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diff --git a/4611-h/4611-h.htm b/4611-h/4611-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db39db5 --- /dev/null +++ b/4611-h/4611-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5416 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Where No Fear Was, by Arthur Christopher Benson +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.intro {font-size: medium ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Where No Fear Was, by Arthur Christopher Benson + +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: Where No Fear Was + A Book About Fear + +Author: Arthur Christopher Benson + +Posting Date: August 18, 2009 [EBook #4611] +Release Date: November, 2003 +First Posted: February 19, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE NO FEAR WAS *** + + + + +Produced by Don Lainson and Charles Aldarondo. HTML version +by Al Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +WHERE NO FEAR WAS +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +A BOOK ABOUT FEAR +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +By +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +1914 +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">THE SHADOW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">SHAPES OF FEAR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">THE DARKEST DOUBT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">VULNERABILITY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">THE USE OF FEAR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">FEARS OF CHILDHOOD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">FEARS OF BOYHOOD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">FEARS OF YOUTH</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">FEARS OF MIDDLE AGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">FEARS OF AGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">DR. JOHNSON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">TENNYSON, RUSKIN, CARLYLE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">CHARLOTTE BRONTE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">JOHN STERLING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">INSTINCTIVE FEAR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">FEAR OF LIFE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">SIMPLICITY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">AFFECTION</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap19">SIN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap20">SERENITY</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"Thus they went on till they came to about the middle of the Valley, +and then Christiana said, 'Methinks I see something yonder on the road +before us, a thing of such a shape such as I have not seen.' Then said +Joseph, 'Mother, what is it?' 'An ugly thing, Child, an ugly thing,' +said she. 'But, Mother, what is it like?' said he. ''Tis like I cannot +tell what,' said she. And now it was but a little way off. Then said +she, 'It is nigh.'" +<BR><BR> +"Pilgrim's Progress," Part II. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +Where No Fear Was +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE SHADOW +</H3> + +<P> +There surely may come a time for each of us, if we have lived with any +animation or interest, if we have had any constant or even fitful +desire to penetrate and grasp the significance of the strange adventure +of life, a time, I say, when we may look back a little, not +sentimentally or with any hope of making out an impressive case for +ourselves, and interrogate the memory as to what have been the most +real, vivid, and intense things that have befallen us by the way. We +may try to separate the momentous from the trivial, and the important +from the unimportant; to discern where and how and when we might have +acted differently; to see and to say what has really mattered, what has +made a deep mark on our spirit; what has hampered or wounded or maimed +us. Because one of the strangest things about life seems to be our +incapacity to decide beforehand, or even at the time, where the real +and fruitful joys, and where the dark dangers and distresses lie. The +things that at certain times filled all one's mind, kindled hope and +aim, seemed so infinitely desirable, so necessary to happiness, have +faded, many of them, into the lightest and most worthless of husks and +phantoms, like the withered flowers that we find sometimes shut in the +pages of our old books, and cannot even remember of what glowing and +emotional moment they were the record! +</P> + +<P> +How impossible it is ever to learn anything by being told it! How +necessary it is to pay the full price for any knowledge worth having! +The anxious father, the tearful mother, may warn the little boy before +he goes to school of the dangers that await him. He does not +understand, he does not attend, he is looking at the pattern of the +carpet, and wondering for the hundredth time whether the oddly-shaped +blue thing which appears and reappears at intervals is a bird or a +flower—yes, it is certainly meant for a bird perched on a bough! He +wishes the talk were over, he looks at the little scar on his father's +hand, and remembers that he has been told that he cut it in a +cucumber-frame when he was a boy. And then, long afterwards perhaps, +when he has made a mistake and is suffering for it, he sees that it was +THAT of which they spoke, and wonders that they could not have +explained it better. +</P> + +<P> +And this is so all along! We cannot recognise the dark tower, to which +in the story Childe Roland came, by any description. We must go there +ourselves; and not till we feel the teeth of the trap biting into us, +do we see that it was exactly in such a place that we had been warned +that it would be laid. +</P> + +<P> +There is an episode in that strange and beautiful book Phantastes, by +George Macdonald, which comes often to my mind. The boy is wandering in +the enchanted forest, and he is told to avoid the house where the +Daughter of the Ogre lives. His morose young guide shows him where the +paths divide, and he takes the one indicated to him with a sense of +misgiving. +</P> + +<P> +A little while before he had been deceived by the Alder-maiden, and had +given her his love in error. This has taken some of the old joy out of +his heart, but he has made his escape from her, and thinks he has +learned his lesson. +</P> + +<P> +But he comes at last to the long low house in the clearing; he finds +within it an ancient woman reading out of an old volume; he enters, he +examines the room in which she sits, and yielding to curiosity, he +opens the door of the great cupboard in the corner, in spite of a +muttered warning. He thinks, on first opening it, that it is just a +dark cupboard; but he sees with a shock of surprise that he is looking +into a long dark passage, which leads out, far away from where he +stands, into the starlit night. Then a figure, which seems to have been +running from a long distance, turns the corner, and comes speeding down +towards him. He has not time to close the door, but stands aside to let +it pass; it passes, and slips behind him; and soon he sees that it is a +shadow of himself, which has fallen on the floor at his feet. He asks +what has happened, and then the old woman says that he has found his +shadow, a thing which happens to many people; and then for the first +time she raises her head and looks at him, and he sees that her mouth +is full of long white teeth; he knows where he is at last, and stumbles +out, with the dark shadow at his heels, which is to haunt him so +miserably for many a sad day. +</P> + +<P> +That is a very fine and true similitude of what befalls many men and +women. They go astray, they give up some precious thing—their +innocence perhaps—to a deluding temptation. They are delivered for a +time; and then a little while after they find their shadow, which no +tears or anguish of regret can take away, till the healing of life and +work and purpose annuls it. Neither is it always annulled, even in +length of days. +</P> + +<P> +But it is a paltry and inglorious mistake to let the shadow have its +disheartening will of us. It is only a shadow, after all! And if we +capitulate after our first disastrous encounter, it does not mean that +we shall be for ever vanquished, though it means perhaps a long and +dreary waste of shame-stained days. That is what we must try to +avoid—any WASTE of time and strength. For if anything is certain, it +is that we have all to fight until we conquer, and the sooner we take +up the dropped sword again the better. +</P> + +<P> +And we have also to learn that no one can help us except ourselves. +Other people can sympathise and console, try to soothe our injured +vanity, try to persuade us that the dangers and disasters ahead are not +so dreadful as they appear to be, and that the mistakes we have made +are not irreparable. But no one can remove danger or regret from us, or +relieve us of the necessity of facing our own troubles; the most that +they can do, indeed, is to encourage us to try again. +</P> + +<P> +But we cannot hope to change the conditions of life; and one of its +conditions is, as I have said, that we cannot foresee dangers. No +matter how vividly they are described to us, no matter how eagerly +those who love us try to warn us of peril, we cannot escape. For that +is the essence of life—experience; and though we cannot rejoice when +we are in the grip of it, and when we cannot see what the end will be, +we can at least say to ourselves again and again, "this is at all +events reality—this is business!" for it is the moments of endurance +and energy and action which after all justify us in living, and not the +pleasant spaces where we saunter among flowers and sunlit woods. Those +are conceded to us, to tempt us to live, to make us desire to remain in +the world; and we need not be afraid to take them, to use them, to +enjoy them; because all things alike help to make us what we are. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SHAPES OF FEAR +</H3> + +<P> +Now as I look back a little, I see that some of my worst experiences +have not hurt or injured me at all. I do not claim more than my share +of troubles, but "I have had trouble enough for one," as Browning +says,—bereavements, disappointments, the illness of those I have +loved, illness of my own, quarrels, misunderstandings, enmities, +angers, disapprovals, losses; I have made bad mistakes, I have failed +in my duty, I have done many things that I regret, I have been +unreasonable, unkind, selfish. Many of these things have hurt and +wounded me, have brought me into sorrow, and even into despair. But I +do not feel that any of them have really injured me, and some of them +have already benefited me. I have learned to be a little more patient +and diligent, and I have discovered that there are certain things that +I must at all costs avoid. +</P> + +<P> +But there is one thing which seems to me to have always and invariably +hampered and maimed me, whenever I have yielded to it, and I have often +yielded to it; and that is Fear. It can be called by many names, and +all of them ugly names—anxiety, timidity, moral cowardice. I can never +trace the smallest good in having given way to it. It has been from my +earliest days the Shadow; and I think it is the shadow in the lives of +many men and women. I want in this book to track it, if I can, to its +lair, to see what it is, where its awful power lies, and what, if +anything, one can do to resist it. It seems the most unreal thing in +the world, when one is on the other side of it; and yet face to face +with it, it has a strength, a poignancy, a paralysing power, which +makes it seem like a personal and specific ill-will, issuing in a sort +of dreadful enchantment or spell, which renders it impossible to +withstand. Yet, strange to say, it has not exercised its power in the +few occasions in my life when it would seem to have been really +justified. Let me quote an instance or two which will illustrate what I +mean. +</P> + +<P> +I was confronted once with the necessity of a small surgical operation, +quite unexpectedly. If I had known beforehand that it was to be done, I +should have depicted every incident with horror and misery. But the +moment arrived, and I found myself marching to my bedroom with a +surgeon and a nurse, with a sense almost of amusement at the adventure. +</P> + +<P> +I was called upon once in Switzerland to assist with two guides in the +rescue of an unfortunate woman who had fallen from a precipice, and had +to be brought down, dead or alive. We hurried up through the +pine-forest with a chair, and found the poor creature alive indeed, but +with horrible injuries—an eye knocked out, an arm and a thigh broken, +her ulster torn to ribbons, and with more blood about the place in +pools than I should have thought a human body could contain. She was +conscious; she had to be lifted into the chair, and we had to discover +where she belonged; she fainted away in the middle of it, and I had to +go on and break the news to her relations. If I had been told +beforehand what would have had to be done, I do not think I could have +faced it; but it was there to do, and I found myself entirely capable +of taking part, and even of wondering all the time that it was possible +to act. +</P> + +<P> +Again, I was once engulfed in a crevasse, hanging from the ice-ledge +with a portentous gulf below, and a glacier-stream roaring in the +darkness. I could get no hold for foot or hand, my companions could not +reach me or extract me; and as I sank into unconsciousness, hearing my +own expiring breath, I knew that I was doomed; but I can only say, +quite honestly and humbly, that I had no fear at all, and only dimly +wondered what arrangements would be made at Eton, where I was then a +master, to accommodate the boys of my house and my pupils. It was not +done by an effort, nor did I brace myself to the situation: fear simply +did not come near to me. +</P> + +<P> +Once again I found myself confronted, not so long ago, with an +incredibly painful and distressing interview. That indeed did oppress +me with almost intolerable dread beforehand. I was to go to a certain +house in London, and there was just a chance that the interview might +not take place after all. As I drove there, I suddenly found myself +wondering whether the interview could REALLY be going to take +place—how often had I rehearsed it beforehand with anguish—and then +as suddenly became aware that I should in some strange way be +disappointed if it did not take place. I wanted on the whole to go +through with it, and to see what it would be like. A deep-seated +curiosity came to my aid. It did take place, and it was very bad—worse +than I could have imagined; but it was not terrible! +</P> + +<P> +These are just four instances which come into my mind. I should be glad +to feel that the courage which undoubtedly came had been the creation +of my will; but it was not so. In three cases, the events came +unexpectedly; but in the fourth case I had long anticipated the moment +with extreme dread. Yet in that last case the fear suddenly slipped +away, without the smallest effort on my part; and in all four cases +some strange gusto of experience, some sense of heightened life and +adventure, rose in the mind like a fountain—so that even in the +crevasse I said to myself, not excitedly but serenely, "So this is what +it feels like to await death!" +</P> + +<P> +It was this particular experience which gave me an inkling into that +which in so many tragic histories seems incredible—that men often do +pass to death, by scaffold and by stake, at the last moment, in +serenity and even in joy. I do not doubt for a moment that it is the +immortal principle in man, the sense of deathlessness, which comes to +his aid. It is the instinct which, in spite of all knowledge and +experience, says suddenly, in a moment like that, "Well, what then?" +That instinct is a far truer thing than any expectation or imagination. +It sees things, in supreme moments, in a true proportion. It asserts +that when the rope jerks, or the flames leap up, or the benumbing blow +falls, there is something there which cannot possibly be injured, and +which indeed is rather freed from the body of our humiliation. It is +but an incident, after all, in a much longer and more momentous voyage. +It means only the closing of one chapter of experience and the +beginning of another. The base element in it is the fear which dreads +the opening of the door, and the quitting of what is familiar. And I +feel assured of this, that the one universal and inevitable experience, +known to us as death, must in reality be a very simple and even a +natural affair, and that when we can look back upon it, it will seem to +us amazing that we can ever have regarded it as so momentous and +appalling a thing. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DARKEST DOUBT +</H3> + +<P> +Now we can make no real advance in the things of the spirit until we +have seen what lies on the other side of fear; fear cannot help us to +grow, at best it can only teach us to be prudent; it does not of itself +destroy the desire to offend—only shame can do that; if our wish to be +different comes merely from our being afraid to transgress, then, if +the fear of punishment were to be removed, we should go back with a +light heart to our old sins. We may obey irresponsible power, because +we know that it can hurt us if we disobey; but unless we can perceive +the reason why this and that is forbidden, we cannot concur with law. +We learn as children that flame has power to hurt us, but we only dread +the fire because it can injure us, not because we admire the reason +which it has for burning. So long as we do not sin simply because we +know the laws of life which punish sin, we have not learned any hatred +of sin; it is only because we hate the punishment more than we love the +sin, that we abstain. +</P> + +<P> +Socrates once said, in one of his wise paradoxes, that it was better to +sin knowingly than ignorantly. That is a hard saying, but it means that +at least if we sin knowingly, there is some purpose, some courage in +the soul. We take a risk with our eyes open, and our purpose may +perhaps be changed; whereas if we sin ignorantly, we do so out of a +mere base instinct, and there is no purpose that may be educated. +Anyone who has ever had the task of teaching boys or young men to write +will know how much easier it is to teach those who write volubly and +exuberantly, and desire to express themselves, even if they do it with +many faults and lapses of taste; taste and method may be corrected, if +only the instinct of expression is there. But the young man who has no +impulse to write, who says that he could think of nothing to say, it is +impossible to teach him much, because one cannot communicate the desire +for expression. +</P> + +<P> +And the same holds good of life. Those who have strong vital impulses +can learn restraint and choice; but the people who have no particular +impulses and preferences, who just live out of mere impetus and habit, +who plod along, doing in a dispirited way just what they find to do, +and lapsing into indolence and indifference the moment that prescribed +work ceases, those are the spirits that afford the real problem, +because they despise activity, and think energy a mere exhibition of +fussy diffuseness. +</P> + +<P> +But the generous, eager, wilful nature, who has always some aim in +sight, who makes mistakes perhaps, gives offence, collides +high-heartedly with others, makes both friends and enemies, loves and +hates, is anxious, jealous, self-absorbed, resentful, intolerant—there +is always hope for such an one, for he is quick to despair, capable of +shame, swift to repent, and even when he is worsted and wounded, rises +to fight again. Such a nature, through pain and love, can learn to +chasten his base desires, and to choose the nobler and worthier way. +</P> + +<P> +But what does really differentiate men and women is not their power of +fearing and suffering, but their power of caring and admiring. The only +real and vital force in the world is the force which attracts, the +beauty which is so desirable that one must imitate it if one can, the +wisdom which is so calm and serene that one must possess it if one may. +</P> + +<P> +And thus all depends upon our discerning in the world a loving +intention of some kind, which holds us in view, and draws us to itself. +If we merely think of God and nature as an inflexible system of laws, +and that our only chance of happiness is to slip in and out of them, as +a man might pick his way among red-hot ploughshares, thankful if he can +escape burning, then we can make no sort of advance, because we can +have neither faith nor trust. The thing from which one merely flees can +have no real power over our spirit; but if we know God as a fatherly +Heart behind nature, who is leading us on our way, then indeed we can +walk joyfully in happiness, and undismayed in trouble; because troubles +then become only the wearisome incidents of the upward ascent, the +fatigue, the failing breath, the strained muscles, the discomfort which +is actually taking us higher, and cannot by any means be avoided. +</P> + +<P> +But fear is the opposite of all this; it is the dread of the unknown, +the ghastly doubt as to whether there is any goal before us or not; +when we fear, we are like the butterfly that flutters anxiously away +from the boy who pursues it, who means out of mere wantonness to strike +it down tattered and bruised among the grass-stems. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VULNERABILITY +</H3> + +<P> +There have been many attempts in the history of mankind to escape from +the dominion of fear; the essence of fear, that which prompts it, is +the consciousness of our vulnerability. What we all dread is the +disease or the accident that may disable us, the loss of money or +credit, the death of those whom we love and whose love makes the +sunshine of our life, the anger and hostility and displeasure and scorn +and ill-usage of those about us. These are the definite things which +the anxious mind forecasts, and upon which it mournfully dwells. +</P> + +<P> +The object then in the minds of the philosophers or teachers who would +fain relieve the unhappiness of the world, has been always to suggest +ways in which this vulnerability may be lessened; and thus their object +has been to disengage as far as possible the hopes and affections of +men from things which must always be fleeting. That is the principle +which lies behind all asceticism, that, if one can be indifferent to +wealth and comfort and popularity, one has a better chance of serenity. +The essence of that teaching is not that pleasant things are not +desirable, but that one is more miserable if one loses them than if one +never cares for them at all. The ascetic trains himself to be +indifferent about food and drink and the apparatus of life; he aims at +celibacy partly because love itself is an overmastering passion, and +partly because he cannot bear to engage himself with human affections, +the loss of which may give him pain. There is, of course, a deeper +strain in asceticism than this, which is a suspicious mistrust of all +physical joys and a sense of their baseness; but that is in itself an +artistic preference of mental and spiritual joys, and a defiance to +everything which may impair or invade them. +</P> + +<P> +The Stoic imperturbability is an attempt to take a further step; not to +fly from life, but to mingle with it, and yet to grow to be not +dependent on it. The Stoic ideal was a high one, to cultivate a +firmness of mind that was on the one hand not to be dismayed by pain or +suffering, and on the other to use life so temperately and judiciously +as not to form habits of indulgence which it would be painful to +discontinue. The weakness of Stoicism was that it despised human +relations; and the strength of primitive Christianity was that, while +it recommended a Stoical simplicity of life, it taught men not to be +afraid of love, but to use and lavish love freely, as being the one +thing which would survive death and not be cut short by it. The +Christian teaching came to this, that the world was meant to be a +school of love, and that love was to be an outward-rippling ring of +affection extending from the family outwards to the tribe, the nation, +the world, and on to God Himself. It laid all its emphasis on the truth +that love is the one immortal thing, that all the joys and triumphs of +the world pass away with the decay of its material framework, but that +love passes boldly on, with linked hands, into the darkness of the +unknown. +</P> + +<P> +The one loss that Christianity recognised was the loss of love; the one +punishment it dreaded was the withholding of love. +</P> + +<P> +As Christianity soaked into the world, it became vitiated, and drew +into itself many elements of human weakness. It became a social force, +it learned to depend on property, it fulminated a code of criminality, +and accepted human standards of prosperity and wealth. It lost its +simplicity and became sophisticated. It is hard to say that men of the +world should not, if they wish, claim to be Christians, but the whole +essence of Christianity is obscured if it is forgotten that its vital +attributes are its indifference to material conveniences, and its +emphatic acceptance of sympathy as the one supreme virtue. +</P> + +<P> +This is but another way of expressing that our troubles and our terrors +alike are based on selfishness, and that if we are really concerned +with the welfare of others we shall not be much concerned with our own. +</P> + +<P> +The difficulty in adopting the Christian theory is that God does not +apparently intend to cure the world by creating all men unselfish. +People are born selfish, and the laws of nature and heredity seem to +ordain that it shall be so. Indeed a certain selfishness seems to be +inseparable from any desire to live. The force of asceticism and of +Stoicism is that they both appeal to selfishness as a motive. They +frankly say, "Happiness is your aim, personal happiness; but instead of +grasping at pleasure whenever it offers, you will find it more prudent +in the end not to care too much about such things." It is true that +popular Christianity makes the same sort of appeal. It says, or seems +to say, "If you grasp at happiness in this world, you may secure a +great deal of it successfully; but it will be worse for you eventually." +</P> + +<P> +The theory of life as taught and enforced, for instance, in such a work +as Dante's great poem is based upon this crudity of thought. Dante, by +his Hell and his Purgatory, expressed plainly that the chief motive of +man to practise morality must be his fear of ultimate punishment. His +was an attempt to draw away the curtain which hides this world from the +next, and to horrify men into living purely and kindly. But the mind +only revolts against the dastardly injustice of a God, who allows men +to be born into the world so corrupt, with so many incentives to sin, +and deliberately hides from them the ghastly sight of the eternal +torments, which might have saved them from recklessness of life. No one +who had trod the dark caverns of Hell or the flinty ridges of +Purgatory, as Dante represented himself doing, who had seen the awful +sights and heard the heart-broken words of the place, could have +returned to the world as a light-hearted sinner! Whatever we may +believe of God, we must not for an instant allow ourselves to believe +that life can be so brief and finite, so small and hampered an +opportunity, and that punishment could be so demoniacal and so +infinite. A God who could design such a scheme must be essentially evil +and malignant. We may menace wicked men with punishment for wanton +misdeeds, but it must be with just punishment. What could we say of a +human father who exposed a child to temptation without explaining the +consequences, and then condemned him to lifelong penalties for failing +to make the right choice? We must firmly believe that if offences are +finite, punishment must be finite too; that it must be remedial and not +mechanical. We must believe that if we deserve punishment, it will be +because we can hope for restoration. Hell is a monstrous and +insupportable fiction, and the idea of it is simply inconsistent with +any belief in the goodness of God. It is easy to quote texts to support +it, but we must not allow any text, any record in the world, however +sacred, to shatter our belief in the Love and Justice of God. And I say +as frankly and directly as I can that until we can get rid of this +intolerable terror, we can make no advance at all. +</P> + +<P> +The old, fierce Saints, who went into the darkness exulting in the +thought of the eternal damnation of the wicked, had not spelt the first +letter of the Christian creed, and I doubt not have discovered their +mistake long ago! Yet there are pious people in the world who will +neither think nor speak frankly of the subject, for fear of weakening +the motives for human virtue. I will at least speak frankly, and though +I believe with all my heart in a life beyond the grave, in which +suffering enough may exist for the cure of those who by wilful sin have +sunk into sloth and hopelessness and despair, and even into cruelty and +brutality, I do not for an instant believe that the conduct of the +vilest human being who ever set foot on the earth can deserve more than +a term of punishment, or that such punishment will have anything that +is vindictive about it. +</P> + +<P> +It may be said that I am here only combating an old-fashioned idea, and +that no one believes in the old theory of eternal punishment, or that +if they believe that the possibility exists, they do not believe that +any human being can incur it. But I feel little doubt that the belief +does exist, and that it is more widespread than one cares to believe. +To believe it is to yield to the darkest and basest temptation of fear, +and keeps all who hold it back from the truth of God. +</P> + +<P> +What then are we to believe about the punishment of our sins? I look +back upon my own life, and I see numberless occasions—they rise up +before me, a long perspective of failures—when I have acted cruelly, +selfishly, self-indulgently, basely, knowing perfectly well that I was +so behaving. What was wrong with me? Why did I so behave? Because I +preferred the baser course, and thought at the time that it gave me +pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +Well then, what do I wish about all that? I wish it had not happened +so, I wish I had been kinder, more just, more self-restrained, more +strong. I am ashamed, because I condemn myself, and because I know that +those whom I love and honour would condemn me, if they knew all. But I +do not, therefore, lose all hope of myself, nor do I think that God +will not show me how to be different. If it can only be done by +suffering, I dread the suffering, but I am ready to suffer if I can +become what I should wish to be. But I do not for a moment think that +God will cast me off or turn His face away from me because I have +sinned; and I can pray that He will lead me into light and strength. +</P> + +<P> +And thus it is not my vulnerability that I dread; I rather welcome it +as a sign that I may learn the truth so. And I will not look upon my +desire for pleasant things as a proof that I am evil, but rather as a +proof that God is showing me where happiness lies, and teaching me by +my mistakes to discern and value it. He could make me perfect if He +would, in a single instant. But the fact that He does not, is a sign +that He has something better in store for me than a mere mechanical +perfection. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE USE OF FEAR +</H3> + +<P> +The advantages of the fearful temperament, if it is not a mere +unmanning and desolating dread, are not to be overlooked. Fear is the +shadow of the imaginative, the resourceful, the inventive temperament, +but it multiplies resource and invention a hundredfold. Everyone knows +the superstition which is deeply rooted in humanity, that a time of +exaltation and excitement and unusual success is held to be often the +prelude to some disaster, just as the sense of excitement and buoyant +health, when it is very consciously perceived, is thought to herald the +approach of illness. "I felt so happy," people say, "that I was sure +that some misfortune was going to befall me—it is not lucky to feel so +secure as that!" This represented itself to the Greeks as part of the +divine government of the world; they thought that the heedless and +self-confident man was beguiled by success into what they called ubris, +the insolence of prosperity; and that then atae, that is, disaster, +followed. They believed that the over-prosperous man incurred the envy +and jealousy of the gods. We see this in the old legend of Polycrates +of Samos, whose schemes all succeeded, and whose ventures all turned +out well. He consulted a soothsayer about his alarming prosperity, who +advised him to inflict some deliberate loss or sacrifice upon himself; +so Polycrates drew from his finger and flung into the sea a signet-ring +which he possessed, with a jewel of great rarity and beauty in it. Soon +afterwards a fish was caught by the royal fisherman, and was served up +at the king's table—there, inside the body of the fish, was the ring; +and when Polycrates saw that, he felt that the gods had restored him +his gift, and that his destruction was determined upon; which came +true, for he was caught by pirates at sea, and crucified upon a rocky +headland. +</P> + +<P> +No nation, and least of all the Greeks, would have arrived at this +theory of life and fate, if they had not felt that it was supported by +actual instances. It was of the nature of an inference from the facts +of life; and the explanation undoubtedly is that men do get betrayed, +by a constant experience of good fortune, into rashness and +heedlessness, because they trust to their luck and depend upon their +fortunate star. +</P> + +<P> +But the man who is of an energetic and active type, if he is haunted by +anxiety, if his imagination paints the possibilities of disaster, takes +every means in his power to foresee contingencies, and to deal +cautiously and thoroughly with the situation which causes him anxiety. +If he is a man of keen sensibilities, the pressure of such care is so +insupportable that he takes prompt and effective measures to remove it; +and his fear thus becomes an element in his success, because it urges +him to action, and at the same time teaches him the need of due +precaution. As Horace wrote: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Sperat infestis, metuit secundis<BR> + Alteram sortem."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"He hopes for a change of fortune when things are menacing, he fears a +reverse when things are prosperous." And if we look at the facts of +life, we see that it is not by any means the confident and optimistic +people who succeed best in their designs. It is rather the man of eager +and ambitious temperament, who dreads a repulse and anticipates it, and +takes all possible measures beforehand to avoid it. +</P> + +<P> +We see the same principle underlying the scientific doctrine of +evolution. People often think loosely that the idea of evolution, in +the case, let us say, of a bird like a heron, with his immobility, his +long legs, his pointed beak, his muscular neck, is that such +characteristics have been evolved through long ages by birds that have +had to get their food in swamps and shallow lakes, and were thus +gradually equipped for food-getting through long ages of practice. But +of course no particular bird is thus modified by circumstances. A +pigeon transferred to a fen would not develop the characteristics of +the heron; it would simply die for lack of food. It is rather that +certain minute variations take place, for unknown reasons, in every +species; and the bird which happened to be hatched out in a fenland +with a rather sharper beak or rather longer legs than his fellows, +would have his power of obtaining food slightly increased, and would +thus be more likely to perpetuate in his offspring that particular +advantage of form. This principle working through endless centuries +would tend slowly to develop the stock that was better equipped for +life under such circumstances, and to eliminate those less suited to +the locality; and thus the fittest would tend to survive. But it does +not indicate any design on the part of the birds themselves, nor any +deliberate attempt to develop those characteristics; it is rather that +such characteristics, once started by natural variation, tend to +emphasize themselves in the lapse of time. +</P> + +<P> +No doubt fear has played an enormous part in the progress of the human +race itself. The savage whose imagination was stronger than that of +other savages, and who could forecast the possibilities of disaster, +would wander through the forest with more precaution against wild +beasts, and would make his dwelling more secure against assault; so +that the more timid and imaginative type would tend to survive longest +and to multiply their stock. Man in his physical characteristics is a +very weak, frail, and helpless animal, exposed to all kinds of dangers; +his infancy is protracted and singularly defenceless; his pace is slow, +his strength is insignificant; it is his imagination that has put him +at the top of creation, and has enabled him both to evade dangers and +to use natural forces for his greater security. Though he is the +youngest of all created forms, and by no means the best equipped for +life, he has been able to go ahead in a way denied to all other +animals; his inventiveness has been largely developed by his terrors; +and the result has been that whereas all other animals still preserve, +as a condition of life, their ceaseless attitude of suspicion and fear, +man has been enabled by organisation to establish communities in which +fear of disaster plays but little part. If one watches a bird feeding +on a lawn, it is strange to observe its ceaseless vigilance. It takes a +hurried mouthful, and then looks round in an agitated manner to see +that it is in no danger of attack. Yet it is clear that the terror in +which all wild animals seem to live, and without which +self-preservation would be impossible, does not in the least militate +against their physical welfare. A man who had to live his life under +the same sort of risks that a bird in a garden has to endure from cats +and other foes, would lose his senses from the awful pressure of +terror; he would lie under the constant shadow of assassination. +</P> + +<P> +But the singular thing in Nature is that she preserves characteristics +long after they have ceased to be needed; and so, though a man in a +civilised community has very little to dread, he is still haunted by an +irrational sense of insecurity and precariousness. And thus many of our +fears arise from old inheritance, and represent nothing rational or +real at all, but only an old and savage need of vigilance and wariness. +</P> + +<P> +One can see this exemplified in a curious way in level tracts of +country. Everyone who has traversed places like the plain of +Worcestershire must remember the irritating way in which the roads keep +ascending little eminences, instead of going round at the foot. Now +these old country roads no doubt represent very ancient tracks indeed, +dating from times when much of the land was uncultivated. They get +stereotyped, partly because they were tracks, and partly because for +convenience the first enclosures and tillages were made along the roads +for purposes of communication. But the perpetual tendency to ascend +little eminences no doubt dates from a time when it was safer to go up, +in order to look round and to see ahead, partly in order to be sure of +one's direction, and partly to beware of the manifold dangers of the +road. +</P> + +<P> +And thus many of the fears by which one is haunted are these old +survivals, these inherited anxieties. Who does not know the frame of +mind when perhaps for a day, perhaps for days together, the mind is +oppressed and uneasy, scenting danger in the air, forecasting calamity, +recounting all the possible directions in which fate or malice may have +power to wound and hurt us? It is a melancholy inheritance, but it +cannot be combated by any reason. It is of no use then to imitate +Robinson Crusoe, and to make a list of one's blessings on a piece of +paper; that only increases our fear, because it is just the chance of +forfeiting such blessings of which we are in dread! We must simply +remind ourselves that we are surrounded by old phantoms, and that we +derive our weakness from ages far back, in which risks were many and +security was rare. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FEARS OF CHILDHOOD +</H3> + +<P> +If I look back over my own life, I can discern three distinct stages of +fear and anxieties, and I expect it is the same with most people. The +terrors of childhood are very mysterious things, and their horror +consists in the child's inability to put the dread into words. I +remember how one night, when we were living in the Master's Lodge at +Wellington College, I had gone to bed, and waking soon afterwards heard +a voice somewhere outside. I got out of bed, went to the door, and +looked out. Close to my door was an archway which looked into the open +gallery that ran round the big front hall, giving access to the +bedrooms. At the opposite end of the hall, in the gallery, burnt a +gaslight: to my horror I observed close to the gas what seemed to me a +colossal shrouded statue, made of a black bronze, formless, silent, +awful. I crept back to my bed, and there shivered in an ecstasy of +fear, till at last I fell asleep. There was no statue there in the +morning! I told my old nurse, after a day or two of dumb dread, what I +had seen. She laughed, and told me that a certain Mrs. Holder, an +elderly widow who was a dressmaker, had been to see her, about some +piece of work. They had turned out the nursery lights and were going +downstairs, when some question arose about the stuff of the frock, +whatever it was. Mrs. Holder had mounted on a chair to look close at +the stuff by the gaslight; and this was my bogey! +</P> + +<P> +We had a delightful custom in nursery days, devised by my mother, that +on festival occasions, such as birthdays or at Christmas, our presents +were given us in the evening by a fairy called Abracadabra. +</P> + +<P> +The first time the fairy appeared, we heard, after tea, in the hall, +the hoarse notes of a horn. We rushed out in amazement. Down in the +hall, talking to an aunt of mine who was staying in the house, stood a +veritable fairy, in a scarlet dress, carrying a wand and a scarlet bag, +and wearing a high pointed scarlet hat, of the shape of an +extinguisher. My aunt called us down; and we saw that the fairy had the +face of a great ape, dark-brown, spectacled, of a good-natured aspect, +with a broad grin, and a curious crop of white hair, hanging down +behind and on each side. Unfortunately my eldest brother, a very clever +and imaginative child, was seized with a panic so insupportable at the +sight of the face, that his present had to be given him hurriedly, and +he was led away, blanched and shuddering, to the nursery. After that, +the fairy never appeared except when he was at school: but long after, +when I was looking in a lumber-room with my brother for some mislaid +toys, I found in a box the mask of Abracadabra and the horn. I put it +hurriedly on, and blew a blast on the horn, which seemed to be of +tortoise-shell with metal fittings. To my amazement, he turned +perfectly white, covered his face with his hands, and burst out with +the most dreadful moans. I thought at first that he was making believe +to be frightened, but I saw in a minute or two that he had quite lost +control of himself, and the things were hurriedly put away. At the time +I thought it a silly kind of affectation. But I perceive now that he +had had a real shock the first time he had seen the mask; and though he +was then a big schoolboy, the terror was indelible. Who can say of what +old inheritance of fear that horror of the great ape-like countenance +was the sign? He had no associations of fear with apes, but it must +have been, I think, some dim old primeval terror, dating from some +ancestral encounter with a forest monster. In no other way can I +explain it. +</P> + +<P> +Again, as a child, I was once sitting at dinner with my parents, +reading an old bound-up Saturday Magazine, looking at the pictures, and +waiting for dessert. I turned a page, and saw a picture of a Saint, +lying on the ground, holding up a cross, and a huge and cloudy fiend +with vast bat-like wings bending over him, preparing to clutch him, but +deterred by the sacred emblem. That was a really terrible shock. I +turned the page hastily, and said nothing, though it deprived me of +speech and appetite. My father noticed my distress, and asked if I felt +unwell, but I said "No." I got through dessert somehow; but then I had +to say good-night, go out into the dimly-lit hall, slip the volume back +into the bookcase, and get upstairs. I tore up the staircase, feeling +the air full of wings and clutching hands. That was too bad ever to be +spoken of; and as I did not remember which volume it was, I was never +able to look at the set of magazines again for fear of encountering it; +and strange to say some years afterwards, when I was an Eton boy, I +looked curiously for the picture, and again experienced the same +overwhelming horror. +</P> + +<P> +My youngest brother, too, an imaginative child, could never be +persuaded by any bribes or entreaties to go into a dark room to fetch +anything out. Nothing would induce him. I remember that he was +catechised at the tea-table as to what he expected to find, to which he +replied at once, with a horror-stricken look and a long stammer, +"B—b—b—bloodstained corpses!" +</P> + +<P> +It seems fantastic and ridiculous enough to older people, but the +horror of the dark and of the unknown which some children have is not a +thing to be laughed at, nor should it be unsympathetically combated. +One must remember that experience has not taught a child scepticism; he +thinks that anything in the world may happen; and all the monsters of +nursery tales, goblins, witches, evil fairies, dragons, which a child +in daylight will know to be imaginary, begin, as the dusk draws on, to +become appalling possibilities. They may be somewhere about, lurking in +cellars and cupboards and lofts and dark entries by day, and at night +they may slip out to do what harm they can. For children, not far from +the gates of birth, are still strongly the victims of primeval and +inherited fears, not corrected by the habitual current of life. It is +not a reason for depriving children of the joys of the old tales and +the exercise of the faculty of wonder; but the tendency should be very +carefully guarded and watched, because these sudden shocks may make +indelible marks, and leave a little weak spot in the mind which may +prove difficult to heal. +</P> + +<P> +It is not only these spectral terrors against which children have to be +guarded. All severity and sharp indignity of punishment, all +intemperate anger, all roughness of treatment, should be kept in strict +restraint. There are noisy, boisterous, healthy children, of course, +who do not resent or even dread sharp usage. But it is not always easy +to discover the sensitive child, because fear of displeasure will +freeze him into a stupor of apparent dullness and stubbornness. I am +always infuriated by stupid people who regret the disappearance of +sharp, stern, peremptory punishments, and lament the softness of the +rising generation. If punishment must be inflicted, it should be done +good-naturedly and robustly as a natural tit-for-tat. Anger should be +reserved for things like spitefulness and dishonesty and cruelty. There +is nothing more utterly confusing to the childish mind than to have +trifling faults treated with wrath and indignation. It is true that, in +the world of nature, punishment seems often wholly disproportionate to +offences. Nature will penalise carelessness in a disastrous fashion, +and spare the cautious and prudent sinner. But there is no excuse for +us, if we have any sense of justice and patience at all, for not +setting a better example. We ought to show children that there is a +moral order which we are endeavouring to administer. If parents and +schoolmasters, who are both judges and executioners, allow their own +rule to be fortuitous, indulge their own irritable moods, punish +severely a trifling fault, and sentimentalise or condone a serious one, +a child is utterly confused. I know several people who have had their +lives blighted, have been made suspicious, cynical, crafty, and timid, +by severe usage and bullying and open contempt in childhood. The thing +to avoid, for all who are responsible in the smallest degree for the +nurture of children, is to call in the influence of fear; one may speak +plainly of consequences, but even there one must not exaggerate, as +schoolmasters often do, for the best of motives, about moral faults; +one may punish deliberate and repeated disobedience, wanton cruelty, +persistent and selfish disregard of the rights of others, but one must +warn many times, and never try to triumph over a fault by the +infliction of a shock of any kind. The shock is the most cruel and +cowardly sort of punishment, and if we wilfully use it, then we are +perpetuating the sad tyranny of instinctive fear, and using the +strength of a great angel to do the work of a demon, such as I saw long +ago in the old magazine, and felt its tyranny for many days. +</P> + +<P> +As a child the one thing I was afraid of was the possibility of my +father's displeasure. We did not see a great deal of him, because he +was a much occupied headmaster; and he was to me a stately and majestic +presence, before whom the whole created world seemed visibly to bow. +But he was deeply anxious about our upbringing, and had a very strong +sense of his responsibility; and he would sometimes reprove us rather +sternly for some extremely trifling thing, the way one ate one's food, +or spoke, or behaved. This descended upon me as a cloud of darkness; I +attempted no excuses, I did not explain or defend myself; I simply was +crushed and confounded. I do not think it was the right method. He +never punished us, but we were not at ease with him. I remember the +agony with which I heard a younger sister once repeat to him some silly +and profane little jokes which a good-natured and absurd old lady had +told us in the nursery. I felt sure he would disapprove, as he did. I +knew quite well in my childish mind that it was harmless nonsense, and +did not give us a taste for ungodly mirth. But I could not intervene or +expostulate. I am sure that my father had not the slightest idea how +weighty and dominant he was; but many of the things he rebuked would +have been better not noticed, or if noticed only made fun of, while I +feel that he ought to have given us more opportunity of stating our +case. He simply frightened me into having a different morality when I +was in his presence to what I had elsewhere. But he did not make me +love goodness thereby, and only gave me a sense that certain things, +harmless in themselves, must not be done or said in the presence of +papa. He did not always remember his own rules, and there was thus an +element of injustice in his rebukes, which one merely accepted as part +of his awful and unaccountable greatness. +</P> + +<P> +When I was transferred to a private school, a great big place, very +well managed in every way, I lived for a time in atrocious terror of +everything and everybody. I was conscious of a great code of rules +which I did not know or understand, which I might quite unwittingly +break, and the consequences of which might be fatal. I was never +punished or caned, nor was I ever bullied. But I simply effaced myself +as far as possible, and lived in dread of disaster. The thought even +now of certain high blank walls with lofty barred windows, the +remembered smells of certain passages and corners, the tall form and +flashing eye of our headmaster and the faint fragrance of Havana cigars +which hung about him, the bare corridors with their dark cupboards, the +stone stairs and iron railings—all this gives me a far-off sense of +dread. I can give no reason for my unhappiness there; but I can +recollect waking in the early summer mornings, hearing the screams of +peacocks from an adjoining garden, and thinking with a dreadful sense +of isolation and despair of all the possibilities of disaster that lay +hid in the day. I am sure it was not a wholesome experience. One need +not fear the world more than is necessary—but my only dream of peace +was the escape to the delights of home, and the thought of the larger +world was only a thing that I shrank from and shuddered at. +</P> + +<P> +No, it is wrong to say one had no friends, but how few they seemed and +how clearly they stand out! I did not make friends among the boys; they +were pleasant enough acquaintances, some of them, but not to be trusted +or confided in; they had to be kept at arm's length, and one's real +life guarded and hoarded away from them; because if one told them +anything about one's home or one's ideas, it might be repeated, and the +sacred facts shouted in one's ears as taunts and jests. But there was a +little bluff master, a clergyman, with shaggy rippled red-brown hair +and a face like a pug-dog. He was kind to me, and had me to lunch one +Sunday in a villa out at Barnes—that was a breath of life, to sit in a +homelike room and look at old Punches half the afternoon; and there was +another young man, a master, rather stout and pale, with whom I shared +some little jokes, and who treated me as he might treat a younger +brother; he was pledged, I remember, to give me a cake if I won an Eton +Scholarship, and royally he redeemed his promise. He died of heart +disease a little while after I left the school. I had promised to write +to him from Eton and never did so, and I had a little pang about that +when I heard of his death. And then there was the handsome loud-voiced +maid of my dormitory, Underwood by name, who was always just and kind, +and who, even when she rated us, as she did at times, had always +something human beckoning from her handsome eye. I can see her now, +with her sleeves tucked up, and her big white muscular arms, washing a +refractory little boy who fought shy of soap and water. I had a wild +idea of giving her a kiss when I went away, and I think she would have +liked that. She told me I had always been a good boy, and that she was +sorry that I was going; but I did not dare to embrace her. +</P> + +<P> +And then there was dear Louisa, the matron of the little sanatorium on +the Mortlake road. She had been a former housemaid of ours; she was a +strong sturdy woman, with a deep voice like a man, and when I arrived +there ill—I was often ill in those days—she used to hug and kiss me +and even cry over me; and the happiest days I spent at school were in +that poky little house, reading in Louisa's little parlour, while she +prepared some special dish as a treat for my supper; or sitting hour by +hour at the window of my room upstairs, watching a grocer opposite set +out his window. I certainly did love Louisa with all my heart; and it +was almost pleasant to be ill, to be welcomed by her and petted and +made much of. "My own dear boy," she used to say, and it was music in +my ears. +</P> + +<P> +I feel on looking back that, if I had children of my own, I should +study very carefully to avoid any sort of terrorism. Psychologists tell +us that the nervous shocks of early years are the things that leave +indelible marks throughout life. I believe that mental specialists +often make a careful study of the dreams of those whose minds are +afflicted, because it is held that dreams very often continue to +reproduce in later life the mental shocks of childhood. Anger, +intemperate punishment, any attempt to produce instant submission and +dismay in children, is very apt to hurt the nervous organisation. Of +course it is easy enough to be careful about these things in sheltered +environments, where there is some security and refinement of life. And +this opens up a vast problem which cannot be touched on here, because +it is practically certain that many children in poor and unsatisfactory +homes sustain shocks to their mental organisation in early life which +damage them irreparably, and which could be avoided if they could be +brought up on more wholesome and tender lines. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FEARS OF BOYHOOD +</H3> + +<P> +There is a tendency, I am sure, in books, to shirk the whole subject of +fear, as though it were a thing disgraceful, shameful, almost +unmentionable. The coward, the timid person, receives very little +sympathy; he is rather like one tainted with a shocking disease, of +which the less said the better. He is not viewed with any sympathy or +commiseration, but as something almost lower in the scale of humanity. +Take the literature that deals with school life, for instance. I do not +think that there is any province of our literature so inept, so +conventional, so entirely lacking in reality, as the books which deal +with the life of schools. The difficulty of writing them is very great, +because they can only be reconstructed by an effort of memory. The boy +himself is quite unable to give expression to his thoughts and +feelings; school life is a time of sharp, eager, often rather savage +emotions, lived by beings who have no sense of proportion, no knowledge +of life, no idea of what is really going on in the world. The actual +incidents which occur are very trivial, and yet to the fresh minds and +spirits of boyhood they seem all charged with an intense significance. +Then again the talk of schoolboys is wholly immature and shapeless. +They cannot express themselves, and moreover there is a very strict and +peremptory convention which dictates what may be talked about and what +may not. No society in the world is under so oppressive a taboo. They +must not speak of anything emotional or intellectual, at the cost of +being thought a fool or a prig. They talk about games, they gossip +about boys and masters, sometimes their conversation is nasty and +bestial. But it conceals very real if very fitful emotions; yet it is +impossible to recall or to reconstruct; and when older people attempt +to reconstruct it, they remember the emotions which underlay it, and +the eager interests out of which it all sprang; and they make it +something picturesque, epigrammatic, and vernacular which is wholly +untrue to life. The fact is that the talk of schoolboys is very trivial +and almost wholly symbolical; emotion reveals itself in glance and +gesture, not in word at all. I suppose that most of us remember our +boyish friendships, ardent and eager personal admirations, +extraordinary deifications of quite commonplace boys, emotions none of +which were ever put into words at all, hardly even into coherent +thought, and were yet a swift and vital current of the soul. +</P> + +<P> +Now the most unreal part of the reconstructions of school life is the +insistence on the boyish code of honour. Neither as a boy nor as a +schoolmaster did I ever have much evidence of this. There were certain +hard and fast rules of conduct, like the rule which prevented any boy +from giving information to a master against another boy. But this was +not a conscientious thing. It was part of the tradition, and the social +ostracism which was the penalty of its infraction was too severe to +risk incurring. But the boys who cut a schoolfellow for telling tales, +did not do it from any high-minded sense of violated honour. It was +simply a piece of self-defence, and the basis of the convention was +merely this, that, if the rule were broken, it would produce an +impossible sense of insecurity and peril. However much boys might on +the whole approve of, respect, and even like their masters, still they +could not make common cause with them. The school was a perfectly +definite community, inside of which it was often convenient and +pleasant to do things which would be penalised if discovered; and thus +the whole stability of that society depended upon a certain secrecy. +The masters were not disliked for finding out the infractions of rules, +if only such infractions were patent and obvious. A master who looked +too closely into things, who practised any sort of espionage, who tried +to extort confession, was disapproved of as a menace, and it was +convenient to label him a sneak and a spy, and to say that he did not +play the game fair. But all this was a mere tradition. Boys do not +reflect much, or look into the reasons of things. It does not occur to +them to credit masters with the motive of wishing to protect them +against themselves, to minimise temptation, to shelter them from +undesirable influences; that perhaps dawns on the minds of sensible and +high-minded prefects, but the ordinary boy just regards the master as +an opposing power, whom he hoodwinks if he can. +</P> + +<P> +And then the boyish ideal of courage is a very incomplete one. He does +not recognise it as courage if a sensitive, conscientious, and +right-minded boy risks unpopularity by telling a master of some evil +practice which is spreading in a school. He simply regards it as a +desire to meddle, a priggish and pragmatical act, and even as a +sneaking desire to inflict punishment by proxy. +</P> + +<P> +Courage, for the schoolboy, is merely physical courage, aplomb, +boldness, recklessness, high-handedness. The hero of school life is one +like Odysseus, who is strong, inventive, daring, full of resource. The +point is to come out on the top. Odysseus yields to sensual delight, he +is cruel, vindictive, and incredibly deceitful. It is evident that +successful beguiling, the power of telling an elaborate, plausible, and +imperturbable lie on occasions, is an heroic quality in the Odyssey. +Odysseus is not a man who scorns to deceive, or who would rather take +the consequences than utter a falsehood. His strength rather lies in +his power, when at bay, of flashing into some monstrous fiction, +dramatising the situation, playing an adopted part, with confidence and +assurance. One sees traces of the same thing in the Bible. The story of +Jacob deceiving Isaac, and pretending to be Esau in order to secure a +blessing is not related with disapprobation. Jacob does not forfeit his +blessing when his deceit is discovered. The whole incident is regarded +rather as a master-stroke of cunning and inventiveness. Esau is angry +not because Jacob has employed such trickery, but because he has +succeeded in supplanting him. +</P> + +<P> +I remember, as a boy at Eton, seeing a scene which left a deep +impression on me. There was a big unpleasant unscrupulous boy of great +physical strength, who was a noted football player. He was extremely +unpopular in the school, because he was rude, sulky, and overbearing, +and still more because he took unfair advantages in games. There was a +hotly contested house-match, in which he tried again and again to evade +rules, while he was for ever appealing to the umpires against +violations of rule by the opposite side. His own house was ultimately +victorious, but feeling ran very high indeed, because it was thought +that the victory was unfairly won. The crowd of boys who had been +watching the match drifted away in a state of great exasperation, and +finally collected in front of the house of the unpopular player, hissed +and hooted him. He took very little notice of the demonstration and +walked in, when there arose a babel of howls. He turned round and came +out again, facing the crowd. I can see him now, all splashed and muddy, +with his shirt open at the neck. He was pale, ugly, and sinister; but +he surveyed us all with entire effrontery, drew out a pince-nez, being +very short-sighted, and then looked calmly round as if surprised. I +have certainly never seen such an exhibition of courage in my life. He +knew that he had not a single friend present, and he did not know that +he would not be maltreated—there were indications of a rush being +made. He did not look in the least picturesque; he was ugly, scowling, +offensive. But he did not care a rap, and if he had been attacked, he +would have defended himself with a will. It did not occur to me then, +nor did it, I think, occur to anyone else, what an amazing bit of +physical and moral courage it was. No one, then or after, had the +slightest feeling of admiration for his pluck. "Did you ever see such a +brute as P— looked?" was the only sort of comment made. +</P> + +<P> +This just serves to illustrate my point, that boys have no real +discernment for what is courageous. What they admire is a certain grace +and spirit, and the hero is not one who constrains himself to do an +unpopular thing from a sense of duty, not even the boy who, being +unpopular like P—, does a satanically brave thing. Boys have no +admiration for the boy who defies them; what they like to see is the +defiance of a common foe. They admire gallant, modest, spirited, +picturesque behaviour, not the dull and faithful obedience to the sense +of right. +</P> + +<P> +Of course things have altered for the better. Masters are no longer +stern, severe, abrupt, formidable, unreasonable. They know that many a +boy, who would be inclined on the whole to tell the truth, can easily +be frightened into telling a lie; but they have not yet contrived to +put the sense of honour among boys in the right proportion. Such +stories as that of George Washington—when the children were asked who +had cut down the apple-tree, and he rose and said, "Sir, I cannot tell +a lie; it was I who did it with my little hatchet"—do not really take +the imagination of boys captive. How constantly did worthy preachers at +Eton tell the story of how Bishop Selwyn, as a boy, rose and left the +room at a boat-supper because an improper song was sung! That anecdote +was regarded with undisguised amusement, and it was simply thought to +be a piece of priggishness. I cannot imagine that any boy ever heard +the story and went away with a glowing desire to do likewise. The +incident really belongs to the domain of manners rather than to that of +morals. +</P> + +<P> +The truth is really that boys at school have a code which resembles +that of the old chivalry. The hero may be sensual, unscrupulous, cruel, +selfish, indifferent to the welfare of others. But if he bears himself +gallantly, if he has a charm of look and manner, if he is a deft +performer in the prescribed athletics, he is the object of profound and +devoted admiration. It is really physical courage, skill, prowess, +personal attractiveness which is envied and praised. A dull, heavy, +painstaking, conscientious boy with a sturdy sense of duty may be +respected, but he is not followed; while the imaginative, sensitive, +nervous, highly-strung boy, who may have the finest qualities of all +within him, is apt to be the most despised. Such a boy is often no good +at games, because public performance disconcerts him; he cannot make a +ready answer, he has no aplomb, no cheek, no smartness; and he is +consequently thought very little of. +</P> + +<P> +To what extent this sort of instinctive preference can be altered, I do +not know; it certainly cannot be altered by sermons, and still less by +edicts. Old Dr. Keate said, when he was addressing the school on the +subject of fighting, "I must say that I like to see a boy return a +blow!" It seems, if one considers it, to be a curious ideal to start +life with, considering how little opportunity civilisation now gives +for returning blows! Boys in fact are still educated under a system +which seems to anticipate a combative and disturbed sort of life to +follow, in which strength and agility, violence and physical activity, +will have a value. Yet, as a matter of fact, such things have very +little substantial value in an ordinary citizen's life at all, except +in so far as they play their part in the elaborate cult of athletic +exercises, with which we beguile the instinct which craves for manual +toil. All the races, and games, and athletics cultivated so assiduously +at school seem now to have very little aim in view. It is not important +for ordinary life to be able to run a hundred yards, or even three +miles, faster than another man; the judgment, the quickness of eye, the +strength and swiftness of muscle needed to make a man a good batsman +were all well enough in days when a man's life might afterwards depend +on his use of sword and battle-axe. But now it only enables him to play +games rather longer than other people, and to a certain extent +ministers to bodily health, although the statistics of rowing would +seem clearly to prove that it is a pursuit which is rather more apt to +damage the vitality of strong boys than to increase the vitality of +weak ones. +</P> + +<P> +So, if we look facts fairly in the face, we see that much of the +training of school life, especially in the direction of athletics, is +really little more than the maintenance of a thoughtless old tradition, +and that it is all directed to increase our admiration of prowess and +grace and gallantry, rather than to fortify us in usefulness and manual +skill and soundness of body. A boy at school may be a skilful carver or +carpenter; he may have a real gift for engineering or mechanics; he may +even be a good rider, a first-rate fisherman, an excellent shot. He may +have good intellectual abilities, a strong memory, a power of +expression; he may be a sound mathematician, a competent scientist; he +may have all sorts of excellent moral qualities, be reliable, accurate, +truthful, punctual, duty-loving; he may in fact be equipped for life +and citizenship, able to play his part sturdily and manfully, and to do +the world good service; but yet he may never win the smallest +recognition or admiration in his school-days, while all the glory and +honour and credit is still reserved for the graceful, attractive, +high-spirited athlete, who may have nothing else in the background. +</P> + +<P> +That is certainly the ideal of the boy, and the disconcerting thing is +that it is also the ideal, practically if not theoretically, of the +parent and the schoolmaster. The school still reserves all its best +gifts, its sunshine and smiles, for the knightly and the skilful; it +rewards all the qualities that are their own reward. Why, if it wishes +to get the right scale adopted, does it not reward the thing which it +professes to uphold as its best result, worth of character namely? It +claims to be a training-ground for character first, but it does little +to encourage secret and unobtrusive virtues. That is, it adds its +prizes to the things which the natural man values, and it neglects to +crown the one thing at which it professes first to aim. In doing this +it only endorses the verdict of the world, and while it praises moral +effort, it rewards success. +</P> + +<P> +The issue of all this is that the sort of courage which it enforces is +essentially a graceful and showy sort of courage, a lively readiness, a +high-hearted fearlessness—so that timidity and slowness and diffidence +and unreadiness become base and feeble qualities, when they are not the +things of which anyone need be ashamed! Let me say then that moral +courage, the patient and unrecognised facing of difficulties, the +disregard of popular standards, solidity and steadfastness of purpose, +the tranquil performance of tiresome and disagreeable duties, homely +perseverance, are not the things which are regarded as supreme in the +ideal of the school; so that the fear which is the shadow of sensitive +and imaginative natures is turned into the wrong channels, and becomes +a mere dread of doing the unpopular and unimpressive thing, or a craven +determination not to be found out. And the dread of being obscure and +unacceptable is what haunts the minds of boys brought up on these +ambitious and competitive lines, rather than the fear which is the +beginning of wisdom. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FEARS OF YOUTH +</H3> + +<P> +The fears of youth are as a rule just the terrors of self-consciousness +and shyness. They are a very irrational thing, something purely +instinctive and of old inheritance. How irrational they are is best +proved by the fact that shyness is caused mostly by the presence of +strangers; there are many young people who are bashful, awkward, and +tongue-tied in the presence of strangers, whose tremors wholly +disappear in the family circle. If these were rational fears, they +might be caused by the consciousness of the inspection and possible +disapproval of those among whom one lives, and whose annoyance and +criticism might have unpleasant practical effects. Yet they are caused +often by the presence of those whose disapproval is not of the smallest +consequence, those, in fact, whom one is not likely to see again. One +must look then for the cause of this, not in the fact that one's +awkwardness and inefficiency is likely to be blamed by those of one's +own circle, but simply in the terror of the unknown and the unfamiliar. +It is probably therefore an old inherited instinct, coming from a time +when the sight of a stranger might contain in it a menace of some +hostile usage. If one questions a shy boy or girl as to what it is they +are afraid of in the presence of strangers, they are quite unable to +answer. They are not afraid of anything that will be said or done; and +yet they will have become intensely conscious of their own appearance +and movements and dress, and will be quite unable to command +themselves. That it is a thing which can be easily cured is obvious +from the fact which I often observed when I was a schoolmaster, that as +a rule the boys who came from houses where there was much entertaining, +and a constant coming and going of guests, very rarely suffered from +such shyness. They had got used to the fact that strangers could be +depended upon to be kind and friendly, and instead of looking upon a +new person as a possible foe, they regarded him as a probable friend. +</P> + +<P> +I often think that parents do not take enough trouble in this respect +to make children used to strangers. What often happens is that parents +are themselves shy and embarrassed in the presence of strangers, and +when they notice that their children suffer from the same awkwardness, +they criticise them afterwards, partly because they are vexed at their +own clumsy performance; and thus the shyness is increased, because the +child, in addition to his sense of shyness before strangers, has in the +background of his mind the feeling that any mauvaise honte that he may +display may he commented upon afterwards. No exhibition of shyness on +the part of a boy or girl should ever be adverted upon by parents. They +should take for granted that no one is ever willingly shy, and that it +is a misery which all would avoid if they could. It is even better to +allow children considerable freedom of speech with strangers, than to +repress and silence them. Of course impertinence and unpleasant +comments, such as children will sometimes make on the appearance or +manners of strangers, must be checked, but it should be on the grounds +of the unpleasantness of such remarks, and not on the ground of +forwardness. On the other hand, all attempts on the part of a child to +be friendly and courteous to strangers should be noted and praised; a +child should be encouraged to look upon itself as an integral part of a +circle, and not as a silent and lumpish auditor. +</P> + +<P> +Probably too there are certain physical and psychological laws, which +we do not at all understand, which account for the curious subjective +effects which certain people have at close quarters; there is something +hypnotic and mesmeric about the glance of certain eyes; and there is in +all probability a curious blending of mental currents in an assembly of +people, which is not a mere fancy, but a very real physical fact. +Personalities radiate very real and unmistakable influences, and +probably the undercurrent of thought which happens to be in one's mind +when one is with others has an effect, even if one says or does nothing +to indicate one's preoccupation. A certain amount of this comes from an +unconscious inference on the part of the recipients. We often augur, +without any very definite rational process, from the facial +expressions, gestures, movements, tones of others, what their frame of +mind is. But I believe that there is a great deal more than that. We +must all know that when we are with friends to whose moods and emotions +we are attuned, there takes place a singular degree of +thought-transference, quite apart from speech. I had once a great +friend with whom I was accustomed to spend much time tete-a-tete. We +used to travel together and spend long periods, day after day, in close +conjunction, often indeed sharing the same bedroom. It became a matter +at first of amusement and interest, but afterwards an accepted fact, +that we could often realise, even after a long silence, in what +direction the other's thought was travelling. "How did you guess I was +thinking of that?" would be asked. To which the reply was, "I did not +guess—I knew." On the other hand I have an old and familiar friend, +whom I know well and regard with great affection, but whose presence, +and particularly a certain fixity of glance, often, even now, causes me +a curious subjective disturbance which is not wholly pleasant, a sense +of some odd psychical control which is not entirely agreeable. +</P> + +<P> +I have another friend who is the most delightful and easy company in +the world when we are, alone together; but he is a sensitive and +highly-strung creature, much affected by personal influences, and when +I meet him in the company of other people he is often almost +unrecognisable. His mind becomes critical, combative, acrid; he does +not say what he means, he is touched by a vague excitement, and there +passes over him an unnatural sort of brilliance, of a hard and futile +kind, which makes him sacrifice consideration and friendliness to the +instinctive desire to produce an effect and to score a point. I +sometimes actually detest him when he is one of a circle. I feel +inclined to say to him, "If only you could let your real self appear, +and drop this tiresome posturing and fencing, you would be as +delightful as you are to me when I am alone with you; but this hectic +tittering and feverish jocosity is not only not your real self, but it +gives others an impression of a totally unreal and not very agreeable +person." But, alas, this is just the sort of thing one cannot say to a +friend! +</P> + +<P> +As one goes on in life, this terrible and disconcerting shyness of +youth disappears. We begin to realise, with a wholesome loss of vanity +and conceit, how very little people care or even notice how we are +dressed, how we look, what we say. We learn that other people are as +much preoccupied with their thoughts and fancies and reflections as we +are with our own. We realise that if we are anxious to produce an +agreeable impression, we do so far more by being interested and +sympathetic, than by attempting a brilliance which we cannot command. +We perceive that other people are not particularly interested in our +crude views, nor very grateful for the expression of them. We acquire +the power of combination and co-operation, in losing the desire for +splendour and domination. We see that people value ease and security, +more than they admire originality and fantastic contradiction. And so +we come to the blessed time when, instead of reflecting after a social +occasion whether we did ourselves justice, we begin to consider rather +the impression we have formed of other personalities. +</P> + +<P> +I believe that we ought to have recourse to very homely remedies indeed +for combating shyness. It is of no use to try to console and distract +ourselves with lofty thoughts, and to try to keep eternity and the +hopes of man in mind. We so become only more self-conscious and +superior than ever. The fact remains that the shyness of youth causes +agonies both of anticipation and retrospect; if one really wishes to +get rid of it, the only way is to determine to get used somehow to +society, and not to endeavour to avoid it; and as a practical rule to +make up one's mind, if possible, to ask people questions, rather than +to meditate impressive answers. Asking other people questions about +things to which they are likely to know the answers is one of the +shortest cuts to popularity and esteem. It is wonderful to reflect how +much distress personal bashfulness causes people, how much they would +give to be rid of it, and yet how very little trouble they ever take to +acquiring any method of dealing with the difficulty. I see a good deal +of undergraduates, and am often aware that they are friendly and +responsive, but without any power of giving expression to it. I +sometimes see them suffering acutely from shyness before my eyes. But a +young man who can bring himself to ask a perfectly simple question +about some small matter of common interest is comparatively rare; and +yet it is generally the simplest way out of the difficulty. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FEARS OF MIDDLE AGE +</H3> + +<P> +Now with all the tremors, reactions, glooms, shadows, and despairs of +youth—it is easy enough to forget them, but they were there—goes a +power of lifting and lighting up in a moment at a chord of music, a +glance, a word, the song of a bird, the scent of a flower, a flying +sunburst, which fills life up like a cup with bubbling and sparkling +liquor. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "My soul, be patient! Thou shalt find<BR> + A little matter mend all this!"