in the first and those who pay +least in the third. One can even reserve one's place—first, second, or +third—while one is still alive, by a white tablet. You die, and the +green is substituted. And so, while you yet live, you may secure your +social status after death. How—how British! Yes, the word is out; and I +venture to record a suspicion that has long been maturing in my mind. +The Chinese are not only Western; among the Western they are English. +Their minds move as ours do; they are practical, sensible, reasonable. +And that is why—as it would seem—they have more sympathy with +Englishmen, if not with the English Government, than <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>with any other +Westerners. East may be East and West West, though I very much doubt it. +But if there be any truth in the aphorism, we must define our terms. The +East must be confined to India, and China included in the West. That as +a preliminary correction. I say nothing yet about Japan. But I shall +have more to say, I hope, about China.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> +<h3>II<br /> +NANKING</h3> + + +<p>The Chinese, one is still told, cannot and will not change. On the other +hand, Professor Ross writes a book entitled <i>The Changing Chinese</i>. And +anyone may see that the Chinese educated abroad are transformed, at any +rate externally, out of all recognition. In Canton I met some of the +officials of the new Government; and found them, to the outward sense, +pure Americans. The dress, the manners, the accent, the intellectual +outfit—all complete! Whether, in some mysterious sense, they remain +Chinese at the core I do not presume to affirm or deny. But an external +transformation so complete must imply <i>some</i> inward change. Foreign +residents in China deplore the foreign-educated product. I have met some +who almost gnash their teeth at "young China." But this seems rather +hard on China. For nearly a century foreigners have been exhorting her, +at the point of the bayonet, to adopt Western ways and Western ideas. +And when she begins to do so, the same people turn round and accuse her +of unpardonable levity, and treachery to her own <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>traditions. What <i>do</i> +foreigners want? the Chinese may well ask. I am afraid the true answer +is, that they want nothing but concessions, interest on loans, and trade +profits, at all and every cost to China.</p> + +<p>But I must not deviate into politics. What suggested this train of +thought was the student-guide supplied me at Nanking by the American +missionary college. There he was, complete American; and, I fear I must +add, boring as only Americans can bore. Still, he showed me Nanking, and +Nanking is worth seeing, though the interest of it is somewhat tragic. A +wall 20 to 40 feet thick, 40 to 90 feet high, and 22 miles in circuit (I +take these figures on trust) encloses an area larger than that of any +other Chinese city. But the greater part of this area is fields and +ruins. You pass through the city gate in the train, and find yourself in +the country. You alight, and you are still in the country. A carriage +takes you, in time, to the squalid village, or series of villages, where +are housed the 350,000 inhabitants of modern Nanking. Among them are +quartered the khaki-clad soldiers of new China, the new national flag +draped at the gate of their barracks. Meantime old China swarms, +unregenerate, in the narrow little streets, chaffering, chattering, +laughing in its rags as though there had never been a siege, a +surrender, and a revolution. Beggars display their stumps and their +sores, grovelling on the ground like brutes. Ragged children run for +miles beside the carriage, singing for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>alms; and stop at last, +laughing, as though it had been a good joke to run so far and get +nothing for it. One monument in all this scene of squalor arrests +attention—the now disused examination hall. It is a kind of +rabbit-warren of tiny cells, six feet deep, four feet broad, and six +feet high; row upon row of them, opening on narrow unroofed corridors; +no doors now, nor, I should suppose, at any time, for it would be +impossible to breathe in these boxes if they had lids. Here, for a week +or a fortnight, the candidates sat and excogitated, unable to lie down +at night, sleeping, if they could, in their chairs. And no wonder if, +every now and again, one of them incontinently died and was hauled out, +a corpse, through a hole in the wall; or went mad and ran amuck among +examiners and examinees. For centuries, as is well known, this system +selected the rulers of China; and whole lives, from boyhood to extreme +old age, were spent in preparing for the examinations. Now all this is +abolished; and some people appear to regret it. Once more, what <i>do</i> the +foreigners want?</p> + +<p>The old imperial city, where once the Ming dynasty reigned, was +destroyed in the Taiping Rebellion. The Tartar city, where before the +revolution 3000 mandarins lived on their pensions, was burnt in the +siege of 1911. Of these cities nothing remains but their huge walls and +gates and the ruins of their houses. The principal interest of Nanking, +the so-called "Ming tombs," lies outside the walls. And the interest is +not the tombs, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>but the road to them. It is lined by huge figures carved +out of monoliths. Brutes first—lions, camels, elephants, horses, a pair +of each lying down and a pair standing; then human figures, military and +civil officers. What they symbolise I cannot tell. They are said to +guard the road. And very impressive they are in the solitude. Not so +what they lead to, which is merely a hill, artificial, I suppose, piled +on a foundation of stone. Once, my guide informed me, there was a door +giving admission; and within, a complete house, with all its furniture, +in stone. But the door is sealed, and for centuries no one has explored +the interior. I suggested excavation, but was told the superstition of +the inhabitants forbade it. "Besides," said my guide, "the Chinese are +not curious." I wonder? Whether or no they are curious, they are +certainly superstitious. Apropos, a gunboat ran aground on the Yangtse. +The river was falling, and there seemed no chance of getting off for +months. The officers made up their minds to it, and fraternised with the +priest of a temple on the bank. The priest one day asked for a +photograph of the boat. They gave him one, and he asked them to dinner. +After dinner he solemnly burnt the photograph to his god. And—"would +you believe it?"—next day a freshet came down and set the vessel +afloat. Which shows how superstitions are generated and maintained in a +world so little subject to law, on the surface of it, as ours.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>My anecdote has brought me to the Yangtse, and it is on a river-boat +that I write. Hour after hour there passes by the panorama of hills and +plain, of green wheat and yellow rape, of the great flood with its +flocks of wild duck, of fishers' cabins on the shore and mud-built +thatched huts, of junks with bamboo-threaded sails skimming on flat +bottoms, of high cliffs with monasteries perched on perilous ledges, of +changing light and shade, of burning sunset and the stars. Travelling by +river is the best of all travelling—smooth, slow, quiet, and soothingly +contemplative. All China, I am informed by some pessimists, is in a +state of anarchy, actual or latent. It may be. But it is difficult to +believe it among these primitive industrious people living and working +as they have lived and worked for 4000 years. Any other country, I +suppose, in such a crisis as the present would be seething with civil +war. But China? When one puts the point to the foreigner who has been +talking of anarchy he says, "Ah! but the Chinese are so peaceable! They +don't mind whether there's a Government or no. They just go on without +it!" Exactly! That is the wonderful thing. But even that seems to annoy +the foreigner. Once more, what <i>does</i> he want? I give it up.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> +<h3>III<br /> +IN THE YANGTSE GORGES</h3> + + +<p>At the upper end of the gorge poetically named "Ox Liver and Horse +Lungs" I watched the steamboat smoking and splashing up stream. She had +traversed in a few hours the distance I, in my houseboat, had taken +three days to cover; and certainly she is much more convenient and much +more comfortable. That, however, is not necessarily an advantage. What +may be urged with some force is that travelling by steamboat is more +humane. It dispenses with human labour of a peculiarly dangerous and +strenuous kind. Twenty-eight boatmen are attached to my single person. A +big junk may have a crew of two hundred. When the wind is not fair they +must row or tow; and towing is not like towing along the Thames! +Suddenly you see the men leap out and swarm up a precipice. Presently +they appear high above, creeping with the line along a ledge of rock. +And your "boy" remarks nonchalantly, "Plenty coolie fall here. Too high +place." Or they are clambering over boulders, one or two told off to +disentangle the line wherever it catches. Or they are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>struggling along +a greasy slope, their bare feet gripping the mud, hardly able to advance +a step or even to hold their own. As a labour-saving machine one must +welcome the advent of the steamboat, as one is constrained to welcome +even that of the motor-omnibus. But from the traveller's point of view +it is different. Railways and steamboats enable more of us to travel, +and to travel farther, in space. But in experience he travels the +farthest who travels the slowest. A mediæval student or apprentice +walking through Europe on foot really did see the world. A modern +tourist sees nothing but the inside of hotels. Unless, that is, he +chooses to walk, or ride, or even cycle. Then it is different. Then he +begins to see. As now I, from my houseboat, begin to see China. Not +profoundly, of course, but somehow intimately. For instance, while my +crew eat their midday rice, I stroll up to the neighbouring village. +Contrary to all I have been taught to expect, I find it charming, +picturesque, not so dirty after all, not so squalid, not so poor. The +people, too, who, one thought, would insult or mob the foreigner, either +take no notice, or, if you greet them, respond in the friendliest way. +They may, of course, be explaining to one another that you are a foreign +devil, but nothing in their countenance or manner suggests it. The +children are far better-mannered than in most European countries. They +may follow you, and chatter and laugh; but at least they have not learnt +to beg. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>Curiosity they have, and gaiety, but I detect no sign of +hostility. I walk down the long street, with its shops and roomy +houses—far roomier and more prosperous-looking than in most Indian +villages—and come to the temple. Smilingly I am invited to enter. There +are no mysteries in Chinese religion. I begin to wonder, indeed, whether +there is any religion left. For everywhere I find the temples and +monasteries either deserted or turned into schools or barracks. This one +is deserted. It is like a series of lumber-rooms, full of dusty idols. +The idols were once gaudy, brightly painted "to look like life," with +beards and whiskers of real hair. But now their splendour is dimmed. The +demons scowl to no purpose. To no purpose the dragons coil. No +trespasser threatens the god behind his dingy curtains. In one chamber +only a priest kneels before the shrine and chants out of a book while he +taps a bronze vessel with a little hammer. Else, solitude, vacuity, and +silence. Is he Buddhist or Taoist? I have no language in which to ask. I +can only accept with mute gestures the dusty seat he offers and the cup +of lukewarm tea. What has happened to religion? So far as I can make +out, something like the "disestablishment of the Church." The Republic +has been at work; and in the next village I see what it has been doing. +For there the temple is converted into a school. Delightedly the +scholars show me round. On the outside wall, for him who runs to read, +are scored up long <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>addition sums in our Western figures. Inside, the +walls are hung with drawings of birds and beasts, of the human skeleton +and organs, even of bacteria! There are maps of China and of the world. +The children even produce in triumph an English reading-book, though I +must confess they do not seem to have profited by it much. Still, they +can say "cat" when you show them a picture of the creature; which is +more than I could do in Chinese. And China does not change? Wait a +generation! This, remember, is a tiny village in the heart of the +country, more than 1000 miles from the coast. And this is happening all +over the Celestial Empire, I suppose. I start to return to my boat, but +have not gone a quarter of a mile before I hear a shout, and looking +back find half the school following me and escorting their teacher, who +speaks English. He regrets to have missed my visit; will I not return +and let him show me the school? I excuse myself, and he walks with me to +the boat, making what conversation he can. One remark I remember—"China +a good place now; China a republic." And I thought, as we exchanged +cards, that he represented the Republic more essentially than the +politicians whom foreigners so severely criticise. Anyhow, Republic or +no, China is being transformed. And there is something other than +steamboats to attest it.</p> + +<p>Which brings me back to my starting-point. On the steamboat you have no +adventures. But on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>houseboat you do. For instance, the other day +the rope broke as we were towing up a rapid, and down we dashed, turning +round and round, and annihilating in five minutes the labour of an hour. +I was afraid, I confess; but the boatmen took it as a matter of course. +In some way, incomprehensible to me, they got us into the bank, and, +looking up, the first thing I saw was an embankment in construction—the +railway from Ichang to Chungking. When it is finished we shall go by +train—not even by steamboat,—and so see nothing except tunnels. +Certainly, we shall not be compelled to pass the night in a small +village; nor permitted to see the sunset behind these lovely hills and +the moon rising over the river between the cliffs of the gorge. Nor +shall we then be delayed, as I was yesterday, till the water should run +down, and so tempted to walk into the country. I made for a side valley, +forded a red torrent, and found myself among fields and orchards; green +of mulberries, green of fruit trees, green of young corn; and above, the +purple hills, with all their bony structure showing under the skin of +soil. I followed a high path, greeted by the peasants I met with a +charming smile and that delightful gesture whereby, instead of shaking +your hand, they clasp theirs and shake them <i>at</i> you. I came at last to +a solitary place, and, sitting down there, watched the evening light on +the mountains. I watched, and they seemed to be saying something. What?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Rocks that are bones, earth that is flesh, what, what do you mean<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eyeing me silently?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Streams that are voices, what, what do you say?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You are pouring an ocean into a cup. Yet pour, that all it can hold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May at least be water of yours."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>At dusk I got back to the river, and found that a wind had sprung up and +the junks were trying to pass the rapid. There must have been fifty of +them crowded together. They could only pass one by one; and the scene +was pandemonium. The Chinese are even noisier than the Italians, and +present the same appearance of confusion. But in some mysterious way an +order is always getting evolved. On this occasion it seemed to be +perfectly understood which boat should go first. And presently there she +was, in mid-rapid, apparently not advancing an inch, the ropes held taut +from a causeway a quarter of a mile off. At last the strain suddenly +ceased, and she moved quickly up stream. Another followed. Then it was +dark. And we had to pass the night, after all, tossing uneasily in the +rough water. Soon after dawn we started again. I went across to the +causeway, and watched the trackers at work—twenty each on two ropes, +hardly advancing a step in five minutes. Then the boat's head swung into +shore, the tension ceased; something had happened. I waited half an hour +or so. "Nothing doing," in the expressive American phrase. Then I went +back. We had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>sprung a leak, and my cabin was converted into a +swimming-bath. Another hour or so repairing this. Then the rope had to +be brought back and attached again. At last we started for the second +time, and in half an hour got safely through the hundred yards of racing +waters into the bank above. At ten I got my breakfast, and we started to +sail with a fair wind. It dropped. Rain came on. My crew (as always in +that conjuncture) put up their awning and struck work. So here we are at +1 <small>P.M.</small>, in a heavy thunder-shower, a mile from the place we tried to +leave at six o'clock this morning. This is the ancient method of +travelling—four thousand years old, I suppose. It is very inconvenient! +Oh, yes—BUT!——</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> +<h3>IV<br /> +PEKIN</h3> + + +<p>Professor Giles tells us, no doubt truly, that the Chinese are not a +religious nation. No nation, I think, ever was, unless it be the +Indians. But religious impulses sweep over nations and pass away, +leaving deposits—rituals, priesthoods, and temples. Such an impulse +once swept over China, in the form of Buddhism; and I am now visiting +its deposit in the neighbourhood of Pekin. Scattered over the hills to +the west of the city are a number of monastery temples. Some are +deserted; some are let as villas to Europeans; some, like the one where +I am staying, have still their complement of monks—in this temple, I am +told, some three to four hundred. But neither here nor anywhere have I +seen anything that suggests vitality in the religion. I entered one of +the temples yesterday at dusk and watched the monks chanting and +processing round a shrine from which loomed in the shadow a gigantic +bronze-gold Buddha. They began to giggle like children at the entrance +of the foreigner and never took their eyes off us. Later, individual +monks came running <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>round the shrines, beating a gong as though to call +the attention of the deity, and shouting a few words of perfunctory +praise or prayer. Irreverence more complete I have not seen even in +Italy, nor beggary more shameless. Such is the latter end of the gospel +of Buddha in China. It seems better that he should sit deserted in his +Indian caves than be dishonoured by such mummeries.</p> + +<p>But once it must have been otherwise. Once this religion was alive. And +then it was that men chose these exquisite sites for contemplation. The +Chinese Buddhists had clearly the same sense for the beauty of nature +that the Italian Franciscans had. In secluded woods and copses their +temples nestle, courts and terraces commanding superb views over the +great plain to Pekin. The architecture is delicate and lovely; tiled +roofs, green or gold or grey, cornices elaborately carved and painted in +lovely harmonies of blue and green; fine trees religiously preserved; +the whole building so planned and set as to enhance, not destroy, the +lines and colour of the landscape. To wander from one of these temples +to another, to rest in them in the heat of the day and sleep in them at +night, is to taste a form of travel impossible in Europe now, though +familiar enough there in the Middle Ages. Specially delightful is it to +come at dusk upon a temple apparently deserted; to hear the bell tinkle +as the wind moves it; to enter a dusky hall and start to see <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>in a dark +recess huge figures, fierce faces, glimmering maces and swords that seem +to threaten the impious intruder.</p> + +<p>This morning there was a festival, and the people from the country +crowded into the temple. Very bright and gay they looked in their gala +clothes. The women especially were charming; painted, it is true, but +painted quite frankly, to better nature, not to imitate her. Their +cheeks were like peaches or apples, and their dresses correspondingly +gay. Why they had come did not appear; not, apparently, to worship, for +their mood was anything but religious. Some perhaps came to carry away a +little porcelain boy or girl as guarantee of a baby to come. For the +Chinese, by appropriate rites, can determine the sex of a child—a +secret unknown as yet to the doctors of Europe! Some, perhaps, came to +cure their eyes, and will leave at the shrine a picture on linen of the +organs affected. Some are merely there for a jaunt, to see the sights +and the country. We saw a group on their way home, climbing a steep hill +for no apparent purpose except to look at the view. What English +agricultural labourer would do as much? But the Chinese are not +"agricultural labourers"; they are independent peasants; and a people so +gay, so friendly, so well-mannered and self-respecting I have found +nowhere else in the world.</p> + +<p>The country round Pekin has the beauty we associate with Italy. First +the plain, with its fresh spring green, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>its dusty paths, its grey and +orange villages, its cypress groves, its pagodas, its memorial slabs. +Then the hills, swimming in amethyst, bare as those of Umbria, fine and +clean in colour and form. For this beauty I was unprepared. I have even +read that there is no natural beauty in China. And I was unprepared for +Pekin too. How can I describe it? At this time of year, seen from above, +it is like an immense green park. You mount the tremendous wall, 40 feet +high, 14 miles round, as broad at the top as a London street, and you +look over a sea of spring-green tree-tops, from which emerge the +orange-gold roofs of palaces and temples. You descend, and find the +great roads laid out by Kubla Khan, running north and south, east and +west, and thick, as the case may be, with dust or mud; and opening out +of them a maze of streets and lanes, one-storeyed houses, grey walls and +roofs, shop fronts all ablaze with gilt carving, all trades plying, all +goods selling, rickshaws, mule-carts canopied with blue, swarming +pedestrians, eight hundred thousand people scurrying like ants in this +gigantic framework of Cyclopean walls and gates. Never was a medley of +greatness and squalor more strange and impressive. One quarter only is +commonplace, that of the Legations. There is the Wagon-lits Hotel, with +its cosmopolitan stream of Chinese politicians, European tourists, +concession-hunters, and the like. There are the Americans, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>occupying +and guarding the great north gate, and playing baseball in its +precincts. There are the Germans, the Dutch, the French, the Italians, +the Russians, the Japanese; and there, in a magnificent Chinese palace, +are the British, girt by that famous wall of the siege on which they +have characteristically written "Lest we forget!" Forget what? The one +or two children who died in the Legation, and the one or two men who +were killed? Or the wholesale massacre, robbery, and devastation which +followed when the siege was relieved? This latter, I fear, the Chinese +are not likely to forget soon. Yet it would be better if they could. And +better if the Europeans could remember much that they forget—could +remember that they forced their presence and their trade on China +against her will; that their treaties were extorted by force, and their +loans imposed by force, since they exacted from China what are +ironically called "indemnities" which she could not pay except by +borrowing from those who were robbing her. If Europeans could remember +and realise these facts they would perhaps cease to complain that China +continues to evade their demands by the only weapon of the +weak—cunning. When you have knocked a man down, trampled on him, and +picked his pocket, you can hardly expect him to enter into social +relations with you merely because you pick him up and, retaining his +property, propose that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>you should now be friends and begin to do +business. The obliquity of vision of the European residents on all these +points is extraordinary. They cannot see that wrong has been done, and +that wrong engenders wrong. They repeat comfortable formulæ about the +duplicity and evasiveness of the Chinese; they charge them with +dishonesty at the very moment that they are dismembering their country; +they attach intolerable conditions to their loans, and then complain if +their victims attempt to find accommodation elsewhere. Of all the Powers +the United States alone have shown some generosity and fairness, and +they are reaping their reward in the confidence of Young China. The +Americans had the intelligence to devote some part of the excessive +indemnity they exacted after the Boxer riots to educating Chinese +students in America. Hundreds of these young men are now returned to +China, with the friendliest feeling to America, and, naturally, anxious +to develop political and commercial relations with her rather than with +other Powers. British trade may suffer because British policy has been +less generous. But British trade, I suppose, would suffer in any case. +For the British continue to maintain their ignorance and contempt of +China and all things Chinese, while Germans and Japanese are travelling +and studying indefatigably all over the country. "We see too much of +things Chinese!" was the amazing remark made to me by a business man in +Shanghai. Too <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>much! They see nothing at all, and want to see nothing. +They live in the treaty ports, dine, dance, play tennis, race. China is +in birth-throes, and they know and care nothing. A future in China is +hardly for them.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p> +<h3>V<br /> +THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD</h3> + + +<p>To write from China about the Englishman may seem an odd choice. But to +see him abroad is to see him afresh. At home he is the air one breathes; +one is unaware of his qualities. Against a background of other races you +suddenly perceive him, and can estimate him—fallaciously or no—as you +estimate foreigners.</p> + +<p>So seen the Englishman appears as the eternal school-boy. I mean no +insult; I mean to express his qualities as well as his defects. He has +the pluck, the zest, the sense of fair play, the public spirit of our +great schools. He has also their narrowness and their levity. Enter his +office, and you will find him not hurried or worried, not scheming, +skimping, or hustling, but cheery, genial, detached, with an air of +playing at work. As likely as not, in a quarter of an hour he will have +asked you round to the club and offered you a whisky and soda. Dine with +him, and the talk will turn on golf or racing, on shooting, fishing, and +the gymkhana. Or, if you wish to divert it, you must ask him definite +questions about matters of fact. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>Probably you will get precise and +intelligent replies. But if you put a general question he will flounder +resentfully; and if you generalise yourself you will see him dismissing +you as a windbag. Of the religion, the politics, the manners and customs +of the country in which he lives he will know and care nothing, except +so far as they may touch his affairs. He will never, if he can help it, +leave the limits of the foreign settlement. Physically he oscillates +between his home, his office, the club, and the racecourse; mentally, +between his business and sport. On all general topics his opinions are +second or third hand. They are the ghosts of old prejudices imported +years ago from England, or taken up unexamined from the English +community abroad. And these opinions pass from hand to hand till they +are as similar as pebbles on the shore. In an hour or so you will have +acquired the whole stock of ideas current in the foreign community +throughout a continent. Your only hope of new light is in particular +instances and illustrations. And these, of course, may be had for the +asking.</p> + +<p>But the Englishman abroad in some points is the Englishman at his best. +For he is or has been a pioneer, at any rate in China. And pioneering +brings out his most characteristic qualities. He loves to decide +everything on his own judgment, on the spur of the moment, directly on +the immediate fact, and in disregard of remoter contingencies and +possibilities. He needs adventure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> to bring out his powers, and only +really takes to business when business is something of a "lark." To +combine the functions of a trader with those of an explorer, a soldier, +and a diplomat is what he really enjoys. So, all over the world, he +opens the ways, and others come in to reap the fruit of his labours. +This is true in things intellectual as in things practical. In science, +too, he is a pioneer. Modern archæology was founded by English +travellers. Darwin and Wallace and Galton in their youth pursued +adventure as much as knowledge. When the era of routine arrives, when +laboratory work succeeds to field work, the Englishman is apt to retire +and leave the job to the German. The Englishman, one might say, "larks" +into achievement, the German "grinds" into it. The one, accordingly, is +free-living, genial, generous, careless; the other laborious, exact, +routine-ridden. It is hard for an Englishman to be a pedant; it is not +easy for a German to be anything else. For philosophy no man has less +capacity than the Englishman. He does not understand even how such +questions can be put, still less how anyone can pretend to answer them. +The philosopher wants to know whether, how, and why life ought to be +lived before he will consent to live it. The Englishman just lives +ahead, not aware that there is a problem; or convinced that, if there is +one, it will only be solved "by walking." The philosopher proceeds from +the abstract to the concrete. The Englishman starts with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>the concrete, +and may or, more probably, may not arrive at the abstract. No general +rules are of any use to him except such as he may have elaborated for +himself out of his own experience. That is why he mistrusts education. +For education teaches how to think in general, and that isn't what he +wants or believes in. So, when he gets into affairs, he discards all his +training and starts again at the beginning, learning to think, if he +ever does learn it, over his own particular job. And his own way, he +opines, must be the right way for every one. Hence his contempt and even +indignation for individuals or nations who are moved by "ideas." At this +moment his annoyance with the leaders of "Young China" is provoked +largely by the fact that they are proceeding on general notions of how a +nation should be governed and organised, instead of starting with the +particularities of their own society, and trying to mend it piece by +piece and from hand to mouth. Before they make a Constitution, he +thinks, they ought to make roads; and before they draw up codes, to +extirpate consumption. The conclusion lies near at hand, and I have +heard it drawn—"What they want is a few centuries of British rule." +And, indeed, it is curious how constantly the Englishman abroad is +opposed, in the case of other nations, to all the institutions and +principles he is supposed to be proud of at home. Partly, no doubt, this +is due to his secret or avowed belief that the whole world ought to be +governed despotically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> by the English. But partly it is because he does +not believe that the results the English have achieved can be achieved +in any other way than theirs. They arrived at them without intention or +foresight, by a series of detached steps, each taken without prescience +of the one that would follow. So, and so only, can other nations arrive +at them. He does not believe in short cuts, nor in learning by the +experience of others. And so the watchwords "Liberty," "Justice," +"Constitution," so dear to him at home, leave him cold abroad. Or, +rather, they make him very warm, but warm not with zeal but with +irritation.</p> + +<p>Never was such a pourer of cold water on other people's enthusiasms. He +cannot endure the profession that a man is moved by high motives. His +annoyance, for example, with the "anti-opium" movement is not due to the +fact that he supports the importation into China of Indian opium. Very +commonly he does not. But the movement is an "agitation" (dreadful +word!). It is "got up" by missionaries. It purports to be based on moral +grounds, and he suspects everything that so purports. Not that he is not +himself moved by moral considerations. Almost invariably he is. But he +will never admit it for himself, and he deeply suspects it in others. +The words "hypocrite," "humbug," "sentimentalist" spring readily to his +lips. But let him work off his steam, sit quiet and wait, and you will +find, often enough, that he has arrived at the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>conclusion as the +"sentimentalist"—only, of course, for quite different reasons! For +intellect he has little use, except so far as it issues in practical +results. He will forgive a man for being intelligent if he makes a +fortune, but hardly otherwise. Still, he has a queer, half-contemptuous +admiration for a definite intellectual accomplishment which he knows it +is hard to acquire and is not sure he could acquire himself. That, for +instance, is his attitude to those who know Chinese. A "sinologue," he +will tell you, must be an imbecile, for no one but a fool would give so +much time to a study so unprofitable. Still, in a way, he is proud of +the sinologue—as a public school is proud of a boy so clever as to +verge upon insanity, or a village is proud of the village idiot. +Something of the same feeling, I sometimes think, underlies his respect +for Shakspere. "If you want that kind of thing," he seems to say to the +foreigner, "and it's the kind of thing you <i>would</i> want, <i>we</i> can do it, +you see, better than you can!"</p> + +<p>So with art. He is never a connoisseur, but he is often a collector. +Partly, no doubt, because there is money in it, but that is a secondary +consideration. Mainly because collecting and collectors appeal to his +sporting instinct. His knowledge about his collection will be precise +and definite, whether it be postage stamps or pictures. He will know all +about it, except its æsthetic value. That he cannot know, for he cannot +see it. He has the <i>flair</i> of the dealer, not the perception <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>of the +amateur. And he does not know or believe that there is any distinction +between them.</p> + +<p>But these, from his point of view, are trifles. What matters is that he +has pre-eminently the virtues of active life. He is fair-minded, and +this, oddly, in spite of his difficulty in seeing another man's point of +view. When he <i>does</i> see it he respects it. Whereas nimbler-witted +nations see it only to circumvent and cheat it. He is honest; as honest, +at least, as the conditions of modern business permit. He hates bad +work, even when, for the moment, bad work pays. He hates skimping and +paring. And these qualities of his make it hard for him to compete with +rivals less scrupulous and less generous. He is kind-hearted—much more +so than he cares to admit. And at the bottom of all his qualities he has +the sense of duty. He will shoulder loyally all the obligations he has +undertaken to his country, to his family, to his employer, to his +employees. The sense of duty, indeed, one might say with truth, is his +religion. For on the rare occasions on which he can be persuaded to +broach such themes you will find, I think, at the bottom of his mind +that what he believes in is Something, somehow, somewhere, in the +universe, which helps him, and which he is helping, when he does right. +There must, he feels, be some sense in life. And what sense would there +be if duty were nonsense?</p> + +<p>Poets, artists, philosophers can never be at home with the Englishman. +His qualities and his defects <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>alike are alien to them. In his company +they live as in prison, for it is not an air in which wings can soar. +But for solid walking on the ground he has not his equal. The phrase +"Solvitur ambulando" must surely have been coined for him. And no doubt +on his road he has passed, and will pass again, the wrecks of many a +flying-machine.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p> +<h3>VI<br /> +CHINA IN TRANSITION</h3> + + +<p>The Chinese Revolution has proceeded, so far, with less disturbance and +bloodshed than any great revolution known to history. There has been +little serious fighting and little serious disorder; nothing comparable +to that which accompanied, for instance, the French Revolution of 1789. +And this, no doubt, is due to the fact that the Chinese are alone among +nations of the earth in detesting violence and cultivating reason. Their +instinct is always to compromise and save everybody's face. And this is +the main reason why Westerners despise them. The Chinese, they aver, +have "no guts." And when hard pressed as to the policy of the Western +Powers in China, they will sometimes quite frankly confess that they +consider the West has benefited China by teaching her the use of force. +That this should be the main contribution of Christian to Pagan +civilisation is one of the ironies of history. But it is part of the +greater irony which gave the Christian faith to precisely those nations +whose fundamental instincts and convictions were and are in radical +antagonism to its teaching.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>Though, however, it is broadly true that the Chinese have relied on +reason and justice in a way and to a degree which is inconceivable in +the West, they have not been without their share of original sin. +Violence, anarchy, and corruption have played a part in their history, +though a less part than in the history of most countries. And these +forces have been specially evident in that department to which +Westerners are apt to pay the greatest attention—in the department of +government. Government has always been less important in China than in +the Western world; it has always been rudimentary in its organisation; +and for centuries it has been incompetent and corrupt. Of this +corruption Westerners, it is true, make more than they fairly should. +China is no more corrupt (to say the least) than the United States or +Italy or France, or than England was in the eighteenth century. And much +that is called corruption is recognised and established "squeeze," +necessary, and understood to be necessary, to supplement the inadequate +salaries of officials. A Chinese official is corrupt much as Lord +Chancellor Bacon was corrupt; and whether the Chancellor ought properly +to be called corrupt is still matter of controversy. Moreover, the +people have always had their remedy. When the recognised "squeeze" is +exceeded, they protest by riot. So that the Chinese system, in the most +unfavourable view, may be described as corruption tempered by anarchy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>And this system, it is admitted, still prevails after the Revolution. +Clearly, indeed, it cannot be extirpated until officials are properly +paid; and China is not in a position to pay for any reform while the +Powers are drawing away an enormous percentage of her resources by that +particular form of robbery called by diplomatists "indemnity." The new +officials, then, are "corrupt" as the old ones were; and they are +something more. They are Jacobins. Educated abroad, they are as full of +ideas as was Robespierre or St. Just; and their ideas are even more +divorced from sentiment and tradition. A foreign education seems to make +a cut right across a Chinaman's life. He returns with a new head; and +this head never gets into normal relations with his heart. That, I +believe, is the essence of Jacobinism, ideas working with enormous +rapidity and freedom unchecked by the fly-wheel of traditional feelings. +And it is Jacobinism that accounts for the extraordinary vigour of the +campaign against opium. Many Europeans still endeavour to maintain that +this campaign is not serious. But that is because Europeans simply +cannot conceive that any body of men should be in as deadly earnest +about a moral issue as are the representatives of Young China. The +anti-opium campaign is not only serious, it is ruthless. Smokers are +flogged and executed; poppy is rooted up; and farmers who resist are +shot down. The other day in Hunan, it is credibly reported, some seventy +farmers who had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>protested against the destruction of their crops were +locked into a temple and burnt alive. An old man of seventy-six, falsely +accused of growing poppy, was fined 500 dollars, and when he refused to +pay was flogged to death by the orders of a young official of +twenty-two. Stories of this kind come in from every part of the country; +and though this or that story may be untrue or exaggerated, there can be +no doubt about the general state of affairs. The officials are putting +down opium with a vigour and a determination which it is inconceivable +should ever be applied in the West to the traffic in alcohol. But in +doing so they are showing a ruthlessness which does not seem to be +native to the Chinese, and which perhaps is to be accounted for by what +I have called Jacobinism, resulting from the effects of a Western +education that has been unable to penetrate harmoniously the complicated +structure of Chinese character.</p> + +<p>The anti-opium campaign is one example of the way in which the +Revolution has elicited and intensified violence in this peace-loving +people. Another example is the use of assassination. This has been an +accompaniment of all great revolutions. It took the form of +"proscriptions" in Rome, of the revolutionary tribunals in France. In +China it is by comparison a negligible factor; but it exists. Two months +ago a prominent leader of the southern party was assassinated; and +popular suspicion traces the murder to high <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>Government officials, and +even to the President himself. The other day a southern general was +killed by a bomb. For the manufacture of bombs is one of the things +China has learned from the Christian West; and the President lives in +constant terror of this form of murder. China, it will be seen, does not +altogether escape the violence that accompanies all revolutions. Nor +does she altogether escape the anarchy. Anarchy, indeed, that is a +simple strike against authority, may be said to be part of the Chinese +system. It is the way they have always enforced their notions of +justice. A curious example has been recently offered by the students of +the Pekin University. For various reasons—good or bad—they have +objected to the conduct of their Chancellor. After ineffectual protests, +they called upon him in large numbers with his resignation written out, +and requested him to sign it. He refused; whereupon they remarked that +they would call again the next day with revolvers; and in the interval +he saw wisdom and signed. Last week there was a similar episode. The new +Chancellor proved as unpalatable as his predecessor. The students once +more presented themselves with his resignation written out. He refused +to resign, and, as the students aver, scurrilously abused them. They +proceeded to the Minister of Education, who refused to see them. +Thereupon they camped out in his courtyard, and stayed all day and all +night, sending a message to the professors dated "from under <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>the trees +of the Education Office" to explain that they were unfortunately unable +to attend lectures. This Chancellor, too, it would seem, has seen wisdom +and resigned.</p> + +<p>How strange it all seems to Western eyes! A country, we should suppose, +where such things occur, is incapable of organisation. But it is certain +that we are wrong. Our notion is that everything must be done by +authority, and that unless authority is maintained there will be +anarchy. The Chinese notion is that authority is there to carry out what +the people recognise to be common sense and justice; if it does +otherwise, it must be resisted; and if it disappears life will still go +on—as it is going on now in the greater part of China—on the basis of +the traditional and essentially reasonable routine. Almost certainly the +students of the University had justice on their side; otherwise such +action would not be taken; and when they get justice they will be more +docile and orderly than our own undergraduates at home.</p> + +<p>Another thing surprising to European observers is the apparent belief of +the Chinese in verbal remonstrance. Under the present régime officials +and public men are allowed the free use of the telegraph. The +consequence is that telegrams of advice, admonition, approval, blame, +fear, hope, doubt pour in daily to the Government from civil and +military governors, from members of Parliament and party leaders. In the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>paper to-day, for example, is a telegram from the Governors of +seventeen provinces addressed to the National Assembly. It begins as +follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"To the President, the Cabinet, the Tsan Yi Yuan, the Chung Yi +Yuan, and the Press Association,—When the revolution took +place at Wuchang, the various societies and groups responded, +and when the Republic was inaugurated the troops raised among +these bodies were gradually disbanded. For fear that, being +driven by hunger, these disbanded soldiers would become a +menace to the place, the various societies and groups have +established a society at Shanghai called the Citizens' +Progressive Society, to promote the means of livelihood for the +people, and the advancement of society, and the establishment +has been registered in the offices of the Tutuhs of the +provinces."</p></div> + +<p>Then follows a statement of the "six dangers" to which the country is +exposed, an appeal to the Assembly to act more reasonably and +competently, and then the following peroration:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The declarations of us, Yuan-hung and others, are still there, +our wounds have not yet been fully recovered, and should the +sea and ocean be dried up, our original hearts will not be +changed. We will protect the Republic with our sinews and blood +of brass and iron, we will take the lead of the province, and +be their backbone, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>and we will not allow the revival of the +monarchy and the suppression of the powers of the people. Let +Heaven and earth be witness to our words. You gentlemen are +pillars of the political parties, or the representatives of the +people, and you should unite together and not become +inconsistent. You first determined that the Loan is necessary, +but such opinion is now changed, and you now reject the Loan. +Can the ice be changed into red coal in your hearts? Thus even +those who love and admire you will not be able to defend your +position. However, if you have any extraordinary plan or +suggestion to save the present situation, you can show it to +us."</p></div> + +<p>Some of the strange effect produced by this document is due, no doubt, +to translation. But it, like the many others of the kind I have read, +seems to indicate what is at the root of the Chinese attitude to life—a +belief in the power of reason and persuasion. I have said enough to show +that this attitude does not exclude the use of violence; but I feel sure +that it limits it far more than it has ever been limited in Europe. Even +in time of revolution the Chinese are peaceable and orderly to an extent +unknown and almost unbelievable in the West. And the one thing the West +is teaching them and priding itself on teaching them is the absurdity of +this attitude. Well, one day it is the West that will repent because +China has learnt the lesson too well.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> +<h3>VII<br /> +A SACRED MOUNTAIN</h3> + + +<p>It was midnight when the train set us down at Tai-an-fu. The moon was +full. We passed across fields, through deserted alleys where sleepers +lay naked on the ground, under a great gate in a great wall, by halls +and pavilions, by shimmering tree-shadowed spaces, up and down steps, +and into a court where cypresses grew. We set up our beds in a verandah, +and woke to see leaves against the morning sky. We explored the vast +temple and its monuments—iron vessels of the Tang age, a great tablet +of the Sungs, trees said to date from before the Christian era, stones +inscribed with drawings of these by the Emperor Chien Lung, hall after +hall, court after court, ruinous, overgrown, and the great crumbling +walls and gates and towers. Then in the afternoon we began the ascent of +Tai Shan, the most sacred mountain in China, the most frequented, +perhaps, in the world. There, according to tradition, legendary emperors +worshipped God. Confucius climbed it six centuries before Christ, and +sighed, we are told, to find his native State so small. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>The great +Chin-Shih-Huang was there in the third century <small>B.C.</small> Chien Lung in the +eighteenth century covered it with inscriptions. And millions of humble +pilgrims for thirty centuries at least have toiled up the steep and +narrow way. Steep it is, for it makes no détours, but follows straight +up the bed of a stream, and the greater part of the five thousand feet +is ascended by stone steps. A great ladder of eighteen flights climbs +the last ravine, and to see it from below, sinuously mounting the +precipitous face to the great arch that leads on to the summit, is +enough to daunt the most ardent walker. We at least were glad to be +chaired some part of the way. A wonderful way! On the lower slopes it +passes from portal to portal, from temple to temple. Meadows shaded with +aspen and willow border the stream as it falls from green pool to green +pool. Higher up are scattered pines Else the rocks are bare—bare, but +very beautiful, with that significance of form which I have found +everywhere in the mountains in China.</p> + +<p>To such beauty the Chinese are peculiarly sensitive. All the way up the +rocks are carved with inscriptions recording the charm and the sanctity +of the place. Some of them were written by emperors; many, especially, +by Chien Lung, the great patron of art in the eighteenth century. They +are models, one is told, of caligraphy as well as of literary +composition. Indeed, according to Chinese standards, they could not be +the one without the other. The very names of favourite spots are poems +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> themselves. One is "the pavilion of the phœnixes"; another "the +fountain of the white cranes." A rock is called "the tower of the +quickening spirit"; the gate on the summit is "the portal of the +clouds." More prosaic, but not less charming, is an inscription on a +rock in the plain, "the place of the three smiles," because there some +mandarins, meeting to drink and converse, told three peculiarly funny +stories. Is not that delightful? It seems so to me. And so peculiarly +Chinese!</p> + +<p>It was dark before we reached the summit. We put up in the temple that +crowns it, dedicated to Yü Huang, the "Jade Emperor" of the Taoists; and +his image and those of his attendant deities watched our slumbers. But +we did not sleep till we had seen the moon rise, a great orange disc, +straight from the plain, and swiftly mount till she made the river, five +thousand feet below, a silver streak in the dim grey levels.</p> + +<p>Next morning, at sunrise, we saw that, north and east, range after range +of lower hills stretched to the horizon, while south lay the plain, with +half a hundred streams gleaming down to the river from the valleys. Full +in view was the hill where, more than a thousand years ago, the great +Tang poet Li-tai-po retired with five companions to drink and make +verses. They are still known to tradition as the "six idlers of the +bamboo grove"; and the morning sun, I half thought, still shines upon +their symposium. We spent the day on the mountain; and as the hours +passed by, more and more it showed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>itself to be a sacred place. Sacred +to what god? No question is harder to answer of any sacred place, for +there are as many ideas of the god as there are worshippers. There are +temples here to various gods: to the mountain himself; to the Lady of +the mountain, Pi-hsia-yüen, who is at once the Venus of +Lucretius—"goddess of procreation, gold as the clouds, blue as the +sky," one inscription calls her—and the kindly mother who gives +children to women and heals the little ones of their ailments; to the +Great Bear; to the Green Emperor, who clothes the trees with leaves; to +the Cloud-compeller; to many others. And in all this, is there no room +for God? It is a poor imagination that would think so. When men worship +the mountain, do they worship a rock, or the spirit of the place, or the +spirit that has no place? It is the latter, we may be sure, that some +men adored, standing at sunrise on this spot. And the Jade Emperor—is +he a mere idol? In the temple where we slept were three inscriptions set +up by the Emperor Chien Lung. They run as follows:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Without labour, oh Lord, Thou bringest forth the greatest things."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Thou leadest Thy company of spirits to guard the whole world."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In the company of Thy spirits Thou art wise as a mighty Lord to achieve great works."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>These might be sentences from the Psalms; they are as religious as +anything Hebraic. And if it be retorted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>that the mass of the +worshippers on Tai Shan are superstitious, so are, and always have been, +the mass of worshippers anywhere. Those who rise to religion in any +country are few. India, I suspect, is the great exception. But I do not +know that they are fewer in China than elsewhere. For that form of +religion, indeed, which consists in the worship of natural beauty and +what lies behind it—for the religion of a Wordsworth—they seem to be +pre-eminently gifted. The cult of this mountain, and of the many others +like it in China, the choice of sites for temples and monasteries, the +inscriptions, the little pavilions set up where the view is +loveliest—all goes to prove this. In England we have lovelier hills, +perhaps, than any in China. But where is our sacred mountain? Where, in +all the country, that charming mythology which once in Greece and Italy, +as now in China, was the outward expression of the love of nature?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Great God, I'd rather be<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A pagan suckled in a creed outworn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That passionate cry of a poet born into a naked world would never have +been wrung from him had he been born in China.</p> + +<p>And that leads me to one closing reflection. When lovers of +China—"pro-Chinese," as they are contemptuously called in the +East—assert that China is more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>civilised than the modern West, even +the candid Westerner, who is imperfectly acquainted with the facts, is +apt to suspect insincere paradox. Perhaps these few notes on Tai Shan +may help to make the matter clearer. A people that can so consecrate a +place of natural beauty is a people of fine feeling for the essential +values of life. That they should also be dirty, disorganised, corrupt, +incompetent, even if it were true—and it is far from being true in any +unqualified sense—would be irrelevant to this issue. On a foundation of +inadequate material prosperity they reared, centuries ago, the +superstructure of a great culture. The West, in rebuilding its +foundations, has gone far to destroy the superstructure. Western +civilisation, wherever it penetrates, brings with it water-taps, sewers, +and police; but it brings also an ugliness, an insincerity, a vulgarity +never before known to history, unless it be under the Roman Empire. It +is terrible to see in China the first wave of this Western flood +flinging along the coasts and rivers and railway lines its scrofulous +foam of advertisements, of corrugated iron roofs, of vulgar, meaningless +architectural forms. In China, as in all old civilisations I have seen, +all the building of man harmonises with and adorns nature. In the West +everything now built is a blot. Many men, I know, sincerely think that +this destruction of beauty is a small matter, and that only decadent +æsthetes would pay any attention to it in a world so much in need of +sewers and hospitals. I believe this view to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>be profoundly mistaken. +The ugliness of the West is a symptom of a disease of the Soul. It +implies that the end has been lost sight of in the means. In China the +opposite is the case. The end is clear, though the means be inadequate. +Consider what the Chinese have done to Tai Shan, and what the West will +shortly do, once the stream of Western tourists begins to flow strongly. +Where the Chinese have constructed a winding stairway of stone, +beautiful from all points of view, Europeans or Americans will run up a +funicular railway, a staring scar that will never heal. Where the +Chinese have written poems in exquisite caligraphy, <i>they</i> will cover +the rocks with advertisements. Where the Chinese have built a series of +temples, each so designed and placed as to be a new beauty in the +landscape, <i>they</i> will run up restaurants and hotels like so many scabs +on the face of nature. I say with confidence that they <i>will</i>, because +they <i>have</i> done it wherever there is any chance of a paying investment. +Well, the Chinese need, I agree, our science, our organisation, our +medicine. But is it affectation to think they may have to pay too high a +price for it, and to suggest that in acquiring our material advantages +they may lose what we have gone near to lose, that fine and sensitive +culture which is one of the forms of spiritual life? The West talks of +civilising China. Would that China could civilise the West!</p> + + +<hr /> +<h2><small>PART III</small><br /> +JAPAN</h2> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p> +<h3>I<br /> +FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN</h3> + + +<p>Japan, surely, must be a mirage created by enchantment. Nothing so +beautiful could be real. Take the west coast of Scotland, bathe it in +Mediterranean light and sun, and let its waves be those of the Pacific. +Take the best of Devonshire, enlarge the hills, extend the plains, and +dominate all with the only perfect mountain in the world—a mountain +that catches at your breath like a masterpiece of art. Make the copses +woods, and the woods forests. For our fields with their hedgerows +substitute the vivid green of rice, shining across the gleam of flooded +plains. Everywhere let water flow; and at every waterfall and cave erect +a little shrine to hallow the spot. Over the whole pour a flood of pure +white light, and you have a faint image of Japan. Perhaps it is not, +naturally, more beautiful than the British Isles—few countries are. But +it is unspoilt by man, or almost so. Osaka, indeed, is as ugly as +Manchester, Yokohama as Liverpool. But these are small blots. For the +rest, Japan is Japan of the Middle Ages, and lovely as England may have +been, when England could still be called merry.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>And the people are lovely, too. I do not speak of facial beauty. Some +may think, in that respect, the English or the Americans handsomer. But +these people have the beauty of life. Instead of the tombstone masques +that pass for faces among Anglo-Saxons, they have human features, quick, +responsive, mobile. Instead of the slow, long limbs creaking in stiff +integuments, they have active members, for the most bare or moving +freely in loose robes. Instead of a mumbled, monotonous, machine-like +emission of sound they have real speech, vivacious, varied, musical. +Their children are the loveliest in the world; so gay, so sturdy, so +cheeky, yet never rude. It is a pure happiness merely to walk in the +streets and look at them. It is a pure happiness, I might almost say, to +look at anyone, so gay is their greeting, so radiant their smile, so +full of vitality their gestures. I do not know what they think of the +foreigner, but at least they betray no animosity. They let his stiff, +ungainly presence move among them unchallenged. Perhaps they are sorry +for him; but I think they are never rude. I am speaking, of course, of +Old Japan, of the Japan that is all in evidence, if one lands, as I did, +in the south, avoids Osaka, and postpones Yokohama and Tokio. It is +still the Japan of feudalism; a system in which I, for my part, do not +believe; which, in its essence, in Japan as in Europe, was harsh, +unjust, and cruel; but which had the art of fostering, or at least of +not destroying beauty.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>And in this point feudalism in Japan was finer and more sensitive, if it +was less grandiose, than feudalism in Europe. There is nothing in Japan +to compare with the churches and cathedrals of the West, for there is no +stone architecture at all. But there is nothing in the West to compare +with the living-rooms of Japan. Suites of these dating from the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are to be seen in Kyoto and +elsewhere. And till I saw them I had no idea how exquisite human life +might be made. The Japanese, as is well known, discovered the secret of +emptiness. Their rooms consist of a floor of spotless matting, paper +walls, and a wooden roof. But the paper walls, in these old palatial +rooms, are masterpieces by great artists. From a background of gold-leaf +emerge and fade away suggestions of river and coast and hill, of +peonies, chrysanthemums, lotuses, of wild geese and swans, of reeds and +pools, of all that is elusive and choice in nature; decorations that are +also lyric poems, hints of landscape that yet never pretend to be a +substitute for the real thing. The real thing is outside, and perhaps it +will not intrude; for where we should have glass windows the Japanese +have white paper screens. But draw back, if you choose, one of these +screens, and you will see a little landscape garden, a little lake, a +little bridge, a tiny rockery, a few goldfish, a cluster of irises, a +bed of lotus, and, above and beyond, the great woods. These are royal +apartments; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>but all the cost, it will be seen, is lavished on the work +of art. The principle is the same in humbler homes.</p> + +<p>People who could so devise life, we may be sure, are people with a +fineness of perception unknown to the West, unless it were once in +ancient Greece. The Japanese indeed, I suspect, are the Greeks of the +East. In the theatre at Kyoto this was curiously borne in upon me. On +the floor of the house reclined figures in loose robes, bare-necked and +barefooted. On the narrow stage were one or two actors, chanting in +measured speech, and moving slowly from pose to pose. From boxes on +either side of the stage intoned a kind of chorus; and a flute and +pizzicato strings accompanied the whole in the solemn strains of some +ancient mode. I have seen nothing so like what a Greek play may have +been, though doubtless even this was far enough away. And still more was +I struck by the resemblance when a comedy succeeded to the tragedy, and +I found the young and old Japan confronting one another exactly as the +young and old Athens met in debate, two thousand years ago, in the +<i>Frogs</i> of Aristophanes. The theme was an ascent of Mount Fuji; the +actors two groups of young girls, one costumed as virgin priestesses of +the Shinto cult, the other in modern European dress. The one set were +climbing the mountain as a pilgrimage, the other as a lark; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>and they +meet and exchange sharp dialectics (unintelligible to me, but not +unguessable) on the lower slopes. The sympathies of the author, like +those of Aristophanes, were with the old school. It is the pilgrims who +reach the top and the modern young women who collapse. And the modern +young man fares no better; he is beaten by a coolie and frightened by a +ghost. The playwright had at least Aristophanes' gift of lampoon, though +I doubt whether he had a touch of his genius. Perhaps, however, he had a +better cause. For, I doubt, modern Japan may deserve lampooning more +than the Athens of Aristophanes. For modern Japan is the modern West. +And that—well, it seemed to be symbolised to me yesterday in the train. +In my carriage were two Japanese. One was loosely wrapt in a kimono, +bare throat and feet, fine features, fine gestures, everything +aristocratic and distinguished. The other was clad in European dress, +sprigged waistcoat, gold watch-chain, a coarse, thick-lipped face, a +podgy figure. It was a hot July day, and we were passing through some of +the loveliest scenery in the world. He first closed all doors and +windows, and then extended himself at full length and went to sleep. +There he lay, his great paunch sagging—prosperity exuding from every +pore—an emblem and type of what in the West we call a "successful" man. +And the other? The other, no doubt, was going downhill. Both, of course, +were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>Japanese types; but the civilisation of the West chose the one and +rejected the other. And if civilisation is to be judged, as it fairly +may be, by the kind of men it brings to the top, there is much to be +said for the point of view of my Tory playwright.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> +<h3>II<br /> +A "NO" DANCE</h3> + + +<p>On entering the theatre I was invaded by a sense of serenity and peace. +There was no ornament, no upholstery, no superfluity at all. A square +building of unvarnished wood; a floor covered with matting, exquisitely +clean, and divided into little boxes, or rather trays (so low were the +partitions), in which the audience knelt on their heels, beautiful in +loose robes; running out from the back wall a square stage, with a roof +supported by pillars; a passage on the same level, by which the actors +entered, on the left; the screens removed from the outer walls, so that +the hall was open to the air, and one looked out on sky and trees, or +later on darkness, against which shone a few painted lanterns. Compare +this with the Queen's Hall in London, or with any of our theatres, and +realise the effect on one's mood of the mere setting of the drama. Drama +was it? Or opera? Or what? It is called a "dance." But there was very +little dancing. What mainly remains in my mind is a series of visual +images, one more beautiful than another; figures<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> seated motionless for +minutes, almost for half-hours, with a stillness of statues, not an +eyelash shaking; or passing very slowly across the stage, with that +movement of bringing one foot up to the other and pausing before the +next step which is so ridiculous in our opera, but was here so right and +so impressive; or turning slowly, or rising and sitting with immense +deliberation; each figure right in its relation to the stage and to the +others. All were clothed in stiff brocade, sumptuous but not gorgeous. +One or two were masked; and all of them, I felt, ought to have been. The +mask, in fact, the use of which in Greek drama I had always felt to be +so questionable, was here triumphantly justified. It completed the +repudiation of actuality which was the essence of the effect. It was a +musical sound, as it were, made visible. It symbolised humanity, but it +was not human, still less inhuman. I would rather call it divine. And +this whole art of movement and costume required that completion. Once I +had seen a mask I missed it in all the characters that were without it.</p> + +<p>To me, then, this visual spectacle was the essence of the "No" dance. +The dancing itself, when it came, was but a slight intensification of +the slow and solemn posing I have described. There was no violence, no +leaping, no quick steps; rather a turning and bending, a slow sweep of +the arm, a walking a little more rhythmical, on the verge, at most, of +running. It was never <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>exciting, but I could not say it was never +passionate. It seemed to express a kind of frozen or petrified passion; +rather, perhaps, a passion run into a mould of beauty and turned out a +statue. I have never seen an art of such reserve and such distinction. +"Or of such tediousness," I seem to hear an impatient reader exclaim. +Well, let me be frank. Like all Westerners, I am accustomed to life in +quick time, and to an art full of episode, of intellectual content, of +rapid change and rapid development. I have lost to a great extent that +power of prolonging an emotion which seems to be the secret of Eastern +art. I am bored—subconsciously, as it were—where an Oriental is lulled +into ecstasy. His case is the better. But also, in this matter of the No +dance he has me at a disadvantage. In the first place he can understand +the words. These, it is true, have far less importance than in a drama +of Shakspere. They are only a lyric or narrative accompaniment to the +music and the dance. Still they have, one is informed, a beauty much +appreciated by Japanese, and one that the stranger, ignorant of the +language, misses. And secondly, what is worse, the music failed to move +me. Whether this is my own fault, or that of the music, I do not presume +to decide, for I do not know whether, as so often is the case, I was +defeated by a convention unfamiliar to me, or whether the convention has +really become formal and artificial. In any case, after the first shock +of interest, I found the music monotonous. It was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>solemn and religious +in character, and reminded me more of Gregorian chants than of anything +else. But it had one curious feature which seemed rather to be primitive +and orgiastic. The two musicians who played the drums accompanied the +performers, almost unceasingly, by a kind of musical ejaculation, +starting on a low note and swooping up to a high, long-held falsetto +cry. This over and over again, through the dialogue and through the +singing. The object, I suppose, and perhaps, to Japanese, the effect, is +to sustain a high emotional tone. In my case it failed, as the music +generally failed. My interest, as I began by saying, was maintained by +the visual beauty; and that must have been very great to be able to +maintain itself independently of the words and the music.</p> + +<p>As to the drama, it is not drama at all in the sense in which we have +come to understand the term in the West. There is no "construction," no +knot tied and untied, no character. Rather there is a succession of +scenes selected from a well-known story for some quality of poignancy, +or merely of narrative interest. The form, I think, should be called +epic or lyric rather than dramatic. And it is in this point that it most +obviously differs from the Greek drama. It has no intellectual content, +or very little. And, perhaps for that reason, it has had no development, +but remains fossilised where it was in the fifteenth century. On the +other hand, these actors, I felt, are the only ones who could act <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>Greek +drama. They have, I think, quite clearly the same tradition and aim as +the Greeks. They desire not to reproduce but to symbolise actuality; and +their conception of acting is the very opposite of ours. The last thing +they aim at is to be "natural." To be unnatural rather is their object. +Hence the costume, hence the mask, hence the movement and gesture. And +how effective such "unnaturalness" can be in evoking natural passion +only those will understand who have realised how ineffective for that +purpose is our "naturalness" when we are concerned with Sophocles or +Shakspere. The Japanese have in their No dance a great treasure. For out +of it they might, if they have the genius, develop a modern poetic +drama. How thankful would hundreds of young men be, starving for poetry +in England, if we had as a living tradition anything analogous to work +upon!</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p> +<h3>III<br /> +NIKKO</h3> + + +<p>Waking in the night, I heard the sound of running water. Across my +window I saw, stretching dimly, the branch of a pine, and behind it +shone the stars. I remembered that I was in Japan and felt that all the +essence of it was there. Running water, pine trees, sun and moon and +stars. All their life, as all their art, seems to be a mood of these. +For to them their life and their art are inseparable. The art is not an +accomplishment, an ornament, an excrescence. It is the flower of the +plant. Some men, some families of men, feeling beauty as every one felt +it, had the power also to express it. Or perhaps I should say—it is the +Japanese view—to suggest it. To them the branch of a tree stands for a +forest, a white disk on gold for night and the moon, a quivering reed +for a river, a bamboo stalk for a grove. Their painters are poets. By +passionate observation they have learnt what expression of the part most +inevitably symbolises the whole. That they give; and their admirers, +trained like them in feeling, fill in the rest. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>This art presupposes, +what it has always had, a public not less sensitive than the artist; a +similar mood, a similar tradition, a similar culture. Feel as they do, +and you must create as they do, or at least appreciate their creations.</p> + +<p>It was with this in my mind that I wandered about this exquisite place, +where Man has made a lovely nature lovelier still. More even than by the +famous and sumptuous temples I was moved by the smaller and humbler +shrines, so caressing are they of every choice spot, so expressive, not +of princely, but of popular feeling. Here is one, for instance, standing +under a cliff beside a stream, where women offer bits of wood in the +faith that so they will be helped to pass safely through the pangs of +childbirth. Here in a ravine is another where men who want to develop +their calves hang up sandals to a once athletic saint. "The Lord," our +Scripture says, "delighteth not in any man's legs." How pleasant, then, +it must be to have a saint who does! Especially for the Japanese, whose +legs are so finely made, and who display them so delightfully. Such, all +over the world, is the religion of the people, when they have any +religion at all. And how human it is, and how much nearer to life than +the austerities and abstractions of a creed!</p> + +<p>Hour after hour I strolled through these lovely places, so beautifully +ordered that the authorities, one feels, must themselves delight in the +nature they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>control. I had proof of it, I thought, in a notice which +ran as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Famous Takino Temple stands not far away, and Somen Fall too. +It is worth while to be there once.</span>"</p></div> + +<p>It is indeed, and many times! But can you imagine a rural council in +England breaking into this personal note? And how reserved! Almost like +Japanese art. Compare the invitation I once saw in Switzerland, to visit +"das schönste Schwärm- und Aussichtspunkt des ganzen Schweitzerischen +Reichs." There speaks the advertiser. But beside the Somen Fall there +was no restaurant.</p> + +<p>Northerners, and Anglo-Saxons in particular, have always at the back of +their minds a notion that there is something effeminate about the sense +for beauty. That is reserved for decadent Southern nations. <i>Tu regere +imperio populos, Romane memento</i> they would say, if they knew the tag; +and translate it "Britain rules the waves"! But history gives the lie to +this complacent theory. No nations were ever more virile than the Greeks +or the Italians. They have left a mark on the world which will endure +when Anglo-Saxon civilisation is forgotten. And none have been, or are, +more virile than the Japanese. That they have the delicacy of women, +too, does not alter the fact. The Russian War proved it, if proof so +tragic were required; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>and so does all their mediæval history. Japanese +feudalism was as bloody, as ruthless, as hard as European. It was even +more gallant, stoical, loyal. But it had something else which I think +Europe missed, unless it were once in Provence. It had in the midst of +its hardness a consciousness of the pathos of life, of its beauty, its +brevity, its inexplicable pain. I think in no other country has anything +arisen analogous to the Zen sect of Buddhism, when knights withdrew from +battle to a garden and summerhouse, exquisitely ordered to symbolise the +spiritual life, and there, over a cup of tea served with an elaborate +ritual, looking out on a lovely nature, entered into mystic communion +with the spirit of beauty which was also the spirit of life. From that +communion, with that mood about them, they passed out to kill or to +die—to die, it might be, by their own hand, by a process which I think +no Western man can bear even to think of, much less conceive himself as +imitating.</p> + +<p>This sense at once of the beauty and of the tragedy of life, this power +of appreciating the one and dominating the other, seems to be the +essence of the Japanese character. In this place, it will be remembered, +is the tomb of Iyeyasu, the greatest statesman Japan has produced. +Appropriately, after his battles and his labours, he sleeps under the +shade of trees, surrounded by chapels and oratories more sumptuous and +superb than anything else in Japan, approached for miles and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>miles by a +road lined on either side with giant cryptomerias. His spirit, if it +could know, would appreciate, we may be sure, this habitation of beauty. +For these men, ruthless as they were, were none the less sensitive. For +example, the traveller is shown (in Kyoto, I think) a little pavilion in +a garden where Hideyoshi used to sit and contemplate the moon. I believe +it. I think Iyeyasu did the same. And also he wrote this, on a roll here +preserved:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Life is like unto a long journey with a heavy load. Let thy +steps be slow and steady, that thou stumble not. Persuade +thyself that privations are the natural lot of mortals, and +there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. When +ambitious desires arise in thy heart, recall the days of +extremity thou hast passed through. Forbearance is the root of +quietness and assurance for ever. Look upon wrath as thy enemy. +If thou knowest only what it is to conquer, and knowest not +what it is to be defeated, woe unto thee! It will fare ill with +thee. Find fault with thyself rather than with others. Better +the less than the more."</p></div> + +<p>Marcus Aurelius might have said that. But Marcus Aurelius belonged to a +race peculiarly insensitive to beauty. The Japanese stoics were also +artists and poets. Their earliest painters were feudal lords, and it was +feudal lords who fostered and acted the No dances. If Nietzsche had +known Japan—I think he did not?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>—he would surely have found in these +Daimyos and Samurai the forerunners of his Superman. A blood-red blossom +growing out of the battlefield, that, I think, was his ideal. It is one +which, I hope, the world has outlived. I look for the lily flowering +over the fields of peace.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> +<h3>IV<br /> +DIVINE RIGHT IN JAPAN</h3> + + +<p>When Japan was opened to the West, after more than two centuries of +seclusion, she was in possession of a national spirit which had been +enabled, by isolation, to become and remain simple and homogeneous. All +public feeling, all public morals centred about the divinity of the +Emperor; an idea which, by a process unique in history, had hibernated +through centuries of political obscuration, and emerged again to the +light with its prestige unimpaired in the middle of the nineteenth +century. In the Emperor, one may say, Japan was incarnate. And to this +faith the Japanese, as well as foreign observers, attribute their great +achievement in the Russian War. The little book of Captain Sakurai, +<i>Human Bullets</i>, testifies to this fact in every sentence: "Through the +abundant grace of Heaven and the illustrious virtue of his Majesty, the +Imperial forces defeated the great enemy both on land and sea." ... "I +jumped out of bed, cleansed my person with pure water, donned my best +uniform, bowed to the East where the great Sire resides, solemnly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>read +his proclamation of war, and told his Majesty that his humble subject +was just starting to the front. When I offered my last prayers—the last +I then believed they were—before the family shrine of my ancestors I +felt a thrill going all through me, as if they were giving me a solemn +injunction, saying: 'Thou art not thy own. For his Majesty's sake, thou +shalt go to save the nation from calamity, ready to bear the crushing of +thy bones and the tearing of thy flesh. Disgrace not thy ancestors by an +act of cowardice.'" This, it is clear, is an attitude quite different +from that of an Englishman towards the King. The King, to us, is at most +a symbol. The Emperor, to the Japanese, is, or was, a god. And the +difference may be noted in small matters. For instance, a Japanese, +writing from England, observes with astonishment that we put the head of +the King on our stamps and cover it with postmarks. That, to a Japanese, +seems to be blasphemy. Again, he is puzzled, at the Coronation in +Westminster Abbey, to find the people looking down from above on the +King. That, again, seems to him blasphemy. Last year, when the Emperor +was dying, crowds knelt hour after hour, day and night, on the road +beside the palace praying for him. And a photographer who took a picture +of them by flashlight was literally torn to pieces. One could multiply +examples, but the thing is plain. The national spirit of Japan centres +about the divinity of the Emperor. And precisely therein <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>lies their +present problem. For one may say, I think, with confidence that this +attitude cannot endure, and is already disappearing. Western thought is +an irresistible solvent of all irrational and instinctive ideas. Men +cannot be engineers and pathologists and at the same time believe that a +man is a god. They cannot be historians and at the same time believe +that their first Emperor came down from heaven. Above all, they cannot +be politicians and abstain from analysing the real source and sanction +of political power. English political experience, it is true, suggests +immense possibilities in the way of clinging to fictions with the +feelings while insisting upon facts in practice. And the famous verse:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"But I was thinking of a plan<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To dye my whiskers green,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And always wear so large a fan<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That they should not be seen,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>might have been written to summarise the development of the British +Constitution. But the success of that method depends upon the condition +that the fictions shall be nothing <i>but</i> fictions. The feelings of the +English can centre about the King only because they are well assured +that he does not and will not govern. But that condition does not exist +in Japan. The Japanese Constitution is conceived on the German, not the +English, model; and it bristles with clauses which are intended to +prevent the development which has taken <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>place in England—the shifting +of power from the Sovereign to a Parliamentary majority. The Ministers +are the Emperor's Ministers; the policy is the Emperor's policy. That is +the whole tenour of the Constitution. No Constitution, it is true, can +"trammel up" facts and put power anywhere but where nature puts it. If +an Emperor is not a strong man he will not govern, and his Ministers +will. And it seems to be well understood among Japanese politicians that +the personal will of the Emperor does not, in fact, count for very much. +But it is supposed to; and that must become an important point so soon +as conflict develops between the Parliament and the Government. And such +conflict is bound to arise, and is already arising. Japanese parties, it +is true, stand for persons rather than principles; and the real +governing power hitherto has been a body quite unknown to the +Constitution—namely, the group of "Elder Statesmen." But there are +signs that this group is disintegrating, and that its members are +beginning to recognise the practical necessity of forming and depending +upon a party in the country and the House of Representatives. The crisis +which led, the other day, to the fall of Prince Katsura was provoked by +popular tumults; and it was noticeable that, for the first time, the +name of the Emperor was introduced into political controversy. It seems +clear that in the near future either the Emperor must appear openly as a +fighting force, as the German Emperor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>does, or he must subside into a +figure-head and the government pass into the hands of Parliament. The +former alternative is quite incompatible with the idea of the god-king; +the latter might not be repugnant to it if other things tended to foster +it. But it is so clear that they do not! An Emperor who is titular head +of a Parliamentary Government might, and in Japan no doubt <i>would</i>, be +surrounded with affection and respect. He could never be seriously +regarded as divine. For that whole notion belongs to an age innocent of +all that is implied in the very possibility of Parliamentary government. +It belongs to the age of mythology and poetry, not to the age of reason. +Japanese patriotism in the future must depend on love of country, +unsupported by the once powerful sanction of a divine personality.</p> + +<p>If this be true, I question very much the wisdom of that part of the +Japanese educational system which endeavours to centre all duty about +the person of the Emperor. The Japanese are trying a great experiment in +State-imposed morality—a policy highly questionable at the best, but +becoming almost demonstrably absurd when it is based on an idea which is +foredoomed to discredit. The well-known Imperial rescript, which is kept +framed in every school, reads as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Our Ancestors founded the State on a vast basis, and deeply +implanted virtue; and Our subjects, by their <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>unanimity in +their great loyalty and filial affection, have in all ages +shown these qualities in perfection. Such is the essential +beauty of Our national polity, and such, too, is the true +spring of Our educational system. You, Our beloved subjects, be +filial to your parents, affectionate to your brothers, be +loving husbands and wives, and truthful to your friends. +Conduct yourselves with modesty, and be benevolent to all. +Develop your intellectual faculties and perfect your moral +power by gaining knowledge and by acquiring a profession. +Further, promote the public interest and advance the public +affairs; and in case of emergency, courageously sacrifice +yourself to the public good. Thus offer every support to Our +Imperial Dynasty, which shall be as lasting as the Universe. +You will then not only be Our most loyal subjects, but will be +enabled to exhibit the noble character of your ancestors.</p> + +<p>"Such are the testaments left us by Our Ancestors, which must +be observed alike by their descendants and subjects. These +precepts are perfect throughout all ages and of universal +application. It is Our desire to bear them in Our heart, in +common with you Our subjects, to the end that we may constantly +possess their virtues."</p></div> + +<p>This rescript may be read with admiration. But common sense would teach +every Westerner that a document so framed is at variance with the whole +bent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>of the modern mind, and, if forced upon it, could only goad it +into rebellion. And such, I have been informed, and easily believe, is +the effect it is beginning to have in Japan. Young people brought up on +Western languages and Western science demand a Western, that is a +rational, sanction for conduct. They do not believe the Emperor to be +divine, and therefore they cannot take their moral principles on trust +from him and from his ancestors. The violent reaction from this +State-imposed doctrine drives them into sheer scepticism and anarchy. +And here, as always throughout history, authority defeats its own +purposes. Western ideas cannot be taken <i>in part</i>. They cannot be +applied to the natural world and fenced off from the moral world. Japan +must go through the same crisis through which the West is passing; she +must revise the whole basis of her traditional morals. And in doing so +she must be content to lose that passionate and simple devotion which is +the good as well as the evil product of an age of uncritical faith.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p> +<h3>V<br /> +FUJI</h3> + + +<p>It was raining when we reached Gotemba and took off our boots at the +entrance of the inn. I had never before stayed at a Japanese inn, and +this one, so my friend assured me, was a bad specimen of the class. +Certainly it was disorderly and dirty. It was also overcrowded. But that +was inevitable, for a thousand pilgrims in a day were landing at Gotemba +station. Men and women, young and old, grandparents, parents, children +come flocking in to climb the great mountain. The village street is +lined with inns; and in front of each stood a boy with a lantern hailing +the new arrivals. We were able, in spite of the crowd, to secure a room +to ourselves, and even, with difficulty, some water to wash in—too many +people had used and were using the one bath! A table and a chair were +provided for the foreigner, and very uncouth they looked in the pretty +Japanese room. But a bed was out of the question. One had to sleep on +the floor among the fleas. Certainly it was not comfortable; but it was +amusing. From my room in the upper storey I looked into the whole row +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>of rooms in the inn opposite, thrown open to the street, with their +screens drawn back. One saw families and parties, a dozen or more in a +room, dressing and undressing, naked and clothed, sleeping, eating, +talking; all, of course, squatting on the floor, with a low stool for a +table, and red-lacquered bowls for plates and dishes. How people manage +to eat rice with chopsticks will always be a mystery to me. For my own +part, I cannot even—but I will not open that humiliating chapter.</p> + +<p>Of the night, the less said the better. I rose with relief, but dressed +with embarrassment; for the girl who waited on us selected the moment of +my toilet to clean the room. It was still raining hard, and we had +decided to abandon our expedition, for another night in that inn was +unthinkable. But, about eleven, a gleam of sun encouraged us to proceed, +and we started on horseback for the mountain. And here I must note that +by the official tariff, approved by the police, a foreigner is charged +twice as much for a horse as a Japanese. If one asks why, one is calmly +informed that a foreigner, as a rule, is heavier! This is typical of +travel in Japan; and there have been moments when I have sympathised +with the Californians in their discrimination against the Japanese. +Those moments, however, are rare and brief, and speedily repented of.</p> + +<p>Naturally, as soon as we had started the weather clouded over again. We +rode for three hours at a foot-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>pace, and by the time we left our horses +and began the ascent on foot we were wrapped in thick, cold mist. There +is no difficulty about climbing Fuji, except the fatigue. You simply +walk for hours up a steep and ever-steeper heap of ashes. It was perhaps +as well that we did not see what lay before us, or we might have been +discouraged. We saw nothing but the white-grey mist and the purple-grey +soil. Except that, looming out of the cloud just in front of us, there +kept appearing and vanishing a long line of pilgrims, with peaked hats, +capes, and sandals, all made of straw, winding along with their staffs, +forty at least, keeping step, like figures in a frieze, like shadows on +a sheet, like spirits on the mountain of Purgatory, like anything but +solid men walking up a hill. So for hours we laboured on, the slope +becoming steeper every step, till we could go no further, and stopped at +a shelter to pass the night. Here we were lucky. The other climbers had +halted below or above, and we had the long, roomy shed to ourselves. +Blankets, a fire of wood, and a good meal restored us. We sat warming +and congratulating ourselves, when suddenly our guide at the door gave a +cry. We hurried to see. And what a sight it was! The clouds lay below us +and a starlit sky above. At our feet the mountain fell away like a +cliff, but it fell rather to a glacier than a sea—a glacier infinite as +the ocean, yawning in crevasses, billowing in ridges; a glacier not of +ice, but of vapour, changing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>form as one watched, opening here, closing +there, rising, falling, shifting, while far away, at the uttermost +verge, appeared a crimson crescent, then a red oval, then a yellow +globe, swimming up above the clouds, touching their lights with gold, +deepening their shadows, and spreading, where it rose, a lake of silver +fire over the surface of the tossing plain.</p> + +<p>We looked till it was too cold to look longer, then wrapped ourselves in +quilts and went to sleep. At midnight I woke. Outside there was a +strange moaning. The wind had risen; and the sound of it in that lonely +place gave me a shock of fear. The mountain, then, was more than a heap +of dead ashes. Presences haunted it; powers indifferent to human fate. +That wind had blown before man came into being, and would blow when he +had ceased to exist. It moaned and roared. Then it was still. But I +could not sleep again, and lay watching the flicker of the lamp on the +long wooden roof, and the streaks of moonlight through the chinks, till +the coolie lit a fire and called us to get up. We started at four. The +clouds were still below, and the moon above; but she had moved across to +the west, Orion had appeared, and a new planet blazed in the east. The +last climb was very steep and our breath very scant. But we had other +things than that to think of. Through a rift in a cloud to the eastward +dawned a salmon-coloured glow; it brightened to fire; lit up the clouds +above and the clouds below; blazed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>more and intolerably, till, as we +reached the summit, the sun leapt into view and sent a long line of +light down the tumultuous sea of rolling cloud.</p> + +<p>How cold it was! And what an atmosphere inside the highest shelter, +where sleepers had been packed like sardines and the newly kindled fire +filled the fetid air with acrid smoke! What there was to be seen we +saw—the crater, neither wide nor deep; the Shinto temple, where a +priest was intoning prayers; and the Post Office, where an enterprising +Government sells picture-postcards for triumphant pilgrims to despatch +to their friends. My friend must have written at least a dozen, while I +waited and shivered with numbed feet and hands. But after an hour we +began the descent, and quickly reached the shelter where we were to +breakfast. Thence we had to plunge again into the clouds. But before +doing so we took a long look at the marvellous scene—more marvellous +than any view of earth; icebergs tossing in a sea, mountains exhaling +and vanishing, magic castles and palaces towering across infinite space. +A step, and once more the white-grey mist and the purple-grey soil. But +the clouds had moved higher; and it was not long before we saw, to the +south, cliffs and the sea, to the east, the gleam of green fields, +running up, under cloud-shadows, to mountain ridges and peaks. And so +back to Gotemba, and our now odious inn.</p> + +<p>We would not stop there. So we parted, my friend <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>for Tokyo, I for +Kyoto. But time-tables had been fallacious, and I found myself landed at +Numatsa, with four hours to wait for the night train, no comfort in the +waiting-room, and no Japanese words at my command. I understood then a +little better why foreigners are so offensive in the East. They do not +know the language; they find themselves impotent where their instinct is +to domineer; and they visit on the Oriental the ill-temper which is +really produced by their own incompetence. Yes, I must confess that I +had to remind myself severely that it was I, and not the Japanese, who +was stupid. At last the station-master came to my rescue—the +station-master always speaks English. He endured my petulance with the +unfailing courtesy and patience of his race, and sent me off at last in +a rickshaw to the beach and a Japanese hotel. But my troubles were not +ended. I reached the hotel; I bowed and smiled to the group of +kow-towing girls; but how to tell them that I wanted a bathe and a meal? +Signs were unavailing. We looked at one another and laughed, but that +did not help. At last they sent for a student who knew a little English. +I could have hugged him. "It is a great pity," he said, "that these +people do not know English." The pity, I replied, was that I did not +know Japanese, but his courtesy repudiated the suggestion. Could I have +a bathing costume? Of course! And in a quarter of an hour he brought me +a wet one. Where could I change? He showed me a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>room; and presently I +was swimming in the sea, with such delight as he only can know who has +ascended and descended Fuji without the chance of a bath. Returning to +the inn, I wandered about in my wet costume seeking vainly the room in +which I had changed. Laughing girls pushed me here, and pulled me there, +uncomprehending of my pantomime, till one at last, quicker than the +rest, pulled back a slide, and revealed the room I was seeking. Then +came dinner—soup, fried fish, and rice; and—for my weakness—a spoon +and fork to eat them with. The whole house seemed to be open, and one +looked into every room, watching the ways of these gay and charming +people. At last I paid—to accomplish <i>that</i> by pantomime was easy,—and +said good-bye to my hostess and her maids, who bowed their heads to the +ground and smiled as though I had been the most honoured of guests +instead of a clumsy foreigner, fit food for mirth. A walk in a twilight +pine wood, and then back to the station, where I boarded the night +train, and slept fitfully until five, when we reached Kyoto, and my +wanderings were over. How I enjoyed the comfort of the best hotel in the +East! But also how I regretted that I had not long ago learnt to find +comfort in the far more beautiful manner of life of Japan!</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> +<h3>VI<br /> +JAPAN AND AMERICA</h3> + + +<p>On the reasons, real or alleged, for the hostility of the Californians +to the Japanese this is not the place to dwell. At bottom, it is a +conflict of civilisations, a conflict which is largely due to ignorance +and misunderstanding, and which should never be allowed to develop into +avowed antagonism. For with time, patience, and sympathy it will +disappear of itself. The patience and sympathy, I think, are not lacking +on the side of the Japanese, but they are sadly lacking among the +Californians, and indeed among all white men in Western America. The +truth is that the Western pioneer knows nothing of Japan and wants to +know nothing. And he would be much astonished, not to say indignant, +were he told that the civilisation of Japan is higher than that of +America. Yet there can, I think, be no doubt that this is the case, if +real values be taken as a standard. America, and the "new" countries +generally, have contributed, so far, nothing to the world except +material prosperity. I do not under-estimate this. It is a great thing +to have subdued a continent. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>And it may be argued that those who are +engaged in this task have no energy to spare for other activities. But +the Japanese subdued their island centuries, even millenniums, ago. And, +having reduced it to as high a state of culture as they required, they +began to live—a thing the new countries have not yet attempted.</p> + +<p>To live, in the sense in which I am using the term, implies that you +reflect life in the forms of art, literature, philosophy, and religion. +To all these things the Japanese have made notable contributions; less +notable, indeed, than those of China, from whom they derived their +inspiration, but still native, genuine, and precious. To take first bare +externals, the physical life of the Japanese is beautiful. I read with +amazement the other day a quotation from a leading Californian newspaper +to the effect that "there is an instinctive sense of physical repugnance +on the part of the Western or European races towards the Japanese race"! +Had the writer, I wonder, ever been in Japan? Perhaps it would have made +no difference to him if he had, for he is evidently one of those who +cannot or will not see. But to me the first and chief impression of +Japan is the physical attractiveness of the people. The Japanese are +perfectly proportioned; their joints, their hands, their feet, their +hips are elegant and fine; and they display to the best advantage these +natural graces by a costume which is as beautiful as it is simple. To +see these perfect figures walking, running, mounting stairs, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>bathing, +even pulling rickshaws, is to receive a constant stream of shocks of +surprise and delight. In so much that, after some weeks in the country, +I begin to feel "a sense of physical repugnance" to Americans and +Europeans—a sense which, if I were as uneducated and inexperienced as +the writer in the <i>Argonaut</i>, I should call "instinctive," and make the +basis of a campaign of race-hatred. The misfortune is that the Japanese +abandon their own dress when they go abroad. And in European dress, +which they do not understand, and which conceals their bodies, they are +apt to look mean and vulgar. Similarly, in European dress, they lose +their own perfect manners and mis-acquire the worst of the West. So that +there may be some excuse for feeling "repugnance" to the Japanese +abroad, though, of course, it is merely absurd and barbarous to base +upon such superficial distaste a policy of persecution and insult.</p> + +<p>If we turn from the body to the mind and the spirit, the Japanese show +themselves in no respect inferior, and in some important respects +superior, to the Americans. New though they are to the whole mental +attitude which underlies science and its applications, they have +already, in half a century, produced physicians, surgeons, pathologists, +engineers who can hold their own with the best of Europe and America. +All that the West can do in this, its own special sphere, the Japanese, +late-comers though they be, are showing that they can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>do too. In +particular, to apply the only test which the Western nations seem really +to accept, they can build ships, train men, organise a campaign, and +beat a great Western Power at the West's own game of slaughter. But all +this, of science and armaments, big though it bulks in our imagination, +is secondary and subordinate in a true estimate of civilisation. The +great claim the Japanese may make, as I began by saying, is that they +have known how to live; and they have proved that by the only test—by +the way they have reflected life.</p> + +<p>Japanese literature and art may not be as great as that of Europe; but +it exists, whereas that of America and all the new countries is yet to +seek. While Europe was still plunged in the darkest of the dark ages, +Japanese poets were already producing songs in exquisite response to the +beauty of nature, the passion and pathos of human life. From the seventh +century on, their painting and their sculpture was reflecting in tender +and gracious forms the mysteries of their faith. Their literature and +their art changed its content and its form with the centuries, but it +continued without a break, in a stream of genuine inspiration, down to +the time when the West forced open the doors of Japan to the world. From +that moment, under the new influences, it has sickened and declined. But +what a record! And a record that is also an incontrovertible proof that +the Japanese belong to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>civilised nations—the nations that can live +and express life.</p> + +<p>But perhaps this test may be rejected. Morals, it may be urged, is the +touchstone of civilisation, not art. Well, take morals. The question is +a large one; but, summarily, where do the Japanese fail, as compared +with the Western nations? Is patriotism the standard? In this respect +what nation can compete with them? Is it courage? What people are +braver? Is it industry? Who is more industrious? It is their very +industry that has aroused the jealous fears of the Californians. Is it +family life? Where, outside the East, is found such solidarity as in +Japan? Is it sexual purity? On that point, what Western nation can hold +up its head? Is it honesty? What of the honesty of the West? No; no +Westerner, knowing the facts, could for a moment maintain that, all +round and on the whole, the morals of the Japanese are inferior to those +of Europe or America. It would probably be easier to maintain the +opposite. Judged by every real test the Japanese civilisation is not +lower, it is higher than that of any of the new countries who refuse to +permit the Japanese to live among them.</p> + +<p>That, I admit, does not settle the question. Competent and impartial men +like Admiral Mahan, who would admit all that I have urged, still +maintain that the Japanese ought not to be allowed to settle in the +West. This conclusion I do not now discuss. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>point I wish to make is +that the question can never be fairly faced, in a dry light, and with +reference only to the simple facts, until the prejudice is broken up and +destroyed that the Japanese, and all other Orientals, are "inferior" +races. It is this prejudice which distorts all the facts and all the +values, which makes Californians and British Columbians and Australians +sheerly unreasonable, and causes them to jump at one argument after +another, each more fallacious than the last, to defend an attitude which +at bottom is nothing but the childish and ignorant hatred of the +uncultivated man for everything strange. If the Japanese had had white +skins, should we ever have heard of the economic argument? And should we +ever have been presented with that new shibboleth "unassimilable"?</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> +<h3>VII<br /> +HOME</h3> + + +<p>Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London! What a crescendo of life! What a +quickening of the flow! What a gathering intensity! "Whatever else we +may think of the West," I said to the young French artist, "it is, at +any rate, the centre of life." "Yes," he replied, "but the curious thing +is that that Life produces only Death. Dead things, and dead people." I +reflected. Yes! The <i>things</i> certainly were dead. Look at the Louvre! +Look at the Madeleine! Look at any of the streets! Machine-men had made +it all, not human souls. The men were dead, then, too? "Certainly!" he +insisted. "Their works are a proof. Where there is life there is art. +And there is no art in the modern world—neither in the East nor in the +West." "Then what is this that looks like Life?" I said, looking at the +roaring streets. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Steam."</p> + +<p>With that in my mind, I crossed to England, and forgot criticism and +speculation in the gleam of the white cliffs, in the trim hedgerows and +fields, in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>sound of English voices and the sight of English faces. +In London it was the same. The bright-cheeked messenger boys, the +discreetly swaggering chauffeurs, the quiet, competent young men in City +offices who reassured me about my baggage, the autumn sun on the maze of +misty streets, the vast picturesqueness of London, its beauty as of a +mountain or the sea, fairly carried me off my feet. And passing St. +Paul's—"Dead," I muttered, as I looked at its derivative facade,—I +went in to take breath. From the end of the vast, cold space came the +dreary wail I remembered so well. I had heard Church music at Moscow, +and knew what it ought to be. But the tremendous passion of that Eastern +plain-song would have offended these discreet walls. I was in a "sacred +edifice"; and with a pang of regret I recalled the wooden shrines of +Japan under the great trees, the solemn Buddhas, and the crowds of +cheerful worshippers. I walked down the empty nave and came under the +dome. Then something happened—the thing that always happens when one +comes into touch with the work of a genius. And Wren's dome proves that +he was that. I sat down, and the organ began to play; or rather, the +dome began to sing. And down the stream of music floated in fragments +visions of my journey—Indians nude like bronzes, blue-coated Chinese, +white robes and bare limbs from Japan, plains of corn, plains of rice, +plains of scorched grass; snow-peaks under the stars, volcanoes, green +and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>black; huge rivers, tumbling streams, waterfalls, lakes, the ocean; +hovels and huts of wood or sun-dried bricks, thatched or tiled; marble +palaces and baths; red lacquer, golden tiles; saints, kings, conquerors, +and, enduring or worshipping these, a myriad generations of peasants +through long millenniums, toiling, suffering, believing, in one +unchanging course of life, before the dawn of history on and down to +here and now. As they were, so they are; and I heard them sound as with +the drone of Oriental music. Then above that drone something new +appeared. Late in time, Western history emerged, and—astonishing +thing—began to move and change! "Why," I said, "there's something +trying to happen! What is it? Is there going to be a melody?" There was +not one. But there was—has the reader ever heard the second—or is it +the third?—overture to "Leonora"? A scale begins to run up, first on +the violins; then one by one the other instruments join in, till the +great basses are swept into the current and run and scale too. So it was +here. The West began; but the East caught it up. The unchanging drone +began to move and flow. Faster and faster, louder and louder, more and +more intensely, crying and flaming towards—what? Beethoven knew, and +put it into his music. We cannot put it into ideas or words. We can see +the problem, not the solution; and the problem is this. To reconcile the +Western flight down Time with the Eastern rest in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>Eternity; the Western +multiformity with the Eastern identity; the Western energy with the +Eastern peace. For God is neither Time nor Eternity, but Time in +Eternity; neither One nor Many, but One in Many; neither Spirit nor +Matter, but Matter-Spirit. That the great artists know, and the great +saints; the modern artists and the modern saints, who have been or who +will be. Goethe was one; Beethoven was one; and there will be greater, +when the contact between East and West becomes closer, and the sparks +from pole to pole fly faster.</p> + +<p>I had dropped into mere thinking, and realised that the organ had +stopped. I left the great church and came out upon the back of Queen +Anne, which made me laugh. Still, it was quite religious; so were the +'buses, and the motor-cars, and the shops and offices, and the Law +Courts, and the top-hats, and the crossing-sweepers. "Dear people," I +said, "you are not dead, any more than I am. You think you are, as I too +often do. When you feel dead you should go to church; but not in a +'sacred edifice.' Beethoven, even in the Queen's Hall, is better."</p> + + +<hr /> +<h2><small>PART IV</small><br /> +AMERICA</h2> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> +<h3>I<br /> +THE "DIVINE AVERAGE"</h3> + + +<p>The great countries of the East have each a civilisation that is +original, if not independent. India, China, Japan, each has a peculiar +outlook on the world. Not so America, at any rate in the north. America, +we might say, does not exist; there exists instead an offshoot of +Europe. Nor does an "American spirit" exist; there exists instead the +spirit of the average Western man. Americans are immigrants and +descendants of immigrants. Putting aside the negroes and a handful of +orientals, there is nothing to be found here that is not to be found in +Western Europe; only here what thrives is not what is distinctive of the +different European countries, but what is common to them all. What +America does, not, of course, in a moment, but with incredible rapidity, +is to obliterate distinctions. The Scotchman, the Irishman, the German, +the Scandinavian, the Italian, even, I suppose, the Czech, drops his +costume, his manner, his language, his traditions, his beliefs, and +retains only his common Western humanity. Transported to this continent +all the varieties developed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>in Europe revert to the original type, and +flourish in unexampled vigour and force. It is not a new type that is +evolved; it is the fundamental type, growing in a new soil, in luxuriant +profusion. Describe the average Western man and you describe the +American; from east to west, from north to south, everywhere and always +the same—masterful, aggressive, unscrupulous, egotistic, at once +good-natured and brutal, kind if you do not cross him, ruthless if you +do, greedy, ambitious, self-reliant, active for the sake of activity, +intelligent and unintellectual, quick-witted and crass, contemptuous of +ideas but amorous of devices, valuing nothing but success, recognising +nothing but the actual, Man in the concrete, undisturbed by spiritual +life, the master of methods and slave of things, and therefore the +conqueror of the world, the unquestioning, the undoubting, the child +with the muscles of a man, the European stripped bare, and shown for +what he is, a predatory, unreflecting, naïf, precociously accomplished +brute.</p> + +<p>One does not then find in America anything one does not find in Europe; +but one finds in Europe what one does not find in America. One finds, as +well as the average, what is below and what is above it. America has, +broadly speaking, no waste products. The wreckage, everywhere evident in +Europe, is not evident there. Men do not lose their self-respect, they +win it; they do not drop out, they work in. This is the great result not +of American institutions or ideas, but of American <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>opportunities. It is +the poor immigrant who ought to sing the praises of this continent. He +alone has the proper point of view; and he, unfortunately, is dumb. But +often, when I have contemplated with dreary disgust, in the outskirts of +New York, the hideous wooden shanties planted askew in wastes of +garbage, and remembered Naples or Genoa or Venice, suddenly it has been +borne in upon me that the Italians living there feel that they have +their feet on the ladder leading to paradise; that for the first time +they have before them a prospect and a hope; and that while they have +lost, or are losing, their manners, their beauty and their charm, they +have gained something which, in their eyes, and perhaps in reality, more +than compensates for losses they do not seem to feel, they have gained +self-respect, independence, and the allure of the open horizon. "The +vision of America," a friend writes, "is the vision of the lifting up of +the millions." This, I believe, is true, and it is America's great +contribution to civilisation. I do not forget it; but neither shall I +dwell upon it; for though it is, I suppose, the most important thing +about America, it is not what I come across in my own experience. What +strikes more often and more directly home to me is the other fact that +America, if she is not burdened by masses lying below the average, is +also not inspired by an élite rising above it. Her distinction is the +absence of distinction. No wonder Walt Whitman <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>sang the "Divine +Average." There was nothing else in America for him to sing. But he +should not have called it divine; he should have called it "human, all +too human."</p> + +<p>Or <i>is</i> it divine? Divine somehow in its potentialities? Divine to a +deeper vision than mine? I was writing this at Brooklyn, in a room that +looks across the East River to New York. And after putting down those +words, "human, all too human," I stepped out on to the terrace. Across +the gulf before me went shooting forward and back interminable rows of +fiery shuttles; and on its surface seemed to float blazing basilicas. +Beyond rose into the darkness a dazzling tower of light, dusking and +shimmering, primrose and green, up to a diadem of gold. About it hung +galaxies and constellations, outshining the firmament of stars; and +all the air was full of strange voices, more than human, ingeminating +Babylonian oracles out of the bosom of night. This is New York. This +it is that the average man has done, he knows not why; this is the +symbol of his work, so much more than himself, so much more than what +seems to be itself in the common light of day. America does not know +what she is doing, neither do I know, nor any man. But the impulse that +drives her, so mean and poor to the critic's eye, has perhaps more +significance in the eye of God; and the optimism of this continent, so +seeming-frivolous, is justified, may be, by reason lying beyond its +ken.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p> +<h3>II<br /> +A CONTINENT OF PIONEERS</h3> + + +<p>The American, I said, in the previous letter, is the average Western +man. It should be added, he is the average man in the guise of pioneer. +Much that surprises or shocks Europeans in the American character is to +be explained, I believe, by this fact. Among pioneers the individual is +everything and the society nothing. Every man relies on himself and on +his personal relations. He is a friend, and an enemy; he is never a +citizen. Justice, order, respect for law, honesty even and honour are to +him mere abstract names; what is real is intelligence and force, the +service done or the injury inflicted, the direct emotional reaction to +persons and deeds. And still, as it seems to the foreign observer, even +in the long-settled east, still more in the west, this attitude +prevails. To the American politician or business man, that a thing is +right or wrong, legal or illegal, seems a pale and irrelevant +consideration. The real question is, will it pay? will it please +Theophilus P. Polk or vex Harriman Q. Kunz? If it is illegal, will it be +detected? If detected, will it be prosecuted? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>What are our resources +for evading or defeating the law? And all this with good temper and good +conscience. What stands in the way, says the pioneer, must be swept out +of it; no matter whether it be the moral or the civil law, a public +authority or a rival in business. "The strong business man" has no use +for scruples. Public or social considerations do not appeal to him. Or +if they do present themselves, he satisfies himself with the belief +that, from activities so strenuous and remarkable as his, Good must +result to the community. If he break the law, that is the fault of the +law, for being stupid and obstructive; if he break individuals, that is +their fault for being weak. <i>Vae victis!</i> Never has that principle, or +rather instinct, ruled more paramount than it does in America.</p> + +<p>To say this, is to say that American society is the most individualistic +in the modern world. This follows naturally from the whole situation of +the country. The pioneer has no object save to get rich; the government +of pioneers has no object save to develop the country quickly. To this +object everything is sacrificed, including the interests of future +generations. All new countries have taken the most obvious and easy +course. They have given away for nothing, or for a song, the whole of +their natural resources to anybody who will undertake to exploit them. +And those who have appropriated this wealth have judged it to be theirs +by a kind of natural right. "These farms, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>mines, forests, +oilsprings—of course they are ours. Did not we discover them? Did not +we squat upon them? Have we not 'mixed our labour with them'?" If +pressed as to the claims of later comers they would probably reply that +there remains "as much and as good" for others. And this of course is +true for a time; but for a very short time, even when it is a continent +that is being divided up. Practically the whole territory of the United +States is now in private ownership. Still, the owners have made such +good use of their opportunities that they have created innumerable +opportunities for non-owners. Artisans get good wages; lawyers make +fortunes; stock and share holders get high dividends. Every one feels +that he is nourishing, and flourishing by his own efforts. He has no +need to combine with his fellows; or, if he does combine, is ready to +desert them in a moment when he sees his own individual chance.</p> + +<p>But this is only a phase; and inevitably, by the logic of events, there +supervenes upon it another on which, it would appear, America is just +now entering. With all her natural resources distributed among +individuals or corporations, and with the tide of immigration unchecked, +she begins to feel the first stress of the situation of which the +tension in Europe has already become almost intolerable. It is the +situation which cannot fail to result from the system of private +property and inheritance established throughout the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>Western world. +Opportunities diminish, classes segregate. There arises a caste of +wage-earners never to be anything but wage-earners; a caste of +property-owners, handing on their property to their descendants; and +substantially, after all deductions have been made for exaggeration and +simplification, a division of society into capitalists and proletarians. +American society is beginning to crystallise out into the forms of +European society. For, once more, America is nothing new; she is a +repetition of the old on a larger scale. And, curiously, she is less +"new" than the other new countries. Australia and New Zealand for years +past have been trying experiments in social policy; they are determined +to do what they can to prevent the recurrence there of the European +situation. But in America, there is no sign of such tendencies. The +political and social philosophy of the United States is still that of +the early English individualists. And, no doubt, there are adequate +causes, if not good reasons for this. The immense wealth and size of the +country, the huge agricultural population, the proportionally smaller +aggregation in cities has maintained in the mass of the people what I +have called the "pioneer" attitude. Opportunity has been, and still is, +more open than in any other country; and, in consequence, there has +hardly emerged a definite "working class" with a class consciousness. +This, however, is a condition that cannot be expected to continue. +America will develop <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>on the lines of Europe, because she has European +institutions; and "labour" will assert itself more and more as an +independent factor in politics.</p> + +<p>Whether it will assert itself successfully is another matter. At +present, as is notorious, American politics are controlled by wealth, +more completely, perhaps, than those of any other country, even of +England. The "corporations" make it a main part of their business to +capture Congress, the Legislatures, the Courts and the city governments; +and they are eminently successful. The smallest country town has its +"boss," in the employ of the Railway; the Public Service Corporations +control the cities; and the protected interests dominate the Senate. +Business governs America; and business does not include labour. In no +civilised country except Japan is labour-legislation so undeveloped as +in the States; in none is capital so uncontrolled; in none is justice so +openly prostituted to wealth. America is the paradise of plutocracy; for +the rich there enjoy not only a real power but a social prestige such as +can hardly have been accorded to them even in the worst days of the +Roman Empire. Great fortunes and their owners are regarded with a +respect as naïf and as intense as has ever been conceded to birth in +Europe. No American youth of ambition, I am told, leaves college with +any less or greater purpose in his heart than that of emulating Mr. +Carnegie or Mr. Rockefeller. And, on the other hand, it must be +conceded, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>rich men feel an obligation to dispose of their wealth for +public purposes, to a degree quite unknown in Europe. By these lavish +gifts the people are dazzled. They feel that the millionaire has paid +his ransom; and are ready to forgive irregularities in the process of +acquiring wealth when they are atoned for by such splendid penance. Thus +the rich man in America comes to assume the position of a kind of +popular dictator. He is admired on account of his prowess and forgiven +on account of his beneficence. And, since every one feels that one day +he may have the chance of imitating him, no one judges him too severely. +He is regarded not as the "exploiter," the man grown fat on the labour +of others. Rather he is the type, the genius of the American people; and +they point to him with pride as "one of our strong men," "one of our +conservative men of business."</p> + +<p>Individualism, then, is stronger and deeper rooted in America than +elsewhere. And, it must be added, socialism is weaker. It is an imported +article, and it does not thrive on the new soil. The formulæ of Marx are +even less congenial to the American than to the English mind; and +American conditions have not yet given rise to a native socialism, based +on local conditions and adapted to local habits of thought. Such a +native socialism, I believe, is bound to come before long, perhaps is +arising even now. But I would not hazard the assertion that it is likely +to prevail. America, it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>would seem, stands at the parting of the ways. +Either she may develop on democratic lines; and Democracy, as I think, +demonstrably implies some kind of socialism. Or she may fossilise in the +form of her present Plutocracy, and realise that new feudalism of +industry which was dreamt of by Saint-Simon, by Comte, and by Carlyle. +It would be a strange consummation, but stranger things have happened; +and it seems more probable that this should happen in America than that +it should happen in any European country. It is an error to think of +America as democratic; her Democracy is all on the surface. But in +Europe, Democracy is penetrating deeper and deeper. And, in particular, +there can be little doubt that England is now more democratic than the +United States.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p> +<h3>III<br /> +NIAGARA</h3> + + +<p>I shall not describe Niagara; instead I shall repeat a conversation.</p> + +<p>After a day spent in visiting the falls and the rapids, I was sitting +to-night on a bench on the river bank. The racing water-ridges glimmered +faintly in the dusk and the roar of the falls droned in unwavering +monotony. I fell, I think, into a kind of stupor; anyhow, I cannot +remember when it was that some one took a seat beside me, and began to +talk. I seemed to wake and feel him speaking; and the first remark I +definitely heard was this: "All America is Niagara." "All America is +Niagara," the voice repeated—I could see no face. "Force without +direction, noise without significance, speed without accomplishment. All +day and all night the water rushes and roars. I sit and listen; and it +does nothing. It is Nature; and Nature has no significance. It is we +poets who create significance, and for that reason Nature hates us. She +is afraid of us, for she knows that we condemn her. We have standards +before which she shrinks abashed. But <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>she has her revenge; for poets +are incarnate. She owns our bodies; and she hurls us down Niagara with +the rest, with the others that she loves, and that love her, the virile +big-jawed men, trampling and trampled, hustling and hustled, working and +asking no questions, falling as water and dispersing as spray. Nature is +force, loves force, wills force alone. She hates the intellect, she +hates the soul, she hates the spirit. Nietszche understood her aright, +Nietszche the arch-traitor, who spied on the enemy, learned her secrets, +and then went over to her side. Force rules the world."</p> + +<p>I must have said something banal about progress, for the voice broke +out:</p> + +<p>"There is no progress! It is always the same river! New waves succeed +for ever, but always in the old forms. History tells, from beginning to +end, the same tale—the victory of the strong over the sensitive, of the +active over the reflective, of intelligence over intellect. Rome +conquered Greece, the Germans the Italians, the English the French, and +now, the Americans the world! What matters the form of the struggle, +whether it be in arms or commerce, whether the victory go to the sword, +or to shoddy, advertisement, and fraud? History is the perennial +conquest of civilisation by barbarians. The little islands before us, +lovely with trees and flowers, green oases in the rushing river, it is +but a few years and they will be engulfed. So Greece was swallowed up, +so Italy, and so will it be with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>England. Not, as your moralists +maintain, because of her vices, but because of her virtues. She is +becoming just, scrupulous, humane, and therefore she is doomed. Ignoble +though she be, she is yet too noble to survive; for Germany and America +are baser than she. Hark, Hark to Niagara! Force, at all costs! Do you +hear it? Do you see it? I can see it, though it is dark. It is a river +of mouths and teeth, of greedy outstretched hands, of mirthless +laughter, of tears and of blood. I am there, you are there; we are +hurrying over the fall; we are going up in spray."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I cried as one cries in a nightmare, "and in that spray hangs the +rainbow."