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And that is the part of youth which we remember, till on looking back +it seems like a time of wandering with like-hearted comrades down some +sweet-scented avenue of golden sun and green shade. Our memory plays us +beautifully false—splendide mendax—till one wishes sometimes that old +and wise men, retelling the story of their life, could recall for the +comfort of youth some part of its languors and mischances, its bitter +jealousies, its intense and poignant sense of failure. +</P> + +<P> +And then in a moment the door of life opens. One day I was an +irresponsible, pleasure-loving, fantastic youth, and a week later I +was, or it seemed to me that I was, a professional man with all the +cares of a pedagogue upon my back. It filled me at first, I remember, +with a gleeful amazement, to find myself in the desk, holding forth, +instead of on the form listening. It seemed delicious at first to have +the power of correcting and slashing exercises, and placing boys in +order, instead of being corrected and examined, and competing for a +place. It was a solemn game at the outset. Then came the other side of +the picture. One's pupils were troublesome, they did badly in +examinations, they failed unaccountably; and one had a glimpse too of +some of the tragedies of school life. Almost insensibly I became aware +that I had a task to perform, that my mistakes involved boys in +disaster, that I had the anxious care of other destinies; and thus, +almost before I knew it, came a new cloud on the horizon, the cloud of +anxiety. I could not help seeing that I had mismanaged this boy and +misdirected that; that one could not treat them as ingenuous and lively +playthings, but that what one said and did set a mark which perhaps +could not be effaced. Gradually other doubts and problems made +themselves felt. I had to administer a system of education in which I +did not wholly believe; I saw little by little that the rigid old +system of education was a machine which, if it made a highly +accomplished product out of the best material, wasted an enormous +amount of boyish interest and liveliness, and stultified the feebler +sort of mind. Then came the care of a boarding-house, close relations +with parents, a more real knowledge of the infinite levity of boy +nature. I became mixed up with the politics of the place, the chance of +more ambitious positions floated before me; the need for tact, +discretion, judiciousness, moderation, tolerance emphasized itself. I +am here outlining my own experience, but it is only one of many similar +experiences. I became a citizen without knowing it, and my place in the +world, my status, success, all became definite things which I had to +secure. +</P> + +<P> +The cares, the fears, the anxieties of middle life lie for most men and +women in this region; if people are healthy and active, they generally +arrive at a considerable degree of equanimity; they do not anticipate +evil, and they take the problems of life cheerfully enough as they +come; but yet come they do, and too many men and women are tempted to +throw overboard scornfully and disdainfully the dreams of youth as a +luxury which they cannot afford to indulge, and to immerse themselves +in practical cares, month after month, with perhaps the hope of a +fairly careless and idle holiday at intervals. What I think tends to +counteract this for many people is love and marriage, the wonder and +amazement of having children of their own, and all the offices of +tenderness that grow up naturally beside their path. But this again +brings a whole host of fears and anxieties as well—arrangements, ways +and means, household cares, illnesses, the homely stuff of life, much +of it enjoyed, much of it cheerfully borne, and often very bravely and +gallantly endured. It is out of this simple material that life has to +be constructed. But there is a twofold danger in all this. There is a +danger of cynicism, the frame of mind in which a man comes to face +little worries as one might put up an umbrella in a shower—"Thou +know'st 'tis common!" Out of that grows up a rude dreariness, a +philosophy which has nothing dignified about it, but is merely a +recognition of the fact that life is a poor affair, and that one cannot +hope to have things to one's mind. Or there is a dull frame of mind +which implies a meek resignation, a sense of disappointment about life, +borne with a mournful patience, a sense of one's sphere having somehow +fallen short of one's deserts. This produces the grumpy paterfamilias +who drowses over a paper or grumbles over a pipe; such a man is +inimitably depicted by Mr. Wells in Marriage. That sort of ugly +disillusionment, that publicity of disappointment, that frank disregard +of all concerns except one's own, is one of the most hideous features +of middle-class life, and it is rather characteristically English. It +sometimes conceals a robust good sense and even kindliness; but it is a +base thing at best, and seems to be the shadow of commercial +prosperity. Yet it at least implies a certain sturdiness of character, +and a stubborn belief in one's own merits which is quite impervious to +the lessons of experience. On sensitive and imaginative people the +result of the professional struggle with life, the essence of which is +often social pretentiousness, is different. It ends in a mournful and +distracted kind of fatigue, a tired sort of padding along after life, a +timid bewilderment at conditions which one cannot alter, and which yet +have no dignity or seemliness. +</P> + +<P> +What is there that is wrong with all this? The cause is easy enough to +analyse. It is the result of a system which develops conventional, +short-sighted, complicated households, averse to effort, fond of +pleasure, and with tastes which are expensive without being refined. +The only cure would seem to be that men and women should be born +different, with simple active generous natures; it is easy to say that! +But the worst of the situation is that the sordid banality and ugly +tragedy of their lot do not dawn on the people concerned. Greedy vanity +in the more robust, lack of moral courage and firmness in the more +sensitive, with a social organisation that aims at a surface dignity +and a cheap showiness, are the ingredients of this devil's cauldron. +The worst of it is that it has no fine elements at all. There is a +nobility about real tragedy which evokes a quality of passionate and +sincere emotion. There is something essentially exalted about a fierce +resistance, a desperate failure. But this abject, listless dreariness, +which can hardly be altered or expressed, this miserable floating down +the muddy current, where there is no sharp repentance or fiery +battling, nothing but a mean abandonment to a meaningless and +unintelligible destiny, seems to have in it no seed of recovery at all. +</P> + +<P> +The dark shadow of professional anxiety is that it has no tragic +quality; it is like ploughing on day by day through endless mud-flats. +One does not feel, in the presence of sharp suffering or bitter loss, +that they ought not to exist. They are there, stern, implacable, +august; stately enemies, great combatants. There is a significance +about their very awfulness. One may fall before them, but they pass +like a great express train, roaring, flashing, things deliberately and +intently designed; but these dull failures which seem not the outgrowth +of anyone's fierce longing or wilful passion, but of everyone's +laziness and greediness and stupidity, how is one to face them? It is +the helpless death of the quagmire, not the death of the fight or the +mountain-top. Is there, we ask ourselves, anything in the mind of God +which corresponds to comfort-loving vulgarity, if so strong and yet so +stagnant a stream can overflow the world? The bourgeois ideal! One +would rather have tyranny or savagery than anything so gross and smug. +</P> + +<P> +And yet we see high-spirited and ardent husbands drawn into this by +obstinate and vulgar-minded wives. We see fine-natured and sensitive +women engulfed in it by selfish and ambitious husbands. The tendency is +awfully and horribly strong, and it wins, not by open combat, but by +secret and dull persistence. And one sees too—I have seen it many +times—children of delicate and eager natures, who would have +flourished and expanded in more generous air, become conventional and +commonplace and petty, concerned about knowing the right people and +doing the right things, and making the same stupid and paltry show, +which deceives no one. +</P> + +<P> +There is nothing for it but independence and simplicity and, perhaps +best of all, a love of beauty. William Morris asserted passionately +enough that art was the only cure for all this dreariness—the love of +beautiful sounds and sights and words; and I think that is true, if it +be further extended to a perception of the quality of beauty in the +conduct and relations of life. For those are the cheap and reasonable +pleasures of life, accessible to all; and if men and women cared for +work first and the decent simplicities of wholesome living, and could +further find their pleasure in art, in whatever form, then I believe +that many of these fears and anxieties, so maiming and impairing to all +that is fine in life, would vanish quietly out of being. The thing +seems both beautiful and possible, because one knows of households +where it is so, and where it grows up naturally and easily enough. I +know households of both kinds—where on the one hand the standard is +ambitious and mean, where the inmates calculate everything with a view +to success, or rather to producing an impression of success; and there +all talk and intercourse is an unreal thing, not the outflow of natural +interests and pleasant tastes, but a sham culture and a refinement that +is only pursued because it is the right sort of surface to present to +the world. One submits to it with boredom, one leaves it with relief. +They have got the right people together, they have shown that they can +command their attendance; it is all ceremony and waste. +</P> + +<P> +And then I know households where one sees in the books, the pictures, +the glances, the gestures, the movements of the inmates, a sort of +grace and delicacy which comes of really caring about things that are +beautiful and fine. Sincere things are simply said, humour bubbles up +and breaks in laughter; one feels that light is thrown on a hundred +topics and facts and personalities. The whole of life then becomes a +garden teeming with strange and wonderful secrets, and influences that +flash and radiate, passing on into some mysterious and fragrant gloom. +Everything there seems charged with significance and charm; there are +no pretences—there are preferences, prejudices if you will; but there +is tolerance and sympathy, and a desire to see the point of view of +others. The effect of such an atmosphere is to set one wondering how +one has contrived to miss the sense of so much that is beautiful and +interesting in life, and sends one away longing to perceive more, and +determined if possible to interpret life more truly and more graciously. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FEARS OF AGE +</H3> + +<P> +And then age creeps on; and that brings fears of its own, and fears +that are all the more intolerable because they are not definite fears +at all, merely a loss of nervous vigour, which attaches itself to the +most trivial detail and magnifies it into an insuperable difficulty. A +friend of mine who was growing old once confided to me that foreign +travel, which used to be such a delight to him, was now getting +burdensome. "It is all right when I have once started," he said, "but +for days before I am the prey of all kinds of apprehensions." "What +sort of apprehensions?" I said. He laughed, and replied, "Well, it is +almost too absurd to mention, but I find myself oppressed with anxiety +for weeks beforehand as to whether, when we get to Calais, we shall +find places in the train." And I remember, too, how a woman friend of +mine once told me that she called at the house of an elderly couple in +London, people of rank and wealth. Their daughter met her in the +drawing-room and said, "I am glad you are come—you may be able to +cheer my mother up. We are going down to-morrow to our place in the +country; the servants and the luggage went this morning, and my mother +and father are to drive down this afternoon—my mother is very low +about it." "What is the matter?" said my friend. The daughter replied, +"She is afraid that they will not get there in time!" "In time for +what?" said my friend, thinking that there was some important +engagement. "In time for tea!" said the daughter gravely. +</P> + +<P> +It is all very well to laugh at such fears, but they are not natural +fears at all, they just indicate a low vitality; they are the symptoms +and not the causes of a disease. It is the frame of mind of the +sluggard in the Bible who says, "There is a lion in the way." Younger +people are apt to be irritated by what seems a wilful creating of +apprehensions. They ought rather to be patient and reassuring, and +compassionate to the weakness of nerve for which it stands. +</P> + +<P> +With such fears as these may be classed all the unreal but none the +less distressing fears about health which beset people all their lives, +in some cases; it is extremely annoying to healthy people to find a man +reduced to depression and silence at the possibility of taking cold, or +at the fear of having eaten something unwholesome. I remember an +elderly gentleman who had lived a vigorous and unselfish life, and was +indeed a man of force and character, whose activity was entirely +suspended in later years by his fear of catching cold or of over-tiring +himself. He was a country clergyman, and used to spend the whole of +Sunday between his services, in solitary seclusion, "resting," and +retire to bed the moment the evening service was over; moreover his +dread of taking cold was such that he invariably wore a hat in the +winter months to go from the drawing-room to the dining-room for +dinner, even if there were guests in his house. He used to jest about +it, and say that it no doubt must look curious; but he added that he +had found it a wise precaution, and that we had no idea how disabling +his colds were. Even a very healthy friend of my own standing has told +me that if he ever lies awake at night he is apt to exaggerate the +smallest and most trifling sense of discomfort into the symptom of some +dangerous disease. Let me quote the well-known case of Hans Andersen, +whose imagination was morbidly strong. He found one morning when he +awoke that he had a small pimple under his left eyebrow. He reflected +with distress upon the circumstance, and soon came to the rueful +conclusion that the pimple would probably increase in size, and deprive +him of the sight of his left eye. A friend calling upon him in the +course of the morning found him writing, in a mood of solemn +resignation, with one hand over the eye in question, "practising," as +he said, "how to read and write with the only eye that would soon be +left him." +</P> + +<P> +One's first impulse is to treat these self-inflicted sufferings as +ridiculous and almost idiotic. But they are quite apt to beset people +of effectiveness and ability. To call them irrational does not cure +them, because they lie deeper than any rational process, and are in +fact the superficial symptoms of some deep-seated weakness of nerve, +while their very absurdity, and the fact that the mind cannot throw +them off, only proves how strong they are. They are in fact signs of +some profound uneasiness of mind; and the rational brain of such +people, casting about for some reason to explain the fear with which +they are haunted, fixes on some detail which is not worthy of serious +notice. It is of course a species of local insanity and monomania, but +it does not imply any general obscuration of faculties at all. Some of +the most intellectual people are most at the mercy of such trials, and +indeed they are rather characteristic of men and women whose brain is +apt to work at high pressure. One recollects in the life of Shelley, +how he used to be haunted by these insupportable fears. He was at one +time persuaded that he had contracted leprosy, and he used to +disconcert his acquaintances by examining solicitously their wrists and +necks to see if he could detect symptoms of the same disease. +</P> + +<P> +There is very little doubt that as medical knowledge progresses we +shall know more about the cause of such hallucinations. To call them +unreal is mere stupidity. Sensible people who suffer from them are +often perfectly well aware of their unreality, and are profoundly +humiliated by them. They are some disease or weakness of the +imaginative faculty; and a friend of mine who suffered from such things +told me that it was extraordinary to him to perceive the incredible +ingenuity with which his brain under such circumstances used to find +confirmation for his fears from all sorts of trivial incidents which at +other times passed quite unnoticed. It is generally quite useless to +think of removing the fear by combating the particular fancy; the +affected centre, whatever it is, only turns feverishly to some other +similar anxiety. Occupation of a quiet kind, exercise, rest, are the +best medicine. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes these anxieties take a different form, and betray themselves +by suspicion of other people's conduct and motives. That is of course +allied to insanity. In sane and sound health we realise that we are +not, as a rule, the objects of the malignity and spitefulness of +others. We are perhaps obstacles to the carrying out of other people's +plans; but men and women as a rule mind their own business, and are not +much concerned to intervene in the designs and activities of others. +Yet a man whose mental equilibrium is unstable is apt to think that if +he is disappointed or thwarted it is the result of a deliberate +conspiracy on the part of other people. If he is a writer, he thinks +that other writers are aware of his merits, but are determined to +prevent them being recognised out of sheer ill-will. A man in robust +health realises that he gets quite as much credit or even more credit +than he deserves, and that his claims to attention are generously +recognised; one has exactly as much influence and weight as one can +get, and other people as a rule are much too much occupied in their own +concerns to have either the time or the inclination to interfere. But +as a man grows older, as his work stiffens and weakens, he falls out of +the race, and he must be content to do so; and he is well advised if he +puts his failure down to his own deficiencies, and not to the malice of +others. The world is really very much on the look out for anything +which amuses, delights, impresses, moves, or helps it; it is quick and +generous in recognition of originality and force; and if a writer, as +he gets older, finds his books neglected and his opinions disdained, he +may be fairly sure that he has said his say, and that men are +preoccupied with new ideas and new personalities. Of course this is a +melancholy and disconcerting business, especially if one has been more +concerned with personal prominence than with the worth and weight of +one's ideas; mortified vanity is a sore trial. I remember once meeting +an old author who, some thirty years before the date at which I met +him, had produced a book which attracted an extraordinary amount of +attention, though it has long since been forgotten. The old man had all +the airs of solemn greatness, and I have seldom seen a more rueful +spectacle than when a young and rising author was introduced to him, +and when it became obvious that the young man had not only never heard +of the old writer, but did not know the name of his book. +</P> + +<P> +The question is what we can do to avoid falling under the dominion of +these uncanny fears and fancies, as we fall from middle age to age. A +dreary, dispirited, unhappy, peevish old man or old woman is a very +miserable spectacle; while, at the same time, generous, courteous, +patient, modest, tender old age is one of the most beautiful things in +the world. We may of course resolve not to carry our dreariness into +all circles, and if we find life a poor and dejected business, we can +determine that we will not enlarge upon the theme. But the worst of +discouragement is that it removes even the desire to play a part, or to +make the most and best of ourselves. Like Mrs. Gummidge in David +Copperfield, if we are reminded that other people have their troubles, +we are apt to reply that we feel them more. One does not desire that +people should unduly indulge themselves in self-dramatisation. There is +something very repugnant in an elderly person who is bent on proving +his importance and dignity, in laying claim to force and influence, in +affecting to play a large part in the world. But there is something +even more afflicting in the people who drop all decent pretence