</p> + +<p>He caught at the phrase. "It is true. The rainbow hangs in the spray! It +is the type of the Ideal, hanging always above the Actual, never in it, +never controlling it. We poets make the rainbow; we do not shape the +world."</p> + +<p>"We do not make the rainbow," I said. "The sun makes it, shining against +it. What is the sun?"</p> + +<p>"The sun is the Platonic Good; it lights the world, but does not warm +it. By its illumination we see the river in which we are involved; see +and judge, and condemn, and are swept away. That we can condemn is our +greatness; by that we are children of the sun. But our vision is never +fruitful. The sun cannot breed out of matter; no, not even maggots by +kissing carrion. Between Force and Light, Matter and Good, there is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>no +interchange. Good is not a cause, it is only an idea."</p> + +<p>"To illuminate," I said, "is to transform."</p> + +<p>"No! it is only to reveal! Light dances on the surface; but not the +tiniest wave was ever dimpled or crisped by its rays. Matter alone moves +matter; and the world is matter. Best not cry, best not even blaspheme. +Pass over the fall in silence. Perhaps, at the bottom, there is +oblivion. It is the best we can hope, we who see."</p> + +<p>And he was gone! Had there been anyone? Was there a real voice? I do not +know. Perhaps it was only the roar of Niagara. When I returned to the +hotel, I heard that this very afternoon, while I was sunning myself on +one of the islands, a woman had thrown herself into the rapids and been +swept over the fall. Niagara took her, as it takes a stick or a stone. +Soon it will take the civilisation of America, as it has taken that of +the Indians. Centuries will pass, millenniums will pass, mankind will +have come and gone, and still the river will flow and the sun shine, and +they will communicate to one another their stern immortal joy, in which +there is no part for ephemeral men.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p> +<h3>IV<br /> +"THE MODERN PULPIT"</h3> + + +<p>It is a bright July morning. As I sit in the garden I look out, over a +tangle of wild roses, to a calm sea and a flock of white sails. +Everything invites to happy thought and innocent reverie. Moreover, it +is the day of rest, and every one is at leisure to turn his mind towards +pleasant things. To what, in fact, are most people on this continent +turning theirs? To this, which I hold in my hand, the Sunday newspaper.</p> + +<p>Let us analyse this production, peculiar to the New World. It comprises +eight sections and eighty-eight pages, and very likely does really, as +it boasts, contain "more reading matter than the whole Bible."</p> + +<p>Opening Section 1, I read the following headings:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Baron Shot as Bank-teller—Ends Life with Bullet."</p> + +<p>"Two fatally Hurt in Strike Riots at Pittsburg."</p> + +<p>"Steals a Look at Busy Burglars."</p> + +<p>"Drowned in Surf at Narragansett."</p> + +<p>"Four of a Family fear a Dogs' bite" (<i>sic</i>).</p> + +<p>"Two are Dead, Two Dying; Fought over Cow."</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>Section 2 appears to be concerned with similar matter, for example:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Struck by Blast, Woman is Dying."</p> + +<p>"Hard Shell Crabs help in giving Burglar Alarm."</p> + +<p>"Man who has been Married three times denies the Existence of +God."</p></div> + +<p>But here I notice further the interesting and enigmatic heading:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Will 'boost' not 'knock' New York,"</p></div> + +<p>and roused for the first time to something like curiosity, read:</p> + +<p>"To lock horns with the muckrakes and to defend New York against all who +defame and censure it the Association for New York was incorporated +yesterday."</p> + +<p>I notice also "Conferences agree to short rates on woollen goods," and +am reminded of the shameless bargaining of which, for many weeks past, +Washington has been the centre; which leads me to reflect on the +political advantages of a Tariff and its wholesome effect on the +national life.</p> + +<p>Section 3 deals with Aviation and seaside resorts:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Brave Lake Placid," I read, "Planning New Hotel."</p> + +<p>"Haines Falls entertaining a Great Throng of People."</p> + +<p>"Resound with the Laughter and Shout of Summer Throngs."</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>Section 4 consists entirely of advertisements:</p> + +<p>"Tuning-up Sale," I read. "Buff-and-crimson cards will mark the trail of +all goods ready for the sale. We are tuning up. By September it is our +intention to have assembled in these two great buildings the most +fashionable merchandise ever shown. No one piece of goods will be +permitted to linger that lacks, in any detail, the æsthetic beauty +demanded by New York women of fashion. Everything will be better and a +definite percentage lower in price than New York will find in any other +store. Do not expect a sale of ordinary proportions. To-morrow you will +find the store alive with enthusiasm. This is not a summer hurrah." And +so on, to the end of the page. Twelve pages of advertisements, +uninterrupted by any item of news.</p> + +<p>Section 5 is devoted to automobile gossip and automobile advertisements.</p> + +<p>Thereupon follows the <i>Special Sporting Section</i>:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Rumsom Freebooters defeat Devon's first."</p> + +<p>"'Young Corbett' is chipped in the 8th."</p> + +<p>"Doggett and Cubs each win shut out."</p> + +<p>"Brockett is easy for Detroit Nine."</p></div> + +<p>Glancing at the small type I read:—</p> + +<p>"Englewood was the first to tally. This was in the fourth inning. W. +Merritt, the first man up, was safe on Williams' error, and he got round +to third on another miscue by Williams. Charley Clough was on deck with +a timely single, which scored Merritt. Curran's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> out at first put Clough +on third, from whence he tallied on Cuming's single. Cuming got to +second, when Wiley grounded out along the first base line and scored on +Reinmund's single. Every other time Reinmund came to the bat he struck +out."</p> + +<p>I pass to the <i>Magazine Section</i>.</p> + +<p>On the first page is the mysterious heading "E. of K. and E." Several +huge portraits of a bald clean-shaven man in shirt sleeves partially +explain. E. is Mr. Erlanger, a theatrical impresario, and K. and E. +presumably is his firm. The article describes "the accomplishment of a +busy man on one of his ordinary days," and makes one hope no day is ever +extraordinary. The interviewer who tells about him is almost speechless +with emotion. He searches for a phrase to express his feelings, finds it +at last, and comes triumphantly to his close—Mr. Erlanger is a man +"with trained arms, trained legs, a trained body and a trained mind." +There follows: "The Story of a Society Girl," in which we are told +"there is a confession of love and the startling discovery that Dolly +was a professional model"; "The Doctor's Story," with a picture of a +corpse, "whose white shapely hands were clasped one over the other"; +and "Would you Convict on Circumstantial Evidence?—A Scaffold +Confession. A True Story." I glance at this, and read, "While the crowd +watched in strained, breathless silence there came a sharp agonised +voice and a commotion near the steps <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>of the scaffold. 'Stop! Stop! The +man is not guilty. I mean it. It is I who should stand there. Let me +speak.'" You can now reconstruct the story for yourself. Next comes "Get +the Man! Craft and courage of old-time and modern express robbers +matched by organised secret service and the mandate that makes capture +alone the end of an unflagging man-hunt." This is accompanied by +portraits of famous detectives and train-robbers.</p> + +<p>There follows "<i>Thrilling Lines</i>," with a picture of a man who seems to +be looping the loop on a bicycle.</p> + +<p>And the conclusion of the section is a poem, entitled "Cynthianna +Blythe," with coloured illustrations apparently intended for children, +and certainly successful in not appealing to adults.</p> + +<p>Comment, I suppose, is superfluous. But it is only fair to say that the +whole of the press of America is not of this character. Among the +thousands of papers daily produced on that continent, it would be +possible, I believe, to name ten—I myself could mention five—which +contain in almost every issue some piece of information or comment which +an intelligent man might care to peruse. There are to be found, now and +again, passing references to European and even to Asiatic politics; for +it cannot be said that the press of America wholly ignored the recent +revolutions in Persia and in Turkey. I myself saw a reference to the new +Sultan as a man "fat, but not fleshy." England <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>looms big enough on the +American horizon to be treated to an occasional gibe; and the doings of +fashionable Americans in London are reported somewhat fully. Still, on +the whole, the American daily press is typified by the specimen I have +analysed. Sensations, personalities and fiction are its stock-in-trade. +Why? The causes are well known, but are worth recapitulating, for they +are part of the system of modern civilisation.</p> + +<p>The newspaper press is a business intended to make money. This is its +primary aim, which may, or may not, include the subordinate purpose of +advocating some line of public policy. Now, to make money, it is +essential to secure advertisements; and to secure advertisements it is +essential to have a large circulation. But a large circulation can only +be obtained by lowering the price of the paper, and adapting it to the +leisure mood of the mass of people. But this leisure mood is usually one +of sheer vacuity, incapable of intellectual effort or imaginative +response. The man is there, waiting to be filled, and to be filled with +the stuff easiest to digest. The rest follows. The newspapers supply the +demand and by supplying extend and perpetuate it. Among the possible +appeals open to them they deliberately choose the lowest. For people are +capable of Good as well as of Bad; and if they cannot get the Bad they +will sometimes take the Good. Newspapers, probably, could exist, even +under democratic conditions, by maintaining a certain standard of +intelligence and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>morals. But it is easier to exist on melodrama, +fatuity and sport. And one or two papers adopting that course force the +others into line; for here, as in so many departments of modern life, +"The Bad drives out the Good." This process of deterioration of the +press is proceeding rapidly in England, with the advent of the halfpenny +newspaper. It has not gone so far as in America; but there is no reason +why it should not, and every reason why it should; for the same causes +are at work.</p> + +<p>I have called the process "deterioration," but that, of course, is +matter of opinion. A Cabinet Minister, at a recent Conference in London, +is reported to have congratulated the press on its progressive +improvement during recent years. And Lord Northcliffe is a peer. The +more the English press approximates to the American, the more, it would +seem, it may hope for public esteem and honour. And that is natural, for +the American method pays.</p> + +<p>Well, the sun still shines and the sky is still blue. But between it and +the American people stretches a veil of printed paper. Curious! the +fathers of this nation read nothing but the Bible. That too, it may be +said, was a veil; but a veil woven of apocalyptic visions, of lightning +and storm, of Leviathan, and the wrath of Jehovah. What is the stuff of +the modern veil, we have seen. And surely the contrast is calculated to +evoke curious reflections.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p> +<h3>V<br /> +IN THE ROCKIES</h3> + + +<p>Walking alone in the mountains to-day I came suddenly upon the railway. +There was a little shanty of a station 8000 feet above the sea; and, +beyond, the great expanse of the plains. It was beginning to sleet, and +I determined to take shelter. The click of a telegraph operator told me +there was some one inside the shed. I knocked and knocked again, in +vain; and it was a quarter of an hour before the door was opened by a +thin, yellow-faced youth chewing gum, who looked at me without a sign of +recognition or a word of greeting. I have learnt by this time that +absence of manners in an American is intended to signify not surliness +but independence, so I asked to be allowed to enter. He admitted me, and +resumed his operations. I listened to the clicking, while the sleet fell +faster and the evening began to close in. What messages were they, I +wondered, that were passing across the mountains? I connected them, idly +enough, with the corner in wheat a famous speculator was endeavouring to +establish in Chicago; and reflected upon the disproportion between the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>achievements of Man and the use he puts them to. He invents wireless +telegraphy, and the ships call to one another day and night, to tell the +name of the latest winner. He is inventing the flying-machine, and he +will use it to advertise pills and drop bombs. And here, he has +exterminated the Indians, and carried his lines and his poles across the +mountains, that a gambler may fill his pockets by starving a continent. +"Click—​click—​click—​Pick—​pick—​pick—​Pock—​pock—​pockets." So the +west called to the east, and the east to the west, while the winds +roared, and the sleet fell, over the solitary mountains and the desolate +iron road.</p> + +<p>It was too late now for me to reach my hotel that evening, and I was +obliged to beg a night's rest. The yellow youth assented, with his air +of elaborate indifference, and proceeded to make me as comfortable as he +could. About sunset, the storm passed away over the plains. Behind its +flying fringes shot the last rays of the sun; and for a moment the +prairie sea was all bared to view, as wide as the sky, as calm and as +profound, a thousand miles of grass where men and cattle crept like +flies, and towns and houses were swallowed and lost in the infinite +monotony. We had supper and then my host began to talk. He was a +democrat, and we discussed the coming presidential election. From one +newspaper topic to another we passed to the talk about signalling to +Mars. Signalling interested the youth; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>he knew all about that; but he +knew nothing about Mars, or the stars. These were now shining bright +above us; and I told him what I knew of suns and planets, of double +stars, of the moons, of Jupiter, of nebulae and the galaxy, and the +infinity of space, and of worlds. He chewed and meditated, and presently +remarked: "Gee! I guess then it doesn't matter two cents after all who +gets elected president!" Whereupon we turned in, he to sleep and I to +lie awake, for I was disturbed by the mystery of the stars. It is long +since the notion of infinite space and infinite worlds has impressed my +imagination with anything but discomfort and terror. The Ptolemaic +scheme was better suited to human needs. Our religious sense demands not +only order but significance; a world not merely great, but relevant to +our destinies. Copernicus, it is true, gave us liberty and space; but he +bereft us of security and intimacy. And I thought of the great vision of +Dante, so terrible and yet so beautiful, so human through and +through,—that vision which, if it contracts space, expands the fate of +man, and relates him to the sun and the moon and the stars. I thought of +him as he crossed the Apennines by night, or heard from the sea at +sunset the tinkling of the curfew bell, or paced in storm the forest of +Ravenna, always, beyond and behind the urgency of business, the chances +of war, the bitterness of exile, aware of the march of the sun about the +earth, of its station in the Zodiac, of the solemn <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>and intricate +wheeling of the spheres. Aware, too, of the inner life of those bright +luminaries, the dance and song of spirits purged by fire, the glow of +Mars, the milky crystal of the moon, and Jupiter's intolerable blaze; +and beyond these, kindling these, setting them their orbits and their +order, by attraction not of gravitation, but of love, the ultimate +Essence, imaged by purest light and hottest fire, whereby all things and +all creatures move in their courses and their fates, to whom they tend +and in whom they rest.</p> + +<p>And I recalled the passage:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Frate, la nostra volontà quieta<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Virtù di carità, che fa volerne<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sol quel ch'avemo, e d'altro non ci asseta.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Se disiassimo esser più superne,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Fôran discordi gli nostri disiri<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Dal voler di Colui che qui ne cerne;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Che vedrai non capere in questi giri,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">S'essere in caritate è qui necesse,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">E se la sua natura ben rimiri;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Anzi è formale ad esto beato esse<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Tenersi dentro alia divina voglia,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Perch'una fansi nostre voglie stesse.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Si che, come noi siam di soglia in soglia<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Per questo regno, a tutto il regno piace,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Com'allo re, che in suo voler ne invoglia.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">E la sua volontade è nostra pace:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Ella è quel mare al qual tutto si muove<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Cio ch' ella crea o che natura face."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>And then, with a leap, I was back to what we call reality—to the +clicking needle, to the corner in wheat, to Chicago and Pittsburg and +New York. In all this continent, I thought, in all the western world, +there is not a human soul whose will seeks any peace at all, least of +all the peace of God. All move, but about no centre; they move on, to +more power, to more wealth, to more motion. There is not one of them who +conceives that he has a place, if only he could find it, a rank and +order fitted to his nature, higher than some, lower than others, but +right, and the only right for him, his true position in the cosmic +scheme, his ultimate relation to the Power whence it proceeds. Life, +like astronomy, has become Copernican. It has no centre, no +significance, or, if any, one beyond our ken. Gravitation drives us, not +love. We are attracted and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>repelled by a force we cannot control, a +force that resides in our muscles and our nerves, not in our will and +spirit. "Click—click—click—tick—tick—tick," so goes the economic +clock. And that clock, with its silly face, has shut us out from the +stars. It tells us the time; but behind the dial of the hours is now for +us no vision of the solemn wheeling spheres, of spirit flames and that +ultimate point of light "pinnacled dim in the intense inane." "America +is a clock," I said; and then I remembered the phrase, "America is +Niagara." And like a flake of foam, dizzy and lost, I was swept away, +out into the infinite, out into unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>The sun was shining brightly when I woke, and I had slept away my mood +of the night. I took leave of my host, and under his directions, after +half a mile along the line, plunged down into a gorge, and followed for +miles, crossing and re-crossing, a mountain brook, between cliffs of red +rocks, by fields of mauve anemones, in the shadow and fragrance of +pines; till suddenly, after hours of rough going, I was confronted by a +notice, set up, apparently, in the desert:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p> +"Keep out. Avoid trouble. This means you."<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>I laughed. "Keep out!" I said. "If only there were a chance of my +getting in!" "Avoid trouble! Ah, what trouble would I not face, could I +but get in!" <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>And I went on, but not in, and met no trouble, and +returned to the hotel, and had dinner, and watched for a solitary hour, +in the hall, the shifting interminable array of vacant eyes and blank +faces, and then retired to write this letter; "and so to bed."</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"> +<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> +</p><p> +"Brother, the quality of love stilleth our will, and maketh us long only +for what we have, and giveth us no other thirst, +</p><p> +"Did we desire to be more aloft, our longings were discordant from his +will who here assorteth us, +</p><p> +"And for that, thou wilt see, there is no room within these circles, if +of necessity we have our being here in love, and if thou think again +what is love's nature. +</p><p> +"Nay, 'tis the essence of this blessed being to hold ourselves within +the divine will, whereby our own wills are themselves made one. +</p><p> +"So that our being thus, from threshold unto threshold, throughout the +realm, is a joy to all the realm as to the King, who draweth our wills +to what he willeth; +</p><p> +"And his will is our peace; it is that sea to which all moves that it +createth and that nature maketh." +</p> +<p class="indent25"><span class="smcap">Dante</span>, <i>Purgatorio</i>, iii. 70-87 (trans. by Rev. Philip H. Wicksteed, in +the "Temple Classics" edition).</p> + +</div> + +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p> +<h3>VI<br /> +IN THE ADIRONDACKS</h3> + + +<p>For the last few days I have been living in camp on a mountain lake in +the Adirondacks. All about me are mountains and unlumbered forest. The +tree lies where it falls; the undergrowth chokes the trails; and on the +hottest day it is cool in the green, sun-chequered wilderness. Deer +start in the thickets or steal down to drink in the lake. The only +sounds are the wood-pecker's scream, the song of the hermit-thrush, the +thrumming and drumming of bull-frogs in the water. My friend is a +sportsman; I am not; and while he catches trout I have been reading +Homer and Shelley. Shelley I have always understood; but now, for the +first time, I seem to understand Homer. Our guide here, I feel, might +have been Homer, if he had had imagination; but he could never have been +Shelley. Homer, I conceive, had from the first the normal bent for +action. What his fellows did he too wanted to do. He learned to hunt, to +sail a boat, to build a house, to use a spear and bow. He had his +initiation early, in conflict, in danger, and in death. He loved the +feast, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>the dance, and the song. But also he had dreams. He used to sit +alone and think. And, as he grew, these moods grew, till he came to live +a second life, a kind of double of the first. The one was direct, +unreflective, and purposeful. In it he hunted wild beasts that he might +kill them, fought battles that he might win them, sailed boats that he +might arrive somewhere. So far, he was like his fellows, and like our +guide, with his quick observation, his varied experience, his practical +skill. But then, on the other hand, he had imagination. This active life +he reproduced; not by recapitulating it—that the guide can do; but by +recreating it. He detached it, as it were, from himself as centre; +ceased, indeed, to be a self; and became all that he contemplated—the +victor and the vanquished, the hunter and the hunted, the house and its +builder, Thersites and Achilles. He became the sun and the moon and the +stars, the gods and the laughter of the gods. He took no sides, +pronounced no judgment, espoused no cause. He became pure vision; but +not passive vision. To see, he had to re-create; and the material his +observation had amassed he offered up as a holocaust on the altar of his +imagination. Fused in that fierce fire, like drew to like, parts ran +together and formed a whole. Did he see a warrior fall? In a moment the +image arose of "a stately poplar falling by the axe in a meadow by the +riverside." Did a host move out to meet the foe? It recalled the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>ocean +shore where "wave follows wave far out at sea until they break in +thunder on the beach." Was battle engaged? "The clash of the weapons +rang like the din of woodcutters in the mountain-glades." Did a wounded +hero fall? The combatants gathered about him "like flies buzzing round +the brimming milk-pails in the spring." All commonest things, redeemed +from isolation and irrelevance, revealed the significance with which +they were charged. The result was the actual made real, a reflexion +which was a disclosure, a reproduction which was a recreation. And if +experience, as we know it, is the last word of life, if there is nothing +beyond and nothing behind, if there is no meaning, no explanation, no +purpose or end, then the poetry of Homer is the highest reach of human +achievement.</p> + +<p>For, observe, Homer is not a critic. His vision transmutes life, but +does not transcend it. Experience is ultimate; all the poet does is to +experience fully. Common men live, but do not realise life; he realises +it. But he does not question it; it is there and it is final; glorious, +lovely, august, terrible, sordid, cruel, unjust. And the partial, +smiling, unmoved, unaccountable Olympians are the symbol of its brute +actuality. Not only is there no explanation, there is not even a +question to be asked. So it is, so it has been, so it will be. Homer's +outlook is that of the modern realist. That he wrote an epic, and they +novels, is an accident of time and space. Turgeneff or Balzac writing +1000 years <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>before Christ would have been Homer; and Homer, writing now, +would have been Turgeneff or Balzac.</p> + +<p>But Shelley could never have been Homer; for he was born a critic and a +rebel. From the first dawn of consciousness he challenged and defied the +works and ways of men and the apparent order of the universe. Never for +a moment anywhere was he at home in the world. There was nothing +attainable he cared to pursue, nothing actual he cared to represent. He +could no more see what is called fact than he could act upon it. His +eyes were dazzled by a different vision. Life and the world not only are +intolerable to him, they are unreal. Beyond and behind lies Reality, and +it is good. Now it is a Perfectibility lying in the future; now a +Perfection existing eternally. In any case, whatever it be, however and +wherever to be found, it is the sole object of his quest and of his +song. Whatever of good or lovely or passionate gleams here and there, on +the surface or in the depths of the actual, is a ray of that Sun, an +image of that Beauty. His imagination is kindled by Appearance only to +soar away from it. The landscape he depicts is all light, all fountains +and caverns. The Beings with which it is peopled are discarnate Joys and +Hopes; Justice and Liberty, Peace and Love and Truth. Among these only +is he at home; in the world of men he is an alien captive; and Human +Life presents itself as an "unquiet dream."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Tis we that, lost in stormy visions, keep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With phantoms an unprofitable strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Invulnerable nothings."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When we die, we awake into Reality—that Reality to which, from the +beginning, Shelley was consecrated:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I vowed that I would dedicate my powers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To thee and thine—have I not kept my vow?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He calls it "intellectual Beauty"; he impersonates it as Asia, and sings +it in verse that passes beyond sense into music:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Life of Life! thy lips enkindle<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With their love the breath between them;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thy smiles before they dwindle<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Make the cold air fire; then screen them<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In those looks, where whoso gazes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faints, entangled in their mazes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Child of Light! thy limbs are burning<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Through the vest which seems to hide them;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the radiant lines of morning<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Through the clouds ere they divide them;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And this atmosphere divinest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fair are others; none beholds thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But thy voice sounds low and tender<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the fairest, for it folds thee<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From the sight, that liquid splendour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all feel, yet see thee never,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I feel now, lost for ever!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span><span class="i0">And the souls of whom thou lovest<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Walk upon the winds with lightness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till they fail, as I am failing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This we call poetry; and we call the Iliad poetry. But the likeness is +superficial, and the difference profound. Was it Homer or Shelley that +grasped Reality? This is not a question of literary excellence; it is a +question of the sense of life. And—oddly enough—it is a question to +which the intellect has no answer. The life in each of us takes hold of +it and answers it empirically. The normal man is Homeric, though he is +not aware of the fact. Especially is the American Homeric; naïf, +spontaneous, at home with fact, implicitly denying the Beyond. Is he +right? This whole continent, the prairies, the mountains and the coast, +the trams and trolleys, the sky-scrapers, the factories, elevators, +automobiles, shout to that question one long deafening Yes. But there is +another country that speaks a different tongue. Before America was, +India is.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> +<h3>VII<br /> +THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS</h3> + + +<p>In the house in which I am staying hangs an old coloured print, +representing two couples, one young and lusty, the other decrepit, the +woman carrying an hour-glass, the man leaning on a stick; and +underneath, the following inscription:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"My father and mother that go so stuping to your grave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pray tell me what good I may in this world expect to have?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i0">"My son, the good you can expect is all forlorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men doe not gather grapes from of a thorn."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This dialogue, I sometimes think, symbolises the attitude of the new +world to the old, and the old to the new. Not seldom I feel among +Americans as the Egyptian is said to have felt among the Greeks, that I +am moving in a world of precocious and inexperienced children, bearing +on my own shoulders the weight of the centuries. Yet it is not exactly +that Americans strike one as young in spirit; rather they strike one as +undeveloped. It is as though they had never faced life and asked +themselves what it is; as though they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>were so occupied in running that +it has never occurred to them to inquire where they started and whither +they are going. They seem to be always doing and never experiencing. A +dimension of life, one would say, is lacking, and they live in a plane +instead of in a solid. That missing dimension I shall call religion. Not +that Americans do not, for aught I know, "believe" as much as or more +than Europeans; but they appear neither to believe nor to disbelieve +religiously. That, I admit, is true almost everywhere of the mass of the +people. But even in Europe—and far more in India—there has always +been, and still is, a minority who open windows to the stars; and +through these windows, in passing, the plain man sometimes looks. The +impression America makes on me is that the windows are blocked up. It +has become incredible that this continent was colonised by the Pilgrim +Fathers. That intense, narrow, unlovely but genuine spiritual life has +been transformed into industrial energy; and this energy, in its new +form, the churches, oddly enough, are endeavouring to recapture and use +to drive their machines. Religion is becoming a department of practical +business. The Churches—orthodox and unorthodox, old and new, Christian, +Christian-Scientific, theosophic, higher-thinking—vie with one another +in advertising goods which are all material benefits: "Follow me, and +you will get rich," "Follow me, and you will get well," "Follow me, and +you will be cheerful, prosperous, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>successful." Religion in America is +nothing if not practical. It does not concern itself with a life beyond; +it gives you here and now what you want. "What <i>do</i> you want? Money? +Come along!—Success? This is the shop!—Health? Here you are! Better +than patent medicines!" The only part of the Gospels one would suppose +that interests the modern American is the miracles; for the miracles +really did <i>do</i> something. As for the Sermon on the Mount—well, no +Westerner ever took that seriously.</p> + +<p>This conversion of religion into business is interesting enough. But +even more striking is what looks like a conversion of business into +religion. Business is so serious that it sometimes assumes the shrill +tone of a revivalist propaganda. There has recently been brought to my +attention a circular addressed to the agents of an insurance society, +urging them to rally round the firm, with a special effort, in what I +can only call a "mission-month." I quote—with apologies to the unknown +author—part of this production:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Call to Action.</span></p> + +<p>"How about these beautiful spring days for hustling? Everything +is on the move. New life and force is apparent everywhere. The +man who can stand still when all creation is on the move is +literally and hopelessly a dead one.</p> + +<p>"These are ideal days for the insurance field-man. <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>Weather +like this has a tremendously favourable effect on business. In +the city and small town alike there is a genuine revival of +business. The farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer, are +beginning to work overtime. Spring is in the footstep of the +ambitious man as well as in the onward march of nature. This is +the day of growth, expansion, creation, and re-creation.</p> + +<p>"Consciously or unconsciously every one responds to the glad +call to new life and vigour. Men who are cold and selfish, who +are literally frozen up the winter through, yield to the warm, +invigorating, energising touch of spring.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen of the field force, now is the psychological moment +to force your prospects to action as indicated by the dotted +line. As in nature, some plants and trees are harder to force +than others, so in the nature of human prospects, some are more +difficult than others. Sunshine and rain will produce results +in the field of life-underwriting.</p> + +<p>"Will it not be possible for you during these five remaining +days not only to increase the production from regular sources, +but to go out into the highways and hedges and compel others to +sign their applications, if for only a small amount?</p> + +<p>"Everything is now in full swing, and we are going to close up +the month</p> + +<p class="center">"IN A BLAZE OF GLORY."</p></div> + +<p>Might not this almost as well have been an address <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>from the +headquarters of the Salvation Army? And is not the following exactly +parallel to a denunciation, from the mission-pulpit, of the unprofitable +servant?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"A few days ago we heard of a general agent who has one of the +largest and most prosperous territories in this country. He has +been in the business for years, and yet that man, for some +unknown reason, rather apologises for his vocation. He said he +was a little ashamed of his calling. Such a condition is almost +a crime, and I am sure that the men of the Eastern Department +will say, that man ought to get out of the business.</p> + +<p class="center">"<i>Instead of being ashamed of his calling, he should be +mortally ashamed of his not calling.</i> +</p> + +<p>"Are you happy in your work? If not, give it up and go into +some business more to your liking."</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Why Is It?</span></p> + +<p>"So many times the question is asked, 'Why is it, and how is +it, that Mr. So-and-so writes so much business? There is not a +week but he procures new applications.' Gentlemen, there's but +one answer to this question. There is a great gulf between the +man who is in earnest and works persistently every day and the +man who seems to be in earnest and makes believe he is working +persistently every day.</p> + +<p>"One of the most successful personal producers said <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>to the +writer the other day: 'No wonder certain agents do not write +more business. I couldn't accomplish very much either if I did +not work longer hours than they do. Some insurance agents live +like millionaires and keep bankers' hours. You cannot expect +much business from efforts like that.' This man speaks from +practical knowledge of the business. He has written</p> + +<p class="center">$147,500 <i>in personal business in the last six weeks</i>.</p> + +<p>"It does seem rather strange, sometimes, that half of the men +in the Eastern Department should be writing twice as much +business as the other half. They are representing the same +company; presenting the same propositions; are supposed to be +talking to practically the same number of men; have the same +rates, same guarantees, and the same twenty-four hours in each +day, and yet are doing twice the business. In other words, +making more money. What really makes this difference? I will +tell you. They put heart into their work. There is an +enthusiasm and earnestness about them that carries conviction. +They are business through and through, and everybody knows it.</p> + +<p>"Are you getting your share of applications? If some other +agent is up early, wide-awake and alert, putting in from ten to +fifteen hours per day, he is bound to do business, isn't he? +This is a plain, every-day horse-sense business fact. No one +has a patent on time or the <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>use of it. To work and to succeed +is common property. It is your capital, and the use of it will +determine your worth."</p></div> + +<p>I think, really, this is one of the most remarkable documents that could +be produced in evidence of the character of American civilisation. There +is all the push, initiative, and enterprise on which they justly pride +themselves; there is also the reduction of all values to terms of +business, the concentration of what, at other times, have been moral and +religious forces upon the one aim of material progress. In such an +atmosphere it is easy to see how those who care for spiritual values are +led to protest that these are really material; to pack up their goods, +so to speak, as if they were biscuits or pork, and palm them off in that +guise on an unsuspecting public. In a world where every one is hustling, +the Churches feel they must hustle too; when all the firms advertise, +they must advertise too; when only one thing is valued, power, they must +pretend they can offer power; they must go into business, because +business is going into religion!</p> + +<p>It is a curious spectacle! How long will it last? How real is it, even +now? That withered couple, I half believe, hanging on the wall, descend +at night and wander through the land, whispering to all the sleepers +their disquieting warning; and all day long there hovers at the back of +the minds of these <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>active men a sense of discomfort which, if it became +articulate, might express itself in the ancient words:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"My son, the good you can expect is all forlorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men doe not gather grapes from of a thorn."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p> +<h3>VIII<br /> +RED-BLOODS AND "MOLLYCODDLES"</h3> + + +<p>I am staying at a pleasant place in New Hampshire. The country is hilly +and wooded, like a larger and wilder Surrey; and through it flows what, +to an Englishman, seems a large river, the Connecticut. Charming villas +are dotted about, well designed and secluded in pretty gardens. I +mention this because, in my experience of America, it is unique. Almost +everywhere the houses stare blankly at one another and at the public +roads, ugly, unsheltered, and unashamed, as much as to say, "Every one +is welcome to see what goes on here. We court publicity. See how we eat, +drink, and sleep. Our private life is the property of the American +people." It was not, however, to describe the country that I began this +letter, but to elaborate a generalisation developed by my host and +myself as a kind of self-protection against the gospel of +"strenuousness."</p> + +<p>We have divided men into Red-bloods and Mollycoddles. "A Red-blood man" +is a phrase which explains itself, "Mollycoddle" is its opposite. We +have adopted it from a famous speech of Mr. Roosevelt, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>and redeemed +it—perverted it, if you will—to other uses. A few examples will make +the notion clear. Shakespeare's Henry V. is a typical Red-blood; so was +Bismarck; so was Palmerston; so is almost any business man. On the other +hand, typical Mollycoddles were Socrates, Voltaire, and Shelley. The +terms, you will observe, are comprehensive, and the types very broad. +Generally speaking, men of action are Red-bloods. Not but what the +Mollycoddle may act, and act efficiently. But, if so, he acts from +principle, not from the instinct of action. The Red-blood, on the other +hand, acts as the stone falls, and does indiscriminately anything that +comes to hand. It is thus he that carries on the business of the world. +He steps without reflection into the first place offered him and goes to +work like a machine. The ideals and standards of his family, his class, +his city, his country and his age, he swallows as naturally as he +swallows food and drink. He is therefore always "in the swim"; and he is +bound to "arrive," because he has set before himself the attainable. You +will find him everywhere in all the prominent positions. In a military +age he is a soldier, in a commercial age a business man. He hates his +enemies, and he may love his friends; but he does not require friends to +love. A wife and children he does require, for the instinct to propagate +the race is as strong in him as all other instincts. His domestic life, +however, is not always happy; for he can seldom <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>understand his wife. +This is part of his general incapacity to understand any point of view +but his own. He is incapable of an idea and contemptuous of a principle. +He is the Samson, the blind force, dearest to Nature of her children. He +neither looks back nor looks ahead. He lives in present action. And when +he can no longer act, he loses his reason for existence. The Red-blood +is happiest if he dies in the prime of life; otherwise, he may easily +end with suicide. For he has no inner life; and when the outer life +fails, he can only fail with it. The instinct that animated him being +dead, he dies too. Nature, who has blown through him, blows elsewhere. +His stops are dumb; he is dead wood on the shore.</p> + +<p>The Mollycoddle, on the other hand, is all inner life. He may indeed +act, as I said, but he acts, so to speak, by accident; just as the +Red-blood may reflect, but reflects by accident. The Mollycoddle in +action is the Crank: it is he who accomplishes reforms; who abolished +slavery, for example, and revolutionised prisons and lunatic asylums. +Still, primarily, the Mollycoddle is a critic, not a man of action. He +challenges all standards and all facts. If an institution is +established, that is a reason why he will not accept it; if an idea is +current, that is a reason why he should repudiate it. He questions +everything, including life and the universe. And for that reason Nature +hates him. On the Red-blood she heaps her favours; she gives <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>him a good +digestion, a clear complexion, and sound nerves. But to the Mollycoddle +she apportions dyspepsia and black bile. In the universe and in society +the Mollycoddle is "out of it" as inevitably as the Red-blood is "in +it." At school, he is a "smug" or a "swat," while the Red-blood is +captain of the Eleven. At college, he is an "intellectual," while the +Red-blood is in the "best set." In the world, he courts failure while +the Red-blood achieves success. The Red-blood sees nothing; but the +Mollycoddle sees through everything. The Red-blood joins societies; the +Mollycoddle is a non-joiner. Individualist of individualists, he can +only stand alone, while the Red-blood requires the support of a crowd. +The Mollycoddle engenders ideas, and the Red-blood exploits them. The +Mollycoddle discovers, and the Red-blood invents. The whole structure of +civilisation rests on foundations laid by Mollycoddles; but all the +building is done by Red-bloods. The Red-blood despises the Mollycoddle; +but, in the long run, he does what the Mollycoddle tells him. The +Mollycoddle also despises the Red-blood, but he cannot do without him. +Each thinks he is master of the other, and, in a sense, each is right. +In his lifetime the Mollycoddle may be the slave of the Red-blood; but +after his death, he is his master, though the Red-blood know it not.</p> + +<p>Nations, like men, may be classified roughly as Red-blood and +Mollycoddle. To the latter class belong <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>clearly the ancient Greeks, the +Italians, the French, and probably the Russians; to the former the +Romans, the Germans, and the English. But the Red-blood nation <i>par +excellence</i> is the American; so that, in comparison with them, Europe as +a whole might almost be called Mollycoddle. This characteristic of +Americans is reflected in the predominant physical type,—the great jaw +and chin, the huge teeth, and predatory mouth; in their speech, where +beauty and distinction are sacrificed to force; in their need to live +and feel and act in masses. To be born a Mollycoddle in America is to be +born to a hard fate. You must either emigrate or succumb. This, at +least, hitherto has been the alternative practised. Whether a +Mollycoddle will ever be produced strong enough to breathe the American +atmosphere and live, is a crucial question for the future. It is the +question whether America will ever be civilised. For civilisation, you +will have perceived, depends on a just balance of Red-bloods and +Mollycoddles. Without the Red-blood there would be no life at all, no +stuff, so to speak, for the Mollycoddle to work upon; without the +Mollycoddle, the stuff would remain shapeless and chaotic. The Red-blood +is the matter, the Mollycoddle the form; the Red-blood the dough, the +Mollycoddle the yeast. On these two poles turns the orb of human +society. And if, at this point, you choose to say that poles are points +and have no dimensions, that strictly neither the Mollycoddle nor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>the +Red-blood exist, and that real men contain elements of both mixed in +different proportions, I have no quarrel with you except such as one has +with the man who states the obvious. I am satisfied to have +distinguished the ideal extremes between which the Actual vibrates. The +detailed application of the conception I must leave to more patient +researchers.</p> + +<p>One point more before I close. This Dichotomy, so far as I can see, +applies only to man. Woman appears to be a kind of hybrid. Regarded as a +creature of instinct, she resembles the Red-blood, and it is to him that +she is first attracted. The hero of her youth is the athlete, the +soldier, the successful man of business; and this predilection of hers +accounts for much of human history, and in particular for the +maintenance of the military spirit. On the other hand, as a creature +capable of and craving sympathy, she has affinities with the +Mollycoddle. This dual nature is the tragedy of her life. The Red-blood +awakens her passion, but cannot satisfy it. He wins her by his virility, +but cannot retain her by his perception. Hence the fact, noted by a +cynic, that it is the Mollycoddle who cuckolds the Red-blood. For the +woman, married to the Red-blood, discovers too late that she is to him +only a trophy, a scalp. He hangs her up in the hall, and goes about his +business. Then comes the Mollycoddle, divining all, possessing and +offering all. And if the Red-blood is an American, and the Mollycoddle +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>an European, then the situation is tense indeed. For the American +Red-blood despises woman in his heart as profoundly as he respects her +in outer observance. He despises her because of the Mollycoddle he +divines in her. Therefore he never understands her; and that is why +European Mollycoddles carry off American women before the very eyes of +the exasperated Red-blood. "Am I not clean?" he cries. "Am I not +healthy? Am I not athletic and efficient?" He is, but it does not help +him, except with young girls. He may win the body; but he cannot win the +soul. Can it be true then that most women would like two husbands, one +Red-blood, the other Mollycoddle, one to be the father of their +children, the other to be the companion of their souls? Women alone can +answer; and, for the first time in history, they are beginning to be +articulate.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p> +<h3>IX<br /> +ADVERTISEMENT</h3> + + +<p>The last two days and nights I spent in a railway train. We passed +through some beautiful country; that, I believe, is the fact; but my +feeling is that I have emerged from a nightmare. In my mind is a jumbled +vision of huge wooden cows cut out in profile and offering from dry +udders a fibrous milk; of tins of biscuits portrayed with a ghastly +realism of perspective, and mendaciously screaming that I needed +them—U-need-a biscuit; of gigantic quakers, multiplied as in an +interminable series of mirrors and offering me a myriad meals of +indigestible oats; of huge painted bulls in a kind of discontinuous +frieze bellowing to the heavens a challenge to produce a better tobacco +than theirs; of the head of a gentleman, with pink cheeks and a black +moustache, recurring, like a decimal, <i>ad infinitum</i> on the top of a +board, to inform me that his beauty is the product of his own toilet +powder; of cod-fish without bones—"the kind you have always bought"; of +bacon packed in glass jars; of whiz suspenders, sen-sen throat-ease, +sure-fit hose, and the whole army <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>of patent medicines. By river, wood, +and meadow, hamlet or city, mountain or plain, hovers and flits this +obscene host; never to be escaped from, never to be forgotten, fixing, +with inexorable determination, a fancy that might be tempted to roam to +that one fundamental fact of life, the operation of the bowels.</p> + +<p>Nor, of course, are these incubi, these ghostly emanations of the One +God Trade, confined to the American continent. They haunt with equal +pertinacity the lovelier landscapes of England; they line the route to +Venice; they squat on the Alps and float on the Rhine; they are +beginning to occupy the very air, and with the advent of the air-ship, +will obliterate the moon and the stars, and scatter over every lonely +moor and solitary mountain peak memorials of the stomach, of the liver +and the lungs. Never, in effect, says modern business to the soul of +man, never and nowhere shall you forget that you are nothing but a body; +that you require to eat, to salivate, to digest, to evacuate; that you +are liable to arthritis, blood-poisoning, catarrh, colitis, calvity, +constipation, consumption, diarrhœa, diabetes, dysmenorrhœa, epilepsy, +eczema, fatty degeneration, gout, goitre, gastritis, headache, +hæmorrhage, hysteria, hypertrophy, idiocy, indigestion, jaundice, +lockjaw, melancholia, neuralgia, ophthalmia, phthisis, quinsey, +rheumatism, rickets, sciatica, syphilis, tonsilitis, tic doloureux, and +so on to the end of the alphabet and back again to the beginning. Never +and nowhere <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>shall you forget that you are a trading animal, buying in +the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. Never shall you forget +that nothing matters—nothing in the whole universe—except the +maintenance and extension of industry; that beauty, peace, harmony are +not commercial values, and cannot be allowed for a moment to stand in +the way of the advance of trade; that nothing, in short, matters except +wealth, and that there is no wealth except money in the pocket. +This—did it ever occur to you—is the real public education every +country is giving, on every hoarding and sky-sign, to its citizens of +every age, at every moment of their lives. And that being so, is it not +a little ironical that children should be taught for half an hour in +school to read a poem of Wordsworth or a play of Shakespeare, when for +the rest of the twenty-four hours there is being photographed on their +minds the ubiquitous literature of Owbridge and of Carter?</p> + +<p>But of course advertisement cannot be interfered with! It is the +life-blood of the nation. All traders, all politicians, all journalists +say so. They sometimes add that it is really, to an unprejudiced spirit, +beautiful and elevating. Thus only this morning I came across an article +in a leading New York newspaper, which remarks that: "The individual +advertisement is commonly in good taste, both in legend and in +illustration. Many are positively beautiful; and, as a wit has truly +said, the cereal advertisements in the magazines are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>far more +interesting than the serial stories." This latter statement I can easily +believe; but when I read the former there flitted across my mind a +picture of a lady lightly clad reclining asleep against an open window, +a full moon rising in the distance over a lake, with the legend +attached, "Cascarella—it works while you sleep."</p> + +<p>The article from which I have quoted is interesting not only as +illustrating the diversity of taste, but as indicating the high degree +of development which has now been attained by what is at once the art +and the science of advertisement. "The study of advertisement," it +begins, "seems to have a perennial charm for the American public. Hardly +a month passes but some magazine finds a new and inviting phase of this +modern art to lay before its readers. The solid literature of +advertisement is also growing rapidly.... The technique of the subject +is almost as extensive as that of scientific agriculture. Whole volumes +have been compiled on the art of writing advertisements. Commercial +schools and colleges devote courses of study to the subject. Indeed the +corner-stone of the curriculum of a well-known business college is an +elective upon 'Window-dressing.'" That you may be under no +misapprehension, I must add that this article appears in what is +admittedly the most serious and respectable of the New York newspapers; +and that it is not conceived in the spirit of irony or hyperbole. To the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>American, advertisement is a serious, important, and elevating +department of business, and those who make it their speciality endeavour +to base their operations on a profound study of human nature. One of +these gentlemen has expounded, in a book which has a wide circulation, +the whole philosophy of his liberal profession. He calls the book +"Imagination in Business";<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> and I remark incidentally that the use of +the word "imagination," like that of "art," in this connection, shows +where the inquirer ought to look for the manifestation, on this +continent, of the æsthetic spirit. "The imaginative man," says the +writer, "sends his thought through all the instincts, passions, and +prejudices of men, he knows their desires and their regrets, he knows +every human weakness and its sure decoy." It is this latter clause that +is relevant to his theme. Poets in earlier ages wrote epics and dramas, +they celebrated the strength and nobility of men; but the poet of the +modern world "cleverly builds on the frailties of mankind." Of these the +chief is "the inability to throw away an element of value, even though +it cannot be utilised." On this great principle is constructed the whole +art and science of advertisement. And my author proceeds to give a +series of illustrations, "each of which is an actual fact, either in my +experience, or of which I have been cognisant." Space and copyright +forbid me to quote. I must refer the reader to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> original source. +Nowhere else will be found so lucid an expression of the whole theory +and practice of modern trade. That theory and practice is being taught +in schools of commerce throughout the Union; and there are many, I +suppose, who would like to see it taught in English universities. But, +really, does anyone—does any man of business—think it a better +education than Greek?</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Imagination in Business</i> (Harper & Brothers).</p></div> + +</div> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p> +<h3>X<br /> +CULTURE</h3> + + +<p>Scene, a club in a Canadian city; persons, a professor, a doctor, a +business man, and a traveller (myself). Wine, cigars, anecdotes; and +suddenly, popping up, like a Jack-in-the-box absurdly crowned with ivy, +the intolerable subject of education. I do not remember how it began; +but I know there came a point at which, before I knew where I was, I +found myself being assailed on the subject of Oxford and Cambridge. Not, +however, in the way you may anticipate. Those ancient seats of learning +were not denounced as fossilised, effete, and corrupt. On the contrary, +I was pressed, urged, implored almost with tears in the eye—to reform +them? No! to let them alone!</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sake, keep them as they are! You don't know what you've +got, and what you might lose! We know! We've had to do without it! And +we know that without it everything else is of no avail. We bluster and +brag about education on this side of the Atlantic. But in our heart of +hearts we know that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>we have missed the one thing needful, and that you, +over in England, have got it."</p> + +<p>"And that one thing?"</p> + +<p>"Is Culture! Yes, in spite of Matthew Arnold, Culture, and Culture, and +always Culture!"</p> + +<p>"Meaning by Culture?"</p> + +<p>"Meaning Aristotle instead of Agriculture, Homer instead of Hygiene, +Shakespeare instead of the Stock Exchange, Bacon instead of Banking, +Plato instead of Pædagogics! Meaning intellect before intelligence, +thought before dexterity, discovery before invention! Meaning the only +thing that is really practical, ideas; and the only thing that is really +human, the Humanities!"</p> + +<p>Rather apologetically, I began to explain. At Oxford, I said, no doubt +the Humanities still hold the first place. But at Cambridge they have +long been relegated to the second or the third. There we have schools of +Natural Science, of Economics, of Engineering, of Agriculture. We have +even a Training College in Pædagogics. Their faces fell, and they +renewed their passionate appeal.</p> + +<p>"Stop it," they cried. "For heaven's sake, stop it! In all those things +we've got you skinned alive over here! If you want Agriculture go to +Wisconsin! If you want Medicine, go to the Rockefeller Institute! If you +want Engineering, go to Pittsburg! But preserve still for the +English-speaking world what you alone can give! Preserve liberal +culture! Preserve the Classics! Preserve Mathematics! Preserve the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>seed-ground of all practical inventions and appliances! Preserve the +integrity of the human mind!"</p> + +<p>Interesting, is it not? These gentlemen, no doubt, were not typical +Canadians. But they were not the least intelligent men I have met on +this continent. And when they had finally landed me in my sleeping-berth +in the train, and I was left to my own reflections in that most +uncomfortable of all situations, I began to consider how odd it was that +in matters educational we are always endeavouring to reform the only +part of our system that excites the admiration of foreigners.</p> + +<p>I do not intend, however, to plunge into that controversy. The point +that interests me is the view of my Canadian friends that in America +there is no "culture." And, in the sense they gave to that term, I think +they are right. There <i>is</i> no culture in America. There is instruction; +there is research; there is technical and professional training; there +is specialisation in science and industry; there is every possible +application of life, to purposes and ends; but there is no life for its +own sake. Let me illustrate. It is, I have read, a maxim of American +business that "a man is damned who knows two things." "He is almost a +dilettante," it was said of a student, "he reads Dante and Shakespeare"! +"The perfect professor," said a College President, "should be willing to +work hard eleven months in the year." These are straws, if you like, but +they show the way the wind blows. Again, you will find, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>if you travel +long in America, that you are suffering from a kind of atrophy. You will +not, at first, realise what it means. But suddenly it will flash upon +you that you are suffering from lack of conversation. You do not +converse; you cannot; you can only talk. It is the rarest thing to meet +a man who, when a subject is started, is willing or able to follow it +out into its ramifications, to play with it, to embroider it with pathos +or with wit, to penetrate to its roots, to trace its connexions and +affinities. Question and answer, anecdote and jest are the staple of +American conversation; and, above all, information. They have a hunger +for positive facts. And you may hear them hour after hour rehearsing to +one another their travels, their business transactions, their +experiences in trains, in hotels, on steamers, till you begin to feel +you have no alternatives before you but murder or suicide. An American, +broadly speaking, never detaches himself from experience. His mind is +embedded in it; it moves wedged in fact. His only escape is into humour; +and even his humour is but a formula of exaggeration. It implies no +imagination, no real envisaging of its object. It does not illuminate a +subject, it extinguishes it, clamping upon every topic the same +grotesque mould. That is why it does not really much amuse the English. +For the English are accustomed to Shakespeare, and to the London cabby.</p> + +<p>This may serve to indicate what I mean by lack <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>of culture. I admit, of +course, that neither are the English cultured. But they have culture +among them. They do not, of course, value it; the Americans, for aught I +know, value it more; but they produce it, and the Americans do not. I +have visited many of their colleges and universities, and everywhere, +except perhaps at Harvard—unless my impressions are very much at +fault—I have found the same atmosphere. It is the atmosphere known as +the "Yale spirit," and it is very like that of an English Public School. +It is virile, athletic, gregarious, all-penetrating, all-embracing. It +turns out the whole university to sing rhythmic songs and shout rhythmic +cries at football matches. It praises action and sniffs at speculation. +It exalts morals and depresses intellect. It suspects the solitary +person, the dreamer, the loafer, the poet, the prig. This atmosphere, of +course, exists in English universities. It is imported there from the +Public Schools. But it is not all-pervading. Individuals and cliques +escape. And it is those who escape that acquire culture. In America, no +one escapes, or they are too few to count. I know Americans of culture, +know and love them; but I feel them to be lost in the sea of +philistinism. They cannot draw together, as in England, and leaven the +lump. The lump is bigger, and they are fewer. All the more honour to +them; and all the more loss to America.</p> + +<p>Whether, from all this, any conclusion is to be drawn about the proper +policy to be pursued at our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>universities, is a question I will not here +discuss. Culture, I think, is one of those precious things that are +achieved by accident, and by accident may be destroyed. The things we do +to maintain it might kill it; the things we do to kill it might preserve +it. My Canadian friends may be quite wrong in their diagnosis of the +causes that engender or destroy it. But they are right in their sense of +its importance; and it will be an interesting result of imperial unity +if we find, to our astonishment, that the Dominions beyond the seas +rally round exactly those things in England which we expect them to +declare effete. The Rhodes scholars go to Oxford, not to Birmingham or +Liverpool. And it is Cambridge that peoples the universities of the +Empire with professors.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> +<h3>XI<br /> +ANTÆUS</h3> + + +<p>I saw to-day some really remarkable landscapes by an American artist. +So, at least, they seem to me. They have, at any rate, a quality of +imagination which one does not expect to find in this country. "One does +not expect"—why not? Why, in this respect, is America, as undoubtedly +she is, so sterile? Artists must be born here as much as elsewhere. +American civilisation, it is true, repels men of reflection and +sensitiveness, just as it attracts men of action; so that, as far as +immigration is concerned, there is probably a selection working against +the artistic type. But, on the other hand, men of action often produce +sons with a genius for the arts; and it is to be supposed that they do +so as much in America as elsewhere. It must be the environment that is +unfavourable. Artists and poets belong to the genus I have named +"Mollycoddle"; and in America the Mollycoddle is hardly allowed to +breathe. Nowhere on that continent, so far as I have been able to see, +is there to be found a class or a clique of men, respected by others and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>respecting themselves, who also respect not merely art but the artistic +calling. Broadly, business is the only respectable pursuit; including +under business Politics and Law, which in this country are only +departments of business. Business holds the place in popular esteem that +is held by arms in Germany, by letters in France, by Public Life in +England. The man therefore whose bent is towards the arts meets no +encouragement; he meets everywhere the reverse. His father, his uncles, +his brothers, his cousins, all are in business. Business is the only +virile pursuit for people of education and means, who cannot well become +chauffeurs. There is, no doubt, the professorial career; but that, it is +agreed, is adopted only by men of "no ambition." Americans believe in +education, but they do not believe in educators. There is no money to be +made in that profession, and the making of money is the test of +character. The born poet or artist is thus handicapped to a point which +may easily discourage him from running at all. At the best, he emigrates +to Europe, and his achievement is credited to that continent. Or, +remaining in America, he succumbs to the environment, puts aside his +creative ambition, and enters business. It is not for nothing that +Americans are the most active people in the world. They pay the penalty +in an atrophy of the faculties of reflection and representation.</p> + +<p>Things are different in Europe, and even in England. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>There, not only +are artists and men of letters honoured when they are successful—they +are, of course, honoured at that stage in America; but the pursuit of +literature and art is one which a young man need not feel it +discreditable to adopt. The contemporaries of a brilliant youth at +Oxford or at Cambridge do not secretly despise him if he declines to +enter business. The first-class man does not normally aspire to start +life as a drummer. Public life and the Church offer honourable careers; +and both of them have traditional affinities with literature. So has the +Law, still in England a profession and not a trade. One may even be a +don or a schoolmaster without serious discredit. Under these conditions +a young man can escape from the stifling pressure of the business point +of view. He can find societies like-minded with himself, equally +indifferent to the ideal of success in business, equally inspired by +intellectual or æsthetic ambitions. He can choose to be poor without +feeling that he will therefore become despicable. The attitude of the +business classes in England, no doubt, is much the same as that of the +business classes in America. But in England there are other classes and +other traditions, havens of refuge from the prevalent commercialism. In +America the trade-wind blows broad, steady, universal over the length +and breadth of the continent.</p> + +<p>This, I believe, is one reason for the sterility of America in Art. But +it is not the only one. Literature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> and Art in Europe rest on a long +tradition which has not only produced books and pictures, but has left +its mark on the language, the manners, the ideas, the architecture, the +physical features of the country. The books and the pictures can be +transplanted, but the rest cannot. Thus, even though in every art the +technical tradition has been interrupted, there remains in Europe what I +will call the tradition of feeling; and it is this that is absent in +America. Art in Europe is rooted; and there still persists into the +present something of the spirit which fostered it in the past. Not only +is Nature beautiful, she is humanised by the works of Man. Politics are +mellowed by history, business tempered by culture. Classes are more +segregated, types more distinct, ideals and aims more varied. The ghost +of a spiritual life still hovers over the natural, shadowing it with the +beat of solemn wings. There are finer overtones for a sensitive ear to +catch; rainbow hues where the spray of life goes up. All this, it is +true, is disappearing in Europe; but in America it has never existed. A +sensitive European, travelling there, feels at once starved and flayed. +Nothing nourishes, and everything hurts. There is natural beauty, but it +has not been crowned and perfected by the hand of man. Whatever he has +touched he has touched only to defile. There is one pursuit, commerce; +one type, the business man; one ideal, that of increasing wealth. +Monotony of talk, monotony of ideas, monotony of aim, monotony <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>of +outlook on the world. America is industrialism pure and simple; Europe +is industrialism superimposed on feudalism; and, for the arts, the +difference is vital.</p> + +<p>But the difference is disappearing. Not that America is becoming like +Europe, but Europe is becoming like America. This is not a case of the +imitation that is a form of flattery; it is a case of similar causes +producing similar results. The disease—or shall we say, to use a +neutral term—the diathesis of commercialism found in America an open +field and swept through it like a fire. In Europe, its course was +hampered by the structures of an earlier civilisation. But it is +spreading none the less surely. And the question arises—In the future, +when the European environment is as unfavourable to Art as the American, +will there be, in the West, any Art at all? I do not know; no one knows; +but there is this to remark. What I am calling commercialism is the +infancy, not the maturity of a civilisation. The revolution in morals, +in manners, and in political and social institutions which must +accompany the revolution in industry, has hardly yet begun its course. +It has gone further in Europe than in America; so that, oddly enough, +Europe is at once behind and in front of this continent, overlaps it, so +to speak, at both ends. But it has not gone very far even in Europe; and +for generations, I conceive, political and social issues will draw away +much of the creative talent that might have been available for Art. In +the end, one may suppose, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>something like a stable order will arise; an +order, that is, in which people will feel that their institutions +correspond sufficiently with their inner life, and will be able to +devote themselves with a free mind to reflecting their civilisation in +Art.</p> + +<p>But will their civilisation be of a kind to invite such reflection? It +will be, if the present movement is not altogether abortive, a +civilisation of security, equity, and peace; where there is no +indigence, no war, and comparatively little disease. Such society, +certainly, will not offer a field for much of the kind of Art that has +been or is now being produced. The primitive folk-song, the epic of war, +the novel or play inspired by social strife, will have passed +irrecoverably away. And more than that, it is sometimes urged, there +will be such a dearth of those tense moments which alone engender the +artistic mood, that Art of any kind will have become impossible. If that +were true, it would not, in my opinion, condemn the society. Art is +important, but there are things more important; and among those things +are justice and peace. I do not, however, accept the view that a +peaceable and just society would necessarily also be one that is +uninspired. That view seems to me to proceed from our incurable +materialism. We think there is no conflict except with arms; no rivalry +except for bread; no aspiration except for money and rank. It is my own +belief that the removal of the causes of the material strife in which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>most men are now plunged would liberate the energies for spiritual +conflict; that the passion to know, the passion to feel, the passion to +love, would begin at last to take their proper place in human life; and +would engender the forms of Art appropriate to their expression.</p> + +<p>To return to America, what I am driving at is this. America may have an +Art, and a great Art. But it will be after she has had her social +revolution. Her Art has first to touch ground; and before it can do +that, the ground must be fit for it to touch. It was not till the tenth +century that the seed of Mediæval Art could be sown; it was not till the +thirteenth that the flower bloomed. So now, our civilisation is not ripe +for its own Art. What America imports from Europe is useless to her. It +is torn from its roots; and it is idle to replant it; it will not grow. +There must be a native growth, not so much of America, as of the modern +era. That growth America, like Europe, must will. She has her prophet of +it, Walt Whitman. In the coming centuries it is her work to make his +vision real.</p> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONCLUDING ESSAY</h2> + + +<p>The preceding pages were written in the course of travel and convey the +impressions and reflections of the moment. Whatever interest they may +have depends upon this immediacy, and for that reason I have reprinted +them substantially as they first appeared. Perhaps, however, some +concluding reflections of a more considered nature may be of some +interest to my readers. I do not advance them in a dogmatic spirit nor +as final judgments, but as the first tentative results of my gropings +into a large and complicated subject. I will ask the reader, therefore, +be he Western or Oriental, to follow me in a spirit at once critical and +sympathetic, challenging my suggestions as much as he will, but rather +as a fellow-seeker than as an opponent bent upon refutation. For I am +trying to comprehend rather than to judge, and to comprehend as +impartially as is compatible with having an attitude of one's own at +all.</p> + +<p>Ever since Mr. Rudyard Kipling wrote a famous line it has become a +commonplace of popular thought in England and America that there is an +East and a West, and an impassable gulf between them. But Mr. Kipling +was thinking of India, and India is not all the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>East: he was thinking +of England, and England is not all the West. As soon as one approaches +the question more particularly it becomes a complicated matter to decide +whether there is really an East and a West, and what either stands for. +That there is a West, in a real sense, with a unity of its own, is, I +think, true. But it must be limited in time to the last two centuries, +and in space to the countries of Western Europe and the continent of +America. So understood, the West forms, in all the most important +respects, a homogeneous system. True, it is divided into different +nations, speaking different languages, and pursuing different, and often +conflicting, policies; and these distinctions are still so important, +that they colour our fears and hopes and sympathies, and take form in +the burden of armaments and the menace of war. Nevertheless, seen in the +perspective of history, they are survivals, atrophying and disappearing. +Behind and despite of them there is a common Western mind and a common +Western organisation. Finance is cosmopolitan; industry is cosmopolitan; +trade is cosmopolitan. There is one scientific method, and the results +achieved by it are common. There is one system of industry, that known +as Capitalism; and the problems arising from it and the solutions +propounded appear alike in every nation. There is one political +tendency, or fact, that of popular government. There are cognate aims +and similar achievements in literature and art. There <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>is, in brief, a +Western movement, a Western problem, a Western mentality; and the +particular happenings of particular nations are all parts of this one +happening. Nor is this all. There is in the West a common religion. I do +not refer to Christianity, for the religion I mean is held by hundreds +and thousands who are not Christians, and indeed does not very readily +find in Christianity an expression at once coherent and pure. It has not +been formulated in a creed; but it is to be felt and heard in all the +serious work and all the serious thought of the West. It is the religion +of Good and Evil, of Time and the process in Time. If it tried to draw +up a confession of faith perhaps it would produce, as its first attempt, +something of this kind:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I believe in the ultimate distinction between Good and Evil, +and in a real process in a real Time. I believe it to be my +duty to increase Good and diminish Evil; I believe that in +doing this I am serving the purpose of the world. I know this; +I do not know anything else; and I am reluctant to put +questions to which I have no answer, and to which I do not +believe that anyone has an answer. Action, as defined above, is +my creed. Speculation weakens action. I do not wish to +speculate, I wish to live. And I believe the true life to be +the life I have described."</p></div> + +<p>In saying that this is the real creed of the modern Western man I do not +pretend that he always knows or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>would admit it to be so. But if his +actions, his words, and his thoughts be sympathetically interpreted, +where all are at their best, I think they will be found to imply +something of this kind. And this attitude I call religious, not merely +ethical, because of its conviction that the impulse towards Good is of +the essence of the World, not only of men, or of Man. To believe this is +an act of faith, not of reason; though it is not contrary to reason, as +no faith should be or long can be. Many men do <i>not</i> believe it, for +many are not religious; others, while believing it, may believe also +many other things. But it is the irreducible minimum of religion in the +modern West, the justification of our life, the faith of our works. I +call it the Religion of Time, and distinguish it thus from the Religion +of Eternity.</p> + +<p>In this sense, then, this profound sense, of a common aim and a common +motive, there is really a West. Is there also an East? That is not so +clear. In some important respects, no doubt, the Eastern civilisations +are alike. They are still predominantly agricultural. Their industry is +manual not mechanical. Their social unit is the extended family. To +travel in the East is to realise that life on the soil and in the +village is there still the normal life, as it has been almost everywhere +and always, throughout civilisation, until the last century in the West. +But though there is thus in the East a common way of life, there is not +a common organisation nor a common spirit. Economically, the great +Eastern <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>countries are still independent of one another. Each lives for +the most part by and on itself. And their intellectual and spiritual +intercourse is now (though it was not in the past) as negligible as +their economic commerce. The influence that is beginning to be strong +upon them all is that of Western culture; and if they become alike in +their outlook on life, it will be by assimilating that. But, at present, +they are not alike. It is easy, in this matter, to be deceived by the +outward forms of religion. Because Buddhism originated in India and +spread to China and Japan, because Japan took Confucian ideals from +China, it is natural to conclude that there is a common religious spirit +throughout the East, or the Far East. But one might as reasonably infer +that the spirit of the christianised Teutons was the same as that of the +Jews or of the Christians in the East. Nations borrow religions, but +they shape them according to their own genius. And if I am not very much +mistaken the outlook of India is, and always has been, radically +distinct from and even opposed to that of China or Japan. These latter +countries, indeed, I believe, are far closer to the West than they are +to India. Let me explain.</p> + +<p>India is the true origin and home of what I have called the religion of +Eternity. That idea seems to have gone out from her to the rest of the +world. But nowhere else was it received with equal purity and passion. +Elsewhere than in India the claims of Time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>were predominant. In India +they have been subordinate. This, no doubt, is a matter of emphasis. No +society, as a whole, could believe and act upon the belief that activity +in Time is simply waste of time, and absorption in the Eternal the +direct and immediate object of life. Such a view, acted upon, would +bring the society quickly to an end. It would mean that the very +physical instinct to live was extinguished. But, as the Eternal was +first conceived by the amazing originality of India, so the passion to +realise it here and now has been the motive of her saints from the date +of the Upanishads to the twentieth century. And the method of +realisation proposed and attempted has not been the living of the +temporal life in a particular spirit, it has been the transcending of it +by a special experience. Indian saints have always believed that by +meditation and ascetic discipline, by abstaining from active life and +all its claims, and cultivating solitude and mortification, they could +reach by a direct experience union with the Infinite. This is as true of +the latest as of the earliest saints, if and so far as Western +influences have been excluded. Let me illustrate from the words of Sri +Ramakrishna, one of the most typical of Indian saints, who died late in +the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>First, for the claim to pass directly into union with the Eternal:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I do see that Being as a Reality before my very eyes! Why then +should I reason? I do actually see <span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>that it is the Absolute Who +has become all these things about us; it is He who appears as +the finite soul and the phenomenal world. One must have such an +awakening of the Spirit within to see this Reality.... +Spiritual awakening must be followed by Samadhi. In this state +one forgets that one has a body; one loses all attachment to +things of this world."<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p></div> + +<p>And let it not be supposed that this state called Samadhi is merely one +of intense meditation. It is something much more abnormal, or +super-normal, than this. The book from which I am quoting contains many +accounts of its effects upon Sri Ramakrishna. Here is one of them:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"He is now in a state of Samadhi, the superconscious or +God-conscious state. The body is again motionless. The eyes are +again fixed! The boys only a moment ago were laughing and +making merry! Now they all look grave. Their eyes are +steadfastly fixed on the master's face. They marvel at the +wonderful change that has come over him. It takes him long to +come back to the sense world. His limbs now begin to lose their +stiffness. His face beams with smiles, the organs of sense +begin to come back each to its own work. Tears of joy stand at +the corners of his eyes. He chants the sacred name of Rama."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>The object, then, of this saint, and one he claims to have attained, is +to come into union with the Infinite by a process which removes him +altogether from contact with this world and from all possibility of +action in it. This world, in fact, is to him, as to all Indian saints +and most Indian philosophers, phenomenal and unreal. Of the speculative +problems raised by this conception I need not speak here. But it belongs +to my purpose to bring out its bearing upon conduct. All conduct depends +upon the conception of Good and Evil. Anti-moralists, like Nietzsche, +assume and require these ideas, just as much as moralists; they merely +attempt to give them a new content. If conduct is to have any meaning, +Good and Evil must be real in a real world. If they are held to be +appearances conduct becomes absurd. What now is Sri Ramakrishna's view +of this matter? The whole life that we Western men call real is to him a +mere game played by and for the sake of God, or, to use his phrase, of +the Divine Mother. For her pleasure she keeps men bound to Time, instead +of free in Eternity. For her pleasure, therefore, she creates and +maintains Evil. I quote the passage:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"My Divine Mother is always in Her sportive mood. The world, +indeed, is Her toy. She will have Her own way. It is Her +pleasure to take out of the prisonhouse and set free only one +or two among a hundred thousand of her children!</p> + +<p>"<i>A Brahmo</i>: Sir, She can if She pleases set every<span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>body free. +Why is it then, that She has bound us hand and foot with the +chains of the world?</p> + +<p>"<i>Sri Ramakrishna</i>: Well, I suppose it is her pleasure. It is +her pleasure to go on with Her sport with all these beings that +She has brought into existence. The player amongst the children +that touches the person of the Grand-dame, the same need no +longer run about. He cannot take any further part in the +exciting play of Hide and Seek that goes on.</p> + +<p>"The others who have not touched the goal must run about and +play to the great delight of the Grand-dame."<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p></div> + +<p>Thus the Indian saint. Let us now try to bring his conception into +relation with what we in the West believe to be real experience. In a +railway accident a driver is pinned against the furnace and slowly +burned to death, praying the bystanders in vain to put him out of his +misery. What is this? It is the sport of God! In Putumayo innocent +natives are deprived of their land, enslaved, tortured, and murdered, +that shareholders in Europe may receive high dividends. What is this? +The sport of God! In the richest countries of the West a great +proportion of those who produce the wealth receive less than the wages +which would suffice to keep them in bare physical health. What is this? +Once more the sport of God! One might multiply examples, but it would be +idle. No Western man could for a moment entertain the view of Sri +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>Ramakrishna. To him such a God would be a mere devil. The Indian +position, no doubt, is a form of idealism; but an idealism conditioned +by defective experience of the life in Time. The saint has chosen +another experience. But clearly he has not transcended ours, he has +simply left it out.</p> + +<p>Now I am aware that it will be urged by some of the most sincere +representatives of religion in India that Sri Ramakrishna does not +typify the Indian attitude. Perhaps not, if we take contemporary India. +But then contemporary India has been profoundly influenced by Western +thought; modern Indians like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, +Rabindranath Tagore, could hardly have thought and felt as they did, and +do, were it not for this influence. The following poem of Rabindranath +Tagore may aptly symbolise this breaking in of the West upon the East, +though I do not know that that was the author's intention:</p> + +<div class="poem"> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"With days of hard travail I raised a temple. It had no +doors or windows, its walls were thickly built with +massive stones.<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I forgot all else, I shunned all the world, I gazed in rapt +contemplation at the image I had set upon the altar.<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> +It was always night inside, and lit by the lamps of perfumed +oil. The ceaseless smoke of incense wound +my heart in its heavy coils. +<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> +Sleepless, I carved on the walls fantastic figures in mazy +bewildering lines—winged horses, flowers with human +faces, women with limbs like serpents. +<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenumbq'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> +<span class="i0"> +No passage was left anywhere through which could enter +the song of birds, the murmur of leaves, or the hum +of the busy village. +<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> +The only sound that echoed in its dark dome was that +of incantations which I chanted. +<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> +My mind became keen and still like a pointed flame, my +senses swooned in ecstasy. +<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> +I knew not how time passed till the thunderstone had +struck the temple, and a pain stung me through the +heart. +<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> +The lamp looked pale and ashamed; the carvings on +the walls, like chained dreams, stared meaningless +in the light, as they would fain hide themselves. +<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> +I looked at the image on the altar. I saw it smiling and +alive with the living touch of God. The night I had +imprisoned spread its wings and vanished."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> +<br /></span> +</div> + +</div> + +<p>The closed temple, I believe, is a true image of the spiritual life of +India, if not at all times, at any rate for many centuries previous to +the advent of the English. Everything seems to point to this—the +symbolic character of Indian art; the absence of history and the +prevalence of religious legend; the cult of the fakir and the wandering +ascetic. In India one feels religion as one feels it nowhere else, +unless it were in Russia. But the religion one feels is peculiar. It is +the religion that denies the value of experience in Time. It is the +religion of the Eternal.</p> + +<p>But, it will be urged, how can that be, when India continues to produce +her teeming millions; when these perforce live their brief lives in a +constant and often vain struggle for a bare livelihood; when, in order +to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>live at all, it is necessary at every point to be straining vitality +in the pursuit of temporal goods or the avoidance of temporal evils?</p> + +<p>I make no attempt to disguise or to weaken this paradox. But I suggest +that it is but one of the many paradoxes set up by the conflict between +men's instinct for life and their conscious beliefs. Indians live not +because they believe in life, but because they cannot help it. Their +hold on life is certainly less than that of Western men. Thus I have +been told by administrators of famine relief or of precautions against +plague, that what they have to contend with is not so much the +resistance as the indifference of the population. "Why worry us?" they +say, in effect; "life is not worth the trouble. Let us die and be rid of +it." Life is an evil, that is the root feeling of India; and the escape +is either, for the mass, by death; or for the men of spiritual genius, +by a flight to the Eternal. How this attitude has arisen I do not here +seek to determine; race, climate, social and political conditions, all +no doubt have played their part. The spiritual attitude is probably an +effect, rather than a cause, of an enfeebled grip on life. But no one, I +think, who knows India, would dispute that this attitude is a fact; and +it is a fact that distinguishes India not only from the West but from +the Far East.</p> + +<p>For China and Japan, though they have had, and to a less extent still +have, religion, are not, in the Indian sense, religious. The Chinese, in +particular, strike one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>as secular and practical; quite as secular and +practical as the English. They have had Buddhism, as we have had +Christianity; but no one who can perceive and understand would say that +their outlook is determined by Buddhism, any more than ours is by +Christianity. It is Confucianism that expresses the Chinese attitude to +life, whenever the Chinese soul, becoming aware of itself, looks out +from the forest of animistic beliefs in which the mass of the people +wander. And Confucianism is perhaps the best and purest expression of +the practical reason that has ever been formulated. Family duty, social +duty, political duty, these are the things on which it lays stress. And +when the Chinese spirit seeks escape from these primary preoccupations, +it finds its freedom in an art that is closer to the world of fact, +imaginatively conceived, than that of any other race. Chinese art +purifies itself from symbolism to become interpretation; whereas in +India the ocean of symbolism never ceases to roll over the drowning +surface of the phenomenal world. Chinese literature, again, has this +same hold upon life. It is such as Romans or Englishmen, if equally +gifted, might have written. Much of it, indeed, is stupidly and +tediously didactic. But where it escapes into poetry it is a poetry like +Wordsworth's, revealing the beauty of actual things, rather than weaving +across them an embroidery of subjective emotions The outlook of China is +essentially the outlook of the West, only more sane, more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>reasonable, +more leisured and dignified. Positivism and Humanity, the dominant forms +of thought and feeling in the West, have controlled Chinese civilisation +for centuries. The Chinese have built differently from ourselves and on +a smaller scale, with less violence and less power; but they have built +on the same foundations.</p> + +<p>And Japan, too, at bottom is secular. Her true religion is that of the +Emperor and his divine ancestors. Her strongest passion is patriotism. A +Japanese, like an Indian, is always ready to die. But he dies for the +splendours and glories of this world of sense. It is not because he has +so little hold on life, but because he has so much, that he so readily +throws it away. The Japanese are unlike the Chinese and unlike the +Europeans and Americans; but their outlook is similar. They believe in +the world of time and change; and because of this attitude, they and the +rest of the world stand together like a mountain in the sun, +contemplating uneasily that other mysterious peak, shrouded in mist, +which is India.</p> + +<p>The reader by this time will have grasped the point I am trying to put. +There are in Man two religious impulses, or, if the expression be +preferred, two aspects of the religious impulse. I have called them the +religion of the Eternal and the religion of Time; and India I suggest +stands pre-eminently for the one, the West for the other, while the +other countries of the East rank <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>rather with the West than with India. +It is not necessary to my purpose to exaggerate this antithesis. I will +say, if it be preferred, that in India the emphasis is on the Eternal, +in the West on Time. But that much at least must be said and is plainly +true. Now, as between these two attitudes, I find myself quite clearly +and definitely on the side of the West. I have said in the preceding +pages hard things about Western civilisation. I hate many of its +manifestations, I am out of sympathy with many of its purposes. I can +see no point, for instance, in the discovery of the north or the south +pole, and very little in the invention of aeroplanes; while gramophones, +machine guns, advertisements, cinematographs, submarines, dreadnoughts, +cosmopolitan hotels, seem to me merely fatuous or sheerly disastrous. +But what lies behind all this, the tenacity, the courage, the spirit of +adventure, this it is that is the great contribution of the West. It is +not the aeroplane that is valuable; probably it will never be anything +but pernicious, for its main use is likely to be for war. But the fact +that men so lightly risk their lives to perfect it, <i>that</i> is valuable. +The West is adventurous; and, what is more, it is adventurous on a +quest. For behind and beyond all its fatuities, confusions, crimes, +lies, as the justification of it all, that deep determination to secure +a society more just and more humane which inspires all men and all +movements that are worth considering at all, and, to those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>who can +understand, gives greatness and significance even to some of our most +reckless enterprises. We are living very "dangerously"; all the forces +are loose, those of destruction as well as those of creation; but we are +living towards something; we are living with the religion of Time.</p> + +<p>So far, I daresay, most Western men will agree with me in the main. But +they may say, some of them, as the Indian will certainly say, "Is that +all? Have you no place for the Eternal and the Infinite?" To this I must +reply that I think it clear and indisputable that the religion of the +Eternal, as interpreted by Sri Ramakrishna, is altogether incompatible +with the religion of Time. And the position of Sri Ramakrishna, I have +urged, is that of most Indian, and as I think, of most Western mystics. +Not, however, of all, and not of all modern mystics, even in India. +Rabindranath Tagore, for example, in his "Sádhana," has put forward a +mysticism which does, at least, endeavour to allow for and include what +I have called the religion of Time. To him, and to other mystics of real +experience, I must leave the attempt to reconcile Eternity and Time. For +my own part, I can only approach the question from the point of view of +Time, and endeavour to discover and realise the most that can be truly +said by one who starts with the belief that that is real. The +profoundest prophets of the religion of Time are, in my judgment, Goethe +and George Meredith; and from them, and from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>others, and from my own +small experience, I seem to have learned this: the importance of that +process in Time in whose reality we believe does not lie merely in the +bettering of the material and social environment, though we hold the +importance of that to be great; it lies in the development of souls. And +that development consists in a constant expansion of interest away from +and beyond one's own immediate interests out into the activities of the +world at large. Such expansion may be pursued in practical life, in art, +in science, in contemplation, so long as the contemplation is of the +real processes of the real world in time. To that expansion I see no +limit except death. And I do not know what comes after death. But I am +clear that whatever comes after, the command of Life is the same—to +expand out of oneself into the life of the world. This command—I should +rather say this impulse—seems to me absolute, the one certain thing on +which everything else must build. I think it enough for religion, in the +case at least of those who have got beyond the infant need for +certitudes and dogmas. These perhaps are few; yet they may be really +more numerous than appears. And on the increase in their numbers, and +the intensity of their conviction and their life, the fate of the world +seems to me to depend.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna</i>, second edition, Part 1., p. +310.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna</i>, second edition, Part 1., p. +145.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>The Gardener</i>, p. 125.</p></div> + +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center"><small>Printed by <span class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.</span><br /> +at Paul's Work, Edinburgh</small></p> + + +<hr /> + +<table class="doublebd" summary="Book Adverts" +cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" > + +<tr><td class="tdc bb"><big>BOOKS ON THE EAST</big></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdadvert">THE CIVILISATION OF THE EAST. 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The author's +original text has been retained.</p> + +<p>Pg. 184 and 191, line of verse beginning "My son, the good you....". In +the original text, the fifth word was an abbreviation comprising a "y" +and a superscript "o". This is presumed to represent "you" and has been +expanded as such for readability.</p> + +<p>Pg. 192, "poeple" changed to "people". (property of the American +poeple.) +</p> + +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Appearances, by Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APPEARANCES *** + +***** This file should be named 27347-h.htm or 27347-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/3/4/27347/ + +Produced by Ronald Lee + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Appearances + Being Notes of Travel + +Author: Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson + +Release Date: November 28, 2008 [EBook #27347] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APPEARANCES *** + + + + +Produced by Ronald Lee + + + + + + + + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + + A MODERN SYMPOSIUM. + + THE MEANING OF GOOD. + + JUSTICE & LIBERTY, A POLITICAL DIALOGUE. + + + _PROBLEMS OF THE DAY SERIES_ + + RELIGION & IMMORTALITY. + + LETTERS FROM JOHN CHINAMAN. + + RELIGION: A FORECAST. + + + + + APPEARANCES + + + + + APPEARANCES + BEING + NOTES OF TRAVEL + + + BY + + G. LOWES DICKINSON + AUTHOR OF "A MODERN SYMPOSIUM," + "JUSTICE AND LIBERTY," ETC. + + + [Illustration] + + MCMXIV + + + LONDON & TORONTO + J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED + NEW YORK: DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. + + + + + All rights reserved + + + + +PREFACE + + +The articles included in this book have already appeared, those from the +East in the _Manchester Guardian_, those from America in the _English +Review_. In reprinting them, I have chosen a title which may serve also +as an apology. What I offer is not Reality; but appearances to me. From +such appearances perhaps, in time, Reality may be constructed. I claim +only to make my contribution. I do so because the new contact between +East and West is perhaps the most important fact of our age; and the +problems of action and thought which it creates can only be solved as +each civilisation tries to understand the others, and, by so doing, +better to understand itself. These articles represent at any rate a good +will to understand; and they may, I hope, for that reason throw one +gleam of light on the darkness. + +For the opportunity of travelling in the East I am indebted to the +munificence of Mr. Albert Kahn of Paris, who has founded what are known +in this country as the Albert Kahn Travelling Fellowships.[1] The +existence of this endowment is perhaps not as widely known as it should +be. And if this volume should be the occasion of leading others to take +advantage of the founder's generosity it will not have been written in +vain. + +I have hesitated long before deciding to republish the letters on +America. They were written in 1909, before the election of President +Wilson, and all that led up to and is implied in that event. It was not, +however, the fact that, so far, they are out of date, that caused me to +hesitate. For they deal only incidentally with current politics, and +whatever value they may have is as a commentary on phases of American +civilisation which are of more than transitory significance. Much has +happened in the United States during the last few years which is of +great interest and importance. The conflict between democracy and +plutocracy has become more conscious and more acute; there have been +important developments in the labour movement; and capital has been so +"harassed" by legislation that it may, for the moment, seem odd to +capitalists to find America called "the paradise of Plutocracy." No +doubt the American public has awakened to its situation since 1909. But +such awakenings take a long time to transform the character of a +civilisation and all that has occurred serves only to confirm the +contention in the text that in the new world the same situation is +arising that confronts the old one. + +What made me hesitate was something more important than the date at +which the letters were written. There is in them a note of exasperation +which I would have wished to remove if I could. But I could not, without +a complete rewriting, by which, even if it were possible to me, more +would have been lost than gained. It is this note of exasperation which +has induced me hitherto to keep the letters back, in spite of requests +to the contrary from American friends and publishers. But the +opportunity of adding them as a pendant to letters from the East, where +they fall naturally into their place as a complement and a contrast, has +finally overcome my scruples; the more so, as much that is said of +America is as typical of all the West, as it is foreign to all the East. +That this Western civilisation, against which I have so much to say, is +nevertheless the civilisation in which I would choose to live, in which +I believe, and about which all my hopes centre, I have endeavoured to +make clear in the concluding essay. And my readers, I hope, if any of +them persevere to the end, will feel that they have been listening, +after all, to the voice of a friend, even if the friend be of that +disagreeable kind called "candid." + + + Footnotes: + + [Footnote 1: These Fellowships, each of the value of L660, were + established to enable the persons appointed to them to travel + round the world. The Trust is administered at the University of + London, and full information regarding it can be obtained from + the Principal, Sir Henry Miers, F.R.S., who is Honorary + Secretary to the Trustees.] + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PART I + + INDIA + + PAGE + + I. IN THE RED SEA. 3 + + II. AJANTA. 7 + + III. ULSTER IN INDIA 12 + + IV. ANGLO-INDIA. 16 + + V. A MYSTERY PLAY. 20 + + VI. AN INDIAN SAINT. 24 + + VII. A VILLAGE IN BENGAL 28 + + VIII. SRI RAMAKRISHNA. 32 + + IX. THE MONSTROUS REGIMEN OF WOMEN 38 + + X. THE BUDDHA AT BURUPUDUR 42 + + XI. A MALAY THEATRE 47 + + + PART II + + CHINA + + I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA 55 + + II. NANKING 60 + + III. IN THE YANGTSE GORGES 65 + + IV. PEKIN 72 + + V. THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD 79 + + VI. CHINA IN TRANSITION 87 + + VII. A SACRED MOUNTAIN 95 + + + PART III + + JAPAN + + I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 105 + + II. A "NO" DANCE 111 + + III. NIKKO 116 + + IV. DIVINE RIGHT IN JAPAN 122 + + V. FUJI 129 + + VI. JAPAN AND AMERICA 136 + + VII. HOME 142 + + + PART IV + + AMERICA + + I. THE "DIVINE AVERAGE" 149 + + II. A CONTINENT OF PIONEERS 153 + + III. NIAGARA 160 + + IV. "THE MODERN PULPIT" 164 + + V. IN THE ROCKIES 171 + + VI. IN THE ADIRONDACKS 178 + + VII. THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS 184 + + VIII. RED-BLOODS AND "MOLLYCODDLES" 192 + + IX. ADVERTISEMENT 199 + + X. CULTURE 205 + + XI. ANTAEUS 211 + + CONCLUDING ESSAY 218 + + + + +PART I + +INDIA + + + + +I + +IN THE RED SEA + + +"But why do you do it?" said the Frenchman. From the saloon above came a +sound of singing, and I recognised a well-known hymn. The sun was +blazing on a foam-flecked sea; a range of islands lifted red rocks into +the glare; the wind blew fresh; and, from above, + + "Nothing in my hand I bring, + Simply to Thy cross I cling." + +Male voices were singing; voices whose owners, beyond a doubt, had no +idea of clinging to anything. Female voices, too, of clingers, perhaps, +but hardly to a cross. "Why do you do it?"--I began to explain. "For the +same reason that we play deck-quoits and shuffle-board; for the same +reason that we dress for dinner. It's the system." "The system?" "Yes. +What I call Anglicanism. It's a form of idealism. It consists in doing +the proper thing." "But why should the proper thing be done?" "That +question ought not to be asked. Anglicanism is an idealistic creed. It +is anti-utilitarian and anti-rational. It does not ask questions; it has +faith. The proper thing is the proper thing, and because it is the +proper thing it is done." "At least," he said, "you do not pretend that +this is religion?" "No. It has nothing to do with religion. But neither +is it, as you too simply suppose, hypocrisy. Hypocrisy implies that you +know what religion is, and counterfeit it. But these people do not know, +and they are not counterfeiting. When they go to church they are not +thinking of religion. They are thinking of the social system. The +officers and civilians singing up there first learned to sing in the +village church. They walked to the church from the great house; the +great house stood in its park; the park was enclosed by the estate; and +the estate was surrounded by other estates. The service in the village +church stood for all that. And the service in the saloon stands for it +still. At bottom, what that hymn means is not that these men are +Christians, but that they are carrying England to India, to Burma, to +China." "It is a funny thing," the Frenchman mused, "to carry to 300 +million Hindus and Mahometans, and 400 million Confucians, Buddhists, +and devil-worshippers. What do they do with it when they get there?" +"They plant it down in little oases all over the country, and live in +it. It is the shell that protects them in those oceans of impropriety. +And from that shell they govern the world." "But how can they govern +what they can't even see?" "They govern all the better. If once they +could see, they would be lost. Doubt would enter in. And it is the +virtue of the Englishman that he never doubts. That is what the system +does for him." + +At this moment a voice was borne down the breeze. It was that of my +travelling companion, and it appeared, as he approached, that he was +discoursing to the captain on the merits of Dostoievsky's novels. He is +no respecter of persons; he imposes his own conversation; and the +captain, though obviously puzzled, was polite. "Russians may be like +that," he was remarking as he passed, "but Englishmen aren't." "No," +said my friend, "but don't you wish they were?" "I do _not_," said the +captain with conviction. I looked at the Frenchman. "There," I said, +"behold the system." "But your friend?" "Ah, but he, like myself, is a +pariah. Have you not observed? They are quite polite. They have even a +kind of respect--such as our public school boys have--for anyone who is +queer, if only he is queer enough. But we don't "belong," and they know +it. We are outside the system. At bottom we are dangerous, like +foreigners. And they don't quite approve of our being let loose in +India." "Besides, you talk to the Indians." "Yes, we talk to the +Indians." "And that is contrary to the system?" "Yes, on board the boat; +it's all very well while you're still in England." "A strange system--to +perpetuate between rulers and ruled an impassable gulf!" "Yes. But, as +Mr. Podsnap remarked, 'so it is.'" + +We had penetrated to the bows of the ship and hung looking over. +Suddenly, just under the surf, there was an emerald gleam; another; then +a leap and a dive; a leap and a dive again. A pair of porpoises were +playing round the bows with the ease, the spontaneity, the beauty of +perfect and happy life. As we watched them the same mood grew in us till +it forced expression. And "Oh," I said, "the ship's a prison!" "No," +said the Frenchman, "it's the system." + + + + +II + +AJANTA + + +A dusty road running through an avenue across the great plateau of the +Deccan; scanty crops of maize and cotton; here and there low hills, +their reddish soil sparsely clothed with trees; to the north, a receding +line of mountains; elsewhere infinite space and blazing light. Our +"tonga," its pair of wheels and its white awning rolling and jolting +behind two good horses, passes long lines of bullock-carts. Indians, +walking beside them with their inimitable gait, make exquisite gestures +of abjection to the clumsy white Sahibs huddled uncomfortably on the +back seat. Their robes of vivid colour, always harmoniously blent, leave +bare the slender brown legs and often the breast and back. Children +stark naked ride on their mothers' hips or their fathers' shoulder. Now +and again the oxen are unyoked at a dribble of water, and a party rests +and eats in the shade. Otherwise it is one long march with bare feet +over the burning soil. + +We are approaching a market. The mud walls of a village appear. And +outside, by a stream shrunk now into muddy pools, shimmers and wimmers +a many-coloured crowd, buzzing among their waggons and awnings and +improvised stalls. We ford the shallow stream, where women are washing +clothes, cleaning their teeth, and drinking from the same water, and +pass among the bags of corn, the sugar-cane, and sweetmeats, saluted +gravely but unsolicited. + +Then on again for hours, the road now solitary, till as day closes we +reach Fardapur. A cluster of mud-walled compounds and beehive huts lies +about a fortified enclosure, where the children sprawl and scream, and a +Brahmin intones to silent auditors. Outside they are drawing water from +the puddles of the stream. And gradually over the low hills and the +stretches of yellow grass the after-glow spreads a transfiguring light. +Out of a rosy flush the evening star begins to shine; the crickets cry; +a fresh breeze blows; and another pitiless day drops into oblivion. + +Next day, at dawn, we walk the four miles to the famous caves, guided by +a boy who wears the Nizam's livery, and explains to us, in a language we +do not know, but with perfect lucidity, that it is to him, and no one +else, that backsheesh is due. He sings snatches of music as old and +strange as the hills; picks us balls of cotton, and prickly pear; and +once stops to point to the fresh tracks of a panther. We are in the +winding gorge of a watercourse; and presently, at a turn, in a +semicircle facing south, we see in the cliff the long line of caves. As +we enter the first an intolerable odour meets us, and a flight of bats +explains the cause. Gradually our eyes accustom themselves to the light, +and we become conscious of a square hall, the flat roof resting on squat +pillars elaborately carved, fragments of painting on the walls and +ceiling, narrow slits opening into dark cells, and opposite the +entrance, set back in a shrine, a colossal Buddha, the light falling +full on the solemn face, the upturned feet, the expository hands. This +is a monastery, and most of the caves are on the same plan; but one or +two are long halls, presumably for worship, with barrel-vaulted roofs, +and at the end a great solid globe on a pedestal. + +Of the art of these caves I will not speak. What little can be seen of +the painting--and only ill-lighted fragments remain--is full of +tenderness, refinement, and grace; no touch of drama; no hint of +passion. The sculpture, stripped of its stucco surface, is rude but +often impressive. But what impresses most is not the art but the +religion of the place. In this terrible country, where the great forces +of nature, drought and famine and pestilence, the intolerable sun, the +intolerable rain, and the exuberance of life and death, have made of +mankind a mere passive horde cowering before inscrutable Powers--here, +more than anywhere, men were bound under a yoke of observance and ritual +to the gods they had fashioned and the priests who interpreted their +will. Then came the Deliverer to set them free not _for_ but _from_ +life, teaching them how to escape from that worst of all evils, rebirth +again and again into a world of infinite suffering, unguided by any +reason to any good end. "There is no god," said this strange master, +"there is no soul; but there is life after death, life here in this +hell, unless you will learn to deliver yourselves by annihilating +desire." They listened; they built monasteries; they meditated; and now +and again, here, perhaps, in these caves, one or other attained +enlightenment. But the cloud of Hinduism, lifted for a moment, rolled +back heavier than ever. The older gods were seated too firmly on their +thrones. Shiva--creator, preserver, destroyer--expelled the Buddha. And +that passive figure, sublime in its power of mind, sits for ever alone +in the land of his birth, exiled from light, in a cloud of clinging +bats. + +But outside proceeds the great pageant of day and night, and the +patient, beautiful people labour without hope, while universal nature, +symbolised by Shiva's foot, presses heavily on their heads and forbids +them the stature of man. Only the white man here, bustling, ungainly, +aggressive, retains his freedom and acts rather than suffers. One +understands at last the full meaning of the word "environment." Because +of this sun, because of this soil, because of their vast numbers, these +people are passive, religious, fatalistic. Because of our cold and rain +in the north, our fresh springs and summers, we are men of action, of +science, of no reflection. The seed is the same, but according to the +soil it brings forth differently. Here the patience, the beauty, the +abjection before the Devilish-Divine; there the defiance, the cult of +the proud self. And these things have met. To what result? + + + + +III + +ULSTER IN INDIA + + +"Are you a Home Ruler?" "Yes. Are you?" Instantly a torrent of protest. +He was a Mahometan, eminent in law and politics; clever, fluent, +forensic, with a passion for hearing himself talk, and addressing one +always as if one were a public meeting. He approached his face close to +mine, gradually backing me into the wall. And I realised the full +meaning of Carlyle's dictum "to be a mere passive bucket to be pumped +into can be agreeable to no human being." + +It was not, naturally, the Irish question for its own sake that +interested him. But he took it as a type of the Indian question. Here, +too, he maintained, there is an Ulster, the Mahometan community. Here, +too, there are Nationalists, the Hindus. Here, too, a "loyal" minority, +protected by a beneficent and impartial Imperial Government. Here, too, +a majority of "rebels" bent on throwing off that Government in order +that they may oppress the minority. Here, too, an ideal of independence +hypocritically masked under the phrase "self-government." "It is a law +of political science that where there are two minorities they should +stand together against the majority. The Hindus want to get rid of you, +as they want to get rid of us. And for that reason alone, if there were +not a thousand others"--there were, he hinted, but, rhetorically, he +"passed them over in silence"--"for that reason alone I am loyal to the +British raj." It had never occurred to me to doubt it. But I questioned, +when I got a moment's breathing space, whether really the Hindu +community deliberately nourished this dark conspiracy. He had no doubt, +so far as the leaders were concerned; and he mistrusted the "moderates" +more than the extremists, because they were cleverer. He "multiplied +examples"--it was his phrase. The movement for primary education, for +example. It had nothing to do with education. It was a plot to teach the +masses Hindi, in order that they might be swept into the anti-British, +anti-Mahometan current. As to minor matters, no Hindu had ever voted for +a Mahometan, no Hindu barrister ever sent a client to a Mahometan +colleague. Whereas in all these matters, one was led to infer, +Mahometans were conciliation and tolerance itself. I knew that the +speaker himself had secured the election of Mahometans to all the seats +in the Council. But I refrained from referring to the matter. Then there +was caste. A Hindu will not eat with a Mahometan, and this was taken as +a personal insult. I suggested that the English were equally boycotted; +but that we regarded the boycott as a religious obligation, not as a +social stigma. But, like the Irish Ulstermen, he was not there to listen +to argument. He rolled on like a river. None of us could escape. He +detected the first signs of straying, and beckoned us back to the flock. +"Mr. Audubon, this is important." "Mr. Coryat, you must listen to this." +Coryat, at last, grew restive, and remarked rather tartly that no doubt +there was friction between the two communities, but that the worst way +to deal with it was by recrimination. He agreed; with tears in his eyes +he agreed. There was nothing he had not done, no advance he had not +made, to endeavour to bridge the gulf. All in vain! Never were such +obstinate fellows as these Hindus. And he proceeded once more to +"multiply examples." As we said "Good-bye" in the small hours of the +morning he pressed into our hands copies of his speeches and addresses. +And we left him perorating on the steps of the hotel. + +A painfully acquired mistrust of generalisation prevents me from saying +that this is _the_ Mahometan point of view. Indeed, I have reason to +know that it is not. But it is a Mahometan point of view in one +province. And it was endorsed, more soberly, by less rhetorical members +of the community. Some twenty-five years ago, they say, Mahometans woke +to the fact that they were dropping behind in the race for influence and +power. They started a campaign of education and organisation. At every +point they found themselves thwarted; and always, behind the obstacle, +lurked a Hindu. Lord Morley's reform of the Councils, intended to unite +all sections, had had the opposite effect. Nothing but the separate +electorates had saved Mahometans from political extinction. And +precisely because they desired that extinction Hindus desired mixed +electorates. The elections to the Councils have exasperated the +antagonism between the two communities. And an enemy might accuse the +Government of being actuated, in that reform, by the Machiavellian maxim +"Divide et impera." + +What the Hindus have to say to all this I have not had an opportunity of +learning. But they too, I conceive, can "multiply examples" for their +side. To a philosophic observer two reflections suggest themselves. One, +that representative government can only work when there is real give and +take between the contending parties. The other, that to most men, and +most nations, religion means nothing more than antagonism to some other +religion. Witness Ulster in Ireland; and witness, equally, Ulster in +India. + + + + +IV + +ANGLO-INDIA + + +From the gallery of the high hall we look down on the assembled society +of the cantonment. The scene is commonplace enough; twaddle and tea, +after tennis; "frivolling"--it is their word; women too empty-headed and +men too tired to do anything else. This mill-round of work and exercise +is maintained like a religion. The gymkhana represents the "compulsory +games" of a public school. It is part of the "white man's burden." He +plays, as he works, with a sense of responsibility. He is bored, but +boredom is a duty, and there's nothing else to do. + +The scene is commonplace. Yes! But this afternoon a band is playing. The +music suits the occasion. It is soft, melodious, sentimental. It +provokes a vague sensibility, and makes no appeal to the imagination. At +least it should not, from its quality. But the power of music is +incalculable. It has an essence independent of its forms. And by virtue +of that essence its poorest manifestations can sink a shaft into the +springs of life. So as I listen languidly the scene before me detaches +itself from actuality and floats away on the stream of art. It becomes +a symbol; and around and beyond it, in some ideal space, other symbols +arise and begin to move. I see the East as an infinite procession. Huge +Bactrian camels balance their bobbing heads as they pad deliberately +over the burning dust. Laden asses, cattle, and sheep and goats move on +in troops. Black-bearded men, men with beard and hair dyed red, women +pregnant or carrying babies on their hips, youths like the Indian +Bacchus with long curling hair, children of all ages, old men +magnificent and fierce, all the generations of Asia pass and pass on, +seen like a frieze against a rock background, blazing with colour, +rhythmical and fluent, marching menacingly down out of infinite space on +to this little oasis of Englishmen. Then, suddenly, they are an ocean; +and the Anglo-Indian world floats upon it like an Atlantic liner. It has +its gymnasium, its swimming-bath, its card-rooms, its concert-room. It +has its first and second class and steerage, well marked off. It dresses +for dinner every night; it has an Anglican service on Sunday; it flirts +mildly; it is bored; but above all it is safe. It has water-tight +compartments. It is "unsinkable." The band is playing; and when the +crash comes it will not stop. No; it will play this music, this, which +is in my ears. Is it Gounod's "Faust" or an Anglican hymn? No matter! It +is the same thing, sentimental, and not imaginative. And sentimentally, +not imaginatively, the Englishman will die. He will not face the event, +but he will stand up to it. He will realise nothing, but he will shrink +from nothing. Of all the stories about the loss of the _Titanic_ the +best and most characteristic is that of the group of men who sat +conversing in the second-class smoking-room, till one of them said, "Now +she's going down. Let's go and sit in the first-class saloon." And they +did. How touching! How sublime! How English! The _Titanic_ sinks. With a +roar the machinery crashes from stem to bow. Dust on the water, cries on +the water, then vacuity and silence. The East has swept over this colony +of the West. And still its generations pass on, rhythmically swinging; +slaves of Nature, not, as in the West, rebels against her; cyclical as +her seasons and her stars; infinite as her storms of dust; identical as +the leaves of her trees; purposeless as her cyclones and her +earthquakes. + +The music stops and I rub my eyes. Yes, it is only the club, only tea +and twaddle! Or am I wrong? There is more in these men and women than +appears. They stand for the West, for the energy of the world, for all, +in this vast Nature, that is determinate and purposive, not passively +repetitionary. And if they do not know it, if they never hear the strain +that transposes them and their work into a tragic dream, if tennis is +tennis to them, and a valse a valse, and an Indian a native, none the +less they are what a poet would see them to be, an oasis in the desert, +a liner on the ocean, ministers of the life within life that is the +hope, the inspiration, and the meaning of the world. In my heart of +hearts I apologise as I prolong the banalities of parting, and almost +vow never again to abuse Gounod's music. + + + + +V + +A MYSTERY PLAY + + +A few lamps set on the floor lit up the white roof. On either side the +great hall was open to the night; and now and again a bird flew across, +or a silent figure flitted from dark to dark. On a low platform sat the +dancers, gorgeously robed. All were boys. The leader, a peacock-fan +flashing in his head-dress, personated Krishna. Beside him sat Rhada, +his wife. The rest were the milkmaids of the legend. They sat like +statues, and none of them moved at our entry. But the musicians, who +were seated on the ground, rose and salaamed, and instantly began to +play. There were five instruments--a miniature harmonium (terrible +innovation), two viols, of flat, unresonant tone, a pair of cymbals, and +a small drum. The ear, at first, detected little but discordant chaos, +but by degrees a form became apparent--short phrases, of strong rhythm, +in a different scale from ours, repeated again and again, and strung on +a thread of loose improvisation. Every now and again the musicians burst +into song. Their voices were harsh and nasal, but their art was +complicated and subtle. Clearly, this was not barbarous music, it was +only strange, and its interest increased, as the ear became accustomed +to it. Suddenly, as though they could resist no longer, the dancers, who +had not moved, leapt from the platform and began their dance. It was +symbolical; Krishna was its centre, and the rest were wooing him. Desire +and its frustration and fulfilment were the theme. Yet it was not +sensual, or not merely so. The Hindus interpret in a religious spirit +this legendary sport of Krishna with the milkmaids. It symbolises the +soul's wooing of God. And so these boys interpreted it. Their passion, +though it included the flesh, was not of the flesh. The mood was +rapturous, but not abandoned; ecstatic, but not orgiastic. There were +moments of a hushed suspense when hardly a muscle moved; only the arms +undulated and the feet and hands vibrated. Then a break into swift +whirling, on the toes or on the knees, into leaping and stamping, swift +flight and pursuit. A pause again; a slow march; a rush with twinkling +feet; and always, on those young faces, even in the moment of most +excitement, a