of +dignity, and pour the product of an acrid and disappointed spirit into +all conversations. +</P> + +<P> +Age can establish itself very firmly in the hearts of its circle, if it +is kind, sympathetic, appreciative, ready to receive confidences, +willing to encourage the fitful despondencies of youth. But here again +we are met by the perennial difficulty as to how far we can force +ourselves to do things which we do not really want to do, and how far +again, if we succeed in forcing ourselves into action, we can give any +accent of sincerity and genuineness to our comments and questions. +</P> + +<P> +In this particular matter, that of sympathy, a very little effort does +undoubtedly go a long way, because there are a great many people in the +world eagerly on the look out for any sign of sympathy, and not apt to +scrutinise too closely the character of the sympathy offered. And the +best part of having once forced oneself to exhibit sympathy, at +whatever cost of strain and effort, is that one is at least ashamed to +withdraw it. +</P> + +<P> +I remember a foolish woman who was very anxious to retain the hold upon +the active world which she had once possessed. She very seldom spoke of +any subject but herself, her performances, her activities, the pressure +of the claims which she was forced to try to satisfy. I can recall her +now, with her sanguine complexion, her high voice, her anxious and +restless eye wandering in search of admiration. "The day's post!" she +cried, "that is one of my worst trials—so many duties to fulfil, so +many requests for help, so many irresistible claims come before me in +the pile of letters—that high," indicating about a foot and a half of +linear measurement above the table. "It is the same story every day—a +score of people bringing their little mugs of egotism to be filled at +my pump of sympathy!" +</P> + +<P> +It was a ridiculous exhibition, because one was practically sure that +there was nothing of the kind going on. One was inclined to believe +that they were mugs of sympathy filled at the pump of egotism! But if +the thing were really being done, it was certainly worth doing! +</P> + +<P> +One of the causes of the failure of nerve-force in age, which lies +behind so much of these miseries, is that people who have lived at all +active lives cannot bring themselves to realise their loss of vigour, +and try to prolong the natural energies of middle age into the twilight +of elderliness. Men and women cling to activities, not because they +enjoy them, but to delude themselves into believing that they are still +young. That terrible inability to resign positions, the duties of which +one cannot adequately fulfil, which seems so disgraceful and +unconscientious a handling of life to the young, is often a pathetic +clinging to youth. Such veterans do not reflect that the only effect of +such tenacity is partly that other people do their work, and partly +also that the critic observes that if a post can be adequately filled +by so old a man it is a proof that such a post ought not to exist. The +tendency ought to be met as far as possible by fixing age-limits to all +positions. Because even if the old and weary do consult their friends +as to the advisability of retirement, it is very hard for the friends +cordially to recommend it. A public man once told me that a very aged +official consulted him as to the propriety of resignation. He said in +his reply something complimentary about the value of the veteran's +services. Whereupon the old man replied that as he set so high an +estimation upon his work, he would endeavour to hold on a little longer! +</P> + +<P> +The conscientious thing to do, as we get older and find ourselves +slower, more timid, more inactive, more anxious, is to consult a candid +friend, and to follow his advice rather than our own inclination; a +certain fearfulness, an avoidance of unpleasant duty, a dreary +foreboding, is apt to be characteristic of age. But we must meet it +philosophically. We must reflect that we have done our work, and that +an attempt to galvanise ourselves into activity is sure to result in +depression. So we must condense our energies, be content to play a +little, to drowse a little, to watch with interest the game of life in +which we cannot take a hand, until death falls as naturally upon our +wearied eyes as sleep falls upon the eyes of a child tired with a long +summer day of eager pleasure and delight. +</P> + +<P> +But there is one practical counsel that may here be given to all who +find a tendency to dread and anxiety creeping upon them as life +advances. I have known very truly and deeply religious people who have +been thus beset, and who make their fears the subject of earnest +prayer, asking that this particular terror may be spared them, that +this cup may be withdrawn from their shuddering lips. I do not believe +that this is the right way of meeting the situation. One may pray as +whole-heartedly as one will against the tendency to fear; but it is a +great help to realise that the very experiences which seem now so +overwhelming had little or no effect upon one in youthful and +high-hearted days. It is not really that the quality of events alter; +it is merely that one is losing vitality, and parting with the +irresponsible hopefulness that did not allow one to brood, simply +because there were so many other interesting and delightful things +going on. +</P> + +<P> +One must attack the disease, for it is a disease, at the root; and it +is of little use to shrink timidly from the particular evil, because +when it is gone, another will take its place. We may pray for courage, +but we must practise it; and the best way of meeting particular fears +is to cultivate interests, distractions, amusements, which may serve to +dispel them. We cannot begin to do that while we are under the dominion +of a particular fear, for the strength of fear lies in its dominating +and nauseating quality, so that it gives us a dreary disrelish for +life; but if we really wish to combat it, we must beware of inactivity; +it may be comfortable, as life goes on, to cultivate a habit of mild +contemplation, but it is this very habit of mind which predisposes us +to anxiety when anxiety comes. Dr. Johnson pointed out how +comparatively rare it was for people who had manual labour to perform, +and whose work lay in the open air, to suffer from hypochondriacal +terrors. The truth is that we are made for labour, and we have by no +means got rid of the necessity for it. We have to pay a price for the +comforts of civilisation, and above all for the pleasures of +inactivity. It is astonishing how quickly a definite task which one has +to perform, whether one likes it or not, draws off a cloud of anxiety +from one's spirit. I am myself liable to attacks of depression, not +causeless depression, but a despondent exaggeration of small troubles. +Yet in times of full work, when meetings have to be attended, papers +tackled, engagements kept, I seldom find myself suffering from vague +anxieties. It is simply astonishing that one cannot learn more common +sense! I suppose that all people of anxious minds tend to find the +waking hour a trying one. The mind, refreshed by sleep, turns +sorrowfully to the task of surveying the difficulties which lie before +it. And yet a hundred times have I discovered that life, which seemed +at dawn nothing but a tangle of intolerable problems, has become at +noon a very bearable and even interesting affair; and one should thus +learn to appreciate the tonic value of occupation, and set oneself to +discern some pursuit, if we have no compulsory duties, which may set +the holy mill revolving, as Dante says; for it is the homely grumble of +the gear which distracts us from the other sort of grumbling, the +self-pitying frame of mind, which is the most fertile seed-plot of fear. +</P> + +<P> +"How happy I was long ago; how little I guessed my happiness; how +little I knew all that lay before me; how sadly and strangely afflicted +I am!" These are the whispers of the evil demon of fearfulness; and +they can only be checked by the murmur of wholesome and homely voices. +</P> + +<P> +The old motto says, "Orare est laborare," "prayer is work"—and it is +no less true that "laborare est orare," "work is prayer." The truth is +that we cannot do without both; and when we have prayed for courage, +and tried to rejoice in our beds, as the saints who are joyful in glory +do, we had better spend no time in begging that money may be sent us to +meet our particular need, or that health may return to us, or that this +and that person may behave more kindly and considerately, but go our +way to some perfectly commonplace bit of work, do it as thoroughly as +we can, and simply turn our back upon the hobgoblin whose grimaces fill +us with such uneasiness. He melts away in the blessed daylight over the +volume or the account-book, in the simple talk about arrangements or +affairs, and above all perhaps in trying to disentangle and relieve +another's troubles and anxieties. We cannot get rid of fear by drugs or +charms; we have to turn to the work which is the appointed solace of +man, and which is the reward rather than the penalty of life. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DR. JOHNSON +</H3> + +<P> +There is one great and notable instance in our annals which ought once +and for all to dispose of the idea that there is anything weak or +unmanly in finding fear a constant temptation, and that is the case of +Dr. Johnson. Dr. Johnson holds his supreme station as the "figure" par +excellence of English life for a number of reasons. His robustness, his +wit, his reverence for established things, his secret piety are all +contributory causes; but the chief of all causes is that the proportion +in which these things were mixed is congenial to the British mind. The +Englishman likes a man who is deeply serious without being in the least +a prig; a man who is tender-hearted without being sentimental; he likes +a rather combative nature, and enjoys repartee more than he enjoys +humour. The Englishman values good sense above almost all qualities; by +a sensible man he means a man with a clear judgment of right and wrong, +a man who is not taken in by pretences nor gulled by rhetoric; a man +who can instinctively see what is important and what is unimportant. +But of course the chief external reason, apart from the character of +Johnson himself, for his supremacy of fame, is that his memory is +enshrined in an incomparable biography. It shows the strange ineptness +of Englishmen for literary and artistic criticism, their incapacity for +judging a work of art on its own merits, their singular habit of +allowing their disapprobation of a man's private character to +depreciate his work, that an acknowledged critic like Macaulay could +waste time in carefully considering whether Boswell was more fool or +more knave, and triumphantly announce that he produced a good book by +accident. Probably Boswell did not realise how matchless a biographer +he was, though he was not disposed to belittle his own performances. +But his unbridled interest in the smallest details, his power of +hero-worship, his amazing style, his perception, his astonishing memory +and the training he gave it, his superb dramatic faculty, which enabled +him to arrange his other characters around the main figure, and to +subordinate them all to his central emphasis—all these qualities are +undeniable. Moreover he was himself the most perfect foil and contrast +to Johnson that could be imagined, while he possessed in a unique +degree the power of both stimulating and provoking his hero to +animation and to wrath. Boswell may not have known what an artist he +was, but he is probably one of the best literary artists who has ever +lived. +</P> + +<P> +But the supreme quality of his great book is this—that his interest in +every trait of his hero, large and small, is so strong that he had none +of that stiff propriety or chilly reserve which mars almost all English +biographies. He did not care a straw whether this characteristic or +that would redound to Johnson's credit. He saw that Johnson was a +large-minded, large-hearted man, with an astonishing power of +conversational expression, and an extremely picturesque figure as well. +He perceived that he was big enough to be described in full, and that +the shadows of his temperament only brought out the finer features into +prominence. +</P> + +<P> +Since the days of Johnson there are but two Englishmen whose lives we +know in anything like the same detail—Ruskin and Carlyle. We know the +life of Ruskin mainly from his own power of impassioned autobiography, +and because he had the same sort of power of exhibiting both his charm +and his weakness as Boswell had in dealing with Johnson. But Ruskin was +not at all a typical Englishman; he had a very feminine side to his +character, and though he was saved from sentimentality by his extreme +trenchancy, and by his irritable temper, yet his whole temperament is +beautiful, winning, attractive, rather than salient and picturesque. He +had the qualities of a poet, a quixotic ideal, and an exuberant fancy; +but though his spell over those who understand him is an almost magical +one, his point of view is bound to be misunderstood by the ordinary man. +</P> + +<P> +Carlyle's case is a different one again. There the evidence is mainly +documentary. We know more about the Carlyle interior than we know of +the history of any married pair since the world began. There is little +doubt that if Carlyle could have had a Boswell, a biographer who could +have rendered the effect of his splendid power of conversation, we +might have had a book which could have been put on the same level as +the life of Johnson, because Carlyle again was pre-eminently a +"figure," a man made by nature to hold the enraptured attention of a +circle. But it would have been a much more difficult task to represent +Carlyle's talk than it was to represent Johnson's, because Carlyle was +an inspired soliloquist, and supplied both objection and repartee out +of his own mind. I think it probable that Carlyle was a typical +Scotchman; he was more impassioned in his seriousness than Johnson, but +he had a grimness which Johnson did not possess, and he had not +Johnson's good-natured tolerance for foolish and well-meaning people. +Carlyle himself had a good deal of Boswell's own gift, a power of +minute and faithful observation, and a memory which treasured and +reproduced characteristic details. If Carlyle had ever had the time or +the taste to admire any human being as Boswell admired Johnson, he +might have produced fully as great a book; but Carlyle had a prophetic +impulse, an instinct for inverting tubs and preaching from them, a +desire for telling the whole human race what to do and how to do it, +which Johnson was too modest to claim. +</P> + +<P> +There is but one other instance that I know in English literature of a +man who had the Boswellian gift to the full, but who never had complete +scope, and that was Hogg. If Hogg could have spent more of his life +with Shelley, and had been allowed to complete his book, we might, I +believe, have had a monument of the same kind. +</P> + +<P> +But in the case of Boswell and Johnson, it is Boswell's magnificent +scorn of reticence which has done the trick, like the spurt of acid, of +which Browning speaks in one of his best similes. The final stroke of +genius which has established the Life of Johnson so securely in the +hearts of English readers, lies in the fact that Boswell has given us +something to compassionate. As a rule the biographer cannot bear to +evoke the smallest pity for his hero. The absence of female relatives +in the case of Johnson was probably a part of his good fortune. No +biographer likes, and seldom dares, to torture the sensibilities of a +great man's widow and daughters. And the strength as well as the +weakness of the feminine point of view is that women have a power not +so much of not observing, as of actually obliterating the weaknesses of +those whom they love. It is sentiment which ruins biographies, the +sentiment that cannot bear the truth. +</P> + +<P> +Boswell did not shrink from admitting the reader to a sight of +Johnson's hypochondria, his melancholy fears, his dreary miseries, his +dread of illness, his terror of death. Johnson's horror of annihilation +was insupportable. He so revelled in life, in the contact and company +of other human beings, that he once said that the idea of an infinity +of torment was preferable to the thought of annihilation. He wrote, in +his last illness, to his old friend Dr. Taylor: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"Oh! my friend, the approach of death is very dreadful. I am afraid to +think on that which I know I cannot avoid. It is vain to look round and +round for that help which cannot be had. Yet we hope and hope, and +fancy that he who has lived to-day may live to-morrow. But let us learn +to derive our hope only from God. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"In the meantime, let us be kind to one another. I have no friend now +living but you and Mr. Hector that was the friend of my youth.—Do not +neglect, sir, yours affectionately, SAM. JOHNSON." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Was ever the last fear put into such simple and poignant words as in +the above letter? It is like that other saying of Johnson's, when all +sorts of good reasons had been given why men should wish to be released +from their troubles by death, "After all, it is a sad thing for a man +to lie down and die." There is no more that can be said, and not the +best reasons in the world for desiring to depart and have done with +life can ever do away with that sadness. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Johnson supplies the clearest proof, if proof were needed, that no +robustness of temperament, no genius of common sense, no array of +rationality, no degree of courage, can save a man from the assaults of +fear, and even of fear which the sufferer knows to be unreal. Some of +the most severe and angry things which Johnson ever said were said to +Boswell and others who persisted in discussing the question of death. +Yet Johnson had no rational doubt of immortality, and believed with an +almost childlike simplicity in the Christian faith. He was not afraid +of pain, or of the act of dying; it was of the unknown conditions +beyond the grave that he was afraid. Probably as a rule very robust +people are so much occupied in living that they have little time to +think of the future, while men and women who hold to life by a frail +tenure are not much concerned at quitting a scene which is phantasmal +and full of pain. But in Johnson we have the two extremes brought +together. He was the most gregarious of men; he loved company so well +that he would follow his friends to the very threshold, in the hope, as +he once told Boswell, that they might perhaps return. When he was alone +and undistracted, his melancholy came back upon him like a cloud. He +tortured himself over the unprofitableness of his life, over his +failure to achieve official prominence. He does not seem to have +brooded over the favourite subject for Englishmen to lose heart over, +namely, his financial position. It is a very significant fact in our +English life that if at an inquest upon a suicide it can be established +that a man has financial difficulties, a verdict of temporary insanity +is instantly conceded. Loss of property rather than loss of affection +is the thing which the Englishman thinks is likely to derange a man. +But Johnson seems never to have been afraid of poverty, nor to have +ever troubled about fame. He was very angry once when it was laughingly +suggested to him that if he had gone to the Bar he might have been Lord +Chancellor; and I have no doubt, as I have said, that one of his +uncomfortable reflections was that he did not seem to himself to be in +a position of influence and authority. But, apart from that, it is +obvious that Johnson's broodings took the form of lamenting his own +sinfulness and moral worthlessness: what the faults which troubled him +were, it is hard to say. He does not seem to have been repentant about +the mortification he caused others by his witty bludgeoning—indeed he +considered himself a polite man! But I believe, from many slight +indications, that Johnson was distressed by the consciousness of +sensual impulses, though he held them in severe restraint. His habit of +ejaculatory prayer was, I think, directed against this tendency. The +agitation with which he once said that corruption had entered into his +heart by means of a dream seems to me a proof of this. He took a +tolerant view of the lapses of others, and of course the standard of +the age was lax in this respect. But I have little doubt myself that +here Johnson found himself often confronted with a sensuous tendency +which he thought degrading, and which he constantly combated. +</P> + +<P> +Apart from this, he was not afraid of illness in itself, except as a +prelude of mortality. Indeed I believe that he took a hypochondriac +pleasure in observing his symptoms minutely, and in dosing himself in +all sorts of ways. His mysterious preoccupations with dried orange-peel +had no doubt a medicinal end in view. But when it came to suffering +pain and even to enduring operations, he had no tremors. His one +constant fear was the fear of death. He kept it at arm's length, he +loved any social amusement that banished it, but it is obvious, in +several of his talks, when the subject was under discussion, that the +cloud descended upon him suddenly and made him miserable. It was all +summed up in this, that life was to his taste, that even when oppressed +with gloom and depression, he never desired to escape. I have heard a +great doctor say that he believed that human beings were very sharply +divided in this respect, that there were some people in whom any +extremity of prolonged anguish, bodily or mental, never produced the +smallest desire to quit life; while there were others whose attachment +to life was slight, and that a very little pressure of care or calamity +developed a suicidal impulse. This is, I suppose, a question of +vitality, not necessarily of activity of mind and body, but a deep +instinctive desire to live; the thought of deliberate suicide was +wholly unintelligible to Johnson, death was his ultimate fear, and +however much he suffered from disease or depression, his intention to +live was always inalienable. +</P> + +<P> +His fear then was one which no devoutness of faith, no resolute +tenacity of hope, no array of reasons could ever touch. It was simply +the unknown that he feared. Life had not been an easy business for +Johnson; he had known all the calamities of life, and he was familiar +with the worst calamity of all, the causeless melancholy which makes +life weary and distasteful without ever removing the certainty that it +is in itself desirable. +</P> + +<P> +We may see from all this that to attempt to seek a cure for fear in +reason is foredoomed to failure, because fear lies in a region that is +behind all reason. It exists in the depth of the spirit, as in the +fallen gloom of the glimmering sea-deeps, and it can be touched by no +activity of life and joy and sunlight on the surface, where the +speeding sail moves past wind-swept headlands. We must follow it into +those depths if we are to deal with it at all, and it must be +vanquished in the region where it is born, and where it skulks unseen. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TENNYSON, RUSKIN, CARLYLE +</H3> + +<P> +There were three great men of the nineteenth century of whom we know +more than we know of most men, Carlyle, Ruskin, and Tennyson, in whose +lives fear was a prominent element. +</P> + +<P> +Tennyson has suffered no loss of fame, but he has suffered of late a +certain loss of influence, which was bound to come, if simply from the +tremendous domination which his writings exercised in his lifetime. He +was undoubtedly one of the first word-artists who ever lived and wrote, +but he was a great deal more than that; he was a great mystic, a man +whose mind moved in a shining cloud of inspiration. He had the +constitution and the temperament of a big Lincolnshire yeoman, with +that simple rusticity that is said to have characterised Vergil. But +his spirit dwelt apart, revolving dim and profound thoughts, brooding +over mysteries; if he is lightly said to be Early Victorian, it is not +because he was typical of his age, but because he contributed so much +to make it what it was. While Browning lived an eager personal life, +full of observation, zest, and passion, Tennyson abode in more +impersonal thoughts. In the dawn of science, when there was a danger of +life becoming over-materialised, contented with the first steps of +swiftly apprehended knowledge, and with solutions which were no +solutions at all, but only the perception of laws, Tennyson was the man +of all others who saw that science had a deeply poetical side, and +could enforce rather than destroy the religious spirit; he saw that a +knowledge of processes was not the same thing as an explanation of +impulses, and that while it was a little more clear in the light of +science what was actually happening in the world, men were no nearer +the perception of why it happened so, or why it happened at all. +Tennyson saw clearly the wonders of astronomy and geology, and +discerned that the laws of nature were nothing more than the habits, so +to speak, of a power that was incredibly dim and vast, a power which +held within itself the secrets of motion and rest, of death and life. +Thus he claimed for his disciples not only the average thoughtful men, +but the very best and finest minds of his generation who wished to link +the past and the present together, and not to break with the old +sanctities. +</P> + +<P> +Tennyson's art suffered from the consciousness of his enormous +responsibility, and where he failed was from his dread of unpopularity, +or his fear of alienating the ordinary man. Browning was interested in +ethical problems; his robust and fortunate temperament allowed him to +bridge over with a sort of buoyant healthiness the gaps of his +philosophy. But Tennyson's ethical failure lay in his desire to improve +the occasion, and to rule out all impulses that had not a social and +civic value. In the later "Idylls" he did his best to represent the +prig trailing clouds of glory, and to discourage lawlessness in every +form; but he was more familiar with the darker and grosser sides of +life than he allowed to appear in his verse, which suffers from an +almost prudish delicacy, which is more akin to respectability than to +moral courage. +</P> + +<P> +But all this was the shadow of a very sensitive and melancholy +temperament. Comparatively little is known of the first forty years of +his life; it is after that time that the elaborate legend begins. Till +the time of his marriage, he must have been a constant anxiety to his +friends; his gloom, his inertia, his drifting mooning ways, his +hypochondria, his incapacity for any settled plan of life, all seemed +to portend an ultimate failure. But this troubled inertness was the +soil of his inspiration; his conceptions took slow and stately shape. +He never suffered from the haste, which as Dante says "mars all decency +of act." After that time he enjoyed a great domestic happiness, and +practised considerable sociability. His terrifying demeanour, his +amazing personal dignity and majesty, the certainty that he would say +whatever came into his head, whether it was profound and solemn, or +testy and discourteous, gave him a personal ascendancy that never +disappointed a pilgrim. +</P> + +<P> +But he lived all his life in a perpetual melancholy, feeling the +smallest slights acutely, hating at once obscurity and publicity, aware +of his renown, yet shrinking from the evidences of it. He could be +distracted by company, soothed by wine and tobacco; but left to itself, +his mind fell helplessly down the dark slope into a sadness and a +dreariness which deprived life of its savour. It was not that his dread +was a definite one; he was strong and tough physically, and he regarded +death with a solemn curiosity; but he had a sense of the profitlessness +of vacant hours, unthrilled by beauty and delight, and had also a +morbid pride, of the nature of vanity, which caused him to resent the +smallest criticism of his works from the humblest reader. There are +many stories of this, how he declaimed against the lust of gossip, +which he called with rough appositeness "ripping up a man like a pig," +and thanked God with all his heart and soul that he knew nothing of +Shakespeare's private life; and in the same breath went on to say that +he thought that his own fame was suffering from a sort of congestion, +because he had received no letters about his poems for several days. +</P> + +<P> +In later life he became very pessimistic, and believed that the world +was sinking fast into dull materialism, petty selfishness, and moral +anarchy. He had less opportunity of knowing what was going on in the +world than most people, in his sheltered and secluded life, with his +court of friends and worshippers. And indeed it was not a rational +pessimism; it was but the shadow of his fear. And the fact remains that +in spite of a life of great good fortune, and an undimmed supremacy of +fame, he spent much of his time in fighting shadows, involved in clouds +of darkness and dissatisfaction. That was no doubt the price he paid +for his exquisite perception of beauty and his power of melodious +expression. But we make a great mistake if we merely think of Tennyson +as a rich and ample nature moving serenely through life. He was +"black-blooded," he once said, adding, "like all the Tennysons." +Doubtless he had in his mind his father, a man often deeply in the grip +of melancholy. And the absurd legend, invented probably by Rossetti, +contains a truth in it and may be quoted here. Rossetti said that he +once went to dine with a friend in London, and was shown into a dimly +lit drawing-room with no one to receive him. He went towards the +fireplace, and suddenly to his surprise discovered an immensely tall +man in evening dress lying prostrate on the hearthrug, his face +downwards, in an attitude of prone despair. While he gazed, the +stranger rose to his feet, looked fixedly at him, and said, "I must +introduce myself; I am Octavius, the most morbid of the Tennysons." +</P> + +<P> +With Ruskin we have a different case. He was brought up in the most +secluded fashion, and though he was sharply enough disciplined into +decorous behaviour by his very grim and positive mother, he was guarded +like a precious jewel, and as he grew up he was endlessly petted and +indulged. The Ruskins lived a very comfortable life in a big villa with +ample grounds at Denmark Hill. Whatever the wonderful boy did was +applauded and even dangerously encouraged, both in the way of drawing +and of writing. Though he seems to have been often publicly snubbed by +both his parents, it was more a family custom than anything else, and +was accompanied by undisguised admiration and patent pride. They were +his stupefied critics, when he read aloud his works in the family +circle, and his father obediently produced large sums of money to +gratify his brilliant son's artistic desire for the possession of +Turner's paintings. Ruskin in his morbid moments, in later life, turned +fiercely and unjustly against his fond and tender father. He accused +him with an in temperate bitterness of having lavished everything upon +him except the intelligent sympathy of which he stood in need, and his +father's gentle and mournful apologies have an extraordinary beauty of +puzzled and patient dignity about them. +</P> + +<P> +When Ruskin went to Oxford, his mother went to reside there too, to +look after her darling. One might have supposed that this would have +involved Ruskin in ridicule, but he was petted and indulged by his +fellow-undergraduates, who found his charm, his swift wit, his +childlike waywardness, his freakish humour irresistible. Then he had a +serious illness, and his first taste of misery; he was afraid of death, +he hated the constraints of invalid life and the grim interruption to +his boundless energies and plans. Then came his first great book, and +he strode full-fledged into fame. His amazing attractiveness, his talk, +which combined incisiveness and fancy and humour and fire and +gentleness, made him a marked figure from the first. Moreover, he had +the command of great wealth, yet no temptation to be idle. The tale of +Ruskin's industry for the next fifty years is one that would be +incredible if it were not true. His brief and dim experience of married +life seems hardly to have affected him. As a critic of art and ethics, +as the writer of facile magnificent sentences, full of beauty and +rhythm, as the composer of word-structures, apparently logical in form +but deeply prejudiced and inconsequent in thought, he became one of the +great influences of the day, and wielded not only power but real +domination. The widespread delusion of the English educated classes, +that they are interested in art, was of Ruskin's making. Then something +very serious happened to him; a baffled passion of extraordinary +intensity, a perception of the realities of life, the consciousness +that his public indulged and humoured him as his parents had done, and +admired his artistic advice without paying the smallest heed to his +ethical principles—all these experiences broke over him, wearied as he +was with excessive strain, like a bitter wave. But his pessimism took +the noble form of an intense concern with the blindness and +impenetrability of the world at large. He made a theory of political +economy, which, peremptory and prejudiced as it is, is yet built on +large lines, and has been fruitful in suggestiveness. But he tasted +discouragement and failure in deep draughts. His parents frankly +expressed their bewildered disappointment, his public looked upon him +as a perverse man who was throwing away a beautiful message for the +sake of a crabbed whim; and he fell into a fierce depression, +alternating between savage energy and listless despondency, which +lasted for several years, till at last the overwrought brain and mind +gave way; and for the rest of his life he was liable to recurrent +attacks of insanity, which cleared off and left him normal again, or as +normal as he ever had been. Wide and eager as Ruskin's tenderness was, +one feels that his heart was never really engaged; he was always far +away, in a solitude full of fear, out of the reach of affection, always +solemnly and mournfully alone. Ruskin was never really allied with any +other human soul; he knew most of the great men of the day; he baited +Rossetti, he petted Carlyle; he had correspondents like Norton, to whom +he poured out his overburdened heart; but he was always the spoiled and +indulged child of his boyhood, infinitely winning, provoking, wilful. +He could not be helped, because he could never get away from himself; +he could admire almost frenziedly, but he could not worship; he could +not keep himself from criticism even when he adored, and he had a +bitter superiority of spirit, a terrible perception of the +imperfections and faults of others, a real despair of humanity. +</P> + +<P> +I do not know exactly what the terrors which Ruskin suffered were—very +few people will tell the tale of the valley of hobgoblins, or probably +cannot! In the Pilgrim's Progress itself, the unreality of the spirits +of fear, their secrecy and leniency, is very firmly and wittily told. +They scream in their dens, sitting together, I have thought, like fowls +in a roost. They come padding after the pilgrim, they show themselves +obscurely, swollen by the mist at the corners of the road. They give +the sense of being banded together in a numerous ambush, they can +deceive eye and ear, and even nose with noisome stenches; but they +cannot show themselves, and they cannot hurt. If they could be seen, +they would be nothing but limp ungainly things that would rouse disdain +and laughter and even pity, at anything at once so weak and so +malevolent. But they are not like the demons of sin that can hamper and +wound; they are just little gnomes and elves that can make a noise, and +their strength is a spiteful and a puny thing. +</P> + +<P> +Ruskin had no sordid or material fears; he had no fear of poverty, for +he flung his father's hard-earned wealth profusely away; nor did he +fear illness; indeed one of the bravest and most gallant things about +him was the way in which he talked and wrote about his insane fits, +described his haunted visions, told, half-ruefully, half-humorously, +how he fought and struggled with his nurses, and made fun of the +matter. That was a very courageous thing to do, because most people are +ashamed of insanity, no doubt from the old sad ignorant tradition that +it was the work of demoniacal agencies, and not a mere disease like +other diseases. Half the tragedy of insanity is that it shocks people, +and cannot be alluded to or spoken about; but one can take the sting +out of almost any calamity if one can make fun of it, and this Ruskin +did. +</P> + +<P> +But he was wounded by his fears, as we most of us are, not only through +his vanity but through his finest emotions. He felt his impotence and +his failure. He had thought of his gift of language as one might think +of a magic wand which one can wave, and thus compel duller spirits to +do one's bidding. Ruskin began by thinking that there was not much +amiss with the world except a sort of pathetic stupidity; and he +thought that if only people could be told, clearly and loudly enough, +what was right, they would do it gladly; and then it dawned upon him by +slow degrees that the confusion was far deeper than that, that men +mostly did not live in motives but in appetites. And so he fell into a +sort of noble rage with the imperfection of mortal things; and one of +the clearest signs, as he himself knew, that he was drifting into one +of the mind-storms which swept across him, was that in these moods +everything that people said or wrote had power to arouse his +irritation, to interrupt his work, to break his sleep, and to show him +that he was powerless indeed. What he feared was derision, and the +good-natured indifferent stolidity that is worse than any derision, and +the knowledge that, with all his powers and perceptions, his +common-sense, which was great, and his sense of responsibility, he was +treated by the world like a spoilt child, charming even in his wrath, +who had full license to be as vehement as he liked, with the +understanding that no one would act on his advice. +</P> + +<P> +I often go to Brantwood, which is a sacred place indeed, and see with +deep emotion the little rooms, with all their beautiful treasures, and +all the great accumulations of that fierce industry of mind, and +remember that in that peaceful background a man of exquisite genius +fought with sinister shadows, and was worsted in the fight, for a time; +because the last ten years of that long life were a time of serene +waiting for death, a beguiling by little childish and homely +occupations the heavy hours: he could uplift his voice no more, often +could hardly frame an intelligible thought. But meanwhile his great +message went on rippling out to the world, touching heart after heart +into light and hope, and doing, insensibly and graciously, by the +spirit, the very thing he had failed to do by might and power. +</P> + +<P> +And then we come to Carlyle, and here we are on somewhat different +ground. Carlyle had a colossal quarrel with the age, but he thought +very little of the message of beauty and peace. His idea of the world +was that of a stern combative place, with the one hope a strenuous and +grim righteousness; Carlyle thought of the world as a place where +cheats and liars cozened and beguiled men, for their own advantage, +with all sorts of shams and pretences: but he did not really know the +world; he put down to individual action and deliberate policy much that +was due simply to the prevalence of tradition and system, and to the +complexity of civilisation. He was so fierce an individualist himself +that he credited everyone else with purpose and prejudice. He did not +realise the vast preponderance of helpless good-nature and muddled +kindliness. The mistake of much of Carlyle's work is that it is too +poignantly dramatic, and bristles with intention and significance; and +he did not allow sufficiently for the crowd of vague supers who throng +the background of the stage. Neither did he ever go about the world +with his eyes open for general facts. Wherever he was, he was intensely +observant, but he spent his days either in a fierce absorption of work, +blind even to the sorrow and discomfort of his wife, or taking rapid +tours to store his mind with the details of historical scenes, or in +the big houses of wealthy people, where he kept much to himself, stored +up irresistibly absurd caricatures of the other guests, and lamented +his own inaction. I have never been able to discover exactly why +Carlyle spent so much time in staying at great houses, deriding and +satirising everything he set eyes upon; it was, I