look of solemn rapture, as though they were carried out of +themselves into the divine. I have seen dancing more accomplished, more +elaborate, more astonishing than this. But never any that seemed to me +to fulfil so well the finest purposes of the art. The Russian ballet, in +the retrospect, seems trivial by comparison. It was secular; but this +was religious. For the first time I seemed to catch a glimpse of what +the tragic dance of the Greeks might have been like. The rhythms were +not unlike those of Greek choruses, the motions corresponded strictly to +the rhythms, and all was attuned to a high religious mood. In such +dancing the flesh becomes spirit, the body a transparent emblem of the +soul. + +After that the play, I confess, was a drop into bathos. We descended to +speech, even to tedious burlesque. But the analogy was all the closer to +mediaeval mysteries. In ages of Faith religion is not only sublime; it is +intimate, humorous, domestic; it sits at the hearth and plays in the +nursery. So it is in India where the age of Faith has never ceased. What +was represented that night was an episode in the story of Krishna. The +characters were the infant god, his mother, Jasodha, and an ancient +Brahmin who has come from her own country to congratulate her on the +birth of a child. He is a comic character--the sagging belly and the +painted face of the pantomime. He answers Jasodha's inquiries after +friends and relations at home. She offers him food. He professes to have +no appetite, but, on being pressed, demands portentous measures of rice +and flour. While she collects the material for his meal, he goes to +bathe in the Jumna; and the whole ritual of his ablutions is elaborately +travestied, even a crocodile being introduced in the person of one of +the musicians, who rudely pulls him by the leg as he is rolling in +imaginary water. His bathing finished, he retires and cooks his food. +When it is ready he falls into prayer. But during his abstraction the +infant Krishna crawls up and begins devouring the food. Returning to +himself, the Brahmin, in a rage, runs off into the darkness of the hall. +Jasodha pursues him and brings him back. And he begins once more to cook +his food. This episode was repeated three times in all its detail, and I +confess I found it insufferably tedious. The third time Jasodha scolds +the child and asks him why he does it. He replies--and here comes the +pretty point of the play--that the Brahmin, in praying to God and +offering him the food, unwittingly is praying to him and offering to +him, and in eating the food he has but accepted the offering. The mother +does not understand, but the Brahmin does, and prostrates himself before +his Lord. + +This is crude enough art, but at any rate it is genuine. Like all +primitive art, it is a representation of what is traditionally believed +and popularly felt. The story is familiar to the audience and intimate +to their lives. It represents details which they witness every day, and +at the same time it has religious significance. Out of it might grow a +great drama, as once in ancient Greece. And perhaps from no other origin +can such a drama arise. + + + + +VI + +AN INDIAN SAINT + + +It was at Benares that we met him. He led us through the maze of the +bazaars, his purple robe guiding us like a star, and brought us out by +the mosque of Aurungzebe. Thence a long flight of stairs plunged sheer +to the Ganges, shining below in the afternoon sun. We descended; but, +turning aside before we reached the shore, came to a tiny house perched +on a terrace above the ghat. We took off our shoes in the anteroom and +passed through a second chamber, with its riverside open to the air, and +reached a tiny apartment, where he motioned us to a divan. We squatted +and looked round. Some empty bottles were the only furniture. But on the +wall hung the picture we had come to see. It was a symbolic tree, and +perhaps as much like a tree as what it symbolised was like the universe. +Embedded in its trunk and branches were coloured circles and signs, and +from them grew leaves and flowers of various hues. Below was a garden +lit by a rising sun, and a black river where birds and beasts pursued +and devoured one another. At our request he took a pointer and began to +explain. I am not sure that I well understood or well remember, but +something of this kind was the gist of it. In the beginning was +Parabrahma, existing in himself, a white circle at the root of the tree. +Whence sprang, following the line of the trunk, the egg of the universe, +pregnant with all potentialities. Thence came the energy of Brahma; and +of this there were three aspects, the Good, the Evil, and the Neuter, +symbolised by three triangles in a circle. Thence the trunk continued, +but also thence emerged a branch to the right and one to the left. The +branch to the right was Illusion and ended in God; the branch to the +left was Ignorance and ended in the Soul. Thus the Soul contemplates +Illusion under the form of her gods. Up the line of the trunk came next +the Energy of Nature; then Pride; then Egotism and Individuality; whence +branched to one side Mind, to the other the senses and the passions. +Then followed the elements, fire, air, water, and earth; then the +vegetable creation; then corn; and then, at the summit of the tree, the +primitive Man and Woman, type of Humanity. The garden below was Eden, +until the sun rose; but with light came discord and conflict, symbolised +by the river and the beasts. Evil and conflict belong to the nature of +the created world; and the purpose of religion is by contemplation to +enable the Soul to break its bodies, and the whole creation to return +again to Parabrahma, whence it sprung. + +Why did it spring? He did not know. For good or for evil? He could not +say. What he knew he knew, and what he did not know he did not. "Some +say there is no God and no Soul." He smiled. "Let them!" His certainty +was complete. "Can the souls of men be reincarnated as animals?" He +shrugged his shoulders. "Who can say?" I tried to put in a plea for the +life of action, but he was adamant; contemplation and contemplation +alone can deliver us. "Our good men," I said, "desire to make the world +better, rather than to save their own souls." "Our sages," he replied, +"are sorry for the world, but they know they cannot help it." His +religion, I urged, denied all sense to the process of history. "There +may be process in matter," he replied, "but there is none in God." I +protested that I loved individual souls, and did not want them absorbed +in Parabrahma. He laughed his good cheery laugh, out of his black beard, +but it was clear that he held me to be a child, imprisoned in the Ego. I +felt like that, and I hugged my Ego; so presently he ministered to it +with sweetmeats. He even ate with us, and smoked a cigarette. He was the +most human of men; so human that I thought his religion could not be as +inhuman as it sounded. But it was the religion of the East, not of the +West. It refused all significance to the temporal world; it took no +account of society and its needs; it sought to destroy, not to develop, +the sense and the power of Individuality. It did not say, but it +implied, that creation was a mistake; and if it did not profess +pessimism, pessimism was its logical outcome. I do not know whether it +is the religion of a wise race; but I am sure it could never be that of +a strong one. + +But I loved the saint, and felt that he was a brother. Next morning, as +we drifted past the long line of ghats, watching the bright figures on +the terraces and stairs, the brown bodies in the water, and the Brahmins +squatting on the shore, we saw him among the bathers, and he called to +us cheerily. We waved our hands and passed on, never to see him again. +East had not met West, but at least they had shaken hands across the +gulf. The gulf, however, was profound; for many and many incarnations +will be needed before one soul at least can come even to wish to +annihilate itself in the Universal. + + + + +VII + +A VILLAGE IN BENGAL + + +At 6 A.M. we got out of the train at a station on the Ganges; and after +many delays found ourselves drifting down the river in a houseboat. To +lie on cushions, sheltered from the sun, looking out on the moving +shore, to the sound of the leisurely plash of oars, is elysium after a +night in the train. We had seven hours of it and I could have wished it +were more. But towards sunset we reached our destination. At the wharf a +crowd of servants were waiting to touch the feet of our hosts who had +travelled with us. They accompanied us through a tangle of palms, +bananas, mangoes, canes, past bamboo huts raised on platforms of hard, +dry mud, to the central place where a great banyan stood in front of the +temple. We took off our shoes and entered the enclosure, followed by +half the village, silent, dignified, and deferential. Over ruined +shrines of red brick, elaborately carved, clambered and twined the +sacred peepul tree. And within a more modern building were housed images +of Krishna and Rhada, and other symbols of what we call too hastily +idolatry. Outside was a circular platform of brick where these dolls +are washed in milk at the great festivals of the year. We passed on, and +watched the village weaver at his work, sitting on the ground with his +feet in a pit working the pedals of his loom; while outside, in the +garden, a youth was running up and down setting up, thread by thread, +the long strands of the warp. By the time we reached the house it was +dusk. A lamp was brought into the porch. Musicians and singers squatted +on the floor. Behind them a white-robed crowd faded into the night. And +we listened to hymns composed by the village saint, who had lately +passed away. + +First there was a prayer for forgiveness. "Lord, forgive us our sins. +You _must_ forgive, for you are called the merciful. And it's so easy +for you! And, if you don't, what becomes of your reputation?" Next, a +call to the ferry. "Come and cross over with me. Krishna is the boat and +Rhada the sail. No storms can wreck us. Come, cross over with me." Then +a prayer for deliverance from the "well" of the world where we are +imprisoned by those dread foes the five senses of the mind. Then a +rhapsody on God, invisible, incomprehensible. "He speaks, but He is not +seen. He lives in the room with me, but I cannot find Him. He brings to +market His moods, but the marketer never appears. Some call Him fire, +some ether. But I ask His name in vain. I suppose I am such a fool that +they will not tell it me." Then a strange ironical address to Krishna. +"Really, sir, your conduct is very odd! You flirt with the Gopis! You +put Rhada in a sulk, and then ask to be forgiven! You say you are a god, +and yet you pray to God! Really, sir, what are we to think?" Lastly, a +mystic song, how Krishna has plunged into the ocean of Rhada; how he is +there drifting, helpless and lost. Can we not save him? But no! It is +because his love is not perfect and pure. And that is why he must be +incarnated again and again in the avatars. + +Are these people idolaters, these dignified old men, these serious +youths, these earnest, grave musicians? Look at their temple, and you +say "Yes." Listen to their hymns, and you say "No." Reformers want to +educate them, and, perhaps, they are right. But if education is to mean +the substitution of the gramophone and music-hall songs for this +traditional art, these native hymns? I went to bed pondering, and was +awakened at six by another chorus telling us it was time to get up. We +did so, and visited the school, set up by my friend as an experiment; a +mud floor, mud-lined walls, all scrupulously clean; and squatting round +the four sides children of all ages, all reciting their lessons at once, +and all the lessons different. They were learning to read and write +their native language, and that, at least, seemed harmless enough. But +parents complained that it unfitted them for the fields. "Our fathers +did not do it"--that, said my impatient young host, is their reply to +every attempt at reform. In his library were all the works of Nietzsche, +Tolstoy, Wells, and Shaw, as well as all the technical journals of +scientific agriculture. He lectured them on the chemical constituents of +milk and the crossing of sugar-canes. They embraced his feet, sang their +hymns, and did as their fathers had done. He has a hard task before him, +but one far better worth attempting than the legal and political +activities in which most young Zemindars indulge. And, as he said, here +you see the fields and hear the birds, and here you can bathe in the +Ganges. We did; and then breakfasted; and then set out in palanquins for +the nearest railway station. The bearers sang a rhythmic chant as they +bore us smoothly along through mustard and pulses, yellow and orange and +mauve. The sun blazed hot; the bronzed figures streamed with sweat; the +cheerful voices never failed or flagged. I dozed and drowsed, while East +and West in my mind wove a web whose pattern I cannot trace. But a +pattern there is. And some day historians will be able to find it. + + + + +VIII + +SRI RAMAKRISHNA + + +As we dropped down the Hooghly they pointed to a temple on the shore as +lately the home of Sri Ramakrishna. He was only a name to me, and I did +not pay much attention, though I had his "Gospel" [2] actually under my +arm. I was preoccupied with the sunset, burning behind a veil of smoke; +and presently, as we landed, with the great floating haystacks +smouldering at the wharf in the red afterglow. As we waited for the +tram, someone said, "Would you like to see Kali?" and we stepped aside +to the little shrine. Within it was the hideous idol, black and +many-armed, decked with tinsel and fed with the blood of goats; and +there swept over me a wave of the repulsion I had felt from the first +for the Hindu religion, its symbols, its cult, its architecture, even +its philosophy. Seated in the tram, it was with an effort that I opened +the "Gospel" of Sri Ramakrishna. But at once my attention was arrested. +This was an account by a disciple of the life and sayings of his master. +And presently I read the following: + + "_Disciple._ Then, sir, one may hold that God is 'with form.' + But surely He is not the earthen image that is worshipped! + + "_Master._ But, my dear sir, why should you call it an earthen + image? Surely the Image Divine is made of the Spirit! + + "The disciple cannot follow this. He goes on: But is it not + one's duty, sir, to make it clear to those who worship images + that God is not the same as the clay form they worship, and that + in worshipping they should keep God Himself in view and not the + clay images? + + * * * * * + + "_Master._ You talk of 'images made of clay.' Well, there often + comes a necessity of worshipping even such images as these. God + Himself has provided these various forms of worship. The Lord + has done all this--to suit different men in different stages of + knowledge. + + "The mother so arranges the food for her children that every one + gets what agrees with him. Suppose she has five children. Having + a fish to cook, she makes different dishes out of it. She can + give each one of the children what suits him exactly. One gets + rich _polow_ with the fish, while she gives only a little soup + to another who is of weak digestion; she makes a sauce of sour + tamarind for the third, fries the fish for the fourth, and so + on, exactly as it happens to agree with the stomach. Don't you + see? + + "_Disciple._ Yes, sir, now I do. The Lord is to be worshipped in + the image of clay as a spirit by the beginner. The devotee, as + he advances, may worship Him independently of the image. + + "_Master._ Yes. And again, when he sees God he realises that + everything--image and all--is a manifestation of the Spirit. To + him the image is made of Spirit--not of clay. God is a Spirit." + +As I read this, I remembered the answer invariably given to me when I +asked about Hindu idolatry. The people, I was told, even the humblest +and most ignorant, worshipped not the idol but what it symbolised. +Actually, this hideous Kali stood to them for the Divine Mother. And I +was told of an old woman, racked with rheumatism, who had determined at +last to seek relief from the goddess. She returned with radiant face. +She had seen the Mother! And she had no more rheumatism. In this popular +religion, it would seem, the old cosmic elements have dropped out, and +the human only persist. So that even the terrifying form of Shiva, the +Destroyer, stands only for the divine husband of Parvati, the divine +wife. Hinduism, I admitted, is not as inhuman and superstitious as it +looks. But I admitted it reluctantly and with many reserves, remembering +all I had seen and heard of obscene rites and sculptures, of the +perpetual repetition of the names of God, of parasitic Brahmins and +self-torturing ascetics. + +What manner of man, then, was this Sri Ramakrishna? I turned the pages +and read: + + "The disciples were walking about the garden. M. walked by + himself at the cluster of five trees. It is about five in the + afternoon. Coming back to the verandah, north of the Master's + chamber, M. comes upon a strange sight. The Master is standing + still. Narendra is singing a hymn. He and three or four other + disciples are standing with the Master in their midst. M. is + charmed with their song. Never in his life has he heard a + sweeter voice. Looking at the Master, M. marvels and becomes + speechless. The Master stands motionless. His eyes are fixed. It + is hard to say whether he is breathing or not. This state of + ecstasy, says a disciple in low tones, is called Samadhi. M. has + never seen or heard of anything like this. He thinks to himself, + 'Is it possible that the thought of God can make a man forget + the world? How great must be his faith and love for God who is + thrown into such a state!'" + +"Yes," I said, "that is the Hindu ideal--ecstatic contemplation." +Something in me leapt to approve it; but the stronger pull was to +Hellenism and the West. "Go your way, Ramakrishna," I said, "but your +way is not mine. For me and my kind action not meditation; the temporal +not the eternal; the human not the ultra-divine; Socrates not +Ramakrishna!" But hardly had I said the words when I read on: + + "M. enters. Looking at him the Master laughs and laughs. He + cries out, 'Why, look! There he is again!' The boys all join in + the merriment. M. takes his seat, and the Master tells Narendra + and the other disciples what has made him laugh. He says: + + "'Once upon a time a small quantity of opium was given to a + certain peacock at four o'clock in the afternoon. Well, + punctually at four the next afternoon who should come in but the + selfsame peacock, longing for a repetition of the + favour--another dose of opium!'--(Laughter.) + + "M. sat watching the Master as he amused himself with the boys. + He kept up a running fire of chaff, and it seemed as if these + boys were his own age and he was playing with them. Peals of + laughter and brilliant flashes of humour follow upon one + another, calling to mind the image of a fair when the Joy of the + World is to be had for sale." + +I rubbed my eyes. Was this India or Athens? Is East East? Is West West? +Are there any opposites that exclude one another? Or is this +all-comprehensive Hinduism, this universal toleration, this refusal to +recognise ultimate antagonisms, this "mush," in a word, as my friends +would dub it--is this, after all, the truest and profoundest vision? + +And I read in my book: + + "M.'s egotism is now completely crushed. He thinks to himself: + What this God-man says is indeed perfectly true. What business + have I to go about preaching to others? Have I myself known God? + Do I love God? About God I know nothing. It would indeed be the + height of folly and vulgarity itself, of which I should be + ashamed, to think of teaching others! This is not mathematics, + or history, or literature; it is the science of God! Yes, I see + the force of the words of this holy man." + + + Footnotes: + + [Footnote 2: _Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna._ Second Edition. Part + 1. Madras: Published by the Ramakrishna Mission. 1912.] + + + + +IX + +THE MONSTROUS REGIMEN OF WOMEN + + +Here at Cape Comorin, at India's southernmost point, among the sands and +the cactuses and the palms rattling in the breeze, comes to us news of +the Franchise Bill and of militant suffragettes. And I reflect that in +this respect England is a "backward" country and Travancore an +"advanced" one. Women here--except the Brahmin women--are, and always +have been, politically and socially on an equality and more than an +equality with men. For this is one of the few civilised States--for +aught I know it is the only one--in which "matriarchy" still prevails. +That doesn't mean--though the word suggests it--that women govern, +though, in fact, the succession to the throne passes to women equally +with men. But it means that woman is the head of the family, and that +property follows her line, not the man's. All women own property equally +with men, and own it in their own right. The mother's property passes to +her children, but the father's passes to his mother's kin. The husband, +in fact, is not regarded as related to the wife. Relationship means +descent from a common mother, whereas descent from a common father is a +negligible fact, no doubt because formerly it was a questionable one. +Women administer their own property, and, as I am informed, administer +it more prudently than the men. + +Not only so; they have in marriage the superior position occupied by men +in the West. The Nair woman chooses her own husband; he comes to her +house, she does not go to his; and, till recently, she could dismiss him +as soon as she was tired of him. The law--man-made, no doubt!--has +recently altered this, and now mutual consent is required for a valid +divorce. Still the woman is, at least on this point, on an equality with +the man. And the heavens have not yet fallen. As to the vote, it is not +so important or so general here as at home. The people live under a +paternal monarchy "by right divine." The Rajah who consolidated the +kingdom, early in the eighteenth century, handed it over formally to the +god of the temple, and administers it in his name. Incidentally this +gave him access to temple revenues. It also makes his person sacred. So +much so that in a recent prison riot, when the convicts escaped and +marched to the police with their grievances, the Rajah had only to +appear and tell them to march back to prison, and they did so to a man, +and took their punishment. The government, it will be seen, is not by +votes. Still there are votes for local councils, and women have them +equally with men. Any other arrangement would have seemed merely +preposterous to the Nairs; and perhaps if any exclusion had been +contemplated it would have been of men rather than of women. + +Other incidental results follow from the equality of the sexes. The +early marriages which are the curse of India do not prevail among the +Nairs. Consequently the schooling of girls is continued later. And this +State holds the record in all India for female education. We visited a +school of over 600 girls, ranging from infancy to college age, and +certainly I never saw school-girls look happier, keener, or more alive. +Society, clearly, has not gone to pieces under "the monstrous regimen of +women." Travancore claims, probably with justice, to be the premier +native State; the most advanced, the most prosperous, the most happy. +Because of the position of women? Well, hardly. The climate is +delightful, the soil fertile, the natural resources considerable. Every +man sits under his own palm tree, and famine is unknown. The people, and +especially the children, are noticeably gay, in a land where gaiety is +not common. But one need not be a suffragette to hold that the equality +of the sexes is one element that contributes to its well-being, and to +feel that in this respect England lags far behind Travancore. + +Echoes of the suffrage controversy at home have led me to dwell upon +this matter of the position of women. But, to be candid, it will not be +that that lingers in my mind when I look back upon my sojourn here. What +then? Perhaps a sea of palm leaves, viewed from the lighthouse top, +stretching beside the sea of blue waves; perhaps a sandy river bed, with +brown nude figures washing clothes in the shining pools; perhaps the +oiled and golden skins glistening in the sun; perhaps naked children +astride on their mothers' hips, or screaming with laughter as they race +the motor-car; perhaps the huge tusked elephant that barred our way for +a moment yesterday; perhaps the jungle teeming with hidden and menacing +life; perhaps the seashore and its tumbling waves. One studies +institutions, but one does not love them. Often one must wish that they +did not exist, or existed in such perfection that their existence might +be unperceived. Still, as institutions go, this, which regulates the +relations of men and women, is, I suppose, the most important. So from +the surf of the Arabian sea and the blaze of the Indian sun I send this +little object lesson. + + + + +X + +THE BUDDHA AT BURUPUDUR + + +To the north the cone of a volcano, rising sharp and black. To the east +another. South and west a jagged chain of hills. In the foreground +ricefields and cocoa palms. Everywhere intense green, untoned by grey; +and in the midst of it this strange erection. Seen from below and from a +distance it looks like a pyramid that has been pressed flat. In fact, it +is a series of terraces built round a low hill. Six of them are +rectangular; then come three that are circular; and on the highest of +these is a solid dome, crowned by a cube and a spire. Round the circular +terraces are set, close together, similar domes, but hollow, and pierced +with lights, through which is seen in each a seated Buddha. Seated +Buddhas, too, line the tops of the parapets that run round the lower +terraces. And these parapets are covered with sculpture in high relief. +One might fancy oneself walking round one of the ledges of Dante's +"Purgatorio" meditating instruction on the walls. Here the instruction +would be for the selfish and the cruel. For what is inscribed is the +legend and cult of the lord of tenderness. Much of it remains +undeciphered and unexplained. But on the second terrace is recorded, on +one side, the life of Sakya-Muni; on the other, his previous +incarnations. The latter, taken from the "Jatakas," are naive and +charming apologues. + +For example: Once the Buddha lived upon earth as a hare. In order to +test him Indra came down from heaven in the guise of a traveller. +Exhausted and faint, he asked the animals for help. An otter brought +fish, a monkey fruit, a jackal a cup of milk. But the hare had nothing +to give. So he threw himself into a fire, that the wanderer might eat +his roasted flesh. Again: Once the Buddha lived upon earth as an +elephant. He was met by seven hundred travellers, lost and exhausted +with hunger. He told them where water would be found, and, near it, the +body of an elephant for food. Then, hastening to the spot, he flung +himself over a precipice, that he might provide the meal himself. Again: +Once the Buddha lived upon earth as a stag. A king, who was hunting him, +fell into a ravine. Whereupon the stag halted, descended, and helped him +home. All round the outer wall run these pictured lessons. And opposite +is shown the story of Sakya-Muni himself. We see the new-born child with +his feet on lotuses. We see the fatal encounter with poverty, sickness, +and death. We see the renunciation, the sojourn in the wilderness, the +attainment under the bo-tree, the preaching of the Truth. And all this +sculptured gospel seems to bring home to one, better than the volumes of +the learned, what Buddhism really meant to the masses of its followers. +It meant, surely, not the denial of the soul or of God, but that warm +impulse of pity and love that beats still in these tender and human +pictures. It meant not the hope or desire for extinction, but the +charming dream of thousands of lives, past and to come, in many forms, +many conditions, many diverse fates. The pessimism of the master is as +little likely as his high philosophy to have reached the mind or the +heart of the people. The whole history of Buddhism, indeed, shows that +it did not, and does not. What touched them in him was the saint and the +lover of animals and men. And this love it was that flowed in streams +over the world, leaving wherever it passed, in literature and art, in +pictures of flowers or mountains, in fables and poems and tales, the +trace of its warm and humanising flood. + +Still, there is the other Buddhism, the Buddhism of the thinker; his +theory of human life, its value and purpose. And it was this that filled +my mind later as I sat on the summit next to a solemn Buddha against the +setting sun. For a long time I was silent, meditating his doctrine. Then +I spoke of children, and he said, "They grow old." I spoke of strong +men, and he said, "They grow weak." I spoke of their work and +achievement, and he said, "They die." The stars came out, and I spoke of +eternal law. He said, "One law concerns you--that which binds you to the +wheel of life." The moon rose, and I spoke of beauty. He said, "There is +one beauty--that of a soul redeemed from desire." Thereupon the West +stirred in me, and cried "No!" "Desire," it said, "is the heart and +essence of the world. It needs not and craves not extinction. It needs +and craves perfection. Youth passes; strength passes; life passes. Yes! +What of it? We have access to the youth, the strength, the life of the +world. Man is born to sorrow. Yes! But he feels it as tragedy and +redeems it. Not round life, not outside life, but through life is the +way. Desire more and more intense, because more and more pure; not +peace, but the plenitude of experience. Your foundation was false. You +thought man wanted rest. He does not. We at least do not, we of the +West. We want more labour; we want more stress; we want more passion. +Pain we accept, for it stings us into life. Strife we accept, for it +hardens us to strength We believe in action; we believe in desire. And +we believe that by them we shall attain." So the West broke out in me; +and I looked at him to see if he was moved. But the calm eye was +untroubled, unruffled the majestic brow, unperplexed the sweet, solemn +mouth. Secure in his Nirvana, he heard or he heard me not. He had +attained the life-in-death he sought. But I, I had not attained the life +in life. Unhelped by him, I must go my way. The East, perhaps, he had +understood. He had not understood the West. + + + + +XI + +A MALAY THEATRE + + +It seems to be a principle among shipping companies so to arrange their +connections that the traveller should be compelled to spend some days in +Singapore. We evaded this necessity by taking a trip to Sumatra, but +even so a day and a night remained to be disposed of. We devoted the +morning to a bathe and a lunch at the Sea View Hotel, and the afternoon +to the Botanical Gardens, where the most attractive flowers are the +children and the most interesting gardeners their Chinese nurses. There +remained the evening, and we asked about amusements. There was a +bioscope, of course; there is always a bioscope; we had found one even +in the tiny town of Medan, in Sumatra. There was also an opera company, +performing the "Pink Girl." We seemed to know all about her without +going to see her. Was there nothing else? Yes; a Malay theatre. That +sounded attractive. So we took the tram through the Chinese quarter, +among the "Ah Sins" and "Hup Chows," where every one was either a tailor +or a washerman, and got down at a row of red lights. This was the +Alexandra Hall, and a bill informed us that the performers were the +Straits Opera Company. This dismayed us a little. Still, we paid our +dollars, and entered a dingy, dirty room, with a few Malays occupying +the back benches and a small group of Chinese women and children in +either balcony. We took our seats with half a dozen coloured aristocrats +in the front rows, and looked about us. We were the only Europeans. But, +to console us in our isolation, on either side of the proscenium was +painted a couple of Italians in the act of embracing as one only +embraces in opera. We glanced at our programme and saw that the play was +the "Moon Princess," and that Afrid, a genie, figured in the cast. It +was then, at least, Oriental, though it could hardly be Malay, and our +spirits rose. But the orchestra quickly damped them; there was a piano, +a violin, a 'cello, a clarionet, and a cornet, and from beginning to end +of the performance they were never in tune with themselves or with the +singers. And the music? It was sometimes Italian, sometimes Spanish, +never, as far as I could detect, Oriental, and always thoroughly and +frankly bad. + +No matter! The curtain rose and displayed a garden. The Prince entered. +He was dressed in mediaeval Italian costume (a style of dress, be it said +once for all, which was adopted by the whole company). With gestures of +ecstatic astonishment he applied his nose to the paper roses. Then he +advanced and appeared to sing, for his mouth moved; but the orchestra +drowned any notes he may have emitted. The song finished, he lay down +upon a couch and slept. Whereupon there entered an ugly little girl, in +a short white frock and black stockings and ribbons, with an expression +of fixed gloom upon her face, and began to move her feet and arms in a +parody of Oriental dancing. We thought at first that she was the Moon +Princess, and felt a pang of disappointment. But she turned out to be +the Spirit of Dreams; and presently she ushered in the real Princess, +with whom, on the spot, the Prince, unlike ourselves, became violently +enamoured. She vanished, and he woke to find her a vision. Despair of +the Prince; despair of the King; despair of the Queen, not unmixed with +rage, to judge from her voice and gestures. Consultation of an +astrologer. Flight of the Prince in search of his beloved. Universal +bewilderment and incompetence, such as may be witnessed any day in the +East when anything happens at all out of the ordinary way. At this point +enter the comic relief, in the form of woodcutters. I am inclined to +suppose, from the delight of the audience, that there was something +genuine here. But whatever it was we were unable to follow it. +Eventually the woodcutters met Afrid, whether by chance or design I +could not discover. At any rate, their reception was rough. To borrow +the words of the synopsis, "a big fight arose and they were thrown to +space"; but not till they had been pulled by the hair and ears, +throttled and pummelled, to the general satisfaction, for something like +half an hour. + +The next scenes were equally vigorous. The synopsis describes them thus: +"Several young princes went to Genie Janar, the father of the Moon +Princess, to demand her in marriage. Afrid, a genie, met the princes, +and, after having a row, they were all thrown away." The row was +peculiar. Afrid took them on one by one. The combatants walked round one +another, back to back, making feints in the air. Then the Prince got a +blow in, which Afrid pretended to feel. But suddenly, with a hoarse +laugh, he rushed again upon the foe, seized him by the throat or the +arm, and (I cannot improve on the phrase) "threw him away." After all +four princes were thus disposed of I left, being assured of a happy +ending by the account of the concluding scene: "The Prince then took the +Moon Princess to his father's kingdom, where he was married to her +amidst great rejoicings." + +Comment perhaps is superfluous. But as I went home in my rickshaw my +mind went back to those evenings in India when I had seen Indian boys +perform to Indian music dances and plays in honour of Krishna, and to +the Bengal village where the assembled inhabitants had sung us hymns +composed by their native saint. And I remembered that everywhere, in +Egypt, in India, in Java, in Sumatra, in Japan, the gramophone +harmonium is displacing the native instruments; and that the +bioscope--that great instrument of education--is familiarising the +peasants of the East with all that is most vulgar and most shoddy in the +humour and sentiment of the West. + +The Westernising of the East must come, no doubt, and ought to come. But +in the process what by-products of waste, or worse! Once, surely, there +must have been a genuine "Malay theatre." This is what Europe has made +of it. + + + + +PART II + +CHINA + + + + +I + +FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA + + +Some recent travellers have expressed disappointment or even disgust +with what they saw or learned or guessed of China. My own first +impression is quite contrary. The climate, it is true, for the moment, +inclines one to gloomy views. An icy wind, a black sky, a cold drizzle. +March in England could hardly do worse. But in Canton one almost forgets +all that. Imagine a maze of narrow streets, more confused and confusing +than Venice; high houses (except in the old city); and hanging parallel +to these, in long, vertical lines, flags and wooden signs inscribed with +huge Chinese characters, gold on black, gold on red, red or blue on +white, a blaze of colour; and under it, pouring in a ceaseless stream, +yellow faces, black heads, blue jackets and trousers, all on foot or +borne on chairs, not a cart or carriage, rarely a pony, nobody crowding, +nobody hustling or jostling, an even flow of cheerful humanity, +inexhaustible, imperturbable, convincing one at first sight of the truth +of all one has heard of the order, independence, and vigour of this +extraordinary people. The shops are high and spacious, level with the +street, not, as in India, raised on little platforms; and commonly, +within, they are cut across by a kind of arch elaborately carved and +blazing with gold. Every trade may be seen plying--jade-cutters, +cloth-rollers, weavers, ring-makers, rice-pounders, a thousand others. +Whole animals, roasted, hang before the butchers' shops, ducks, +pigs--even we saw a skinned tiger! The interest is inexhaustible; and +one is lucky if one does not return with a light purse and a heavy +burden of forged curios. Even the American tourist, so painfully in +evidence at the hotel, is lost, drowned in this native sea. He passes in +his chair; but, like oneself, he is only a drop in the ocean. Canton is +China, as Benares is India. And that conjunction of ideas set me +thinking. To come from India to China is like waking from a dream. Often +in India I felt that I was in an enchanted land. Melancholy, monotony, +austerity; a sense as of perennial frost, spite of the light and heat; a +lost region peopled with visionary forms; a purgatory of souls doing +penance till the hour of deliverance shall strike; a limbo, lovely but +phantasmal, unearthly, over-earthly--that is the kind of impression +India left on my mind. I reach China, awake, and rub my eyes. This, of +course, is the real world. This is every-day. Good temper, industry, +intelligence. Nothing abnormal or overstrained. The natural man, +working, marrying, begetting and rearing children, growing middle-aged, +growing old, dying--and that is all. Here it is broad daylight; but in +India, moon or stars, or a subtler gleam from some higher heaven. +Recall, for example, Benares--the fantastic buildings rising and falling +like a sea, the stairs running up to infinity, the sacred river, the +sages meditating on its banks, the sacrificial ablutions, the squealing +temple-pipes, and, in the midst of this, columns of smoke, as the body +returns to the elements and the soul to God. This way of disposing of +the dead, when the first shock is over, lingers in the mind as something +eminently religious. Death and dissolution take place in the midst of +life, for death is no more a mystery than life. In the open air, in the +press of men, the soul takes flight. She is no stranger, for everything +is soul--houses, trees, men, the elements into which the body is +resolved. Death is not annihilation, it is change of form; and through +all changes of form the essence persists. + +But now turn back to Canton. We pass the shops of the coffin-makers. We +linger. But "No stop," says our guide; "better coffins soon." "Soon" is +what the guide-books call the "City of the Dead." A number of little +chapels; and laid in each a great lacquered coffin in which the dead man +lives. I say "lives" advisedly, for there is set for his use a table and +a chair, and every morning he is provided with a cup of tea. A bunch of +paper, yellow and white, symbolises his money; and perhaps a couple of +figures represent attendants. There he lives, quite simply and +naturally as he had always lived, until the proper time and place is +discovered in which he may be buried. It may be months, it may be, or +rather, might have been, years; for I am told that a reforming +Government has limited the time to six months. And after burial? Why, +presumably he lives still. But not with the life of the universal soul. +Oh no! There have been mystics in China, but the Chinese are not +mystical. What he was he still is, an eating and drinking creature, and, +one might even conjecture, a snob. For if one visits the family chapel +of the Changs--another of the sights of Canton--one sees ranged round +the walls hundreds of little tablets, painted green and inscribed in +gold. These are the memorials of the deceased. And they are arranged in +three classes, those who pay most being in the first and those who pay +least in the third. One can even reserve one's place--first, second, or +third--while one is still alive, by a white tablet. You die, and the +green is substituted. And so, while you yet live, you may secure your +social status after death. How--how British! Yes, the word is out; and I +venture to record a suspicion that has long been maturing in my mind. +The Chinese are not only Western; among the Western they are English. +Their minds move as ours do; they are practical, sensible, reasonable. +And that is why--as it would seem--they have more sympathy with +Englishmen, if not with the English Government, than with any other +Westerners. East may be East and West West, though I very much doubt it. +But if there be any truth in the aphorism, we must define our terms. The +East must be confined to India, and China included in the West. That as +a preliminary correction. I say nothing yet about Japan. But I shall +have more to say, I hope, about China. + + + + +II + +NANKING + + +The Chinese, one is still told, cannot and will not change. On the other +hand, Professor Ross writes a book entitled _The Changing Chinese_. And +anyone may see that the Chinese educated abroad are transformed, at any +rate externally, out of all recognition. In Canton I met some of the +officials of the new Government; and found them, to the outward sense, +pure Americans. The dress, the manners, the accent, the intellectual +outfit--all complete! Whether, in some mysterious sense, they remain +Chinese at the core I do not presume to affirm or deny. But an external +transformation so complete must imply _some_ inward change. Foreign +residents in China deplore the foreign-educated product. I have met some +who almost gnash their teeth at "young China." But this seems rather +hard on China. For nearly a century foreigners have been exhorting her, +at the point of the bayonet, to adopt Western ways and Western ideas. +And when she begins to do so, the same people turn round and accuse her +of unpardonable levity, and treachery to her own traditions. What _do_ +foreigners want? the Chinese may well ask. I am afraid the true answer +is, that they want nothing but concessions, interest on loans, and trade +profits, at all and every cost to China. + +But I must not deviate into politics. What suggested this train of +thought was the student-guide supplied me at Nanking by the American +missionary college. There he was, complete American; and, I fear I must +add, boring as only Americans can bore. Still, he showed me Nanking, and +Nanking is worth seeing, though the interest of it is somewhat tragic. A +wall 20 to 40 feet thick, 40 to 90 feet high, and 22 miles in circuit (I +take these figures on trust) encloses an area larger than that of any +other Chinese city. But the greater part of this area is fields and +ruins. You pass through the city gate in the train, and find yourself in +the country. You alight, and you are still in the country. A carriage +takes you, in time, to the squalid village, or series of villages, where +are housed the 350,000 inhabitants of modern Nanking. Among them are +quartered the khaki-clad soldiers of new China, the new national flag +draped at the gate of their barracks. Meantime old China swarms, +unregenerate, in the narrow little streets, chaffering, chattering, +laughing in its rags as though there had never been a siege, a +surrender, and a revolution. Beggars display their stumps and their +sores, grovelling on the ground like brutes. Ragged children run for +miles beside the carriage, singing for alms; and stop at last, +laughing, as though it had been a good joke to run so far and get +nothing for it. One monument in all this scene of squalor arrests +attention--the now disused examination hall. It is a kind of +rabbit-warren of tiny cells, six feet deep, four feet broad, and six +feet high; row upon row of them, opening on narrow unroofed corridors; +no doors now, nor, I should suppose, at any time, for it would be +impossible to breathe in these boxes if they had lids. Here, for a week +or a fortnight, the candidates sat and excogitated, unable to lie down +at night, sleeping, if they could, in their chairs. And no wonder if, +every now and again, one of them incontinently died and was hauled out, +a corpse, through a hole in the wall; or went mad and ran amuck among +examiners and examinees. For centuries, as is well known, this system +selected the rulers of China; and whole lives, from boyhood to extreme +old age, were spent in preparing for the examinations. Now all this is +abolished; and some people appear to regret it. Once more, what _do_ the +foreigners want? + +The old imperial city, where once the Ming dynasty reigned, was +destroyed in the Taiping Rebellion. The Tartar city, where before the +revolution 3000 mandarins lived on their pensions, was burnt in the +siege of 1911. Of these cities nothing remains but their huge walls and +gates and the ruins of their houses. The principal interest of Nanking, +the so-called "Ming tombs," lies outside the walls. And the interest is +not the tombs, but the road to them. It is lined by huge figures carved +out of monoliths. Brutes first--lions, camels, elephants, horses, a pair +of each lying down and a pair standing; then human figures, military and +civil officers. What they symbolise I cannot tell. They are said to +guard the road. And very impressive they are in the solitude. Not so +what they lead to, which is merely a hill, artificial, I suppose, piled +on a foundation of stone. Once, my guide informed me, there was a door +giving admission; and within, a complete house, with all its furniture, +in stone. But the door is sealed, and for centuries no one has explored +the interior. I suggested excavation, but was told the superstition of +the inhabitants forbade it. "Besides," said my guide, "the Chinese are +not curious." I wonder? Whether or no they are curious, they are +certainly superstitious. Apropos, a gunboat ran aground on the Yangtse. +The river was falling, and there seemed no chance of getting off for +months. The officers made up their minds to it, and fraternised with the +priest of a temple on the bank. The priest one day asked for a +photograph of the boat. They gave him one, and he asked them to dinner. +After dinner he solemnly burnt the photograph to his god. And--"would +you believe it?"--next day a freshet came down and set the vessel +afloat. Which shows how superstitions are generated and maintained in a +world so little subject to law, on the surface of it, as ours. + +My anecdote has brought me to the Yangtse, and it is on a river-boat +that I write. Hour after hour there passes by the panorama of hills and +plain, of green wheat and yellow rape, of the great flood with its +flocks of wild duck, of fishers' cabins on the shore and mud-built +thatched huts, of junks with bamboo-threaded sails skimming on flat +bottoms, of high cliffs with monasteries perched on perilous ledges, of +changing light and shade, of burning sunset and the stars. Travelling by +river is the best of all travelling--smooth, slow, quiet, and soothingly +contemplative. All China, I am informed by some pessimists, is in a +state of anarchy, actual or latent. It may be. But it is difficult to +believe it among these primitive industrious people living and working +as they have lived and worked for 4000 years. Any other country, I +suppose, in such a crisis as the present would be seething with civil +war. But China? When one puts the point to the foreigner who has been +talking of anarchy he says, "Ah! but the Chinese are so peaceable! They +don't mind whether there's a Government or no. They just go on without +it!" Exactly! That is the wonderful thing. But even that seems to annoy +the foreigner. Once more, what _does_ he want? I give it up. + + + + +III + +IN THE YANGTSE GORGES + + +At the upper end of the gorge poetically named "Ox Liver and Horse +Lungs" I watched the steamboat smoking and splashing up stream. She had +traversed in a few hours the distance I, in my houseboat, had taken +three days to cover; and certainly she is much more convenient and much +more comfortable. That, however, is not necessarily an advantage. What +may be urged with some force is that travelling by steamboat is more +humane. It dispenses with human labour of a peculiarly dangerous and +strenuous kind. Twenty-eight boatmen are attached to my single person. A +big junk may have a crew of two hundred. When the wind is not fair they +must row or tow; and towing is not like towing along the Thames! +Suddenly you see the men leap out and swarm up a precipice. Presently +they appear high above, creeping with the line along a ledge of rock. +And your "boy" remarks nonchalantly, "Plenty coolie fall here. Too high +place." Or they are clambering over boulders, one or two told off to +disentangle the line wherever it catches. Or they are struggling along +a greasy slope, their bare feet gripping the mud, hardly able to advance +a step or even to hold their own. As a labour-saving machine one must +welcome the advent of the steamboat, as one is constrained to welcome +even that of the motor-omnibus. But from the traveller's point of view +it is different. Railways and steamboats enable more of us to travel, +and to travel farther, in space. But in experience he travels the +farthest who travels the slowest. A mediaeval student or apprentice +walking through Europe on foot really did see the world. A modern +tourist sees nothing but the inside of hotels. Unless, that is, he +chooses to walk, or ride, or even cycle. Then it is different. Then he +begins to see. As now I, from my houseboat, begin to see China. Not +profoundly, of course, but somehow intimately. For instance, while my +crew eat their midday rice, I stroll up to the neighbouring village. +Contrary to all I have been taught to expect, I find it charming, +picturesque, not so dirty after all, not so squalid, not so poor. The +people, too, who, one thought, would insult or mob the foreigner, either +take no notice, or, if you greet them, respond in the friendliest way. +They may, of course, be explaining to one another that you are a foreign +devil, but nothing in their countenance or manner suggests it. The +children are far better-mannered than in most European countries. They +may follow you, and chatter and laugh; but at least they have not learnt +to beg. Curiosity they have, and gaiety, but I detect no sign of +hostility. I walk down the long street, with its shops and roomy +houses--far roomier and more prosperous-looking than in most Indian +villages--and come to the temple. Smilingly I am invited to enter. There +are no mysteries in Chinese religion. I begin to wonder, indeed, whether +there is any religion left. For everywhere I find the temples and +monasteries either deserted or turned into schools or barracks. This one +is deserted. It is like a series of lumber-rooms, full of dusty idols. +The idols were once gaudy, brightly painted "to look like life," with +beards and whiskers of real hair. But now their splendour is dimmed. The +demons scowl to no purpose. To no purpose the dragons coil. No +trespasser threatens the god behind his dingy curtains. In one chamber +only a priest kneels before the shrine and chants out of a book while he +taps a bronze vessel with a little hammer. Else, solitude, vacuity, and +silence. Is he Buddhist or Taoist? I have no language in which to ask. I +can only accept with mute gestures the dusty seat he offers and the cup +of lukewarm tea. What has happened to religion? So far as I can make +out, something like the "disestablishment of the Church." The Republic +has been at work; and in the next village I see what it has been doing. +For there the temple is converted into a school. Delightedly the +scholars show me round. On the outside wall, for him who runs to read, +are scored up long addition sums in our Western figures. Inside, the +walls are hung with drawings of birds and beasts, of the human skeleton +and organs, even of bacteria! There are maps of China and of the world. +The children even produce in triumph an English reading-book, though I +must confess they do not seem to have profited by it much. Still, they +can say "cat" when you show them a picture of the creature; which is +more than I could do in Chinese. And China does not change? Wait a +generation! This, remember, is a tiny village in the heart of the +country, more than 1000 miles from the coast. And this is happening all +over the Celestial Empire, I suppose. I start to return to my boat, but +have not gone a quarter of a mile before I hear a shout, and looking +back find half the school following me and escorting their teacher, who +speaks English. He regrets to have missed my visit; will I not return +and let him show me the school? I excuse myself, and he walks with me to +the boat, making what conversation he can. One remark I remember--"China +a good place now; China a republic." And I thought, as we exchanged +cards, that he represented the Republic more essentially than the +politicians whom foreigners so severely criticise. Anyhow, Republic or +no, China is being transformed. And there is something other than +steamboats to attest it. + +Which brings me back to my starting-point. On the steamboat you have no +adventures. But on the houseboat you do. For instance, the other day +the rope broke as we were towing up a rapid, and down we dashed, turning +round and round, and annihilating in five minutes the labour of an hour. +I was afraid, I confess; but the boatmen took it as a matter of course. +In some way, incomprehensible to me, they got us into the bank, and, +looking up, the first thing I saw was an embankment in construction--the +railway from Ichang to Chungking. When it is finished we shall go by +train--not even by steamboat,--and so see nothing except tunnels. +Certainly, we shall not be compelled to pass the night in a small +village; nor permitted to see the sunset behind these lovely hills and +the moon rising over the river between the cliffs of the gorge. Nor +shall we then be delayed, as I was yesterday, till the water should run +down, and so tempted to walk into the country. I made for a side valley, +forded a red torrent, and found myself among fields and orchards; green +of mulberries, green of fruit trees, green of young corn; and above, the +purple hills, with all their bony structure showing under the skin of +soil. I followed a high path, greeted by the peasants I met with a +charming smile and that delightful gesture whereby, instead of shaking +your hand, they clasp theirs and shake them _at_ you. I came at last to +a solitary place, and, sitting down there, watched the evening light on +the mountains. I watched, and they seemed to be saying something. What? + + "Rocks that are bones, earth that is flesh, what, what do you + mean + Eyeing me silently? + Streams that are voices, what, what do you say? + You are pouring an ocean into a cup. Yet pour, that all it + can hold + May at least be water of yours." + +At dusk I got back to the river, and found that a wind had sprung up and +the junks were trying to pass the rapid. There must have been fifty of +them crowded together. They could only pass one by one; and the scene +was pandemonium. The Chinese are even noisier than the Italians, and +present the same appearance of confusion. But in some mysterious way an +order is always getting evolved. On this occasion it seemed to be +perfectly understood which boat should go first. And presently there she +was, in mid-rapid, apparently not advancing an inch, the ropes held taut +from a causeway a quarter of a mile off. At last the strain suddenly +ceased, and she moved quickly up stream. Another followed. Then it was +dark. And we had to pass the night, after all, tossing uneasily in the +rough water. Soon after dawn we started again. I went across to the +causeway, and watched the trackers at work--twenty each on two ropes, +hardly advancing a step in five minutes. Then the boat's head swung into +shore, the tension ceased; something had happened. I waited half an hour +or so. "Nothing doing," in the expressive American phrase. Then I went +back. We had sprung a leak, and my cabin was converted into a +swimming-bath. Another hour or so repairing this. Then the rope had to +be brought back and attached again. At last we started for the second +time, and in half an hour got safely through the hundred yards of racing +waters into the bank above. At ten I got my breakfast, and we started to +sail with a fair wind. It dropped. Rain came on. My crew (as always in +that conjuncture) put up their awning and struck work. So here we are at +1 P.M., in a heavy thunder-shower, a mile from the place we tried to +leave at six o'clock this morning. This is the ancient method of +travelling--four thousand years old, I suppose. It is very inconvenient! +Oh, yes--BUT!---- + + + + +IV + +PEKIN + + +Professor Giles tells us, no doubt truly, that the Chinese are not a +religious nation. No nation, I think, ever was, unless it be the +Indians. But religious impulses sweep over nations and pass away, +leaving deposits--rituals, priesthoods, and temples. Such an impulse +once swept over China, in the form of Buddhism; and I am now visiting +its deposit in the neighbourhood of Pekin. Scattered over the hills to +the west of the city are a number of monastery temples. Some are +deserted; some are let as villas to Europeans; some, like the one where +I am staying, have still their complement of monks--in this temple, I am +told, some three to four hundred. But neither here nor anywhere have I +seen anything that suggests vitality in the religion. I entered one of +the temples yesterday at dusk and watched the monks chanting and +processing round a shrine from which loomed in the shadow a gigantic +bronze-gold Buddha. They began to giggle like children at the entrance +of the foreigner and never took their eyes off us. Later, individual +monks came running round the shrines, beating a gong as though to call +the attention of the deity, and shouting a few words of perfunctory +praise or prayer. Irreverence more complete I have not seen even in +Italy, nor beggary more shameless. Such is the latter end of the gospel +of Buddha in China. It seems better that he should sit deserted in his +Indian caves than be dishonoured by such mummeries. + +But once it must have been otherwise. Once this religion was alive. And +then it was that men chose these exquisite sites for contemplation. The +Chinese Buddhists had clearly the same sense for the beauty of nature +that the Italian Franciscans had. In secluded woods and copses their +temples nestle, courts and terraces commanding superb views over the +great plain to Pekin. The architecture is delicate and lovely; tiled +roofs, green or gold or grey, cornices elaborately carved and painted in +lovely harmonies of blue and green; fine trees religiously preserved; +the whole building so planned and set as to enhance, not destroy, the +lines and colour of the landscape. To wander from one of these temples +to another, to rest in them in the heat of the day and sleep in them at +night, is to taste a form of travel impossible in Europe now, though +familiar enough there in the Middle Ages. Specially delightful is it to +come at dusk upon a temple apparently deserted; to hear the bell tinkle +as the wind moves it; to enter a dusky hall and start to see in a dark +recess huge figures, fierce faces, glimmering maces and swords that seem +to threaten the impious intruder. + +This morning there was a festival, and the people from the country +crowded into the temple. Very bright and gay they looked in their gala +clothes. The women especially were charming; painted, it is true, but +painted quite frankly, to better nature, not to imitate her. Their +cheeks were like peaches or apples, and their dresses correspondingly +gay. Why they had come did not appear; not, apparently, to worship, for +their mood was anything but religious. Some perhaps came to carry away a +little porcelain boy or girl as guarantee of a baby to come. For the +Chinese, by appropriate rites, can determine the sex of a child--a +secret unknown as yet to the doctors of Europe! Some, perhaps, came to +cure their eyes, and will leave at the shrine a picture on linen of the +organs affected. Some are merely there for a jaunt, to see the sights +and the country. We saw a group on their way home, climbing a steep hill +for no apparent purpose except to look at the view. What English +agricultural labourer would do as much? But the Chinese are not +"agricultural labourers"; they are independent peasants; and a people so +gay, so friendly, so well-mannered and self-respecting I have found +nowhere else in the world. + +The country round Pekin has the beauty we associate with Italy. First +the plain, with its fresh spring green, its dusty paths, its grey and +orange villages, its cypress groves, its pagodas, its memorial slabs. +Then the hills, swimming in amethyst, bare as those of Umbria, fine and +clean in colour and form. For this beauty I was unprepared. I have even +read that there is no natural beauty in China. And I was unprepared for +Pekin too. How can I describe it? At this time of year, seen from above, +it is like an immense green park. You mount the tremendous wall, 40 feet +high, 14 miles round, as broad at the top as a London street, and you +look over a sea of spring-green tree-tops, from which emerge the +orange-gold roofs of palaces and temples. You descend, and find the +great roads laid out by Kubla Khan, running north and south, east and +west, and thick, as the case may be, with dust or mud; and opening out +of them a maze of streets and lanes, one-storeyed houses, grey walls and +roofs, shop fronts all ablaze with gilt carving, all trades plying, all +goods selling, rickshaws, mule-carts canopied with blue, swarming +pedestrians, eight hundred thousand people scurrying like ants in this +gigantic framework of Cyclopean walls and gates. Never was a medley of +greatness and squalor more strange and impressive. One quarter only is +commonplace, that of the Legations. There is the Wagon-lits Hotel, with +its cosmopolitan stream of Chinese politicians, European tourists, +concession-hunters, and the like. There are the Americans, occupying +and guarding the great north gate, and playing baseball in its +precincts. There are the Germans, the Dutch, the French, the Italians, +the Russians, the Japanese; and there, in a magnificent Chinese palace, +are the British, girt by that famous wall of the siege on which they +have characteristically written "Lest we forget!" Forget what? The one +or two children who died in the Legation, and the one or two men who +were killed? Or the wholesale massacre, robbery, and devastation which +followed when the siege was relieved? This latter, I fear, the Chinese +are not likely to forget soon. Yet it would be better if they could. And +better if the Europeans could remember much that they forget--could +remember that they forced their presence and their trade on China +against her will; that their treaties were extorted by force, and their +loans imposed by force, since they exacted from China what are +ironically called "indemnities" which she could not pay except by +borrowing from those who were robbing her. If Europeans could remember +and realise these facts they would perhaps cease to complain that China +continues to evade their demands by the only weapon of the +weak--cunning. When you have knocked a man down, trampled on him, and +picked his pocket, you can hardly expect him to enter into social +relations with you merely because you pick him up and, retaining his +property, propose that you should now be friends and begin to do +business. The obliquity of vision of the European residents on all these +points is extraordinary. They cannot see that wrong has been done, and +that wrong engenders wrong. They repeat comfortable formulae about the +duplicity and evasiveness of the Chinese; they charge them with +dishonesty at the very moment that they are dismembering their country; +they attach intolerable conditions to their loans, and then complain if +their victims attempt to find accommodation elsewhere. Of all the Powers +the United States alone have shown some generosity and fairness, and +they are reaping their reward in the confidence of Young China. The +Americans had the intelligence to devote some part of the excessive +indemnity they exacted after the Boxer riots to educating Chinese +students in America. Hundreds of these young men are now returned to +China, with the friendliest feeling to America, and, naturally, anxious +to develop political and commercial relations with her rather than with +other Powers. British trade may suffer because British policy has been +less generous. But British trade, I suppose, would suffer in any case. +For the British continue to maintain their ignorance and contempt of +China and all things Chinese, while Germans and Japanese are travelling +and studying indefatigably all over the country. "We see too much of +things Chinese!" was the amazing remark made to me by a business man in +Shanghai. Too much! They see nothing at all, and want to see nothing. +They live in the treaty ports, dine, dance, play tennis, race. China is +in birth-throes, and they know and care nothing. A future in China is +hardly for them. + + + + +V + +THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD + + +To write from China about the Englishman may seem an odd choice. But to +see him abroad is to see him afresh. At home he is the air one breathes; +one is unaware of his qualities. Against a background of other races you +suddenly perceive him, and can estimate him--fallaciously or no--as you +estimate foreigners. + +So seen the Englishman appears as the eternal school-boy. I mean no +insult; I mean to express his qualities as well as his defects. He has +the pluck, the zest, the sense of fair play, the public spirit of our +great schools. He has also their narrowness and their levity. Enter his +office, and you will find him not hurried or worried, not scheming, +skimping, or hustling, but cheery, genial, detached, with an air of +playing at work. As likely as not, in a quarter of an hour he will have +asked you round to the club and offered you a whisky and soda. Dine with +him, and the talk will turn on golf or racing, on shooting, fishing, and +the gymkhana. Or, if you wish to divert it, you must ask him definite +questions about matters of fact. Probably you will get precise and +intelligent replies. But if you put a general question he will flounder +resentfully; and if you generalise yourself you will see him dismissing +you as a windbag. Of the religion, the politics, the manners and customs +of the country in which he lives he will know and care nothing, except +so far as they may touch his affairs. He will never, if he can help it, +leave the limits of the foreign settlement. Physically he oscillates +between his home, his office, the club, and the racecourse; mentally, +between his business and sport. On all general topics his opinions are +second or third hand. They are the ghosts of old prejudices imported +years ago from England, or taken up unexamined from the English +community abroad. And these opinions pass from hand to hand till they +are as similar as pebbles on the shore. In an hour or so you will have +acquired the whole stock of ideas current in the foreign community +throughout a continent. Your only hope of new light is in particular +instances and illustrations. And these, of course, may be had for the +asking. + +But the Englishman abroad in some points is the Englishman at his best. +For he is or has been a pioneer, at any rate in China. And pioneering +brings out his most characteristic qualities. He loves to decide +everything on his own judgment, on the spur of the moment, directly on +the immediate fact, and in disregard of remoter contingencies and +possibilities. He needs adventure to bring out his powers, and only +really takes to business when business is something of a "lark." To +combine the functions of a trader with those of an explorer, a soldier, +and a diplomat is what he really enjoys. So, all over the world, he +opens the ways, and others come in to reap the fruit of his labours. +This is true in things intellectual as in things practical. In science, +too, he is a pioneer. Modern archaeology was founded by English +travellers. Darwin and Wallace and Galton in their youth pursued +adventure as much as knowledge. When the era of routine arrives, when +laboratory work succeeds to field work, the Englishman is apt to retire +and leave the job to the German. The Englishman, one might say, "larks" +into achievement, the German "grinds" into it. The one, accordingly, is +free-living, genial, generous, careless; the other laborious, exact, +routine-ridden. It is hard for an Englishman to be a pedant; it is not +easy for a German to be anything else. For philosophy no man has less +capacity than the Englishman. He does not understand even how such +questions can be put, still less how anyone can pretend to answer them. +The philosopher wants to know whether, how, and why life ought to be +lived before he will consent to live it. The Englishman just lives +ahead, not aware that there is a problem; or convinced that, if there is +one, it will only be solved "by walking." The philosopher proceeds from +the abstract to the concrete. The Englishman starts with the concrete, +and may or, more probably, may not arrive at the abstract. No general +rules are of any use to him except such as he may have elaborated for +himself out of his own experience. That is why he mistrusts education. +For education teaches how to think in general, and that isn't what he +wants or believes in. So, when he gets into affairs, he discards all his +training and starts again at the beginning, learning to think, if he +ever does learn it, over his own particular job. And his own way, he +opines, must be the right way for every one. Hence his contempt and even +indignation for individuals or nations who are moved by "ideas." At this +moment his annoyance with the leaders of "Young China" is provoked +largely by the fact that they are proceeding on general notions of how a +nation should be governed and organised, instead of starting with the +particularities of their own society, and trying to mend it piece by +piece and from hand to mouth. Before they make a Constitution, he +thinks, they ought to make roads; and before they draw up codes, to +extirpate consumption. The conclusion lies near at hand, and I have +heard it drawn--"What they want is a few centuries of British rule." +And, indeed, it is curious how constantly the Englishman abroad is +opposed, in the case of other nations, to all the institutions and +principles he is supposed to be proud of at home. Partly, no doubt, this +is due to his secret or avowed belief that the whole world ought to be +governed despotically by the English. But partly it is because he does +not believe that the results the English have achieved can be achieved +in any other way than theirs. They arrived at them without intention or +foresight, by a series of detached steps, each taken without prescience +of the one that would follow. So, and so only, can other nations arrive +at them. He does not believe in short cuts, nor in learning by the +experience of others. And so the watchwords "Liberty," "Justice," +"Constitution," so dear to him at home, leave him cold abroad. Or, +rather, they make him very warm, but warm not with zeal but with +irritation. + +Never was such a pourer of cold water on other people's enthusiasms. He +cannot endure the profession that a man is moved by high motives. His +annoyance, for example, with the "anti-opium" movement is not due to the +fact that he supports the importation into China of Indian opium. Very +commonly he does not. But the movement is an "agitation" (dreadful +word!). It is "got up" by missionaries. It purports to be based on moral +grounds, and he suspects everything that so purports. Not that he is not +himself moved by moral considerations. Almost invariably he is. But he +will never admit it for himself, and he deeply suspects it in others. +The words "hypocrite," "humbug," "sentimentalist" spring readily to his +lips. But let him work off his steam, sit quiet and wait, and you will +find, often enough, that he has arrived at the same conclusion as the +"sentimentalist"--only, of course, for quite different reasons! For +intellect he has little use, except so far as it issues in practical +results. He will forgive a man for being intelligent if he makes a +fortune, but hardly otherwise. Still, he has a queer, half-contemptuous +admiration for a definite intellectual accomplishment which he knows it +is hard to acquire and is not sure he could acquire himself. That, for +instance, is his attitude to those who know Chinese. A "sinologue," he +will tell you, must be an imbecile, for no one but a fool would give so +much time to a study so unprofitable. Still, in a way, he is proud of +the sinologue--as a public school is proud of a boy so clever as to +verge upon insanity, or a village is proud of the village idiot. +Something of the same feeling, I sometimes think, underlies his respect +for Shakspere. "If you want that kind of thing," he seems to say to the +foreigner, "and it's the kind of thing you _would_ want, _we_ can do it, +you see, better than you can!" + +So with art. He is never a connoisseur, but he is often a collector. +Partly, no doubt, because there is money in it, but that is a secondary +consideration. Mainly because collecting and collectors appeal to his +sporting instinct. His knowledge about his collection will be precise +and definite, whether it be postage stamps or pictures. He will know all +about it, except its aesthetic value. That he cannot know, for he cannot +see it. He has the _flair_ of the dealer, not the perception of the +amateur. And he does not know or believe that there is any distinction +between them. + +But these, from his point of view, are trifles. What matters is that he +has pre-eminently the virtues of active life. He is fair-minded, and +this, oddly, in spite of his difficulty in seeing another man's point of +view. When he _does_ see it he respects it. Whereas nimbler-witted +nations see it only to circumvent and cheat it. He is honest; as honest, +at least, as the conditions of modern business permit. He hates bad +work, even when, for the moment, bad work pays. He hates skimping and +paring. And these qualities of his make it hard for him to compete with +rivals less scrupulous and less generous. He is kind-hearted--much more +so than he cares to admit. And at the bottom of all his qualities he has +the sense of duty. He will shoulder loyally all the obligations he has +undertaken to his country, to his family, to his employer, to his +employees. The sense of duty, indeed, one might say with truth, is his +religion. For on the rare occasions on which he can be persuaded to +broach such themes you will find, I think, at the bottom of his mind +that what he believes in is Something, somehow, somewhere, in the +universe, which helps him, and which he is helping, when he does right. +There must, he feels, be some sense in life. And what sense would there +be if duty were nonsense? + +Poets, artists, philosophers can never be at home with the Englishman. +His qualities and his defects alike are alien to them. In his company +they live as in prison, for it is not an air in which wings can soar. +But for solid walking on the ground he has not his equal. The phrase +"Solvitur ambulando" must surely have been coined for him. And no doubt +on his road he has passed, and will pass again, the wrecks of many a +flying-machine. + + + + +VI + +CHINA IN TRANSITION + + +The Chinese Revolution has proceeded, so far, with less disturbance and +bloodshed than any great revolution known to history. There has been +little serious fighting and little serious disorder; nothing comparable +to that which accompanied, for instance, the French Revolution of 1789. +And this, no doubt, is due to the fact that the Chinese are alone among +nations of the earth in detesting violence and cultivating reason. Their +instinct is always to compromise and save everybody's face. And this is +the main reason why Westerners despise them. The Chinese, they aver, +have "no guts." And when hard pressed as to the policy of the Western +Powers in China, they will sometimes quite frankly confess that they +consider the West has benefited China by teaching her the use of force. +That this should be the main contribution of Christian to Pagan +civilisation is one of the ironies of history. But it is part of the +greater irony which gave the Christian faith to precisely those nations +whose fundamental instincts and convictions were and are in radical +antagonism to its teaching. + +Though, however, it is broadly true that the Chinese have relied on +reason and justice in a way and to a degree which is inconceivable in +the West, they have not been without their share of original sin. +Violence, anarchy, and corruption have played a part in their history, +though a less part than in the history of most countries. And these +forces have been specially evident in that department to which +Westerners are apt to pay the greatest attention--in the department of +government. Government has always been less important in China than in +the Western world; it has always been rudimentary in its organisation; +and for centuries it has been incompetent and corrupt. Of this +corruption Westerners, it is true, make more than they fairly should. +China is no more corrupt (to say the least) than the United States or +Italy or France, or than England was in the eighteenth century. And much +that is called corruption is recognised and established "squeeze," +necessary, and understood to be necessary, to supplement the inadequate +salaries of officials. A Chinese official is corrupt much as Lord +Chancellor Bacon was corrupt; and whether the Chancellor ought properly +to be called corrupt is still matter of controversy. Moreover, the +people have always had their remedy. When the recognised "squeeze" is +exceeded, they protest by riot. So that the Chinese system, in the most +unfavourable view, may be described as corruption tempered by anarchy. + +And this system, it is admitted, still prevails after the Revolution. +Clearly, indeed, it cannot be extirpated until officials are properly +paid; and China is not in a position to pay for any reform while the +Powers are drawing away an enormous percentage of her resources by that +particular form of robbery called by diplomatists "indemnity." The new +officials, then, are "corrupt" as the old ones were; and they are +something more. They are Jacobins. Educated abroad, they are as full of +ideas as was Robespierre or St. Just; and their ideas are even more +divorced from sentiment and tradition. A foreign education seems to make +a cut right across a Chinaman's life. He returns with a new head; and +this head never gets into normal relations with his heart. That, I +believe, is the essence of Jacobinism, ideas working with enormous +rapidity and freedom unchecked by the fly-wheel of traditional feelings. +And it is Jacobinism that accounts for the extraordinary vigour of the +campaign against opium. Many Europeans still endeavour to maintain that +this campaign is not serious. But that is because Europeans simply +cannot conceive that any body of men should be in as deadly earnest +about a moral issue as are the representatives of Young China. The +anti-opium campaign is not only serious, it is ruthless. Smokers are +flogged and executed; poppy is rooted up; and farmers who resist are +shot down. The other day in Hunan, it is credibly reported, some seventy +farmers who had protested against the destruction of their crops were +locked into a temple and burnt alive. An old man of seventy-six, falsely +accused of growing poppy, was fined 500 dollars, and when he refused to +pay was flogged to death by the orders of a young official of +twenty-two. Stories of this kind come in from every part of the country; +and though this or that story may be untrue or exaggerated, there can be +no doubt about the general state of affairs. The officials are putting +down opium with a vigour and a determination which it is inconceivable +should ever be applied in the West to the traffic in alcohol. But in +doing so they are showing a ruthlessness which does not seem to be +native to the Chinese, and which perhaps is to be accounted for by what +I have called Jacobinism, resulting from the effects of a Western +education that has been unable to penetrate harmoniously the complicated +structure of Chinese character. + +The anti-opium campaign is one example of the way in which the +Revolution has elicited and intensified violence in this peace-loving +people. Another example is the use of assassination. This has been an +accompaniment of all great revolutions. It took the form of +"proscriptions" in Rome, of the revolutionary tribunals in France. In +China it is by comparison a negligible factor; but it exists. Two months +ago a prominent leader of the southern party was assassinated; and +popular suspicion traces the murder to high Government officials, and +even to the President himself. The other day a southern general was +killed by a bomb. For the manufacture of bombs is one of the things +China has learned from the Christian West; and the President lives in +constant terror of this form of murder. China, it will be seen, does not +altogether escape the violence that accompanies all revolutions. Nor +does she altogether escape the anarchy. Anarchy, indeed, that is a +simple strike against authority, may be said to be part of the Chinese +system. It is the way they have always enforced their notions of +justice. A curious example has been recently offered by the students of +the Pekin University. For various reasons--good or bad--they have +objected to the conduct of their Chancellor. After ineffectual protests, +they called upon him in large numbers with his resignation written out, +and requested him to sign it. He refused; whereupon they remarked that +they would call again the next day with revolvers; and in the interval +he saw wisdom and signed. Last week there was a similar episode. The new +Chancellor proved as unpalatable as his predecessor. The students once +more presented themselves with his resignation written out. He refused +to resign, and, as the students aver, scurrilously abused them. They +proceeded to the Minister of Education, who refused to see them. +Thereupon they camped out in his courtyard, and stayed all day and all +night, sending a message to the professors dated "from under the trees +of the Education Office" to explain that they were unfortunately unable +to attend lectures. This Chancellor, too, it would seem, has seen wisdom +and resigned. + +How strange it all seems to Western eyes! A country, we should suppose, +where such things occur, is incapable of organisation. But it is certain +that we are wrong. Our notion is that everything must be done by +authority, and that unless authority is maintained there will be +anarchy. The Chinese notion is that authority is there to carry out what +the people recognise to be common sense and justice; if it does +otherwise, it must be resisted; and if it disappears life will still go +on--as it is going on now in the greater part of China--on the basis of +the traditional and essentially reasonable routine. Almost certainly the +students of the University had justice on their side; otherwise such +action would not be taken; and when they get justice they will be more +docile and orderly than our own undergraduates at home. + +Another thing surprising to European observers is the apparent belief of +the Chinese in verbal remonstrance. Under the present regime officials +and public men are allowed the free use of the telegraph. The +consequence is that telegrams of advice, admonition, approval, blame, +fear, hope, doubt pour in daily to the Government from civil and +military governors, from members of Parliament and party leaders. In the +paper to-day, for example, is a telegram from the Governors of +seventeen provinces addressed to the National Assembly. It begins as +follows: + + "To the President, the Cabinet, the Tsan Yi Yuan, the Chung Yi + Yuan, and the Press Association,--When the revolution took place + at Wuchang, the various societies and groups responded, and when + the Republic was inaugurated the troops raised among these + bodies were gradually disbanded. For fear that, being driven by + hunger, these disbanded soldiers would become a menace to the + place, the various societies and groups have established a + society at Shanghai called the Citizens' Progressive Society, to + promote the means of livelihood for the people, and the + advancement of society, and the establishment has been + registered in the offices of the Tutuhs of the provinces." + +Then follows a statement of the "six dangers" to which the country is +exposed, an appeal to the Assembly to act more reasonably and +competently, and then the following peroration: + + "The declarations of us, Yuan-hung and others, are still there, + our wounds have not yet been fully recovered, and should the sea + and ocean be dried up, our original hearts will not be changed. + We will protect the Republic with our sinews and blood of brass + and iron, we will take the lead of the province, and be their + backbone, and we will not allow the revival of the monarchy and + the suppression of the powers of the people. Let Heaven and + earth be witness to our words. You gentlemen are pillars of the + political parties, or the representatives of the people, and you + should unite together and not become inconsistent. You first + determined that the Loan is necessary, but such opinion is now + changed, and you now reject the Loan. Can the ice be changed + into red coal in your hearts? Thus even those who love and + admire you will not be able to defend your position. However, if + you have any extraordinary plan or suggestion to save the + present situation, you can show it to us." + +Some of the strange effect produced by this document is due, no doubt, +to translation. But it, like the many others of the kind I have read, +seems to indicate what is at the root of the Chinese attitude to life--a +belief in the power of reason and persuasion. I have said enough to show +that this attitude does not exclude the use of violence; but I feel sure +that it limits it far more than it has ever been limited in Europe. Even +in time of revolution the Chinese are peaceable and orderly to an extent +unknown and almost unbelievable in the West. And the one thing the West +is teaching them and priding itself on teaching them is the absurdity of +this attitude. Well, one day it is the West that will repent because +China has learnt the lesson too well. + + + + +VII + +A SACRED MOUNTAIN + + +It was midnight when the train set us down at Tai-an-fu. The moon was +full. We passed across fields, through deserted alleys where sleepers +lay naked on the ground, under a great gate in a great wall, by halls +and pavilions, by shimmering tree-shadowed spaces, up and down steps, +and into a court where cypresses grew. We set up our beds in a verandah, +and woke to see leaves against the morning sky. We explored the vast +temple and its monuments--iron vessels of the Tang age, a great tablet +of the Sungs, trees said to date from before the Christian era, stones +inscribed with drawings of these by the Emperor Chien Lung, hall after +hall, court after court, ruinous, overgrown, and the great crumbling +walls and gates and towers. Then in the afternoon we began the ascent of +Tai Shan, the most sacred mountain in China, the most frequented, +perhaps, in the world. There, according to tradition, legendary emperors +worshipped God. Confucius climbed it six centuries before Christ, and +sighed, we are told, to find his native State so small. The great +Chin-Shih-Huang was there in the third century B.C. Chien Lung in the +eighteenth century covered it with inscriptions. And millions of humble +pilgrims for thirty centuries at least have toiled up the steep and +narrow way. Steep it is, for it makes no detours, but follows straight +up the bed of a stream, and the greater part of the five thousand feet +is ascended by stone steps. A great ladder of eighteen flights climbs +the last ravine, and to see it from below, sinuously mounting the +precipitous face to the great arch that leads on to the summit, is +enough to daunt the most ardent walker. We at least were glad to be +chaired some part of the way. A wonderful way! On the lower slopes it +passes from portal to portal, from temple to temple. Meadows shaded with +aspen and willow border the stream as it falls from green pool to green +pool. Higher up are scattered pines Else the rocks are bare--bare, but +very beautiful, with that significance of form which I have found +everywhere in the mountains in China. + +To such beauty the Chinese are peculiarly sensitive. All the way up the +rocks are carved with inscriptions recording the charm and the sanctity +of the place. Some of them were written by emperors; many, especially, +by Chien Lung, the great patron of art in the eighteenth century. They +are models, one is told, of caligraphy as well as of literary +composition. Indeed, according to Chinese standards, they could not be +the one without the other. The very names of favourite spots are poems +in themselves. One is "the pavilion of the phoenixes"; another "the +fountain of the white cranes." A rock is called "the tower of the +quickening spirit"; the gate on the summit is "the portal of the +clouds." More prosaic, but not less charming, is an inscription on a +rock in the plain, "the place of the three smiles," because there some +mandarins, meeting to drink and converse, told three peculiarly funny +stories. Is not that delightful? It seems so to me. And so peculiarly +Chinese! + +It was dark before we reached the summit. We put up in the temple that +crowns it, dedicated to Yue Huang, the "Jade Emperor" of the Taoists; and +his image and those of his attendant deities watched our slumbers. But +we did not sleep till we had seen the moon rise, a great orange disc, +straight from the plain, and swiftly mount till she made the river, five +thousand feet below, a silver streak in the dim grey levels. + +Next morning, at sunrise, we saw that, north and east, range after range +of lower hills stretched to the horizon, while south lay the plain, with +half a hundred streams gleaming down to the river from the valleys. Full +in view was the hill where, more than a thousand years ago, the great +Tang poet Li-tai-po retired with five companions to drink and make +verses. They are still known to tradition as the "six idlers of the +bamboo grove"; and the morning sun, I half thought, still shines upon +their symposium. We spent the day on the mountain; and as the hours +passed by, more and more it showed itself to be a sacred place. Sacred +to what god? No question is harder to answer of any sacred place, for +there are as many ideas of the god as there are worshippers. There are +temples here to various gods: to the mountain himself; to the Lady of +the mountain, Pi-hsia-yueen, who is at once the Venus of +Lucretius--"goddess of procreation, gold as the clouds, blue as the +sky," one inscription calls her--and the kindly mother who gives +children to women and heals the little ones of their ailments; to the +Great Bear; to the Green Emperor, who clothes the trees with leaves; to +the Cloud-compeller; to many others. And in all this, is there no room +for God? It is a poor imagination that would think so. When men worship +the mountain, do they worship a rock, or the spirit of the place, or the +spirit that has no place? It is the latter, we may be sure, that some +men adored, standing at sunrise on this spot. And the Jade Emperor--is +he a mere idol? In the temple where we slept were three inscriptions set +up by the Emperor Chien Lung. They run as follows:-- + + "Without labour, oh Lord, Thou bringest forth the greatest things." + + "Thou leadest Thy company of spirits to guard the whole world." + + "In the company of Thy spirits Thou art wise as a mighty Lord to + achieve great works." + +These might be sentences from the Psalms; they are as religious as +anything Hebraic. And if it be retorted that the mass of the +worshippers on Tai Shan are superstitious, so are, and always have been, +the mass of worshippers anywhere. Those who rise to religion in any +country are few. India, I suspect, is the great exception. But I do not +know that they are fewer in China than elsewhere. For that form of +religion, indeed, which consists in the worship of natural beauty and +what lies behind it--for the religion of a Wordsworth--they seem to be +pre-eminently gifted. The cult of this mountain, and of the many others +like it in China, the choice of sites for temples and monasteries, the +inscriptions, the little pavilions set up where the view is +loveliest--all goes to prove this. In England we have lovelier hills, +perhaps, than any in China. But where is our sacred mountain? Where, in +all the country, that charming mythology which once in Greece and Italy, +as now in China, was the outward expression of the love of nature? + + "Great God, I'd rather be + A pagan suckled in a creed outworn + So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, + Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn." + +That passionate cry of a poet born into a naked world would never have +been wrung from him had he been born in China. + +And that leads me to one closing reflection. When lovers of +China--"pro-Chinese," as they are contemptuously called in the +East--assert that China is more civilised than the modern West, even +the candid Westerner, who is imperfectly acquainted with the facts, is +apt to suspect insincere paradox. Perhaps these few notes on Tai Shan +may help to make the matter clearer. A people that can so consecrate a +place of natural beauty is a people of fine feeling for the essential +values of life. That they should also be dirty, disorganised, corrupt, +incompetent, even if it were true--and it is far from being true in any +unqualified sense--would be irrelevant to this issue. On a foundation of +inadequate material prosperity they reared, centuries ago, the +superstructure of a great culture. The West, in rebuilding its +foundations, has gone far to destroy the superstructure. Western +civilisation, wherever it penetrates, brings with it water-taps, sewers, +and police; but it brings also an ugliness, an insincerity, a vulgarity +never before known to history, unless it be under the Roman Empire. It +is terrible to see in China the first wave of this Western flood +flinging along the coasts and rivers and railway lines its scrofulous +foam of advertisements, of corrugated iron roofs, of vulgar, meaningless +architectural forms. In China, as in all old civilisations I have seen, +all the building of man harmonises with and adorns nature. In the West +everything now built is a blot. Many men, I know, sincerely think that +this destruction of beauty is a small matter, and that only decadent +aesthetes would pay any attention to it in a world so much in need of +sewers and hospitals. I believe this view to be profoundly mistaken. +The ugliness of the West is a symptom of a disease of the Soul. It +implies that the end has been lost sight of in the means. In China the +opposite is the case. The end is clear, though the means be inadequate. +Consider what the Chinese have done to Tai Shan, and what the West will +shortly do, once the stream of Western tourists begins to flow strongly. +Where the Chinese have constructed a winding stairway of stone, +beautiful from all points of view, Europeans or Americans will run up a +funicular railway, a staring scar that will never heal. Where the +Chinese have written poems in exquisite caligraphy, _they_ will cover +the rocks with advertisements. Where the Chinese have built a series of +temples, each so designed and placed as to be a new beauty in the +landscape, _they_ will run up restaurants and hotels like so many scabs +on the face of nature. I say with confidence that they _will_, because +they _have_ done it wherever there is any chance of a paying investment. +Well, the Chinese need, I agree, our science, our organisation, our +medicine. But is it affectation to think they may have to pay too high a +price for it, and to suggest that in acquiring our material advantages +they may lose what we have gone near to lose, that fine and sensitive +culture which is one of the forms of spiritual life? The West talks of +civilising China. Would that China could civilise the West! + + + + +PART III + +JAPAN + + + + +I + +FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN + + +Japan, surely, must be a mirage created by enchantment. Nothing so +beautiful could be real. Take the west coast of Scotland, bathe it in +Mediterranean light and sun, and let its waves be those of the Pacific. +Take the best of Devonshire, enlarge the hills, extend the plains, and +dominate all with the only perfect mountain in the world--a mountain +that catches at your breath like a masterpiece of art. Make the copses +woods, and the woods forests. For our fields with their hedgerows +substitute the vivid green of rice, shining across the gleam of flooded +plains. Everywhere let water flow; and at every waterfall and cave erect +a little shrine to hallow the spot. Over the whole pour a flood of pure +white light, and you have a faint image of Japan. Perhaps it is not, +naturally, more beautiful than the British Isles--few countries are. But +it is unspoilt by man, or almost so. Osaka, indeed, is as ugly as +Manchester, Yokohama as Liverpool. But these are small blots. For the +rest, Japan is Japan of the Middle Ages, and lovely as England may have +been, when England could still be called merry. + +And the people are lovely, too. I do not speak of facial beauty. Some +may think, in that respect, the English or the Americans handsomer. But +these people have the beauty of life. Instead of the tombstone masques +that pass for faces among Anglo-Saxons, they have human features, quick, +responsive, mobile. Instead of the slow, long limbs creaking in stiff +integuments, they have active members, for the most bare or moving +freely in loose robes. Instead of a mumbled, monotonous, machine-like +emission of sound they have real speech, vivacious, varied, musical. +Their children are the loveliest in the world; so gay, so sturdy, so +cheeky, yet never rude. It is a pure happiness merely to walk in the +streets and look at them. It is a pure happiness, I might almost say, to +look at anyone, so gay is their greeting, so radiant their smile, so +full of vitality their gestures. I do not know what they think of the +foreigner, but at least they betray no animosity. They let his stiff, +ungainly presence move among them unchallenged. Perhaps they are sorry +for him; but I think they are never rude. I am speaking, of course, of +Old Japan, of the Japan that is all in evidence, if one lands, as I did, +in the south, avoids Osaka, and postpones Yokohama and Tokio. It is +still the Japan of feudalism; a system in which I, for my part, do not +believe; which, in its essence, in Japan as in Europe, was harsh, +unjust, and cruel; but which had the art of fostering, or at least of +not destroying beauty. + +And in this point feudalism in Japan was finer and more sensitive, if it +was less grandiose, than feudalism in Europe. There is nothing in Japan +to compare with the churches and cathedrals of the West, for there is no +stone architecture at all. But there is nothing in the West to compare +with the living-rooms of Japan. Suites of these dating from the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are to be seen in Kyoto and +elsewhere. And till I saw them I had no idea how exquisite human life +might be made. The Japanese, as is well known, discovered the secret of +emptiness. Their rooms consist of a floor of spotless matting, paper +walls, and a wooden roof. But the paper walls, in these old palatial +rooms, are masterpieces by great artists. From a background of gold-leaf +emerge and fade away suggestions of river and coast and hill, of +peonies, chrysanthemums, lotuses, of wild geese and swans, of reeds and +pools, of all that is elusive and choice in nature; decorations that are +also lyric poems, hints of landscape that yet never pretend to be a +substitute for the real thing. The real thing is outside, and perhaps it +will not intrude; for where we should have glass windows the Japanese +have white paper screens. But draw back, if you choose, one of these +screens, and you will see a little landscape garden, a little lake, a +little bridge, a tiny rockery, a few goldfish, a cluster of irises, a +bed of lotus, and, above and beyond, the great woods. These are royal +apartments; but all the cost, it will be seen, is lavished on the work +of art. The principle is the same in humbler homes. + +People who could so devise life, we may be sure, are people with a +fineness of perception unknown to the West, unless it were once in +ancient Greece. The Japanese indeed, I suspect, are the Greeks of the +East. In the theatre at Kyoto this was curiously borne in upon me. On +the floor of the house reclined figures in loose robes, bare-necked and +barefooted. On the narrow stage were one or two actors, chanting in +measured speech, and moving slowly from pose to pose. From boxes on +either side of the stage intoned a kind of chorus; and a flute and +pizzicato strings accompanied the whole in the solemn strains of some +ancient mode. I have seen nothing so like what a Greek play may have +been, though doubtless even this was far enough away. And still more was +I struck by the resemblance when a comedy succeeded to the tragedy, and +I found the young and old Japan confronting one another exactly as the +young and old Athens met in debate, two thousand years ago, in the +_Frogs_ of Aristophanes. The theme was an ascent of Mount Fuji; the +actors two groups of young girls, one costumed as virgin priestesses of +the Shinto cult, the other in modern European dress. The one set were +climbing the mountain as a pilgrimage, the other as a lark; and they +meet and exchange sharp dialectics (unintelligible to me, but not +unguessable) on the lower slopes. The sympathies of the author, like +those of Aristophanes, were with the old school. It is the pilgrims who +reach the top and the modern young women who collapse. And the modern +young man fares no better; he is beaten by a coolie and frightened by a +ghost. The playwright had at least Aristophanes' gift of lampoon, though +I doubt whether he had a touch of his genius. Perhaps, however, he had a +better cause. For, I doubt, modern Japan may deserve lampooning more +than the Athens of Aristophanes. For modern Japan is the modern West. +And that--well, it seemed to be symbolised to me yesterday in the train. +In my carriage were two Japanese. One was loosely wrapt in a kimono, +bare throat and feet, fine features, fine gestures, everything +aristocratic and distinguished. The other was clad in European dress, +sprigged waistcoat, gold watch-chain, a coarse, thick-lipped face, a +podgy figure. It was a hot July day, and we were passing through some of +the loveliest scenery in the world. He first closed all doors and +windows, and then extended himself at full length and went to sleep. +There he lay, his great paunch sagging--prosperity exuding from every +pore--an emblem and type of what in the West we call a "successful" man. +And the other? The other, no doubt, was going downhill. Both, of course, +were Japanese types; but the civilisation of the West chose the one and +rejected the other. And if civilisation is to be judged, as it fairly +may be, by the kind of men it brings to the top, there is much to be +said for the point of view of my Tory playwright. + + + + +II + +A "NO" DANCE + + +On entering the theatre I was invaded by a sense of serenity and peace. +There was no ornament, no upholstery, no superfluity at all. A square +building of unvarnished wood; a floor covered with matting, exquisitely +clean, and divided into little boxes, or rather trays (so low were the +partitions), in which the audience knelt on their heels, beautiful in +loose robes; running out from the back wall a square stage, with a roof +supported by pillars; a passage on the same level, by which the actors +entered, on the left; the screens removed from the outer walls, so that +the hall was open to the air, and one looked out on sky and trees, or +later on darkness, against which shone a few painted lanterns. Compare +this with the Queen's Hall in London, or with any of our theatres, and +realise the effect on one's mood of the mere setting of the drama. Drama +was it? Or opera? Or what? It is called a "dance." But there was very +little dancing. What mainly remains in my mind is a series of visual +images, one more beautiful than another; figures seated motionless for +minutes, almost for half-hours, with a stillness of statues, not an +eyelash shaking; or passing very slowly across the stage, with that +movement of bringing one foot up to the other and pausing before the +next step which is so ridiculous in our opera, but was here so right and +so impressive; or turning slowly, or rising and sitting with immense +deliberation; each figure right in its relation to the stage and to the +others. All were clothed in stiff brocade, sumptuous but not gorgeous. +One or two were masked; and all of them, I felt, ought to have been. The +mask, in fact, the use of which in Greek drama I had always felt to be +so questionable, was here triumphantly justified. It completed the +repudiation of actuality which was the essence of the effect. It was a +musical sound, as it were, made visible. It symbolised humanity, but it +was not human, still less inhuman. I would rather call it divine. And +this whole art of movement and costume required that completion. Once I +had seen a mask I missed it in all the characters that were without it. + +To me, then, this visual spectacle was the essence of the "No" dance. +The dancing itself, when it came, was but a slight intensification of +the slow and solemn posing I have described. There was no violence, no +leaping, no quick steps; rather a turning and bending, a slow sweep of +the arm, a walking a little more rhythmical, on the verge, at most, of +running. It was never exciting, but I could not say it was never +passionate. It seemed to express a kind of frozen or petrified passion; +rather, perhaps, a passion run into a mould of beauty and turned out a +statue. I have never seen an art of such reserve and such distinction. +"Or of such tediousness," I seem to hear an impatient reader exclaim. +Well, let me be frank. Like all Westerners, I am accustomed to life in +quick time, and to an art full of episode, of intellectual content, of +rapid change and rapid development. I have lost to a great extent that +power of prolonging an emotion which seems to be the secret of Eastern +art. I am bored--subconsciously, as it were--where an Oriental is lulled +into ecstasy. His case is the better. But also, in this matter of the No +dance he has me at a disadvantage. In the first place he can understand +the words. These, it is true, have far less importance than in a drama +of Shakspere. They are only a lyric or narrative accompaniment to the +music and the dance. Still they have, one is informed, a beauty much +appreciated by Japanese, and one that the stranger, ignorant of the +language, misses. And secondly, what is worse, the music failed to move +me. Whether this is my own fault, or that of the music, I do not presume +to decide, for I do not know whether, as so often is the case, I was +defeated by a convention unfamiliar to me, or whether the convention has +really become formal and artificial. In any case, after the first shock +of interest, I found the music monotonous. It was solemn and religious +in character, and reminded me more of Gregorian chants than of anything +else. But it had one curious feature which seemed rather to be primitive +and orgiastic. The two musicians who played the drums accompanied the +performers, almost unceasingly, by a kind of musical ejaculation, +starting on a low note and swooping up to a high, long-held falsetto +cry. This over and over again, through the dialogue and through the +singing. The object, I suppose, and perhaps, to Japanese, the effect, is +to sustain a high emotional tone. In my case it failed, as the music +generally failed. My interest, as I began by saying, was maintained by +the visual beauty; and that must have been very great to be able to +maintain itself independently of the words and the music. + +As to the drama, it is not drama at all in the sense in which we have +come to understand the term in the West. There is no "construction," no +knot tied and untied, no character. Rather there is a succession of +scenes selected from a well-known story for some quality of poignancy, +or merely of narrative interest. The form, I think, should be called +epic or lyric rather than dramatic. And it is in this point that it most +obviously differs from the Greek drama. It has no intellectual content, +or very little. And, perhaps for that reason, it has had no development, +but remains fossilised where it was in the fifteenth century. On the +other hand, these actors, I felt, are the only ones who could act Greek +drama. They have, I think, quite clearly the same tradition and aim as +the Greeks. They desire not to reproduce but to symbolise actuality; and +their conception of acting is the very opposite of ours. The last thing +they aim at is to be "natural." To be unnatural rather is their object. +Hence the costume, hence the mask, hence the movement and gesture. And +how effective such "unnaturalness" can be in evoking natural passion +only those will understand who have realised how ineffective for that +purpose is our "naturalness" when we are concerned with Sophocles or +Shakspere. The Japanese have in their No dance a great treasure. For out +of it they might, if they have the genius, develop a modern poetic +drama. How thankful would hundreds of young men be, starving for poetry +in England, if we had as a living tradition anything analogous to work +upon! + + + + +III + +NIKKO + + +Waking in the night, I heard the sound of running water. Across my +window I saw, stretching dimly, the branch of a pine, and behind it +shone the stars. I remembered that I was in Japan and felt that all the +essence of it was there. Running water, pine trees, sun and moon and +stars. All their life, as all their art, seems to be a mood of these. +For to them their life and their art are inseparable. The art is not an +accomplishment, an ornament, an excrescence. It is the flower of the +plant. Some men, some families of men, feeling beauty as every one felt +it, had the power also to express it. Or perhaps I should say--it is the +Japanese view--to suggest it. To them the branch of a tree stands for a +forest, a white disk on gold for night and the moon, a quivering reed +for a river, a bamboo stalk for a grove. Their painters are poets. By +passionate observation they have learnt what expression of the part most +inevitably symbolises the whole. That they give; and their admirers, +trained like them in feeling, fill in the rest. This art presupposes, +what it has always had, a public not less sensitive than the artist; a +similar mood, a similar tradition, a similar culture. Feel as they do, +and you must create as they do, or at least appreciate their creations. + +It was with this in my mind that I wandered about this exquisite place, +where Man has made a lovely nature lovelier still. More even than by the +famous and sumptuous temples I was moved by the smaller and humbler +shrines, so caressing are they of every choice spot, so expressive, not +of princely, but of popular feeling. Here is one, for instance, standing +under a cliff beside a stream, where women offer bits of wood in the +faith that so they will be helped to pass safely through the pangs of +childbirth. Here in a ravine is another where men who want to develop +their calves hang up sandals to a once athletic saint. "The Lord," our +Scripture says, "delighteth not in any man's legs." How pleasant, then, +it must be to have a saint who does! Especially for the Japanese, whose +legs are so finely made, and who display them so delightfully. Such, all +over the world, is the religion of the people, when they have any +religion at all. And how human it is, and how much nearer to life than +the austerities and abstractions of a creed! + +Hour after hour I strolled through these lovely places, so beautifully +ordered that the authorities, one feels, must themselves delight in the +nature they control. I had proof of it, I thought, in a notice which +ran as follows: + + "FAMOUS TAKINO TEMPLE STANDS NOT FAR AWAY, AND SOMEN FALL TOO. + IT IS WORTH WHILE TO BE THERE ONCE." + +It is indeed, and many times! But can you imagine a rural council in +England breaking into this personal note? And how reserved! Almost like +Japanese art. Compare the invitation I once saw in Switzerland, to visit +"das schoenste Schwaerm- und Aussichtspunkt des ganzen Schweitzerischen +Reichs." There speaks the advertiser. But beside the Somen Fall there +was no restaurant. + +Northerners, and Anglo-Saxons in particular, have always at the back of +their minds a notion that there is something effeminate about the sense +for beauty. That is reserved for decadent Southern nations. _Tu regere +imperio populos, Romane memento_ they would say, if they knew the tag; +and translate it "Britain rules the waves"! But history gives the lie to +this complacent theory. No nations were ever more virile than the Greeks +or the Italians. They have left a mark on the world which will endure +when Anglo-Saxon civilisation is forgotten. And none have been, or are, +more virile than the Japanese. That they have the delicacy of women, +too, does not alter the fact. The Russian War proved it, if proof so +tragic were required; and so does all their mediaeval history. Japanese +feudalism was as bloody, as ruthless, as hard as European. It was even +more gallant, stoical, loyal. But it had something else which I think +Europe missed, unless it were once in Provence. It had in the midst of +its hardness a consciousness of the pathos of life, of its beauty, its +brevity, its inexplicable pain. I think in no other country has anything +arisen analogous to the Zen sect of Buddhism, when knights withdrew from +battle to a garden and summerhouse, exquisitely ordered to symbolise the +spiritual life, and there, over a cup of tea served with an elaborate +ritual, looking out on a lovely nature, entered into mystic communion +with the spirit of beauty which was also the spirit of life. From that +communion, with that mood about them, they passed out to kill or to +die--to die, it might be, by their own hand, by a process which I think +no Western man can bear even to think of, much less conceive himself as +imitating. + +This sense at once of the beauty and of the tragedy of life, this power +of appreciating the one and dominating the other, seems to be the +essence of the Japanese character. In this place, it will be remembered, +is the tomb of Iyeyasu, the greatest statesman Japan has produced. +Appropriately, after his battles and his labours, he sleeps under the +shade of trees, surrounded by chapels and oratories more sumptuous and +superb than anything else in Japan, approached for miles and miles by a +road lined on either side with giant cryptomerias. His spirit, if it +could know, would appreciate, we may be sure, this habitation of beauty. +For these men, ruthless as they were, were none the less sensitive. For +example, the traveller is shown (in Kyoto, I think) a little pavilion in +a garden where Hideyoshi used to sit and contemplate the moon. I believe +it. I think Iyeyasu did the same. And also he wrote this, on a roll here +preserved: + + "Life is like unto a long journey with a heavy load. Let thy + steps be slow and steady, that thou stumble not. Persuade + thyself that privations are the natural lot of mortals, and + there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. When + ambitious desires arise in thy heart, recall the days of + extremity thou hast passed through. Forbearance is the root of + quietness and assurance for ever. Look upon wrath as thy enemy. + If thou knowest only what it is to conquer, and knowest not what + it is to be defeated, woe unto thee! It will fare ill with thee. + Find fault with thyself rather than with others. Better the less + than the more." + +Marcus Aurelius might have said that. But Marcus Aurelius belonged to a +race peculiarly insensitive to beauty. The Japanese stoics were also +artists and poets. Their earliest painters were feudal lords, and it was +feudal lords who fostered and acted the No dances. If Nietzsche had +known Japan--I think he did not?--he would surely have found in these +Daimyos and Samurai the forerunners of his Superman. A blood-red blossom +growing out of the battlefield, that, I think, was his ideal. It is one +which, I hope, the world has outlived. I look for the lily flowering +over the fields of peace. + + + + +IV + +DIVINE RIGHT IN JAPAN + + +When Japan was opened to the West, after more than two centuries of +seclusion, she was in possession of a national spirit which had been +enabled, by isolation, to become and remain simple and homogeneous. All +public feeling, all public morals centred about the divinity of the +Emperor; an idea which, by a process unique in history, had hibernated +through centuries of political obscuration, and emerged again to the +light with its prestige unimpaired in the middle of the nineteenth +century. In the Emperor, one may say, Japan was incarnate. And to this +faith the Japanese, as well as foreign observers, attribute their great +achievement in the Russian War. The little book of Captain Sakurai, +_Human Bullets_, testifies to this fact in every sentence: "Through the +abundant grace of Heaven and the illustrious virtue of his Majesty, the +Imperial forces defeated the great enemy both on land and sea." ... "I +jumped out of bed, cleansed my person with pure water, donned my best +uniform, bowed to the East where the great Sire resides, solemnly read +his proclamation of war, and told his Majesty that his humble subject +was just starting to the front. When I offered my last prayers--the last +I then believed they were--before the family shrine of my ancestors I +felt a thrill going all through me, as if they were giving me a solemn +injunction, saying: 'Thou art not thy own. For his Majesty's sake, thou +shalt go to save the nation from calamity, ready to bear the crushing of +thy bones and the tearing of thy flesh. Disgrace not thy ancestors by an +act of cowardice.'" This, it is clear, is an attitude quite different +from that of an Englishman towards the King. The King, to us, is at most +a symbol. The Emperor, to the Japanese, is, or was, a god. And the +difference may be noted in small matters. For instance, a Japanese, +writing from England, observes with astonishment that we put the head of +the King on our stamps and cover it with postmarks. That, to a Japanese, +seems to be blasphemy. Again, he is puzzled, at the Coronation in +Westminster Abbey, to find the people looking down from above on the +King. That, again, seems to him blasphemy. Last year, when the Emperor +was dying, crowds knelt hour after hour, day and night, on the road +beside the palace praying for him. And a photographer who took a picture +of them by flashlight was literally torn to pieces. One could multiply +examples, but the thing is plain. The national spirit of Japan centres +about the divinity of the Emperor. And precisely therein lies their +present problem. For one may say, I think, with confidence that this +attitude cannot endure, and is already disappearing. Western thought is +an irresistible solvent of all irrational and instinctive ideas. Men +cannot be engineers and pathologists and at the same time believe that a +man is a god. They cannot be historians and at the same time believe +that their first Emperor came down from heaven. Above all, they cannot +be politicians and abstain from analysing the real source and sanction +of political power. English political experience, it is true, suggests +immense possibilities in the way of clinging to fictions with the +feelings while insisting upon facts in practice. And the famous verse: + + "But I was thinking of a plan + To dye my whiskers green, + And always wear so large a fan + That they should not be seen," + +might have been written to summarise the development of the British +Constitution. But the success of that method depends upon the condition +that the fictions shall be nothing _but_ fictions. The feelings of the +English can centre about the King only because they are well assured +that he does not and will not govern. But that condition does not exist +in Japan. The Japanese Constitution is conceived on the German, not the +English, model; and it bristles with clauses which are intended to +prevent the development which has taken place in England--the shifting +of power from the Sovereign to a Parliamentary majority. The Ministers +are the Emperor's Ministers; the policy is the Emperor's policy. That is +the whole tenour of the Constitution. No Constitution, it is true, can +"trammel up" facts and put power anywhere but where nature puts it. If +an Emperor is not a strong man he will not govern, and his Ministers +will. And it seems to be well understood among Japanese politicians that +the personal will of the Emperor does not, in fact, count for very much. +But it is supposed to; and that must become an important point so soon +as conflict develops between the Parliament and the Government. And such +conflict is bound to arise, and is already arising. Japanese parties, it +is true, stand for persons rather than principles; and the real +governing power hitherto has been a body quite unknown to the +Constitution--namely, the group of "Elder Statesmen." But there are +signs that this group is disintegrating, and that its members are +beginning to recognise the practical necessity of forming and depending +upon a party in the country and the House of Representatives. The crisis +which led, the other day, to the fall of Prince Katsura was provoked by +popular tumults; and it was noticeable that, for the first time, the +name of the Emperor was introduced into political controversy. It seems +clear that in the near future either the Emperor must appear openly as a +fighting force, as the German Emperor does, or he must subside into a +figure-head and the government pass into the hands of Parliament. The +former alternative is quite incompatible with the idea of the god-king; +the latter might not be repugnant to it if other things tended to foster +it. But it is so clear that they do not! An Emperor who is titular head +of a Parliamentary Government might, and in Japan no doubt _would_, be +surrounded with affection and respect. He could never be seriously +regarded as divine. For that whole notion belongs to an age innocent of +all that is implied in the very possibility of Parliamentary government. +It belongs to the age of mythology and poetry, not to the age of reason. +Japanese patriotism in the future must depend on love of country, +unsupported by the once powerful sanction of a divine personality. + +If this be true, I question very much the wisdom of that part of the +Japanese educational system which endeavours to centre all duty about +the person of the Emperor. The Japanese are trying a great experiment in +State-imposed morality--a policy highly questionable at the best, but +becoming almost demonstrably absurd when it is based on an idea which is +foredoomed to discredit. The well-known Imperial rescript, which is kept +framed in every school, reads as follows: + + "Our Ancestors founded the State on a vast basis, and deeply + implanted virtue; and Our subjects, by their unanimity in their + great loyalty and filial affection, have in all ages shown these + qualities in perfection. Such is the essential beauty of Our + national polity, and such, too, is the true spring of Our + educational system. You, Our beloved subjects, be filial to your + parents, affectionate to your brothers, be loving husbands and + wives, and truthful to your friends. Conduct yourselves with + modesty, and be benevolent to all. Develop your intellectual + faculties and perfect your moral power by gaining knowledge and + by acquiring a profession. Further, promote the public interest + and advance the public affairs; and in case of emergency, + courageously sacrifice yourself to the public good. Thus offer + every support to Our Imperial Dynasty, which shall be as lasting + as the Universe. You will then not only be Our most loyal + subjects, but will be enabled to exhibit the noble character of + your ancestors. + + "Such are the testaments left us by Our Ancestors, which must be + observed alike by their descendants and subjects. These precepts + are perfect throughout all ages and of universal application. It + is Our desire to bear them in Our heart, in common with you Our + subjects, to the end that we may constantly possess their + virtues." + +This rescript may be read with admiration. But common sense would teach +every Westerner that a document so framed is at variance with the whole +bent of the modern mind, and, if forced upon it, could only goad it +into rebellion. And such, I have been informed, and easily believe, is +the effect it is beginning to have in Japan. Young people brought up on +Western languages and Western science demand a Western, that is a +rational, sanction for conduct. They do not believe the Emperor to be +divine, and therefore they cannot take their moral principles on trust +from him and from his ancestors. The violent reaction from this +State-imposed doctrine drives them into sheer scepticism and anarchy. +And here, as always throughout history, authority defeats its own +purposes. Western ideas cannot be taken _in part_. They cannot be +applied to the natural world and fenced off from the moral world. Japan +must go through the same crisis through which the West is passing; she +must revise the whole basis of her traditional morals. And in doing so +she must be content to lose that passionate and simple devotion which is +the good as well as the evil product of an age of uncritical faith. + + + + +V + +FUJI + + +It was raining when we reached Gotemba and took off our boots at the +entrance of the inn. I had never before stayed at a Japanese inn, and +this one, so my friend assured me, was a bad specimen of the class. +Certainly it was disorderly and dirty. It was also overcrowded. But that +was inevitable, for a thousand pilgrims in a day were landing at Gotemba +station. Men and women, young and old, grandparents, parents, children +come flocking in to climb the great mountain. The village street is +lined with inns; and in front of each stood a boy with a lantern hailing +the new arrivals. We were able, in spite of the crowd, to secure a room +to ourselves, and even, with difficulty, some water to wash in--too many +people had used and were using the one bath! A table and a chair were +provided for the foreigner, and very uncouth they looked in the pretty +Japanese room. But a bed was out of the question. One had to sleep on +the floor among the fleas. Certainly it was not comfortable; but it was +amusing. From my room in the upper storey I looked into the whole row +of rooms in the inn opposite, thrown open to the street, with their +screens drawn back. One saw families and parties, a dozen or more in a +room, dressing and undressing, naked and clothed, sleeping, eating, +talking; all, of course, squatting on the floor, with a low stool for a +table, and red-lacquered bowls for plates and dishes. How people manage +to eat rice with chopsticks will always be a mystery to me. For my own +part, I cannot even--but I will not open that humiliating chapter. + +Of the night, the less said the better. I rose with relief, but dressed +with embarrassment; for the girl who waited on us selected the moment of +my toilet to clean the room. It was still raining hard, and we had +decided to abandon our expedition, for another night in that inn was +unthinkable. But, about eleven, a gleam of sun encouraged us to proceed, +and we started on horseback for the mountain. And here I must note that +by the official tariff, approved by the police, a foreigner is charged +twice as much for a horse as a Japanese. If one asks why, one is calmly +informed that a foreigner, as a rule, is heavier! This is typical of +travel in Japan; and there have been moments when I have sympathised +with the Californians in their discrimination against the Japanese. +Those moments, however, are rare and brief, and speedily repented of. + +Naturally, as soon as we had started the weather clouded over again. We +rode for three hours at a foot-pace, and by the time we left our horses +and began the ascent on foot we were wrapped in thick, cold mist. There +is no difficulty about climbing Fuji, except the fatigue. You simply +walk for hours up a steep and ever-steeper heap of ashes. It was perhaps +as well that we did not see what lay before us, or we might have been +discouraged. We saw nothing but the white-grey mist and the purple-grey +soil. Except that, looming out of the cloud just in front of us, there +kept appearing and vanishing a long line of pilgrims, with peaked hats, +capes, and sandals, all made of straw, winding along with their staffs, +forty at least, keeping step, like figures in a frieze, like shadows on +a sheet, like spirits on the mountain of Purgatory, like anything but +solid men walking up a hill. So for hours we laboured on, the slope +becoming steeper every step, till we could go no further, and stopped at +a shelter to pass the night. Here we were lucky. The other climbers had +halted below or above, and we had the long, roomy shed to ourselves. +Blankets, a fire of wood, and a good meal restored us. We sat warming +and congratulating ourselves, when suddenly our guide at the door gave a +cry. We hurried to see. And what a sight it was! The clouds lay below us +and a starlit sky above. At our feet the mountain fell away like a +cliff, but it fell rather to a glacier than a sea--a glacier infinite as +the ocean, yawning in crevasses, billowing in ridges; a glacier not of +ice, but of vapour, changing form as one watched, opening here, closing +there, rising, falling, shifting, while far away, at the uttermost +verge, appeared a crimson crescent, then a red oval, then a yellow +globe, swimming up above the clouds, touching their lights with gold, +deepening their shadows, and spreading, where it rose, a lake of silver +fire over the surface of the tossing plain. + +We looked till it was too cold to look longer, then wrapped ourselves in +quilts and went to sleep. At midnight I woke. Outside there was a +strange moaning. The wind had risen; and the sound of it in that lonely +place gave me a shock of fear. The mountain, then, was more than a heap +of dead ashes. Presences haunted it; powers indifferent to human fate. +That wind had blown before man came into being, and would blow when he +had ceased to exist. It moaned and roared. Then it was still. But I +could not sleep again, and lay watching the flicker of the lamp on the +long wooden roof, and the streaks of moonlight through the chinks, till +the coolie lit a fire and called us to get up. We started at four. The +clouds were still below, and the moon above; but she had moved across to +the west, Orion had appeared, and a new planet blazed in the east. The +last climb was very steep and our breath very scant. But we had other +things than that to think of. Through a rift in a cloud to the eastward +dawned a salmon-coloured glow; it brightened to fire; lit up the clouds +above and the clouds below; blazed more and intolerably, till, as we +reached the summit, the sun leapt into view and sent a long line of +light down the tumultuous sea of rolling cloud. + +How cold it was! And what an atmosphere inside the highest shelter, +where sleepers had been packed like sardines and the newly kindled fire +filled the fetid air with acrid smoke! What there was to be seen we +saw--the crater, neither wide nor deep; the Shinto temple, where a +priest was intoning prayers; and the Post Office, where an enterprising +Government sells picture-postcards for triumphant pilgrims to despatch +to their friends. My friend must have written at least a dozen, while I +waited and shivered with numbed feet and hands. But after an hour we +began the descent, and quickly reached the shelter where we were to +breakfast. Thence we had to plunge again into the clouds. But before +doing so we took a long look at the marvellous scene--more marvellous +than any view of earth; icebergs tossing in a sea, mountains exhaling +and vanishing, magic castles and palaces towering across infinite space. +A step, and once more the white-grey mist and the purple-grey soil. But +the clouds had moved higher; and it was not long before we saw, to the +south, cliffs and the sea, to the east, the gleam of green fields, +running up, under cloud-shadows, to mountain ridges and peaks. And so +back to Gotemba, and our now odious inn. + +We would not stop there. So we parted, my friend for Tokyo, I for +Kyoto. But time-tables had been fallacious, and I found myself landed at +Numatsa, with four hours to wait for the night train, no comfort in the +waiting-room, and no Japanese words at my command. I understood then a +little better why foreigners are so offensive in the East. They do not +know the language; they find themselves impotent where their instinct is +to domineer; and they visit on the Oriental the ill-temper which is +really produced by their own incompetence. Yes, I must confess that I +had to remind myself severely that it was I, and not the Japanese, who +was stupid. At last the station-master came to my rescue--the +station-master always speaks English. He endured my petulance with the +unfailing courtesy and patience of his race, and sent me off at last in +a rickshaw to the beach and a Japanese hotel. But my troubles were not +ended. I reached the hotel; I bowed and smiled to the group of +kow-towing girls; but how to tell them that I wanted a bathe and a meal? +Signs were unavailing. We looked at one another and laughed, but that +did not help. At last they sent for a student who knew a little English. +I could have hugged him. "It is a great pity," he said, "that these +people do not know English." The pity, I replied, was that I did not +know Japanese, but his courtesy repudiated the suggestion. Could I have +a bathing costume? Of course! And in a quarter of an hour he brought me +a wet one. Where could I change? He showed me a room; and presently I +was swimming in the sea, with such delight as he only can know who has +ascended and descended Fuji without the chance of a bath. Returning to +the inn, I wandered about in my wet costume seeking vainly the room in +which I had changed. Laughing girls pushed me here, and pulled me there, +uncomprehending of my pantomime, till one at last, quicker than the +rest, pulled back a slide, and revealed the room I was seeking. Then +came dinner--soup, fried fish, and rice; and--for my weakness--a spoon +and fork to eat them with. The whole house seemed to be open, and one +looked into every room, watching the ways of these gay and charming +people. At last I paid--to accomplish _that_ by pantomime was easy,--and +said good-bye to my hostess and her maids, who bowed their heads to the +ground and smiled as though I had been the most honoured of guests +instead of a clumsy foreigner, fit food for mirth. A walk in a twilight +pine wood, and then back to the station, where I boarded the night +train, and slept fitfully until five, when we reached Kyoto, and my +wanderings were over. How I enjoyed the comfort of the best hotel in the +East! But also how I regretted that I had not long ago learnt to find +comfort in the far more beautiful manner of life of Japan! + + + + +VI + +JAPAN AND AMERICA + + +On the reasons, real or alleged, for the hostility of the Californians +to the Japanese this is not the place to dwell. At bottom, it is a +conflict of civilisations, a conflict which is largely due to ignorance +and misunderstanding, and which should never be allowed to develop into +avowed antagonism. For with time, patience, and sympathy it will +disappear of itself. The patience and sympathy, I think, are not lacking +on the side of the Japanese, but they are sadly lacking among the +Californians, and indeed among all white men in Western America. The +truth is that the Western pioneer knows nothing of Japan and wants to +know nothing. And he would be much astonished, not to say indignant, +were he told that the civilisation of Japan is higher than that of +America. Yet there can, I think, be no doubt that this is the case, if +real values be taken as a standard. America, and the "new" countries +generally, have contributed, so far, nothing to the world except +material prosperity. I do not under-estimate this. It is a great thing +to have subdued a continent. And it may be argued that those who are +engaged in this task have no energy to spare for other activities. But +the Japanese subdued their island centuries, even millenniums, ago. And, +having reduced it to as high a state of culture as they required, they +began to live--a thing the new countries have not yet attempted. + +To live, in the sense in which I am using the term, implies that you +reflect life in the forms of art, literature, philosophy, and religion. +To all these things the Japanese have made notable contributions; less +notable, indeed, than those of China, from whom they derived their +inspiration, but still native, genuine, and precious. To take first bare +externals, the physical life of the Japanese is beautiful. I read with +amazement the other day a quotation from a leading Californian newspaper +to the effect that "there is an instinctive sense of physical repugnance +on the part of the Western or European races towards the Japanese race"! +Had the writer, I wonder, ever been in Japan? Perhaps it would have made +no difference to him if he had, for he is evidently one of those who +cannot or will not see. But to me the first and chief impression of +Japan is the physical attractiveness of the people. The Japanese are +perfectly proportioned; their joints, their hands, their feet, their +hips are elegant and fine; and they display to the best advantage these +natural graces by a costume which is as beautiful as it is simple. To +see these perfect figures walking, running, mounting stairs, bathing, +even pulling rickshaws, is to receive a constant stream of shocks of +surprise and delight. In so much that, after some weeks in the country, +I begin to feel "a sense of physical repugnance" to Americans and +Europeans--a sense which, if I were as uneducated and inexperienced as +the writer in the _Argonaut_, I should call "instinctive," and make the +basis of a campaign of race-hatred. The misfortune is that the Japanese +abandon their own dress when they go abroad. And in European dress, +which they do not understand, and which conceals their bodies, they are +apt to look mean and vulgar. Similarly, in European dress, they lose +their own perfect manners and mis-acquire the worst of the West. So that +there may be some excuse for feeling "repugnance" to the Japanese +abroad, though, of course, it is merely absurd and barbarous to base +upon such superficial distaste a policy of persecution and insult. + +If we turn from the body to the mind and the spirit, the Japanese show +themselves in no respect inferior, and in some important respects +superior, to the Americans. New though they are to the whole mental +attitude which underlies science and its applications, they have +already, in half a century, produced physicians, surgeons, pathologists, +engineers who can hold their own with the best of Europe and America. +All that the West can do in this, its own special sphere, the Japanese, +late-comers though they be, are showing that they can do too. In +particular, to apply the only test which the Western nations seem really +to accept, they can build ships, train men, organise a campaign, and +beat a great Western Power at the West's own game of slaughter. But all +this, of science and armaments, big though it bulks in our imagination, +is secondary and subordinate in a true estimate of civilisation. The +great claim the Japanese may make, as I began by saying, is that they +have known how to live; and they have proved that by the only test--by +the way they have reflected life. + +Japanese literature and art may not be as great as that of Europe; but +it exists, whereas that of America and all the new countries is yet to +seek. While Europe was still plunged in the darkest of the dark ages, +Japanese poets were already producing songs in exquisite response to the +beauty of nature, the passion and pathos of human life. From the seventh +century on, their painting and their sculpture was reflecting in tender +and gracious forms the mysteries of their faith. Their literature and +their art changed its content and its form with the centuries, but it +continued without a break, in a stream of genuine inspiration, down to +the time when the West forced open the doors of Japan to the world. From +that moment, under the new influences, it has sickened and declined. But +what a record! And a record that is also an incontrovertible proof that +the Japanese belong to the civilised nations--the nations that can live +and express life. + +But perhaps this test may be rejected. Morals, it may be urged, is the +touchstone of civilisation, not art. Well, take morals. The question is +a large one; but, summarily, where do the Japanese fail, as compared +with the Western nations? Is patriotism the standard? In this respect +what nation can compete with them? Is it courage? What people are +braver? Is it industry? Who is more industrious? It is their very +industry that has aroused the jealous fears of the Californians. Is it +family life? Where, outside the East, is found such solidarity as in +Japan? Is it sexual purity? On that point, what Western nation can hold +up its head? Is it honesty? What of the honesty of the West? No; no +Westerner, knowing the facts, could for a moment maintain that, all +round and on the whole, the morals of the Japanese are inferior to those +of Europe or America. It would probably be easier to maintain the +opposite. Judged by every real test the Japanese civilisation is not +lower, it is higher than that of any of the new countries who refuse to +permit the Japanese to live among them. + +That, I admit, does not settle the question. Competent and impartial men +like Admiral Mahan, who would admit all that I have urged, still +maintain that the Japanese ought not to be allowed to settle in the +West. This conclusion I do not now discuss. The point I wish to make is +that the question can never be fairly faced, in a dry light, and with +reference only to the simple facts, until the prejudice is broken up and +destroyed that the Japanese, and all other Orientals, are "inferior" +races. It is this prejudice which distorts all the facts and all the +values, which makes Californians and British Columbians and Australians +sheerly unreasonable, and causes them to jump at one argument after +another, each more fallacious than the last, to defend an attitude which +at bottom is nothing but the childish and ignorant hatred of the +uncultivated man for everything strange. If the Japanese had had white +skins, should we ever have heard of the economic argument? And should we +ever have been presented with that new shibboleth "unassimilable"? + + + + +VII + +HOME + + +Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London! What a crescendo of life! What a +quickening of the flow! What a gathering intensity! "Whatever else we +may think of the West," I said to the young French artist, "it is, at +any rate, the centre of life." "Yes," he replied, "but the curious thing +is that that Life produces only Death. Dead things, and dead people." I +reflected. Yes! The _things_ certainly were dead. Look at the Louvre! +Look at the Madeleine! Look at any of the streets! Machine-men had made +it all, not human souls. The men were dead, then, too? "Certainly!" he +insisted. "Their works are a proof. Where there is life there is art. +And there is no art in the modern world--neither in the East nor in the +West." "Then what is this that looks like Life?" I said, looking at the +roaring streets. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Steam." + +With that in my mind, I crossed to England, and forgot criticism and +speculation in the gleam of the white cliffs, in the trim hedgerows and +fields, in the sound of English voices and the sight of English faces. +In London it was the same. The bright-cheeked messenger boys, the +discreetly swaggering chauffeurs, the quiet, competent young men in City +offices who reassured me about my baggage, the autumn sun on the maze of +misty streets, the vast picturesqueness of London, its beauty as of a +mountain or the sea, fairly carried me off my feet. And passing St. +Paul's--"Dead," I muttered, as I looked at its derivative facade,--I +went in to take breath. From the end of the vast, cold space came the +dreary wail I remembered so well. I had heard Church music at Moscow, +and knew what it ought to be. But the tremendous passion of that Eastern +plain-song would have offended these discreet walls. I was in a "sacred +edifice"; and with a pang of regret I recalled the wooden shrines of +Japan under the great trees, the solemn Buddhas, and the crowds of +cheerful worshippers. I walked down the empty nave and came under the +dome. Then something happened--the thing that always happens when one +comes into touch with the work of a genius. And Wren's dome proves that +he was that. I sat down, and the organ began to play; or rather, the +dome began to sing. And down the stream of music floated in fragments +visions of my journey--Indians nude like bronzes, blue-coated Chinese, +white robes and bare limbs from Japan, plains of corn, plains of rice, +plains of scorched grass; snow-peaks under the stars, volcanoes, green +and black; huge rivers, tumbling streams, waterfalls, lakes, the ocean; +hovels and huts of wood or sun-dried bricks, thatched or tiled; marble +palaces and baths; red lacquer, golden tiles; saints, kings, conquerors, +and, enduring or worshipping these, a myriad generations of peasants +through long millenniums, toiling, suffering, believing, in one +unchanging course of life, before the dawn of history on and down to +here and now. As they were, so they are; and I heard them sound as with +the drone of Oriental music. Then above that drone something new +appeared. Late in time, Western history emerged, and--astonishing +thing--began to move and change! "Why," I said, "there's something +trying to happen! What is it? Is there going to be a melody?" There was +not one. But there was--has the reader ever heard the second--or is it +the third?--overture to "Leonora"? A scale begins to run up, first on +the violins; then one by one the other instruments join in, till the +great basses are swept into the current and run and scale too. So it was +here. The West began; but the East caught it up. The unchanging drone +began to move and flow. Faster and faster, louder and louder, more and +more intensely, crying and flaming towards--what? Beethoven knew, and +put it into his music. We cannot put it into ideas or words. We can see +the problem, not the solution; and the problem is this. To reconcile the +Western flight down Time with the Eastern rest in Eternity; the Western +multiformity with the Eastern identity; the Western energy with the +Eastern peace. For God is neither Time nor Eternity, but Time in +Eternity; neither One nor Many, but One in Many; neither Spirit nor +Matter, but Matter-Spirit. That the great artists know, and the great +saints; the modern artists and the modern saints, who have been or who +will be. Goethe was one; Beethoven was one; and there will be greater, +when the contact between East and West becomes closer, and the sparks +from pole to pole fly faster. + +I had dropped into mere thinking, and realised that the organ had +stopped. I left the great church and came out upon the back of Queen +Anne, which made me laugh. Still, it was quite religious; so were the +'buses, and the motor-cars, and the shops and offices, and the Law +Courts, and the top-hats, and the crossing-sweepers. "Dear people," I +said, "you are not dead, any more than I am. You think you are, as I too +often do. When you feel dead you should go to church; but not in a +'sacred edifice.' Beethoven, even in the Queen's Hall, is better." + + + + +PART IV + +AMERICA + + + + +I + +THE "DIVINE AVERAGE" + + +The great countries of the East have each a civilisation that is +original, if not independent. India, China, Japan, each has a peculiar +outlook on the world. Not so America, at any rate in the north. America, +we might say, does not exist; there exists instead an offshoot of +Europe. Nor does an "American spirit" exist; there exists instead the +spirit of the average Western man. Americans are immigrants and +descendants of immigrants. Putting aside the negroes and a handful of +orientals, there is nothing to be found here that is not to be found in +Western Europe; only here what thrives is not what is distinctive of the +different European countries, but what is common to them all. What +America does, not, of course, in a moment, but with incredible rapidity, +is to obliterate distinctions. The Scotchman, the Irishman, the German, +the Scandinavian, the Italian, even, I suppose, the Czech, drops his +costume, his manner, his language, his traditions, his beliefs, and +retains only his common Western humanity. Transported to this continent +all the varieties developed in Europe revert to the original type, and +flourish in unexampled vigour and force. It is not a new type that is +evolved; it is the fundamental type, growing in a new soil, in luxuriant +profusion. Describe the average Western man and you describe the +American; from east to west, from north to south, everywhere and always +the same--masterful, aggressive, unscrupulous, egotistic, at once +good-natured and brutal, kind if you do not cross him, ruthless if you +do, greedy, ambitious, self-reliant, active for the sake of activity, +intelligent and unintellectual, quick-witted and crass, contemptuous of +ideas but amorous of devices, valuing nothing but success, recognising +nothing but the actual, Man in the concrete, undisturbed by spiritual +life, the master of methods and slave of things, and therefore the +conqueror of the world, the unquestioning, the undoubting, the child +with the muscles of a man, the European stripped bare, and shown for +what he is, a predatory, unreflecting, naif, precociously accomplished +brute. + +One does not then find in America anything one does not find in Europe; +but one finds in Europe what one does not find in America. One finds, as +well as the average, what is below and what is above it. America has, +broadly speaking, no waste products. The wreckage, everywhere evident in +Europe, is not evident there. Men do not lose their self-respect, they +win it; they do not drop out, they work in. This is the great result not +of American institutions or ideas, but of American opportunities. It is +the poor immigrant who ought to sing the praises of this continent. He +alone has the proper point of view; and he, unfortunately, is dumb. But +often, when I have contemplated with dreary disgust, in the outskirts of +New York, the hideous wooden shanties planted askew in wastes of +garbage, and remembered Naples or Genoa or Venice, suddenly it has been +borne in upon me that the Italians living there feel that they have +their feet on the ladder leading to paradise; that for the first time +they have before them a prospect and a hope; and that while they have +lost, or are losing, their manners, their beauty and their charm, they +have gained something which, in their eyes, and perhaps in reality, more +than compensates for losses they do not seem to feel, they have gained +self-respect, independence, and the allure of the open horizon. "The +vision of America," a friend writes, "is the vision of the lifting up of +the millions." This, I believe, is true, and it is America's great +contribution to civilisation. I do not forget it; but neither shall I +dwell upon it; for though it is, I suppose, the most important thing +about America, it is not what I come across in my own experience. What +strikes more often and more directly home to me is the other fact that +America, if she is not burdened by masses lying below the average, is +also not inspired by an elite rising above it. Her distinction is the +absence of distinction. No wonder Walt Whitman sang the "Divine +Average." There was nothing else in America for him to sing. But he +should not have called it divine; he should have called it "human, all +too human." + +Or _is_ it divine? Divine somehow in its potentialities? Divine to a +deeper vision than mine? I was writing this at Brooklyn, in a room that +looks across the East River to New York. And after putting down those +words, "human, all too human," I stepped out on to the terrace. Across +the gulf before me went shooting forward and back interminable rows of +fiery shuttles; and on its surface seemed to float blazing basilicas. +Beyond rose into the darkness a dazzling tower of light, dusking and +shimmering, primrose and green, up to a diadem of gold. About it hung +galaxies and constellations, outshining the firmament of stars; and +all the air was full of strange voices, more than human, ingeminating +Babylonian oracles out of the bosom of night. This is New York. This +it is that the average man has done, he knows not why; this is the +symbol of his work, so much more than himself, so much more than what +seems to be itself in the common light of day. America does not know +what she is doing, neither do I know, nor any man. But the impulse that +drives her, so mean and poor to the critic's eye, has perhaps more +significance in the eye of God; and the optimism of this continent, so +seeming-frivolous, is justified, may be, by reason lying beyond its +ken. + + + + +II + +A CONTINENT OF PIONEERS + + +The American, I said, in the previous letter, is the average Western +man. It should be added, he is the average man in the guise of pioneer. +Much that surprises or shocks Europeans in the American character is to +be explained, I believe, by this fact. Among pioneers the individual is +everything and the society nothing. Every man relies on himself and on +his personal relations. He is a friend, and an enemy; he is never a +citizen. Justice, order, respect for law, honesty even and honour are to +him mere abstract names; what is real is intelligence and force, the +service done or the injury inflicted, the direct emotional reaction to +persons and deeds. And still, as it seems to the foreign observer, even +in the long-settled east, still more in the west, this attitude +prevails. To the American politician or business man, that a thing is +right or wrong, legal or illegal, seems a pale and irrelevant +consideration. The real question is, will it pay? will it please +Theophilus P. Polk or vex Harriman Q. Kunz? If it is illegal, will it be +detected? If detected, will it be prosecuted? What are our resources +for evading or defeating the law? And all this with good temper and good +conscience. What stands in the way, says the pioneer, must be swept out +of it; no matter whether it be the moral or the civil law, a public +authority or a rival in business. "The strong business man" has no use +for scruples. Public or social considerations do not appeal to him. Or +if they do present themselves, he satisfies himself with the belief +that, from activities so strenuous and remarkable as his, Good must +result to the community. If he break the law, that is the fault of the +law, for being stupid and obstructive; if he break individuals, that is +their fault for being weak. _Vae victis!_ Never has that principle, or +rather instinct, ruled more paramount than it does in America. + +To say this, is to say that American society is the most individualistic +in the modern world. This follows naturally from the whole situation of +the country. The pioneer has no object save to get rich; the government +of pioneers has no object save to develop the country quickly. To this +object everything is sacrificed, including the interests of future +generations. All new countries have taken the most obvious and easy +course. They have given away for nothing, or for a song, the whole of +their natural resources to anybody who will undertake to exploit them. +And those who have appropriated this wealth have judged it to be theirs +by a kind of natural right. "These farms, mines, forests, +oilsprings--of course they are ours. Did not we discover them? Did not +we squat upon them? Have we not 'mixed our labour with them'?" If +pressed as to the claims of later comers they would probably reply that +there remains "as much and as good" for others. And this of course is +true for a time; but for a very short time, even when it is a continent +that is being divided up. Practically the whole territory of the United +States is now in private ownership. Still, the owners have made such +good use of their opportunities that they have created innumerable +opportunities for non-owners. Artisans get good wages; lawyers make +fortunes; stock and share holders get high dividends. Every one feels +that he is nourishing, and flourishing by his own efforts. He has no +need to combine with his fellows; or, if he does combine, is ready to +desert them in a moment when he sees his own individual chance. + +But this is only a phase; and inevitably, by the logic of events, there +supervenes upon it another on which, it would appear, America is just +now entering. With all her natural resources distributed among +individuals or corporations, and with the tide of immigration unchecked, +she begins to feel the first stress of the situation of which the +tension in Europe has already become almost intolerable. It is the +situation which cannot fail to result from the system of private +property and inheritance established throughout the Western world. +Opportunities diminish, classes segregate. There arises a caste of +wage-earners never to be anything but wage-earners; a caste of +property-owners, handing on their property to their descendants; and +substantially, after all deductions have been made for exaggeration and +simplification, a division of society into capitalists and proletarians. +American society is beginning to crystallise out into the forms of +European society. For, once more, America is nothing new; she is a +repetition of the old on a larger scale. And, curiously, she is less +"new" than the other new countries. Australia and New Zealand for years +past have been trying experiments in social policy; they are determined +to do what they can to prevent the recurrence there of the European +situation. But in America, there is no sign of such tendencies. The +political and social philosophy of the United States is still that of +the early English individualists. And, no doubt, there are adequate +causes, if not good reasons for this. The immense wealth and size of the +country, the huge agricultural population, the proportionally smaller +aggregation in cities has maintained in the mass of the people what I +have called the "pioneer" attitude. Opportunity has been, and still is, +more open than in any other country; and, in consequence, there has +hardly emerged a definite "working class" with a class consciousness. +This, however, is a condition that cannot be expected to continue. +America will develop on the lines of Europe, because she has European +institutions; and "labour" will assert itself more and more as an +independent factor in politics. + +Whether it will assert itself successfully is another matter. At +present, as is notorious, American politics are controlled by wealth, +more completely, perhaps, than those of any other country, even of +England. The "corporations" make it a main part of their business to +capture Congress, the Legislatures, the Courts and the city governments; +and they are eminently successful. The smallest country town has its +"boss," in the employ of the Railway; the Public Service Corporations +control the cities; and the protected interests dominate the Senate. +Business governs America; and business does not include labour. In no +civilised country except Japan is labour-legislation so undeveloped as +in the States; in none is capital so uncontrolled; in none is justice so +openly prostituted to wealth. America is the paradise of plutocracy; for +the rich there enjoy not only a real power but a social prestige such as +can hardly have been accorded to them even in the worst days of the +Roman Empire. Great fortunes and their owners are regarded with a +respect as naif and as intense as has ever been conceded to birth in +Europe. No American youth of ambition, I am told, leaves college with +any less or greater purpose in his heart than that of emulating Mr. +Carnegie or Mr. Rockefeller. And, on the other hand, it must be +conceded, rich men feel an obligation to dispose of their wealth for +public purposes, to a degree quite unknown in Europe. By these lavish +gifts the people are dazzled. They feel that the millionaire has paid +his ransom; and are ready to forgive irregularities in the process of +acquiring wealth when they are atoned for by such splendid penance. Thus +the rich man in America comes to assume the position of a kind of +popular dictator. He is admired on account of his prowess and forgiven +on account of his beneficence. And, since every one feels that one day +he may have the chance of imitating him, no one judges him too severely. +He is regarded not as the "exploiter," the man grown fat on the labour +of others. Rather he is the type, the genius of the American people; and +they point to him with pride as "one of our strong men," "one of our +conservative men of business." + +Individualism, then, is stronger and deeper rooted in America than +elsewhere. And, it must be added, socialism is weaker. It is an imported +article, and it does not thrive on the new soil. The formulae of Marx are +even less congenial to the American than to the English mind; and +American conditions have not yet given rise to a native socialism, based +on local conditions and adapted to local habits of thought. Such a +native socialism, I believe, is bound to come before long, perhaps is +arising even now. But I would not hazard the assertion that it is likely +to prevail. America, it would seem, stands at the parting of the ways. +Either she may develop on democratic lines; and Democracy, as I think, +demonstrably implies some kind of socialism. Or she may fossilise in the +form of her present Plutocracy, and realise that new feudalism of +industry which was dreamt of by Saint-Simon, by Comte, and by Carlyle. +It would be a strange consummation, but stranger things have happened; +and it seems more probable that this should happen in America than that +it should happen in any European country. It is an error to think of +America as democratic; her Democracy is all on the surface. But in +Europe, Democracy is penetrating deeper and deeper. And, in particular, +there can be little doubt that England is now more democratic than the +United States. + + + + +III + +NIAGARA + + +I shall not describe Niagara; instead I shall repeat a conversation. + +After a day spent in visiting the falls and the rapids, I was sitting +to-night on a bench on the river bank. The racing water-ridges glimmered +faintly in the dusk and the roar of the falls droned in unwavering +monotony. I fell, I think, into a kind of stupor; anyhow, I cannot +remember when it was that some one took a seat beside me, and began to +talk. I seemed to wake and feel him speaking; and the first remark I +definitely heard was this: "All America is Niagara." "All America is +Niagara," the voice repeated--I could see no face. "Force without +direction, noise without significance, speed without accomplishment. All +day and all night the water rushes and roars. I sit and listen; and it +does nothing. It is Nature; and Nature has no significance. It is we +poets who create significance, and for that reason Nature hates us. She +is afraid of us, for she knows that we condemn her. We have standards +before which she shrinks abashed. But she has her revenge; for poets +are incarnate. She owns our bodies; and she hurls us down Niagara with +the rest, with the others that she loves, and that love her, the virile +big-jawed men, trampling and trampled, hustling and hustled, working and +asking no questions, falling as water and dispersing as spray. Nature is +force, loves force, wills force alone. She hates the intellect, she +hates the soul, she hates the spirit. Nietszche understood her aright, +Nietszche the arch-traitor, who spied on the enemy, learned her secrets, +and then went over to her side. Force rules the world." + +I must have said something banal about progress, for the voice broke +out: + +"There is no progress! It is always the same river! New waves succeed +for ever, but always in the old forms. History tells, from beginning to +end, the same tale--the victory of the strong over the sensitive, of the +active over the reflective, of intelligence over intellect. Rome +conquered Greece, the Germans the Italians, the English the French, and +now, the Americans the world! What matters the form of the struggle, +whether it be in arms or commerce, whether the victory go to the sword, +or to shoddy, advertisement, and fraud? History is the perennial +conquest of civilisation by barbarians. The little islands before us, +lovely with trees and flowers, green oases in the rushing river, it is +but a few years and they will be engulfed. So Greece was swallowed up, +so Italy, and so will it be with England. Not, as your moralists +maintain, because of her vices, but because of her virtues. She is +becoming just, scrupulous, humane, and therefore she is doomed. Ignoble +though she be, she is yet too noble to survive; for Germany and America +are baser than she. Hark, Hark to Niagara! Force, at all costs! Do you +hear it? Do you see it? I can see it, though it is dark. It is a river +of mouths and teeth, of greedy outstretched hands, of mirthless +laughter, of tears and of blood. I am there, you are there; we are +hurrying over the fall; we are going up in spray." + +"Yes," I cried as one cries in a nightmare, "and in that spray hangs the +rainbow." + +He caught at the phrase. "It is true. The rainbow hangs in the spray! It +is the type of the Ideal, hanging always above the Actual, never in it, +never controlling it. We poets make the rainbow; we do not shape the +world." + +"We do not make the rainbow," I said. "The sun makes it, shining against +it. What is the sun?" + +"The sun is the Platonic Good; it lights the world, but does not warm +it. By its illumination we see the river in which we are involved; see +and judge, and condemn, and are swept away. That we can condemn is our +greatness; by that we are children of the sun. But our vision is never +fruitful. The sun cannot breed out of matter; no, not even maggots by +kissing carrion. Between Force and Light, Matter and Good, there is no +interchange. Good is not a cause, it is only an idea." + +"To illuminate," I said, "is to transform." + +"No! it is only to reveal! Light dances on the surface; but not the +tiniest wave was ever dimpled or crisped by its rays. Matter alone moves +matter; and the world is matter. Best not cry, best not even blaspheme. +Pass over the fall in silence. Perhaps, at the bottom, there is +oblivion. It is the best we can hope, we who see." + +And he was gone! Had there been anyone? Was there a real voice? I do not +know. Perhaps it was only the roar of Niagara. When I returned to the +hotel, I heard that this very afternoon, while I was sunning myself on +one of the islands, a woman had thrown herself into the rapids and been +swept over the fall. Niagara took her, as it takes a stick or a stone. +Soon it will take the civilisation of America, as it has taken that of +the Indians. Centuries will pass, millenniums will pass, mankind will +have come and gone, and still the river will flow and the sun shine, and +they will communicate to one another their stern immortal joy, in which +there is no part for ephemeral men. + + + + +IV + +"THE MODERN PULPIT" + + +It is a bright July morning. As I sit in the garden I look out, over a +tangle of wild roses, to a calm sea and a flock of white sails. +Everything invites to happy thought and innocent reverie. Moreover, it +is the day of rest, and every one is at leisure to turn his mind towards +pleasant things. To what, in fact, are most people on this continent +turning theirs? To this, which I hold in my hand, the Sunday newspaper. + +Let us analyse this production, peculiar to the New World. It comprises +eight sections and eighty-eight pages, and very likely does really, as +it boasts, contain "more reading matter than the whole Bible." + +Opening Section 1, I read the following headings: + + "Baron Shot as Bank-teller--Ends Life with Bullet." + + "Two fatally Hurt in Strike Riots at Pittsburg." + + "Steals a Look at Busy Burglars." + + "Drowned in Surf at Narragansett." + + "Four of a Family fear a Dogs' bite" (_sic_). + + "Two are Dead, Two Dying; Fought over Cow." + +Section 2 appears to be concerned with similar matter, for example: + + "Struck by Blast, Woman is Dying." + + "Hard Shell Crabs help in giving Burglar Alarm." + + "Man who has been Married three times denies the Existence of + God." + +But here I notice further the interesting and enigmatic heading: + + "Will 'boost' not 'knock' New York," + +and roused for the first time to something like curiosity, read: + +"To lock horns with the muckrakes and to defend New York against all who +defame and censure it the Association for New York was incorporated +yesterday." + +I notice also "Conferences agree to short rates on woollen goods," and +am reminded of the shameless bargaining of which, for many weeks past, +Washington has been the centre; which leads me to reflect on the +political advantages of a Tariff and its wholesome effect on the +national life. + +Section 3 deals with Aviation and seaside resorts: + + "Brave Lake Placid," I read, "Planning New Hotel." + + "Haines Falls entertaining a Great Throng of People." + + "Resound with the Laughter and Shout of Summer Throngs." + +Section 4 consists entirely of advertisements: + +"Tuning-up Sale," I read. "Buff-and-crimson cards will mark the trail of +all goods ready for the sale. We are tuning up. By September it is our +intention to have assembled in these two great buildings the most +fashionable merchandise ever shown. No one piece of goods will be +permitted to linger that lacks, in any detail, the aesthetic beauty +demanded by New York women of fashion. Everything will be better and a +definite percentage lower in price than New York will find in any other +store. Do not expect a sale of ordinary proportions. To-morrow you will +find the store alive with enthusiasm. This is not a summer hurrah." And +so on, to the end of the page. Twelve pages of advertisements, +uninterrupted by any item of news. + +Section 5 is devoted to automobile gossip and automobile advertisements. + +Thereupon follows the _Special Sporting Section_: + + "Rumsom Freebooters defeat Devon's first." + + "'Young Corbett' is chipped in the 8th." + + "Doggett and Cubs each win shut out." + + "Brockett is easy for Detroit Nine." + +Glancing at the small type I read:-- + +"Englewood was the first to tally. This was in the fourth inning. W. +Merritt, the first man up, was safe on Williams' error, and he got round +to third on another miscue by Williams. Charley Clough was on deck with +a timely single, which scored Merritt. Curran's out at first put Clough +on third, from whence he tallied on Cuming's single. Cuming got to +second, when Wiley grounded out along the first base line and scored on +Reinmund's single. Every other time Reinmund came to the bat he struck +out." + +I pass to the _Magazine Section_. + +On the first page is the mysterious heading "E. of K. and E." Several +huge portraits of a bald clean-shaven man in shirt sleeves partially +explain. E. is Mr. Erlanger, a theatrical impresario, and K. and E. +presumably is his firm. The article describes "the accomplishment of a +busy man on one of his ordinary days," and makes one hope no day is ever +extraordinary. The interviewer who tells about him is almost speechless +with emotion. He searches for a phrase to express his feelings, finds it +at last, and comes triumphantly to his close--Mr. Erlanger is a man +"with trained arms, trained legs, a trained body and a trained mind." +There follows: "The Story of a Society Girl," in which we are told +"there is a confession of love and the startling discovery that Dolly +was a professional model"; "The Doctor's Story," with a picture of a +corpse, "whose white shapely hands were clasped one over the other"; +and "Would you Convict on Circumstantial Evidence?--A Scaffold +Confession. A True Story." I glance at this, and read, "While the crowd +watched in strained, breathless silence there came a sharp agonised +voice and a commotion near the steps of the scaffold. 'Stop! Stop! The +man is not guilty. I mean it. It is I who should stand there. Let me +speak.'" You can now reconstruct the story for yourself. Next comes "Get +the Man! Craft and courage of old-time and modern express robbers +matched by organised secret service and the mandate that makes capture +alone the end of an unflagging man-hunt." This is accompanied by +portraits of famous detectives and train-robbers. + +There follows "_Thrilling Lines_," with a picture of a man who seems to +be looping the loop on a bicycle. + +And the conclusion of the section is a poem, entitled "Cynthianna +Blythe," with coloured illustrations apparently intended for children, +and certainly successful in not appealing to adults. + +Comment, I suppose, is superfluous. But it is only fair to say that the +whole of the press of America is not of this character. Among the +thousands of papers daily produced on that continent, it would be +possible, I believe, to name ten--I myself could mention five--which +contain in almost every issue some piece of information or comment which +an intelligent man might care to peruse. There are to be found, now and +again, passing references to European and even to Asiatic politics; for +it cannot be said that the press of America wholly ignored the recent +revolutions in Persia and in Turkey. I myself saw a reference to the new +Sultan as a man "fat, but not fleshy." England looms big enough on the +American horizon to be treated to an occasional gibe; and the doings of +fashionable Americans in London are reported somewhat fully. Still, on +the whole, the American daily press is typified by the specimen I have +analysed. Sensations, personalities and fiction are its stock-in-trade. +Why? The causes are well known, but are worth recapitulating, for they +are part of the system of modern civilisation. + +The newspaper press is a business intended to make money. This is its +primary aim, which may, or may not, include the subordinate purpose of +advocating some line of public policy. Now, to make money, it is +essential to secure advertisements; and to secure advertisements it is +essential to have a large circulation. But a large circulation can only +be obtained by lowering the price of the paper, and adapting it to the +leisure mood of the mass of people. But this leisure mood is usually one +of sheer vacuity, incapable of intellectual effort or imaginative +response. The man is there, waiting to be filled, and to be filled with +the stuff easiest to digest. The rest follows. The newspapers supply the +demand and by supplying extend and perpetuate it. Among the possible +appeals open to them they deliberately choose the lowest. For people are +capable of Good as well as of Bad; and if they cannot get the Bad they +will sometimes take the Good. Newspapers, probably, could exist, even +under democratic conditions, by maintaining a certain standard of +intelligence and morals. But it is easier to exist on melodrama, +fatuity and sport. And one or two papers adopting that course force the +others into line; for here, as in so many departments of modern life, +"The Bad drives out the Good." This process of deterioration of the +press is proceeding rapidly in England, with the advent of the halfpenny +newspaper. It has not gone so far as in America; but there is no reason +why it should not, and every reason why it should; for the same causes +are at work. + +I have called the process "deterioration," but that, of course, is +matter of opinion. A Cabinet Minister, at a recent Conference in London, +is reported to have congratulated the press on its progressive +improvement during recent years. And Lord Northcliffe is a peer. The +more the English press approximates to the American, the more, it would +seem, it may hope for public esteem and honour. And that is natural, for +the American method pays. + +Well, the sun still shines and the sky is still blue. But between it and +the American people stretches a veil of printed paper. Curious! the +fathers of this nation read nothing but the Bible. That too, it may be +said, was a veil; but a veil woven of apocalyptic visions, of lightning +and storm, of Leviathan, and the wrath of Jehovah. What is the stuff of +the modern veil, we have seen. And surely the contrast is calculated to +evoke curious reflections. + + + + +V + +IN THE ROCKIES + + +Walking alone in the mountains to-day I came suddenly upon the railway. +There was a little shanty of a station 8000 feet above the sea; and, +beyond, the great expanse of the plains. It was beginning to sleet, and +I determined to take shelter. The click of a telegraph operator told me +there was some one inside the shed. I knocked and knocked again, in +vain; and it was a quarter of an hour before the door was opened by a +thin, yellow-faced youth chewing gum, who looked at me without a sign of +recognition or a word of greeting. I have learnt by this time that +absence of manners in an American is intended to signify not surliness +but independence, so I asked to be allowed to enter. He admitted me, and +resumed his operations. I listened to the clicking, while the sleet fell +faster and the evening began to close in. What messages were they, I +wondered, that were passing across the mountains? I connected them, idly +enough, with the corner in wheat a famous speculator was endeavouring to +establish in Chicago; and reflected upon the disproportion between the +achievements of Man and the use he puts them to. He invents wireless +telegraphy, and the ships call to one another day and night, to tell the +name of the latest winner. He is inventing the flying-machine, and he +will use it to advertise pills and drop bombs. And here, he has +exterminated the Indians, and carried his lines and his poles across the +mountains, that a gambler may fill his pockets by starving a continent. +"Click--click--click--Pick--pick--pick--Pock--pock--pockets." So the +west called to the east, and the east to the west, while the winds +roared, and the sleet fell, over the solitary mountains and the desolate +iron road. + +It was too late now for me to reach my hotel that evening, and I was +obliged to beg a night's rest. The yellow youth assented, with his air +of elaborate indifference, and proceeded to make me as comfortable as he +could. About sunset, the storm passed away over the plains. Behind its +flying fringes shot the last rays of the sun; and for a moment the +prairie sea was all bared to view, as wide as the sky, as calm and as +profound, a thousand miles of grass where men and cattle crept like +flies, and towns and houses were swallowed and lost in the infinite +monotony. We had supper and then my host began to talk. He was a +democrat, and we discussed the coming presidential election. From one +newspaper topic to another we passed to the talk about signalling to +Mars. Signalling interested the youth; he knew all about that; but he +knew nothing about Mars, or the stars. These were now shining bright +above us; and I told him what I knew of suns and planets, of double +stars, of the moons, of Jupiter, of nebulae and the galaxy, and the +infinity of space, and of worlds. He chewed and meditated, and presently +remarked: "Gee! I guess then it doesn't matter two cents after all who +gets elected president!" Whereupon we turned in, he to sleep and I to +lie awake, for I was disturbed by the mystery of the stars. It is long +since the notion of infinite space and infinite worlds has impressed my +imagination with anything but discomfort and terror. The Ptolemaic +scheme was better suited to human needs. Our religious sense demands not +only order but significance; a world not merely great, but relevant to +our destinies. Copernicus, it is true, gave us liberty and space; but he +bereft us of security and intimacy. And I thought of the great vision of +Dante, so terrible and yet so beautiful, so human through and +through,--that vision which, if it contracts space, expands the fate of +man, and relates him to the sun and the moon and the stars. I thought of +him as he crossed the Apennines by night, or heard from the sea at +sunset the tinkling of the curfew bell, or paced in storm the forest of +Ravenna, always, beyond and behind the urgency of business, the chances +of war, the bitterness of exile, aware of the march of the sun about the +earth, of its station in the Zodiac, of the solemn and intricate +wheeling of the spheres. Aware, too, of the inner life of those bright +luminaries, the dance and song of spirits purged by fire, the glow of +Mars, the milky crystal of the moon, and Jupiter's intolerable blaze; +and beyond these, kindling these, setting them their orbits and their +order, by attraction not of gravitation, but of love, the ultimate +Essence, imaged by purest light and hottest fire, whereby all things and +all creatures move in their courses and their fates, to whom they tend +and in whom they rest. + +And I recalled the passage: + + "Frate, la nostra volonta quieta + Virtu di carita, che fa volerne + Sol quel ch'avemo, e d'altro non ci asseta. + + Se disiassimo esser piu superne, + Foran discordi gli nostri disiri + Dal voler di Colui che qui ne cerne; + + Che vedrai non capere in questi giri, + S'essere in caritate e qui necesse, + E se la sua natura ben rimiri; + + Anzi e formale ad esto beato esse + Tenersi dentro alia divina voglia, + Perch'una fansi nostre voglie stesse. + + Si che, come noi siam di soglia in soglia + Per questo regno, a tutto il regno piace, + Com'allo re, che in suo voler ne invoglia. + + E la sua volontade e nostra pace: + Ella e quel mare al qual tutto si muove + Cio ch' ella crea o che natura face."[3] + +And then, with a leap, I was back to what we call reality--to the +clicking needle, to the corner in wheat, to Chicago and Pittsburg and +New York. In all this continent, I thought, in all the western world, +there is not a human soul whose will seeks any peace at all, least of +all the peace of God. All move, but about no centre; they move on, to +more power, to more wealth, to more motion. There is not one of them who +conceives that he has a place, if only he could find it, a rank and +order fitted to his nature, higher than some, lower than others, but +right, and the only right for him, his true position in the cosmic +scheme, his ultimate relation to the Power whence it proceeds. Life, +like astronomy, has become Copernican. It has no centre, no +significance, or, if any, one beyond our ken. Gravitation drives us, not +love. We are attracted and repelled by a force we cannot control, a +force that resides in our muscles and our nerves, not in our will and +spirit. "Click--click--click--tick--tick--tick," so goes the economic +clock. And that clock, with its silly face, has shut us out from the +stars. It tells us the time; but behind the dial of the hours is now for +us no vision of the solemn wheeling spheres, of spirit flames and that +ultimate point of light "pinnacled dim in the intense inane." "America +is a clock," I said; and then I remembered the phrase, "America is +Niagara." And like a flake of foam, dizzy and lost, I was swept away, +out into the infinite, out into unconsciousness. + +The sun was shining brightly when I woke, and I had slept away my mood +of the night. I took leave of my host, and under his directions, after +half a mile along the line, plunged down into a gorge, and followed for +miles, crossing and re-crossing, a mountain brook, between cliffs of red +rocks, by fields of mauve anemones, in the shadow and fragrance of +pines; till suddenly, after hours of rough going, I was confronted by a +notice, set up, apparently, in the desert: + + "Keep out. Avoid trouble. This means you." + +I laughed. "Keep out!" I said. "If only there were a chance of my +getting in!" "Avoid trouble! Ah, what trouble would I not face, could I +but get in!" And I went on, but not in, and met no trouble, and +returned to the hotel, and had dinner, and watched for a solitary hour, +in the hall, the shifting interminable array of vacant eyes and blank +faces, and then retired to write this letter; "and so to bed." + + + Footnotes: + + [Footnote 3: + + "Brother, the quality of love stilleth our will, and maketh us + long only for what we have, and giveth us no other thirst, + + "Did we desire to be more aloft, our longings were discordant + from his will who here assorteth us, + + "And for that, thou wilt see, there is no room within these + circles, if of necessity we have our being here in love, and if + thou think again what is love's nature. + + "Nay, 'tis the essence of this blessed being to hold ourselves + within the divine will, whereby our own wills are themselves + made one. + + "So that our being thus, from threshold unto threshold, + throughout the realm, is a joy to all the realm as to the King, + who draweth our wills to what he willeth; + + "And his will is our peace; it is that sea to which all moves + that it createth and that nature maketh." + + DANTE, _Purgatorio_, iii. 70-87 (trans. by Rev. Philip H. + Wicksteed, in the "Temple Classics" edition).] + + + + +VI + +IN THE ADIRONDACKS + + +For the last few days I have been living in camp on a mountain lake in +the Adirondacks. All about me are mountains and unlumbered forest. The +tree lies where it falls; the undergrowth chokes the trails; and on the +hottest day it is cool in the green, sun-chequered wilderness. Deer +start in the thickets or steal down to drink in the lake. The only +sounds are the wood-pecker's scream, the song of the hermit-thrush, the +thrumming and drumming of bull-frogs in the water. My friend is a +sportsman; I am not; and while he catches trout I have been reading +Homer and Shelley. Shelley I have always understood; but now, for the +first time, I seem to understand Homer. Our guide here, I feel, might +have been Homer, if he had had imagination; but he could never have been +Shelley. Homer, I conceive, had from the first the normal bent for +action. What his fellows did he too wanted to do. He learned to hunt, to +sail a boat, to build a house, to use a spear and bow. He had his +initiation early, in conflict, in danger, and in death. He loved the +feast, the dance, and the song. But also he had dreams. He used to sit +alone and think. And, as he grew, these moods grew, till he came to live +a second life, a kind of double of the first. The one was direct, +unreflective, and purposeful. In it he hunted wild beasts that he might +kill them, fought battles that he might win them, sailed boats that he +might arrive somewhere. So far, he was like his fellows, and like our +guide, with his quick observation, his varied experience, his practical +skill. But then, on the other hand, he had imagination. This active life +he reproduced; not by recapitulating it--that the guide can do; but by +recreating it. He detached it, as it were, from himself as centre; +ceased, indeed, to be a self; and became all that he contemplated--the +victor and the vanquished, the hunter and the hunted, the house and its +builder, Thersites and Achilles. He became the sun and the moon and the +stars, the gods and the laughter of the gods. He took no sides, +pronounced no judgment, espoused no cause. He became pure vision; but +not passive vision. To see, he had to re-create; and the material his +observation had amassed he offered up as a holocaust on the altar of his +imagination. Fused in that fierce fire, like drew to like, parts ran +together and formed a whole. Did he see a warrior fall? In a moment the +image arose of "a stately poplar falling by the axe in a meadow by the +riverside." Did a host move out to meet the foe? It recalled the ocean +shore where "wave follows wave far out at sea until they break in +thunder on the beach." Was battle engaged? "The clash of the weapons +rang like the din of woodcutters in the mountain-glades." Did a wounded +hero fall? The combatants gathered about him "like flies buzzing round +the brimming milk-pails in the spring." All commonest things, redeemed +from isolation and irrelevance, revealed the significance with which +they were charged. The result was the actual made real, a reflexion +which was a disclosure, a reproduction which was a recreation. And if +experience, as we know it, is the last word of life, if there is nothing +beyond and nothing behind, if there is no meaning, no explanation, no +purpose or end, then the poetry of Homer is the highest reach of human +achievement. + +For, observe, Homer is not a critic. His vision transmutes life, but +does not transcend it. Experience is ultimate; all the poet does is to +experience fully. Common men live, but do not realise life; he realises +it. But he does not question it; it is there and it is final; glorious, +lovely, august, terrible, sordid, cruel, unjust. And the partial, +smiling, unmoved, unaccountable Olympians are the symbol of its brute +actuality. Not only is there no explanation, there is not even a +question to be asked. So it is, so it has been, so it will be. Homer's +outlook is that of the modern realist. That he wrote an epic, and they +novels, is an accident of time and space. Turgeneff or Balzac writing +1000 years before Christ would have been Homer; and Homer, writing now, +would have been Turgeneff or Balzac. + +But Shelley could never have been Homer; for he was born a critic and a +rebel. From the first dawn of consciousness he challenged and defied the +works and ways of men and the apparent order of the universe. Never for +a moment anywhere was he at home in the world. There was nothing +attainable he cared to pursue, nothing actual he cared to represent. He +could no more see what is called fact than he could act upon it. His +eyes were dazzled by a different vision. Life and the world not only are +intolerable to him, they are unreal. Beyond and behind lies Reality, and +it is good. Now it is a Perfectibility lying in the future; now a +Perfection existing eternally. In any case, whatever it be, however and +wherever to be found, it is the sole object of his quest and of his +song. Whatever of good or lovely or passionate gleams here and there, on +the surface or in the depths of the actual, is a ray of that Sun, an +image of that Beauty. His imagination is kindled by Appearance only to +soar away from it. The landscape he depicts is all light, all fountains +and caverns. The Beings with which it is peopled are discarnate Joys and +Hopes; Justice and Liberty, Peace and Love and Truth. Among these only +is he at home; in the world of men he is an alien captive; and Human +Life presents itself as an "unquiet dream." + + "'Tis we that, lost in stormy visions, keep + With phantoms an unprofitable strife, + And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife + Invulnerable nothings." + +When we die, we awake into Reality--that Reality to which, from the +beginning, Shelley was consecrated: + + "I vowed that I would dedicate my powers + To thee and thine--have I not kept my vow?" + +He calls it "intellectual Beauty"; he impersonates it as Asia, and sings +it in verse that passes beyond sense into music: + + "Life of Life! thy lips enkindle + With their love the breath between them; + And thy smiles before they dwindle + Make the cold air fire; then screen them + In those looks, where whoso gazes + Faints, entangled in their mazes. + + Child of Light! thy limbs are burning + Through the vest which seems to hide them; + As the radiant lines of morning + Through the clouds ere they divide them; + And this atmosphere divinest + Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest. + + Fair are others; none beholds thee, + But thy voice sounds low and tender + Like the fairest, for it folds thee + From the sight, that liquid splendour, + And all feel, yet see thee never, + As I feel now, lost for ever! + + Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest + Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, + And the souls of whom thou lovest + Walk upon the winds with lightness, + Till they fail, as I am failing, + Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!" + +This we call poetry; and we call the Iliad poetry. But the likeness is +superficial, and the difference profound. Was it Homer or Shelley that +grasped Reality? This is not a question of literary excellence; it is a +question of the sense of life. And--oddly enough--it is a question to +which the intellect has no answer. The life in each of us takes hold of +it and answers it empirically. The normal man is Homeric, though he is +not aware of the fact. Especially is the American Homeric; naif, +spontaneous, at home with fact, implicitly denying the Beyond. Is he +right? This whole continent, the prairies, the mountains and the coast, +the trams and trolleys, the sky-scrapers, the factories, elevators, +automobiles, shout to that question one long deafening Yes. But there is +another country that speaks a different tongue. Before America was, +India is. + + + + +VII + +THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS + + +In the house in which I am staying hangs an old coloured print, +representing two couples, one young and lusty, the other decrepit, the +woman carrying an hour-glass, the man leaning on a stick; and +underneath, the following inscription: + + "My father and mother that go so stuping to your grave, + Pray tell me what good I may in this world expect to have?" + + "My son, the good you can expect is all forlorn, + Men doe not gather grapes from of a thorn." + +This dialogue, I sometimes think, symbolises the attitude of the new +world to the old, and the old to the new. Not seldom I feel among +Americans as the Egyptian is said to have felt among the Greeks, that I +am moving in a world of precocious and inexperienced children, bearing +on my own shoulders the weight of the centuries. Yet it is not exactly +that Americans strike one as young in spirit; rather they strike one as +undeveloped. It is as though they had never faced life and asked +themselves what it is; as though they were so occupied in running that +it has never occurred to them to inquire where they started and whither +they are going. They seem to be always doing and never experiencing. A +dimension of life, one would say, is lacking, and they live in a plane +instead of in a solid. That missing dimension I shall call religion. Not +that Americans do not, for aught I know, "believe" as much as or more +than Europeans; but they appear neither to believe nor to disbelieve +religiously. That, I admit, is true almost everywhere of the mass of the +people. But even in Europe--and far more in India--there has always +been, and still is, a minority who open windows to the stars; and +through these windows, in passing, the plain man sometimes looks. The +impression America makes on me is that the windows are blocked up. It +has become incredible that this continent was colonised by the Pilgrim +Fathers. That intense, narrow, unlovely but genuine spiritual life has +been transformed into industrial energy; and this energy, in its new +form, the churches, oddly enough, are endeavouring to recapture and use +to drive their machines. Religion is becoming a department of practical +business. The Churches--orthodox and unorthodox, old and new, Christian, +Christian-Scientific, theosophic, higher-thinking--vie with one another +in advertising goods which are all material benefits: "Follow me, and +you will get rich," "Follow me, and you will get well," "Follow me, and +you will be cheerful, prosperous, successful." Religion in America is +nothing if not practical. It does not concern itself with a life beyond; +it gives you here and now what you want. "What _do_ you want? Money? +Come along!--Success? This is the shop!--Health? Here you are! Better +than patent medicines!" The only part of the Gospels one would suppose +that interests the modern American is the miracles; for the miracles +really did _do_ something. As for the Sermon on the Mount--well, no +Westerner ever took that seriously. + +This conversion of religion into business is interesting enough. But +even more striking is what looks like a conversion of business into +religion. Business is so serious that it sometimes assumes the shrill +tone of a revivalist propaganda. There has recently been brought to my +attention a circular addressed to the agents of an insurance society, +urging them to rally round the firm, with a special effort, in what I +can only call a "mission-month." I quote--with apologies to the unknown +author--part of this production: + + THE CALL TO ACTION. + + "How about these beautiful spring days for hustling? Everything + is on the move. New life and force is apparent everywhere. The + man who can stand still when all creation is on the move is + literally and hopelessly a dead one. + + "These are ideal days for the insurance field-man. Weather like + this has a tremendously favourable effect on business. In the + city and small town alike there is a genuine revival of + business. The farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer, are + beginning to work overtime. Spring is in the footstep of the + ambitious man as well as in the onward march of nature. This is + the day of growth, expansion, creation, and re-creation. + + "Consciously or unconsciously every one responds to the glad + call to new life and vigour. Men who are cold and selfish, who + are literally frozen up the winter through, yield to the warm, + invigorating, energising touch of spring. + + "Gentlemen of the field force, now is the psychological moment + to force your prospects to action as indicated by the dotted + line. As in nature, some plants and trees are harder to force + than others, so in the nature of human prospects, some are more + difficult than others. Sunshine and rain will produce results in + the field of life-underwriting. + + "Will it not be possible for you during these five remaining + days not only to increase the production from regular sources, + but to go out into the highways and hedges and compel others to + sign their applications, if for only a small amount? + + "Everything is now in full swing, and we are going to close up + the month + + "IN A BLAZE OF GLORY." + +Might not this almost as well have been an address from the +headquarters of the Salvation Army? And is not the following exactly +parallel to a denunciation, from the mission-pulpit, of the unprofitable +servant? + + "A few days ago we heard of a general agent who has one of the + largest and most prosperous territories in this country. He has + been in the business for years, and yet that man, for some + unknown reason, rather apologises for his vocation. He said he + was a little ashamed of his calling. Such a condition is almost + a crime, and I am sure that the men of the Eastern Department + will say, that man ought to get out of the business. + + "_Instead of being ashamed of his calling, he should be mortally + ashamed of his not calling._ + + "Are you happy in your work? If not, give it up and go into some + business more to your liking." + + WHY IS IT? + + "So many times the question is asked, 'Why is it, and how is it, + that Mr. So-and-so writes so much business? There is not a week + but he procures new applications.' Gentlemen, there's but one + answer to this question. There is a great gulf between the man + who is in earnest and works persistently every day and the man + who seems to be in earnest and makes believe he is working + persistently every day. + + "One of the most successful personal producers said to the + writer the other day: 'No wonder certain agents do not write + more business. I couldn't accomplish very much either if I did + not work longer hours than they do. Some insurance agents live + like millionaires and keep bankers' hours. You cannot expect + much business from efforts like that.' This man speaks from + practical knowledge of the business. He has written + + $147,500 _in personal business in the last six weeks_. + + "It does seem rather strange, sometimes, that half of the men in + the Eastern Department should be writing twice as much business + as the other half. They are representing the same company; + presenting the same propositions; are supposed to be talking to + practically the same number of men; have the same rates, same + guarantees, and the same twenty-four hours in each day, and yet + are doing twice the business. In other words, making more money. + What really makes this difference? I will tell you. They put + heart into their work. There is an enthusiasm and earnestness + about them that carries conviction. They are business through + and through, and everybody knows it. + + "Are you getting your share of applications? If some other agent + is up early, wide-awake and alert, putting in from ten to + fifteen hours per day, he is bound to do business, isn't he? + This is a plain, every-day horse-sense business fact. No one has + a patent on time or the use of it. To work and to succeed is + common property. It is your capital, and the use of it will + determine your worth." + +I think, really, this is one of the most remarkable documents that could +be produced in evidence of the character of American civilisation. There +is all the push, initiative, and enterprise on which they justly pride +themselves; there is also the reduction of all values to terms of +business, the concentration of what, at other times, have been moral and +religious forces upon the one aim of material progress. In such an +atmosphere it is easy to see how those who care for spiritual values are +led to protest that these are really material; to pack up their goods, +so to speak, as if they were biscuits or pork, and palm them off in that +guise on an unsuspecting public. In a world where every one is hustling, +the Churches feel they must hustle too; when all the firms advertise, +they must advertise too; when only one thing is valued, power, they must +pretend they can offer power; they must go into business, because +business is going into religion! + +It is a curious spectacle! How long will it last? How real is it, even +now? That withered couple, I half believe, hanging on the wall, descend +at night and wander through the land, whispering to all the sleepers +their disquieting warning; and all day long there hovers at the back of +the minds of these active men a sense of discomfort which, if it became +articulate, might express itself in the ancient words: + + "My son, the good you can expect is all forlorn, + Men doe not gather grapes from of a thorn." + + + + +VIII + +RED-BLOODS AND "MOLLYCODDLES" + + +I am staying at a pleasant place in New Hampshire. The country is hilly +and wooded, like a larger and wilder Surrey; and through it flows what, +to an Englishman, seems a large river, the Connecticut. Charming villas +are dotted about, well designed and secluded in pretty gardens. I +mention this because, in my experience of America, it is unique. Almost +everywhere the houses stare blankly at one another and at the public +roads, ugly, unsheltered, and unashamed, as much as to say, "Every one +is welcome to see what goes on here. We court publicity. See how we eat, +drink, and sleep. Our private life is the property of the American +people." It was not, however, to describe the country that I began this +letter, but to elaborate a generalisation developed by my host and +myself as a kind of self-protection against the gospel of +"strenuousness." + +We have divided men into Red-bloods and Mollycoddles. "A Red-blood man" +is a phrase which explains itself, "Mollycoddle" is its opposite. We +have adopted it from a famous speech of Mr. Roosevelt, and redeemed +it--perverted it, if you will--to other uses. A few examples will make +the notion clear. Shakespeare's Henry V. is a typical Red-blood; so was +Bismarck; so was Palmerston; so is almost any business man. On the other +hand, typical Mollycoddles were Socrates, Voltaire, and Shelley. The +terms, you will observe, are comprehensive, and the types very broad. +Generally speaking, men of action are Red-bloods. Not but what the +Mollycoddle may act, and act efficiently. But, if so, he acts from +principle, not from the instinct of action. The Red-blood, on the other +hand, acts as the stone falls, and does indiscriminately anything that +comes to hand. It is thus he that carries on the business of the world. +He steps without reflection into the first place offered him and goes to +work like a machine. The ideals and standards of his family, his class, +his city, his country and his age, he swallows as naturally as he +swallows food and drink. He is therefore always "in the swim"; and he is +bound to "arrive," because he has set before himself the attainable. You +will find him everywhere in all the prominent positions. In a military +age he is a soldier, in a commercial age a business man. He hates his +enemies, and he may love his friends; but he does not require friends to +love. A wife and children he does require, for the instinct to propagate +the race is as strong in him as all other instincts. His domestic life, +however, is not always happy; for he can seldom understand his wife. +This is part of his general incapacity to understand any point of view +but his own. He is incapable of an idea and contemptuous of a principle. +He is the Samson, the blind force, dearest to Nature of her children. He +neither looks back nor looks ahead. He lives in present action. And when +he can no longer act, he loses his reason for existence. The Red-blood +is happiest if he dies in the prime of life; otherwise, he may easily +end with suicide. For he has no inner life; and when the outer life +fails, he can only fail with it. The instinct that animated him being +dead, he dies too. Nature, who has blown through him, blows elsewhere. +His stops are dumb; he is dead wood on the shore. + +The Mollycoddle, on the other hand, is all inner life. He may indeed +act, as I said, but he acts, so to speak, by accident; just as the +Red-blood may reflect, but reflects by accident. The Mollycoddle in +action is the Crank: it is he who accomplishes reforms; who abolished +slavery, for example, and revolutionised prisons and lunatic asylums. +Still, primarily, the Mollycoddle is a critic, not a man of action. He +challenges all standards and all facts. If an institution is +established, that is a reason why he will not accept it; if an idea is +current, that is a reason why he should repudiate it. He questions +everything, including life and the universe. And for that reason Nature +hates him. On the Red-blood she heaps her favours; she gives him a good +digestion, a clear complexion, and sound nerves. But to the Mollycoddle +she apportions dyspepsia and black bile. In the universe and in society +the Mollycoddle is "out of it" as inevitably as the Red-blood is "in +it." At school, he is a "smug" or a "swat," while the Red-blood is +captain of the Eleven. At college, he is an "intellectual," while the +Red-blood is in the "best set." In the world, he courts failure while +the Red-blood achieves success. The Red-blood sees nothing; but the +Mollycoddle sees through everything. The Red-blood joins societies; the +Mollycoddle is a non-joiner. Individualist of individualists, he can +only stand alone, while the Red-blood requires the support of a crowd. +The Mollycoddle engenders ideas, and the Red-blood exploits them. The +Mollycoddle discovers, and the Red-blood invents. The whole structure of +civilisation rests on foundations laid by Mollycoddles; but all the +building is done by Red-bloods. The Red-blood despises the Mollycoddle; +but, in the long run, he does what the Mollycoddle tells him. The +Mollycoddle also despises the Red-blood, but he cannot do without him. +Each thinks he is master of the other, and, in a sense, each is right. +In his lifetime the Mollycoddle may be the slave of the Red-blood; but +after his death, he is his master, though the Red-blood know it not. + +Nations, like men, may be classified roughly as Red-blood and +Mollycoddle. To the latter class belong clearly the ancient Greeks, the +Italians, the French, and probably the Russians; to the former the +Romans, the Germans, and the English. But the Red-blood nation _par +excellence_ is the American; so that, in comparison with them, Europe as +a whole might almost be called Mollycoddle. This characteristic of +Americans is reflected in the predominant physical type,--the great jaw +and chin, the huge teeth, and predatory mouth; in their speech, where +beauty and distinction are sacrificed to force; in their need to live +and feel and act in masses. To be born a Mollycoddle in America is to be +born to a hard fate. You must either emigrate or succumb. This, at +least, hitherto has been the alternative practised. Whether a +Mollycoddle will ever be produced strong enough to breathe the American +atmosphere and live, is a crucial question for the future. It is the +question whether America will ever be civilised. For civilisation, you +will have perceived, depends on a just balance of Red-bloods and +Mollycoddles. Without the Red-blood there would be no life at all, no +stuff, so to speak, for the Mollycoddle to work upon; without the +Mollycoddle, the stuff would remain shapeless and chaotic. The Red-blood +is the matter, the Mollycoddle the form; the Red-blood the dough, the +Mollycoddle the yeast. On these two poles turns the orb of human +society. And if, at this point, you choose to say that poles are points +and have no dimensions, that strictly neither the Mollycoddle nor the +Red-blood exist, and that real men contain elements of both mixed in +different proportions, I have no quarrel with you except such as one has +with the man who states the obvious. I am satisfied to have +distinguished the ideal extremes between which the Actual vibrates. The +detailed application of the conception I must leave to more patient +researchers. + +One point more before I close. This Dichotomy, so far as I can see, +applies only to man. Woman appears to be a kind of hybrid. Regarded as a +creature of instinct, she resembles the Red-blood, and it is to him that +she is first attracted. The hero of her youth is the athlete, the +soldier, the successful man of business; and this predilection of hers +accounts for much of human history, and in particular for the +maintenance of the military spirit. On the other hand, as a creature +capable of and craving sympathy, she has affinities with the +Mollycoddle. This dual nature is the tragedy of her life. The Red-blood +awakens her passion, but cannot satisfy it. He wins her by his virility, +but cannot retain her by his perception. Hence the fact, noted by a +cynic, that it is the Mollycoddle who cuckolds the Red-blood. For the +woman, married to the Red-blood, discovers too late that she is to him +only a trophy, a scalp. He hangs her up in the hall, and goes about his +business. Then comes the Mollycoddle, divining all, possessing and +offering all. And if the Red-blood is an American, and the Mollycoddle +an European, then the situation is tense indeed. For the American +Red-blood despises woman in his heart as profoundly as he respects her +in outer observance. He despises her because of the Mollycoddle he +divines in her. Therefore he never understands her; and that is why +European Mollycoddles carry off American women before the very eyes of +the exasperated Red-blood. "Am I not clean?" he cries. "Am I not +healthy? Am I not athletic and efficient?" He is, but it does not help +him, except with young girls. He may win the body; but he cannot win the +soul. Can it be true then that most women would like two husbands, one +Red-blood, the other Mollycoddle, one to be the father of their +children, the other to be the companion of their souls? Women alone can +answer; and, for the first time in history, they are beginning to be +articulate. + + + + +IX + +ADVERTISEMENT + + +The last two days and nights I spent in a railway train. We passed +through some beautiful country; that, I believe, is the fact; but my +feeling is that I have emerged from a nightmare. In my mind is a jumbled +vision of huge wooden cows cut out in profile and offering from dry +udders a fibrous milk; of tins of biscuits portrayed with a ghastly +realism of perspective, and mendaciously screaming that I needed +them--U-need-a biscuit; of gigantic quakers, multiplied as in an +interminable series of mirrors and offering me a myriad meals of +indigestible oats; of huge painted bulls in a kind of discontinuous +frieze bellowing to the heavens a challenge to produce a better tobacco +than theirs; of the head of a gentleman, with pink cheeks and a black +moustache, recurring, like a decimal, _ad infinitum_ on the top of a +board, to inform me that his beauty is the product of his own toilet +powder; of cod-fish without bones--"the kind you have always bought"; of +bacon packed in glass jars; of whiz suspenders, sen-sen throat-ease, +sure-fit hose, and the whole army of patent medicines. By river, wood, +and meadow, hamlet or city, mountain or plain, hovers and flits this +obscene host; never to be escaped from, never to be forgotten, fixing, +with inexorable determination, a fancy that might be tempted to roam to +that one fundamental fact of life, the operation of the bowels. + +Nor, of course, are these incubi, these ghostly emanations of the One +God Trade, confined to the American continent. They haunt with equal +pertinacity the lovelier landscapes of England; they line the route to +Venice; they squat on the Alps and float on the Rhine; they are +beginning to occupy the very air, and with the advent of the air-ship, +will obliterate the moon and the stars, and scatter over every lonely +moor and solitary mountain peak memorials of the stomach, of the liver +and the lungs. Never, in effect, says modern business to the soul of +man, never and nowhere shall you forget that you are nothing but a body; +that you require to eat, to salivate, to digest, to evacuate; that you +are liable to arthritis, blood-poisoning, catarrh, colitis, calvity, +constipation, consumption, diarrhoea, diabetes, dysmenorrhoea, epilepsy, +eczema, fatty degeneration, gout, goitre, gastritis, headache, +haemorrhage, hysteria, hypertrophy, idiocy, indigestion, jaundice, +lockjaw, melancholia, neuralgia, ophthalmia, phthisis, quinsey, +rheumatism, rickets, sciatica, syphilis, tonsilitis, tic doloureux, and +so on to the end of the alphabet and back again to the beginning. Never +and nowhere shall you forget that you are a trading animal, buying in +the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. Never shall you forget +that nothing matters--nothing in the whole universe--except the +maintenance and extension of industry; that beauty, peace, harmony are +not commercial values, and cannot be allowed for a moment to stand in +the way of the advance of trade; that nothing, in short, matters except +wealth, and that there is no wealth except money in the pocket. +This--did it ever occur to you--is the real public education every +country is giving, on every hoarding and sky-sign, to its citizens of +every age, at every moment of their lives. And that being so, is it not +a little ironical that children should be taught for half an hour in +school to read a poem of Wordsworth or a play of Shakespeare, when for +the rest of the twenty-four hours there is being photographed on their +minds the ubiquitous literature of Owbridge and of Carter? + +But of course advertisement cannot be interfered with! It is the +life-blood of the nation. All traders, all politicians, all journalists +say so. They sometimes add that it is really, to an unprejudiced spirit, +beautiful and elevating. Thus only this morning I came across an article +in a leading New York newspaper, which remarks that: "The individual +advertisement is commonly in good taste, both in legend and in +illustration. Many are positively beautiful; and, as a wit has truly +said, the cereal advertisements in the magazines are far more +interesting than the serial stories." This latter statement I can easily +believe; but when I read the former there flitted across my mind a +picture of a lady lightly clad reclining asleep against an open window, +a full moon rising in the distance over a lake, with the legend +attached, "Cascarella--it works while you sleep." + +The article from which I have quoted is interesting not only as +illustrating the diversity of taste, but as indicating the high degree +of development which has now been attained by what is at once the art +and the science of advertisement. "The study of advertisement," it +begins, "seems to have a perennial charm for the American public. Hardly +a month passes but some magazine finds a new and inviting phase of this +modern art to lay before its readers. The solid literature of +advertisement is also growing rapidly.... The technique of the subject +is almost as extensive as that of scientific agriculture. Whole volumes +have been compiled on the art of writing advertisements. Commercial +schools and colleges devote courses of study to the subject. Indeed the +corner-stone of the curriculum of a well-known business college is an +elective upon 'Window-dressing.'" That you may be under no +misapprehension, I must add that this article appears in what is +admittedly the most serious and respectable of the New York newspapers; +and that it is not conceived in the spirit of irony or hyperbole. To the +American, advertisement is a serious, important, and elevating +department of business, and those who make it their speciality endeavour +to base their operations on a profound study of human nature. One of +these gentlemen has expounded, in a book which has a wide circulation, +the whole philosophy of his liberal profession. He calls the book +"Imagination in Business";[4] and I remark incidentally that the use of +the word "imagination," like that of "art," in this connection, shows +where the inquirer ought to look for the manifestation, on this +continent, of the aesthetic spirit. "The imaginative man," says the +writer, "sends his thought through all the instincts, passions, and +prejudices of men, he knows their desires and their regrets, he knows +every human weakness and its sure decoy." It is this latter clause that +is relevant to his theme. Poets in earlier ages wrote epics and dramas, +they celebrated the strength and nobility of men; but the poet of the +modern world "cleverly builds on the frailties of mankind." Of these the +chief is "the inability to throw away an element of value, even though +it cannot be utilised." On this great principle is constructed the whole +art and science of advertisement. And my author proceeds to give a +series of illustrations, "each of which is an actual fact, either in my +experience, or of which I have been cognisant." Space and copyright +forbid me to quote. I must refer the reader to the original source. +Nowhere else will be found so lucid an expression of the whole theory +and practice of modern trade. That theory and practice is being taught +in schools of commerce throughout the Union; and there are many, I +suppose, who would like to see it taught in English universities. But, +really, does anyone--does any man of business--think it a better +education than Greek? + + + Footnotes: + + [Footnote 4: _Imagination in Business_ (Harper & Brothers).] + + + + +X + +CULTURE + + +Scene, a club in a Canadian city; persons, a professor, a doctor, a +business man, and a traveller (myself). Wine, cigars, anecdotes; and +suddenly, popping up, like a Jack-in-the-box absurdly crowned with ivy, +the intolerable subject of education. I do not remember how it began; +but I know there came a point at which, before I knew where I was, I +found myself being assailed on the subject of Oxford and Cambridge. Not, +however, in the way you may anticipate. Those ancient seats of learning +were not denounced as fossilised, effete, and corrupt. On the contrary, +I was pressed, urged, implored almost with tears in the eye--to reform +them? No! to let them alone! + +"For heaven's sake, keep them as they are! You don't know what you've +got, and what you might lose! We know! We've had to do without it! And +we know that without it everything else is of no avail. We bluster and +brag about education on this side of the Atlantic. But in our heart of +hearts we know that we have missed the one thing needful, and that you, +over in England, have got it." + +"And that one thing?" + +"Is Culture! Yes, in spite of Matthew Arnold, Culture, and Culture, and +always Culture!" + +"Meaning by Culture?" + +"Meaning Aristotle instead of Agriculture, Homer instead of Hygiene, +Shakespeare instead of the Stock Exchange, Bacon instead of Banking, +Plato instead of Paedagogics! Meaning intellect before intelligence, +thought before dexterity, discovery before invention! Meaning the only +thing that is really practical, ideas; and the only thing that is really +human, the Humanities!" + +Rather apologetically, I began to explain. At Oxford, I said, no doubt +the Humanities still hold the first place. But at Cambridge they have +long been relegated to the second or the third. There we have schools of +Natural Science, of Economics, of Engineering, of Agriculture. We have +even a Training College in Paedagogics. Their faces fell, and they +renewed their passionate appeal. + +"Stop it," they cried. "For heaven's sake, stop it! In all those things +we've got you skinned alive over here! If you want Agriculture go to +Wisconsin! If you want Medicine, go to the Rockefeller Institute! If you +want Engineering, go to Pittsburg! But preserve still for the +English-speaking world what you alone can give! Preserve liberal +culture! Preserve the Classics! Preserve Mathematics! Preserve the +seed-ground of all practical inventions and appliances! Preserve the +integrity of the human mind!" + +Interesting, is it not? These gentlemen, no doubt, were not typical +Canadians. But they were not the least intelligent men I have met on +this continent. And when they had finally landed me in my sleeping-berth +in the train, and I was left to my own reflections in that most +uncomfortable of all situations, I began to consider how odd it was that +in matters educational we are always endeavouring to reform the only +part of our system that excites the admiration of foreigners. + +I do not intend, however, to plunge into that controversy. The point +that interests me is the view of my Canadian friends that in America +there is no "culture." And, in the sense they gave to that term, I think +they are right. There _is_ no culture in America. There is instruction; +there is research; there is technical and professional training; there +is specialisation in science and industry; there is every possible +application of life, to purposes and ends; but there is no life for its +own sake. Let me illustrate. It is, I have read, a maxim of American +business that "a man is damned who knows two things." "He is almost a +dilettante," it was said of a student, "he reads Dante and Shakespeare"! +"The perfect professor," said a College President, "should be willing to +work hard eleven months in the year." These are straws, if you like, but +they show the way the wind blows. Again, you will find, if you travel +long in America, that you are suffering from a kind of atrophy. You will +not, at first, realise what it means. But suddenly it will flash upon +you that you are suffering from lack of conversation. You do not +converse; you cannot; you can only talk. It is the rarest thing to meet +a man who, when a subject is started, is willing or able to follow it +out into its ramifications, to play with it, to embroider it with pathos +or with wit, to penetrate to its roots, to trace its connexions and +affinities. Question and answer, anecdote and jest are the staple of +American conversation; and, above all, information. They have a hunger +for positive facts. And you may hear them hour after hour rehearsing to +one another their travels, their business transactions, their +experiences in trains, in hotels, on steamers, till you begin to feel +you have no alternatives before you but murder or suicide. An American, +broadly speaking, never detaches himself from experience. His mind is +embedded in it; it moves wedged in fact. His only escape is into humour; +and even his humour is but a formula of exaggeration. It implies no +imagination, no real envisaging of its object. It does not illuminate a +subject, it extinguishes it, clamping upon every topic the same +grotesque mould. That is why it does not really much amuse the English. +For the English are accustomed to Shakespeare, and to the London cabby. + +This may serve to indicate what I mean by lack of culture. I admit, of +course, that neither are the English cultured. But they have culture +among them. They do not, of course, value it; the Americans, for aught I +know, value it more; but they produce it, and the Americans do not. I +have visited many of their colleges and universities, and everywhere, +except perhaps at Harvard--unless my impressions are very much at +fault--I have found the same atmosphere. It is the atmosphere known as +the "Yale spirit," and it is very like that of an English Public School. +It is virile, athletic, gregarious, all-penetrating, all-embracing. It +turns out the whole university to sing rhythmic songs and shout rhythmic +cries at football matches. It praises action and sniffs at speculation. +It exalts morals and depresses intellect. It suspects the solitary +person, the dreamer, the loafer, the poet, the prig. This atmosphere, of +course, exists in English universities. It is imported there from the +Public Schools. But it is not all-pervading. Individuals and cliques +escape. And it is those who escape that acquire culture. In America, no +one escapes, or they are too few to count. I know Americans of culture, +know and love them; but I feel them to be lost in the sea of +philistinism. They cannot draw together, as in England, and leaven the +lump. The lump is bigger, and they are fewer. All the more honour to +them; and all the more loss to America. + +Whether, from all this, any conclusion is to be drawn about the proper +policy to be pursued at our universities, is a question I will not here +discuss. Culture, I think, is one of those precious things that are +achieved by accident, and by accident may be destroyed. The things we do +to maintain it might kill it; the things we do to kill it might preserve +it. My Canadian friends may be quite wrong in their diagnosis of the +causes that engender or destroy it. But they are right in their sense of +its importance; and it will be an interesting result of imperial unity +if we find, to our astonishment, that the Dominions beyond the seas +rally round exactly those things in England which we expect them to +declare effete. The Rhodes scholars go to Oxford, not to Birmingham or +Liverpool. And it is Cambridge that peoples the universities of the +Empire with professors. + + + + +XI + +ANTAEUS + + +I saw to-day some really remarkable landscapes by an American artist. +So, at least, they seem to me. They have, at any rate, a quality of +imagination which one does not expect to find in this country. "One does +not expect"--why not? Why, in this respect, is America, as undoubtedly +she is, so sterile? Artists must be born here as much as elsewhere. +American civilisation, it is true, repels men of reflection and +sensitiveness, just as it attracts men of action; so that, as far as +immigration is concerned, there is probably a selection working against +the artistic type. But, on the other hand, men of action often produce +sons with a genius for the arts; and it is to be supposed that they do +so as much in America as elsewhere. It must be the environment that is +unfavourable. Artists and poets belong to the genus I have named +"Mollycoddle"; and in America the Mollycoddle is hardly allowed to +breathe. Nowhere on that continent, so far as I have been able to see, +is there to be found a class or a clique of men, respected by others and +respecting themselves, who also respect not merely art but the artistic +calling. Broadly, business is the only respectable pursuit; including +under business Politics and Law, which in this country are only +departments of business. Business holds the place in popular esteem that +is held by arms in Germany, by letters in France, by Public Life in +England. The man therefore whose bent is towards the arts meets no +encouragement; he meets everywhere the reverse. His father, his uncles, +his brothers, his cousins, all are in business. Business is the only +virile pursuit for people of education and means, who cannot well become +chauffeurs. There is, no doubt, the professorial career; but that, it is +agreed, is adopted only by men of "no ambition." Americans believe in +education, but they do not believe in educators. There is no money to be +made in that profession, and the making of money is the test of +character. The born poet or artist is thus handicapped to a point which +may easily discourage him from running at all. At the best, he emigrates +to Europe, and his achievement is credited to that continent. Or, +remaining in America, he succumbs to the environment, puts aside his +creative ambition, and enters business. It is not for nothing that +Americans are the most active people in the world. They pay the penalty +in an atrophy of the faculties of reflection and representation. + +Things are different in Europe, and even in England. There, not only +are artists and men of letters honoured when they are successful--they +are, of course, honoured at that stage in America; but the pursuit of +literature and art is one which a young man need not feel it +discreditable to adopt. The contemporaries of a brilliant youth at +Oxford or at Cambridge do not secretly despise him if he declines to +enter business. The first-class man does not normally aspire to start +life as a drummer. Public life and the Church offer honourable careers; +and both of them have traditional affinities with literature. So has the +Law, still in England a profession and not a trade. One may even be a +don or a schoolmaster without serious discredit. Under these conditions +a young man can escape from the stifling pressure of the business point +of view. He can find societies like-minded with himself, equally +indifferent to the ideal of success in business, equally inspired by +intellectual or aesthetic ambitions. He can choose to be poor without +feeling that he will therefore become despicable. The attitude of the +business classes in England, no doubt, is much the same as that of the +business classes in America. But in England there are other classes and +other traditions, havens of refuge from the prevalent commercialism. In +America the trade-wind blows broad, steady, universal over the length +and breadth of the continent. + +This, I believe, is one reason for the sterility of America in Art. But +it is not the only one. Literature and Art in Europe rest on a long +tradition which has not only produced books and pictures, but has left +its mark on the language, the manners, the ideas, the architecture, the +physical features of the country. The books and the pictures can be +transplanted, but the rest cannot. Thus, even though in every art the +technical tradition has been interrupted, there remains in Europe what I +will call the tradition of feeling; and it is this that is absent in +America. Art in Europe is rooted; and there still persists into the +present something of the spirit which fostered it in the past. Not only +is Nature beautiful, she is humanised by the works of Man. Politics are +mellowed by history, business tempered by culture. Classes are more +segregated, types more distinct, ideals and aims more varied. The ghost +of a spiritual life still hovers over the natural, shadowing it with the +beat of solemn wings. There are finer overtones for a sensitive ear to +catch; rainbow hues where the spray of life goes up. All this, it is +true, is disappearing in Europe; but in America it has never existed. A +sensitive European, travelling there, feels at once starved and flayed. +Nothing nourishes, and everything hurts. There is natural beauty, but it +has not been crowned and perfected by the hand of man. Whatever he has +touched he has touched only to defile. There is one pursuit, commerce; +one type, the business man; one ideal, that of increasing wealth. +Monotony of talk, monotony of ideas, monotony of aim, monotony of +outlook on the world. America is industrialism pure and simple; Europe +is industrialism superimposed on feudalism; and, for the arts, the +difference is vital. + +But the difference is disappearing. Not that America is becoming like +Europe, but Europe is becoming like America. This is not a case of the +imitation that is a form of flattery; it is a case of similar causes +producing similar results. The disease--or shall we say, to use a +neutral term--the diathesis of commercialism found in America an open +field and swept through it like a fire. In Europe, its course was +hampered by the structures of an earlier civilisation. But it is +spreading none the less surely. And the question arises--In the future, +when the European environment is as unfavourable to Art as the American, +will there be, in the West, any Art at all? I do not know; no one knows; +but there is this to remark. What I am calling commercialism is the +infancy, not the maturity of a civilisation. The revolution in morals, +in manners, and in political and social institutions which must +accompany the revolution in industry, has hardly yet begun its course. +It has gone further in Europe than in America; so that, oddly enough, +Europe is at once behind and in front of this continent, overlaps it, so +to speak, at both ends. But it has not gone very far even in Europe; and +for generations, I conceive, political and social issues will draw away +much of the creative talent that might have been available for Art. In +the end, one may suppose, something like a stable order will arise; an +order, that is, in which people will feel that their institutions +correspond sufficiently with their inner life, and will be able to +devote themselves with a free mind to reflecting their civilisation in +Art. + +But will their civilisation be of a kind to invite such reflection? It +will be, if the present movement is not altogether abortive, a +civilisation of security, equity, and peace; where there is no +indigence, no war, and comparatively little disease. Such society, +certainly, will not offer a field for much of the kind of Art that has +been or is now being produced. The primitive folk-song, the epic of war, +the novel or play inspired by social strife, will have passed +irrecoverably away. And more than that, it is sometimes urged, there +will be such a dearth of those tense moments which alone engender the +artistic mood, that Art of any kind will have become impossible. If that +were true, it would not, in my opinion, condemn the society. Art is +important, but there are things more important; and among those things +are justice and peace. I do not, however, accept the view that a +peaceable and just society would necessarily also be one that is +uninspired. That view seems to me to proceed from our incurable +materialism. We think there is no conflict except with arms; no rivalry +except for bread; no aspiration except for money and rank. It is my own +belief that the removal of the causes of the material strife in which +most men are now plunged would liberate the energies for spiritual +conflict; that the passion to know, the passion to feel, the passion to +love, would begin at last to take their proper place in human life; and +would engender the forms of Art appropriate to their expression. + +To return to America, what I am driving at is this. America may have an +Art, and a great Art. But it will be after she has had her social +revolution. Her Art has first to touch ground; and before it can do +that, the ground must be fit for it to touch. It was not till the tenth +century that the seed of Mediaeval Art could be sown; it was not till the +thirteenth that the flower bloomed. So now, our civilisation is not ripe +for its own Art. What America imports from Europe is useless to her. It +is torn from its roots; and it is idle to replant it; it will not grow. +There must be a native growth, not so much of America, as of the modern +era. That growth America, like Europe, must will. She has her prophet of +it, Walt Whitman. In the coming centuries it is her work to make his +vision real. + + + + +CONCLUDING ESSAY + + +The preceding pages were written in the course of travel and convey the +impressions and reflections of the moment. Whatever interest they may +have depends upon this immediacy, and for that reason I have reprinted +them substantially as they first appeared. Perhaps, however, some +concluding reflections of a more considered nature may be of some +interest to my readers. I do not advance them in a dogmatic spirit nor +as final judgments, but as the first tentative results of my gropings +into a large and complicated subject. I will ask the reader, therefore, +be he Western or Oriental, to follow me in a spirit at once critical and +sympathetic, challenging my suggestions as much as he will, but rather +as a fellow-seeker than as an opponent bent upon refutation. For I am +trying to comprehend rather than to judge, and to comprehend as +impartially as is compatible with having an attitude of one's own at +all. + +Ever since Mr. Rudyard Kipling wrote a famous line it has become a +commonplace of popular thought in England and America that there is an +East and a West, and an impassable gulf between them. But Mr. Kipling +was thinking of India, and India is not all the East: he was thinking +of England, and England is not all the West. As soon as one approaches +the question more particularly it becomes a complicated matter to decide +whether there is really an East and a West, and what either stands for. +That there is a West, in a real sense, with a unity of its own, is, I +think, true. But it must be limited in time to the last two centuries, +and in space to the countries of Western Europe and the continent of +America. So understood, the West forms, in all the most important +respects, a homogeneous system. True, it is divided into different +nations, speaking different languages, and pursuing different, and often +conflicting, policies; and these distinctions are still so important, +that they colour our fears and hopes and sympathies, and take form in +the burden of armaments and the menace of war. Nevertheless, seen in the +perspective of history, they are survivals, atrophying and disappearing. +Behind and despite of them there is a common Western mind and a common +Western organisation. Finance is cosmopolitan; industry is cosmopolitan; +trade is cosmopolitan. There is one scientific method, and the results +achieved by it are common. There is one system of industry, that known +as Capitalism; and the problems arising from it and the solutions +propounded appear alike in every nation. There is one political +tendency, or fact, that of popular government. There are cognate aims +and similar achievements in literature and art. There is, in brief, a +Western movement, a Western problem, a Western mentality; and the +particular happenings of particular nations are all parts of this one +happening. Nor is this all. There is in the West a common religion. I do +not refer to Christianity, for the religion I mean is held by hundreds +and thousands who are not Christians, and indeed does not very readily +find in Christianity an expression at once coherent and pure. It has not +been formulated in a creed; but it is to be felt and heard in all the +serious work and all the serious thought of the West. It is the religion +of Good and Evil, of Time and the process in Time. If it tried to draw +up a confession of faith perhaps it would produce, as its first attempt, +something of this kind:-- + + "I believe in the ultimate distinction between Good and Evil, + and in a real process in a real Time. I believe it to be my duty + to increase Good and diminish Evil; I believe that in doing this + I am serving the purpose of the world. I know this; I do not + know anything else; and I am reluctant to put questions to which + I have no answer, and to which I do not believe that anyone has + an answer. Action, as defined above, is my creed. Speculation + weakens action. I do not wish to speculate, I wish to live. And + I believe the true life to be the life I have described." + +In saying that this is the real creed of the modern Western man I do not +pretend that he always knows or would admit it to be so. But if his +actions, his words, and his thoughts be sympathetically interpreted, +where all are at their best, I think they will be found to imply +something of this kind. And this attitude I call religious, not merely +ethical, because of its conviction that the impulse towards Good is of +the essence of the World, not only of men, or of Man. To believe this is +an act of faith, not of reason; though it is not contrary to reason, as +no faith should be or long can be. Many men do _not_ believe it, for +many are not religious; others, while believing it, may believe also +many other things. But it is the irreducible minimum of religion in the +modern West, the justification of our life, the faith of our works. I +call it the Religion of Time, and distinguish it thus from the Religion +of Eternity. + +In this sense, then, this profound sense, of a common aim and a common +motive, there is really a West. Is there also an East? That is not so +clear. In some important respects, no doubt, the Eastern civilisations +are alike. They are still predominantly agricultural. Their industry is +manual not mechanical. Their social unit is the extended family. To +travel in the East is to realise that life on the soil and in the +village is there still the normal life, as it has been almost everywhere +and always, throughout civilisation, until the last century in the West. +But though there is thus in the East a common way of life, there is not +a common organisation nor a common spirit. Economically, the great +Eastern countries are still independent of one another. Each lives for +the most part by and on itself. And their intellectual and spiritual +intercourse is now (though it was not in the past) as negligible as +their economic commerce. The influence that is beginning to be strong +upon them all is that of Western culture; and if they become alike in +their outlook on life, it will be by assimilating that. But, at present, +they are not alike. It is easy, in this matter, to be deceived by the +outward forms of religion. Because Buddhism originated in India and +spread to China and Japan, because Japan took Confucian ideals from +China, it is natural to conclude that there is a common religious spirit +throughout the East, or the Far East. But one might as reasonably infer +that the spirit of the christianised Teutons was the same as that of the +Jews or of the Christians in the East. Nations borrow religions, but +they shape them according to their own genius. And if I am not very much +mistaken the outlook of India is, and always has been, radically +distinct from and even opposed to that of China or Japan. These latter +countries, indeed, I believe, are far closer to the West than they are +to India. Let me explain. + +India is the true origin and home of what I have called the religion of +Eternity. That idea seems to have gone out from her to the rest of the +world. But nowhere else was it received with equal purity and passion. +Elsewhere than in India the claims of Time were predominant. In India +they have been subordinate. This, no doubt, is a matter of emphasis. No +society, as a whole, could believe and act upon the belief that activity +in Time is simply waste of time, and absorption in the Eternal the +direct and immediate object of life. Such a view, acted upon, would +bring the society quickly to an end. It would mean that the very +physical instinct to live was extinguished. But, as the Eternal was +first conceived by the amazing originality of India, so the passion to +realise it here and now has been the motive of her saints from the date +of the Upanishads to the twentieth century. And the method of +realisation proposed and attempted has not been the living of the +temporal life in a particular spirit, it has been the transcending of it +by a special experience. Indian saints have always believed that by +meditation and ascetic discipline, by abstaining from active life and +all its claims, and cultivating solitude and mortification, they could +reach by a direct experience union with the Infinite. This is as true of +the latest as of the earliest saints, if and so far as Western +influences have been excluded. Let me illustrate from the words of Sri +Ramakrishna, one of the most typical of Indian saints, who died late in +the nineteenth century. + +First, for the claim to pass directly into union with the Eternal: + + "I do see that Being as a Reality before my very eyes! Why then + should I reason? I do actually see that it is the Absolute Who + has become all these things about us; it is He who appears as + the finite soul and the phenomenal world. One must have such an + awakening of the Spirit within to see this Reality.... Spiritual + awakening must be followed by Samadhi. In this state one forgets + that one has a body; one loses all attachment to things of this + world."[5] + +And let it not be supposed that this state called Samadhi is merely one +of intense meditation. It is something much more abnormal, or +super-normal, than this. The book from which I am quoting contains many +accounts of its effects upon Sri Ramakrishna. Here is one of them: + + "He is now in a state of Samadhi, the superconscious or + God-conscious state. The body is again motionless. The eyes are + again fixed! The boys only a moment ago were laughing and making + merry! Now they all look grave. Their eyes are steadfastly fixed + on the master's face. They marvel at the wonderful change that + has come over him. It takes him long to come back to the sense + world. His limbs now begin to lose their stiffness. His face + beams with smiles, the organs of sense begin to come back each + to its own work. Tears of joy stand at the corners of his eyes. + He chants the sacred name of Rama."[6] + +The object, then, of this saint, and one he claims to have attained, is +to come into union with the Infinite by a process which removes him +altogether from contact with this world and from all possibility of +action in it. This world, in fact, is to him, as to all Indian saints +and most Indian philosophers, phenomenal and unreal. Of the speculative +problems raised by this conception I need not speak here. But it belongs +to my purpose to bring out its bearing upon conduct. All conduct depends +upon the conception of Good and Evil. Anti-moralists, like Nietzsche, +assume and require these ideas, just as much as moralists; they merely +attempt to give them a new content. If conduct is to have any meaning, +Good and Evil must be real in a real world. If they are held to be +appearances conduct becomes absurd. What now is Sri Ramakrishna's view +of this matter? The whole life that we Western men call real is to him a +mere game played by and for the sake of God, or, to use his phrase, of +the Divine Mother. For her pleasure she keeps men bound to Time, instead +of free in Eternity. For her pleasure, therefore, she creates and +maintains Evil. I quote the passage: + + "My Divine Mother is always in Her sportive mood. The world, + indeed, is Her toy. She will have Her own way. It is Her + pleasure to take out of the prisonhouse and set free only one or + two among a hundred thousand of her children! + + "_A Brahmo_: Sir, She can if She pleases set everybody free. + Why is it then, that She has bound us hand and foot with the + chains of the world? + + "_Sri Ramakrishna_: Well, I suppose it is her pleasure. It is + her pleasure to go on with Her sport with all these beings that + She has brought into existence. The player amongst the children + that touches the person of the Grand-dame, the same need no + longer run about. He cannot take any further part in the + exciting play of Hide and Seek that goes on. + + "The others who have not touched the goal must run about and + play to the great delight of the Grand-dame."[7] + +Thus the Indian saint. Let us now try to bring his conception into +relation with what we in the West believe to be real experience. In a +railway accident a driver is pinned against the furnace and slowly +burned to death, praying the bystanders in vain to put him out of his +misery. What is this? It is the sport of God! In Putumayo innocent +natives are deprived of their land, enslaved, tortured, and murdered, +that shareholders in Europe may receive high dividends. What is this? +The sport of God! In the richest countries of the West a great +proportion of those who produce the wealth receive less than the wages +which would suffice to keep them in bare physical health. What is this? +Once more the sport of God! One might multiply examples, but it would be +idle. No Western man could for a moment entertain the view of Sri +Ramakrishna. To him such a God would be a mere devil. The Indian +position, no doubt, is a form of idealism; but an idealism conditioned +by defective experience of the life in Time. The saint has chosen +another experience. But clearly he has not transcended ours, he has +simply left it out. + +Now I am aware that it will be urged by some of the most sincere +representatives of religion in India that Sri Ramakrishna does not +typify the Indian attitude. Perhaps not, if we take contemporary India. +But then contemporary India has been profoundly influenced by Western +thought; modern Indians like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, +Rabindranath Tagore, could hardly have thought and felt as they did, and +do, were it not for this influence. The following poem of Rabindranath +Tagore may aptly symbolise this breaking in of the West upon the East, +though I do not know that that was the author's intention: + + "With days of hard travail I raised a temple. It had no + doors or windows, its walls were thickly built with + massive stones. + + I forgot all else, I shunned all the world, I gazed in rapt + contemplation at the image I had set upon the altar. + + It was always night inside, and lit by the lamps of + perfumed oil. The ceaseless smoke of incense wound + my heart in its heavy coils. + + Sleepless, I carved on the walls fantastic figures in mazy + bewildering lines--winged horses, flowers with human + faces, women with limbs like serpents. + + No passage was left anywhere through which could enter + the song of birds, the murmur of leaves, or the hum + of the busy village. + + The only sound that echoed in its dark dome was that + of incantations which I chanted. + + My mind became keen and still like a pointed flame, my + senses swooned in ecstasy. + + I knew not how time passed till the thunderstone had + struck the temple, and a pain stung me through the + heart. + + The lamp looked pale and ashamed; the carvings on + the walls, like chained dreams, stared meaningless + in the light, as they would fain hide themselves. + + I looked at the image on the altar. I saw it smiling and + alive with the living touch of God. The night I had + imprisoned spread its wings and vanished."[8] + +The closed temple, I believe, is a true image of the spiritual life of +India, if not at all times, at any rate for many centuries previous to +the advent of the English. Everything seems to point to this--the +symbolic character of Indian art; the absence of history and the +prevalence of religious legend; the cult of the fakir and the wandering +ascetic. In India one feels religion as one feels it nowhere else, +unless it were in Russia. But the religion one feels is peculiar. It is +the religion that denies the value of experience in Time. It is the +religion of the Eternal. + +But, it will be urged, how can that be, when India continues to produce +her teeming millions; when these perforce live their brief lives in a +constant and often vain struggle for a bare livelihood; when, in order +to live at all, it is necessary at every point to be straining vitality +in the pursuit of temporal goods or the avoidance of temporal evils? + +I make no attempt to disguise or to weaken this paradox. But I suggest +that it is but one of the many paradoxes set up by the conflict between +men's instinct for life and their conscious beliefs. Indians live not +because they believe in life, but because they cannot help it. Their +hold on life is certainly less than that of Western men. Thus I have +been told by administrators of famine relief or of precautions against +plague, that what they have to contend with is not so much the +resistance as the indifference of the population. "Why worry us?" they +say, in effect; "life is not worth the trouble. Let us die and be rid of +it." Life is an evil, that is the root feeling of India; and the escape +is either, for the mass, by death; or for the men of spiritual genius, +by a flight to the Eternal. How this attitude has arisen I do not here +seek to determine; race, climate, social and political conditions, all +no doubt have played their part. The spiritual attitude is probably an +effect, rather than a cause, of an enfeebled grip on life. But no one, I +think, who knows India, would dispute that this attitude is a fact; and +it is a fact that distinguishes India not only from the West but from +the Far East. + +For China and Japan, though they have had, and to a less extent still +have, religion, are not, in the Indian sense, religious. The Chinese, in +particular, strike one as secular and practical; quite as secular and +practical as the English. They have had Buddhism, as we have had +Christianity; but no one who can perceive and understand would say that +their outlook is determined by Buddhism, any more than ours is by +Christianity. It is Confucianism that expresses the Chinese attitude to +life, whenever the Chinese soul, becoming aware of itself, looks out +from the forest of animistic beliefs in which the mass of the people +wander. And Confucianism is perhaps the best and purest expression of +the practical reason that has ever been formulated. Family duty, social +duty, political duty, these are the things on which it lays stress. And +when the Chinese spirit seeks escape from these primary preoccupations, +it finds its freedom in an art that is closer to the world of fact, +imaginatively conceived, than that of any other race. Chinese art +purifies itself from symbolism to become interpretation; whereas in +India the ocean of symbolism never ceases to roll over the drowning +surface of the phenomenal world. Chinese literature, again, has this +same hold upon life. It is such as Romans or Englishmen, if equally +gifted, might have written. Much of it, indeed, is stupidly and +tediously didactic. But where it escapes into poetry it is a poetry like +Wordsworth's, revealing the beauty of actual things, rather than weaving +across them an embroidery of subjective emotions The outlook of China is +essentially the outlook of the West, only more sane, more reasonable, +more leisured and dignified. Positivism and Humanity, the dominant forms +of thought and feeling in the West, have controlled Chinese civilisation +for centuries. The Chinese have built differently from ourselves and on +a smaller scale, with less violence and less power; but they have built +on the same foundations. + +And Japan, too, at bottom is secular. Her true religion is that of the +Emperor and his divine ancestors. Her strongest passion is patriotism. A +Japanese, like an Indian, is always ready to die. But he dies for the +splendours and glories of this world of sense. It is not because he has +so little hold on life, but because he has so much, that he so readily +throws it away. The Japanese are unlike the Chinese and unlike the +Europeans and Americans; but their outlook is similar. They believe in +the world of time and change; and because of this attitude, they and the +rest of the world stand together like a mountain in the sun, +contemplating uneasily that other mysterious peak, shrouded in mist, +which is India. + +The reader by this time will have grasped the point I am trying to put. +There are in Man two religious impulses, or, if the expression be +preferred, two aspects of the religious impulse. I have called them the +religion of the Eternal and the religion of Time; and India I suggest +stands pre-eminently for the one, the West for the other, while the +other countries of the East rank rather with the West than with India. +It is not necessary to my purpose to exaggerate this antithesis. I will +say, if it be preferred, that in India the emphasis is on the Eternal, +in the West on Time. But that much at least must be said and is plainly +true. Now, as between these two attitudes, I find myself quite clearly +and definitely on the side of the West. I have said in the preceding +pages hard things about Western civilisation. I hate many of its +manifestations, I am out of sympathy with many of its purposes. I can +see no point, for instance, in the discovery of the north or the south +pole, and very little in the invention of aeroplanes; while gramophones, +machine guns, advertisements, cinematographs, submarines, dreadnoughts, +cosmopolitan hotels, seem to me merely fatuous or sheerly disastrous. +But what lies behind all this, the tenacity, the courage, the spirit of +adventure, this it is that is the great contribution of the West. It is +not the aeroplane that is valuable; probably it will never be anything +but pernicious, for its main use is likely to be for war. But the fact +that men so lightly risk their lives to perfect it, _that_ is valuable. +The West is adventurous; and, what is more, it is adventurous on a +quest. For behind and beyond all its fatuities, confusions, crimes, +lies, as the justification of it all, that deep determination to secure +a society more just and more humane which inspires all men and all +movements that are worth considering at all, and, to those who can +understand, gives greatness and significance even to some of our most +reckless enterprises. We are living very "dangerously"; all the forces +are loose, those of destruction as well as those of creation; but we are +living towards something; we are living with the religion of Time. + +So far, I daresay, most Western men will agree with me in the main. But +they may say, some of them, as the Indian will certainly say, "Is that +all? Have you no place for the Eternal and the Infinite?" To this I must +reply that I think it clear and indisputable that the religion of the +Eternal, as interpreted by Sri Ramakrishna, is altogether incompatible +with the religion of Time. And the position of Sri Ramakrishna, I have +urged, is that of most Indian, and as I think, of most Western mystics. +Not, however, of all, and not of all modern mystics, even in India. +Rabindranath Tagore, for example, in his "Sadhana," has put forward a +mysticism which does, at least, endeavour to allow for and include what +I have called the religion of Time. To him, and to other mystics of real +experience, I must leave the attempt to reconcile Eternity and Time. For +my own part, I can only approach the question from the point of view of +Time, and endeavour to discover and realise the most that can be truly +said by one who starts with the belief that that is real. The +profoundest prophets of the religion of Time are, in my judgment, Goethe +and George Meredith; and from them, and from others, and from my own +small experience, I seem to have learned this: the importance of that +process in Time in whose reality we believe does not lie merely in the +bettering of the material and social environment, though we hold the +importance of that to be great; it lies in the development of souls. And +that development consists in a constant expansion of interest away from +and beyond one's own immediate interests out into the activities of the +world at large. Such expansion may be pursued in practical life, in art, +in science, in contemplation, so long as the contemplation is of the +real processes of the real world in time. To that expansion I see no +limit except death. And I do not know what comes after death. But I am +clear that whatever comes after, the command of Life is the same--to +expand out of oneself into the life of the world. This command--I should +rather say this impulse--seems to me absolute, the one certain thing on +which everything else must build. I think it enough for religion, in the +case at least of those who have got beyond the infant need for +certitudes and dogmas. These perhaps are few; yet they may be really +more numerous than appears. And on the increase in their numbers, and +the intensity of their conviction and their life, the fate of the world +seems to me to depend. + + + Footnotes: + + [Footnote 5: _Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna_, second edition, Part + 1., p. 310.] + + [Footnote 6: _Ibid._, p. 61.] + + [Footnote 7: _Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna_, second edition, Part + 1., p. 145.] + + [Footnote 8: _The Gardener_, p. 125.] + + + + + Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. + at Paul's Work, Edinburgh + + + + +BOOKS ON THE EAST + + +THE CIVILISATION OF THE EAST. By Dr. FRITZ HOMMEL. Illustrations and +Map. Pott 8vo, with Frontispiece, 1s. net. + +_JAPAN_--THE LIFE AND THOUGHT OF JAPAN. By OKAKURA-YOSHISAURO. +Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. net. + +_INDIA_--THE CIVILISATION OF INDIA. By ROMESH C. DUTT, C.I.E. +Illustrated. Pott 8vo, with Frontispiece, 1s. net. [_Second Edition_. + +THE GREAT EPICS OF ANCIENT INDIA--RAMAYANA: THE EPIC OF RAMA, PRINCE OF +INDIA; AND MAHA-BHARATA: THE EPIC OF ANCIENT INDIA. Condensed into +English Verse and Edited by ROMESH DUTT, C.I.E. With an Introduction by +the Right Hon. F. MAX MUeLLER. With 24 Photogravure Illustrations by E. +STUART HARDY. Square demy 8vo, L2, 2s. net. + +THE MESSAGE OF ZOROASTER. By A. SORABJEE N. WADIA. Crown 8vo, 5s. net. + +REFLECTIONS ON THE PROBLEMS OF INDIA. By A. S. WADIA. Crown 8vo, 4s. +6d. net. + +PICTURESQUE BURMAH, PAST AND PRESENT. By Mrs. ERNEST HART. With 90 +Illustrations in Photogravure, &c., also 2 Maps. Super-royal 8vo, L1, +1s. net. + +RELIGIONS OF INDIA: BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM. By Rev. ALLAN MENZIES, +D.D. Square crown 16mo, 9d. net. + +BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY. By ANNIE H. SMALL. 1s. net. + +ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY. By ANNIE H. SMALL. 1s. net. + +THE GODS OF INDIA. By E. OSBORN MARTIN. With 60 Illustrations from +Photographs specially taken. Small crown 8vo, 4s. 6d. net. + + +J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD., LONDON + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + + +Pg. 168, added closing single quote mark for clarity. In this case it +serves to close a quote within a quote. (speak.'" You can now) + +Footnote 3, in the original text, the English translation of Dante's +poem did not preserve the line breaks in each stanza. The original +appearance has been retained. + +Footnote 3, the reference is given as Dante's "Purgatorio". In actual +fact the lines of verse come from Dante's "Paradiso". The author's +original text has been retained. + +Pg. 184 and 191, line of verse beginning "My son, the good you....". In +the original text, the fifth word was an abbreviation comprising a "y" +and a superscript "o". This is presumed to represent "you" and has been +expanded as such for readability. + +Pg. 192, "poeple" changed to "people". (property of the American +poeple.) + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Appearances, by Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APPEARANCES *** + +***** This file should be named 27347.txt or 27347.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/3/4/27347/ + +Produced by Ronald Lee + +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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