believe, vaguely +gratifying to him to have raised himself unaided into the highest +social stratum; and the old man was after all a tremendous aristocrat +at heart. Or else he skulked with infinite melancholy in his mother's +house, being waited upon and humoured, and indulging his deep and true +family affection. But he was a solitary man for the most part, and +mixed with men, involved in a cloud of his own irresistibly fantastic +and whimsical talk; for his real gift was half-humorous, +half-melancholy improvisation rather than deliberate writing. +</P> + +<P> +But it is difficult to discern in all this what his endless and +plangent melancholy was concerned with. He had a very singular physical +frame, immensely tough and wiry, with an imagination which emphasized +and particularised every slight touch of bodily disorder. When he was +at work, he toiled like a demon day after day, entirely and vehemently +absorbed. When he was not at work he suffered from dreary reaction. He +fought out in early days a severe moral combat, and found his way to a +belief in God which was very different from his former Calvinism. +Carlyle can by no stretch of the word be called a Christian, but he was +one of the most thoroughgoing Deists that ever lived. The terror that +beset him in that first great conflict was a ghastly fear of his own +insignificance, and a horrible suspicion that the world was made on +fortuitous and indifferent lines. His dread was that of being worsted, +in spite of all his eager sensibility and immense desire to do a noble +work, of being crushed, silenced, thrown ruthlessly on the dust-heap of +the world. He learned a fiery sort of Determinism, and a faith in the +stubborn power of the will, not to achieve anything, but to achieve +something. +</P> + +<P> +Yet after this tremendous conflict, described in Sartor Resartus, where +he found himself at bay with his back to the wall, he never had any +ultimate doubt again of his own purpose. Still, it brought him no +serenity; and I suppose there is no writer in the world whose letters +and diaries are so full of cries of anguish and hopelessness. He was +crushed under the sense of the world's immensity; his own observation +was so microscopic, his desire to perceive and know so strong, his +appetite for definiteness so profound, that I feel that Carlyle's +terror was like that of a mite in an enormous cheese, longing to +explore it all, lost in the high-flavoured dusk, and conscious of a +scale of mystery so vast that it humiliated a brain that wanted to know +the truth about everything. In these sad hours—and they were numerous +and protracted—he felt like a knight worn out by conflict, under a +listless enchantment which he could not break. I know few confessions +that are so filled with gleams of high poetry and beauty as many of +these solitary lamentations. But I believe that the terrors that +Carlyle had to face were the terrors of a swift, clear-sighted, +feverishly active, intuitive brain, prevented by mortal weakness and +frailty from dealing as he desired with the dazzling immensity and +intricacy of the world's life and history. +</P> + +<P> +I feel no real doubt of this, because Carlyle's passion for accurate +and minute knowledge, his intense interest in temperament and +character, his almost unequalled power of observation—which is really +the surest sign of genius—come out so clearly all through his life, +that his finite limitations must have been of the nature of a torture +to him. One who desired to know the truth about everything so +vehemently, was crushed and bewildered by the narrow range and limited +scope of his own insatiable thought. His power of expressing all that +he saw and felt, so delicately, so humorously, and at times so +tenderly, must have beguiled his sadness more than he knew. It was +Ruskin who said that he could never fit the two sides of the puzzle +together—on the one side the awful dejection and despondency which +Carlyle always claimed to feel in the presence of his work, as a +dredger in lakes of mud and as a sorter of mountains of rubbish, and on +the other side the endless relish for salient traits, and the delighted +apprehension of quality which emerges so clearly in all he wrote. +</P> + +<P> +But it is clear that Carlyle suffered ceaselessly, though never +unutterably. He was a matchless artist, with an unequalled gift of +putting into vivid words everything he experienced; but his sadness was +a disease of the imagination, a fear, not of anything definite—for he +never even saw the anxieties that were nearest to him—but a nightmare +dream of chaos and whirling forces all about him, a dread of slipping +off his own very fairly comfortable perch into oceans of confusion and +dismay. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHARLOTTE BRONTE +</H3> + +<P> +I doubt if the records of intimate biography contain a finer +object-lesson against fear and all its obsessions than the life of +Charlotte Bronte. She was of a temperament which in many ways was more +open to the assaults of fear than any which could well be devised. She +was frail and delicate, liable to acute nervous depression, intensely +shy and sensitive, and susceptible as well; that is to say that her +shyness did not isolate her from her kind; she wanted to be loved, +respected, even admired. When she did love, she loved with fire and +passion and desperate loyalty. +</P> + +<P> +Her life was from beginning to end full of sharp and tragic +experiences. She was born and brought up in a bleak moorland village, +climbing steeply and grimly to the edge of heathery uplands. The bare +parsonage, with its little dark rooms, looks out on a churchyard paved +with graves. Her father was a kindly man, but essentially moody and +solitary. He took all his meals alone, walked alone, sate alone. Her +mother died of cancer, when she was but a child. Then she was sent to +an ill-managed austere school, and here when she was nine years old her +two elder sisters died. She took service two or three times as a +governess, and endured agonies of misunderstanding, suspicious of her +employers, afraid of her pupils, longing for home with an intense +yearning. Then she went out to a school at Brussels, where under the +teaching of M. Heger, a gifted professor, her mind and heart awoke, and +she formed for him a strange affection, half an intellectual devotion, +half an unconscious passion, which deprived her of her peace of mind. +Her sad and wistful letters to him, lately published, were disregarded +by him, partly because his wife was undoubtedly jealous of the +relation, partly because he was disconcerted by the emotion he had +aroused. Her brother, a brilliant, wayward, and in some ways attractive +boy, got into disgrace, and drifted home, where he tried to console +himself with drink and opium. After three years of this horrible life, +he died, and within twelve months her two surviving sisters, Emily and +Anne, developed consumption and died. As Robert Browning says, there +indeed was "trouble enough for one!" +</P> + +<P> +Now it must be borne in mind that her temperament was naturally +hypochondriacal. +</P> + +<P> +Let me quote a passage dealing with the same experience; it is +undoubtedly autobiographical, though it comes from Villette, into which +Charlotte Bronte threw the picture of her own solitary experiences in +Brussels. She is left alone at the pensionnat in the vacation, strained +by work and anxiety, and tortured by exhaustion, restlessness, and +sleeplessness:— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"One day, perceiving this growing illusion, I said, 'I really believe +my nerves are getting overstretched: my mind has suffered somewhat too +much; a malady is growing upon it—what shall I do? How shall I keep +well?' +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"Indeed there was no way to keep well under the circumstances. At last +a day and night of peculiarly agonising depression were succeeded by +physical illness; I took perforce to my bed. About this time the Indian +summer closed, and the equinoctial storms began; and for nine dark and +wet days, of which the hours rushed on all turbulent, deaf, +dishevelled—bewildered with sounding hurricane—I lay in a strange +fever of the nerves and blood. Sleep went quite away. I used to rise in +the night, look round for her, beseech her earnestly to return. A +rattle of the window, a cry of the blast only replied—Sleep never came! +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I err. She came once, but in anger. Impatient of my importunity she +brought with her an avenging dream. By the clock of St. Jean Baptiste, +that dream remained scarce fifteen minutes—a brief space, but +sufficing to wring my whole frame with unknown anguish; to confer a +nameless experience that had the hue, the mien, the terror, the very +tone of a visitation from eternity. Between twelve and one that night a +cup was forced to my lips, black, strong, strange, drawn from no well, +but filled up seething from a bottomless and boundless sea. Suffering, +brewed in temporal or calculable measure, and mixed for mortal lips, +tastes not as this suffering tasted. Having drank [sic] and woke, I +thought all was over: the end come and passed by. Trembling +fearfully—as consciousness returned—ready to cry out on some +fellow-creature to help me, only that I knew no fellow-creature was +near enough to catch the wild summons—Goton in her far distant attic +could not hear—I rose on my knees in bed. Some fearful hours went over +me; indescribably was I torn, racked and oppressed in mind. Amidst the +horrors of that dream I think the worst lay here. Methought the +well-loved dead, who had loved ME well in life, met me elsewhere +alienated; galled was my inmost spirit with an unutterable sense of +despair about the future. Motive there was none why I should try to +recover or wish to live; and yet quite unendurable was the pitiless and +haughty voice in which Death challenged me to engage his unknown +terrors. When I tried to pray I could only utter these words:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"'From my youth up Thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind.'" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The deep interest of this experience is that it was endured by one who +was not only intellectually endowed beyond most women of her time, but +whose sanity, reasonableness, and moral force were conspicuously +strong. Charlotte Bronte was not one of those impulsive and imaginative +women who are the prey of every fancy. Throughout the whole of her +career, she was for ever compelling her frail and sensitive +temperament, with indomitable purpose, to perform whatever she had +undertaken to do. There never was anyone who lived so sternly by +principle and reason, or who so maintained her self-control in the face +of sorrow, disaster, unhappiness, and bereavement. She never gave way +to feeble or morbid self-accusation, and therefore the fact that she +could thus have suffered is a sign that this unnamed terror can coexist +with a dauntless courage and an essential self-command. +</P> + +<P> +Here again is the cry of a desolate heart! She had been going through +her sisters' papers not long after their death, and wrote to her great +friend: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I am both angry and surprised at myself for not being in better +spirits; for not growing accustomed, or at least resigned, to the +solitude and isolation of my lot. But my late occupation left a result, +for some days and indeed still, very painful. The reading over of +papers, the renewal of remembrances, brought back the pangs of +bereavement and occasioned a depression of spirits well-nigh +intolerable. For one or two nights I hardly knew how to get on till +morning; and when morning came I was still haunted by a sense of +sickening distress. I tell you these things because it is absolutely +necessary to me to have SOME relief. You will forgive me and not +trouble yourself, or imagine that I am one whit worse than I say. It is +quite a mental ailment, and I believe and hope is better now. I think +so, because I can speak about it, which I never can when grief is at +its worst. I thought to find occupation and interest in writing when +alone at home, but hitherto my efforts have been in vain: the +deficiency of every stimulus is so complete. You will recommend me, I +dare say, to go from home; but that does no good, even could I again +leave papa with an easy mind. . . . I cannot describe what a time of it +I had after my return from London and Scotland. There was a reaction +that sank me to the earth, the deadly silence, solitude, depression, +desolation were awful; the craving for companionship, the hopelessness +of relief were what I should dread to feel again." +</P> + +<BR> +<P> +Or again, in a somewhat calmer mood, she writes: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"I feel to my deep sorrow, to my humiliation, that it is not in my +power to bear the canker of constant solitude. I had calculated that +when shut out from every enjoyment, from every stimulus but what could +be desired from intellectual exertion, my mind would rouse itself +perforce. It is not so. Even intellect, even imagination will not +dispense with the ray of domestic cheerfulness, with the gentle spur of +family discussions. Late in the evening and all through the nights, I +fall into a condition of mind which turns entirely to the past—to +memory, and memory is both sad and relentless. This will never do, and +will produce no good. I tell you this that you may check false +anticipations. You cannot help me, and must not trouble yourself in any +shape to sympathise with me. It is my cup, and I must drink it as +others do theirs." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It would be difficult to create a picture of more poignant suffering; +yet she was at this time a famous writer. She had published Jane Eyre +and Shirley, and on her visits to London, to her hospitable publisher, +had found herself welcomed, honoured, feted. The great lions of the +literary world had flocked eagerly to meet her. Even these simple +festivities were accompanied by a deadly sense of strain, anxiety, and +exhaustion. Mrs. Gaskell describes how a little later she met Charlotte +Bronte at a quiet country-house, and how Charlotte was reduced from +tolerable health to a bad nervous headache by the announcement that +they were going to drive over in the afternoon to have tea at a +neighbour's house—the prospect of meeting strangers was so alarming to +her. +</P> + +<P> +But in spite of this agonising susceptibility and vulnerability, there +is never the least touch either of sentimentality or self-pity about +Charlotte Bronte. She stuck to her duty and faced life with an infinity +of patient courage. One of her friends said of her that no one she had +ever known had sacrificed more to others, or done it with a fuller +consciousness of what she was sacrificing. If duty and affection bade +her act, no sense of weakness or of inclination had any power over her. +She was afraid of life, but she stood up to it; she was never crushed +or broken. Consider the circumstances under which she began to write +Jane Eyre. She had written her novel The Professor, and it was returned +to her nine several times, by publisher after publisher. Her father was +threatened with blindness. She had taken him to Manchester for an +operation, installed him in lodgings, and settled down alone to nurse +him. The ill-fated Professor came back to her once more with a polite +refusal. That very day she wrote the first lines of Jane Eyre. Later on +too, with her brother dying of opium and drink, she had begun Shirley, +and she finished it after the deaths of her sisters. She was perfectly +merciless to herself, saw no reason why she should be spared any sorrow +or suffering or ill-health, but looked upon it all as a stern but not +unjust discipline. She had one of the most passionately affectionate +natures both in friendship and home relations—"my hot tenacious +heart," she once says! But there was no touch of softness or +sentimentality about her; she never feebly condoned weaknesses; her +observation of people was minute, her judgment of them severe and even +satirical. Her letters abound in pungent humour and acute perception; +and her idea of charity was not that of mild and muddled tolerance. She +had a vein of frank and rather bitter irony when she was indignant, and +she could return stroke for stroke. +</P> + +<P> +She knew well that, whatever life was meant to be, it was not intended +to be an easy business; but she did not face it stoically or +indifferently; she had a fierce desire for knowledge, culture, ideas; +she was ambitious; and above everything she desired to be loved; yet +she did not think of love in the way in which all English romancers had +treated it for over a century, as a condescending hand held out by a +superior being, for the glory of which a woman submitted to a more or +less contented servitude; but as a glowing equality of passion and +worship, in which two hearts clasped each other close, with a sacred +concurrence of soul. And thus it was that she and Robert Browning, +above all other writers of the century, put the love of man and woman +in the true light, as the supreme worth of life; not as a half-sensuous +excitement, with lapses and reactions, but as a great and holy mystery +of devotion and service and mutual help. She too had her little taste +of love. Mr. Nicholls, her father's curate, a man of deep tenderness +behind his quiet homely ways, had proposed to her; she had refused him; +but his suffering and bewilderment had touched her deeply, and at last +she consented, though she went to her wedding in fear and dread; but +she was rewarded, and for a few short months tasted a calm and sweet +happiness, the joy of being needed and desired, and at the same time +guarded and tended well. Her pathetic words, when she knew from his +lips that she must die, "God will not part us—we have been so happy," +are full of the deepest tragedy. +</P> + +<P> +I say again that I know of no instance among the most intimate records +of the human heart, in which life was faced with such splendid courage +as it was by Charlotte Bronte. It contained so many things which she +desired—art, beauty, thought, peace, deep and tender relations, and +the supreme crown of love. But she never dreamed of trying to escape or +shirk her lot. After her first great success with Jane Eyre, she might +have lived life on her own lines; her writing meant wealth to one of +her simple tastes; and as her closest friend said, if she had chosen to +set up a house of her own, she would have been gratefully thanked for +any kindness she might have shown to her household, instead of being, +as she was, ruthlessly employed and even tyrannised over. Consider how +a young authoress, with that splendid success to her credit, would +nowadays be made much of and tended, begged to consult her own wishes +and make, her own arrangements. But Charlotte Bronte hated notoriety, +and took her fame with a shrinking and modest amazement. She never gave +herself airs, or displayed any affectation, or caught at any flattery. +She just went back to her tragic home, and carried the burden of +housekeeping on her frail shoulders. The simplicity, the delicacy, the +humility of it all is above praise. If ever there was a human being who +might have pleaded to be excused from any gallant battling with life +because of her bleak, comfortless, unhappy surroundings, and her own +sensitive temperament, it was Charlotte Bronte. But instead of that she +fought silently with disaster and unhappiness, neither pitying herself +for her destiny, nor taking the smallest credit for her tough +resistance. It does not necessarily prove that all can wage so equal a +fight with fears and sorrows; but it shows at least that an indomitable +resolution can make a noble thing out of a life from which every +circumstance of romance and dignity seems to be purposely withdrawn. +</P> + +<P> +I do not think that there is in literature a more inspiring and +heartening book than Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte. The book +was written with a fine frankness and a daring indiscretion which cost +Mrs. Gaskell very dear. It remains as one of the most matchless and +splendid presentments of duty and passion and genius, waging a +perfectly undaunted fight with life and temperament, and carrying off +the spoils not only of undying fame, but the far more supreme crown of +moral force. Charlotte Bronte never doubted that she had been set in +the forefront of the battle, and that her first concern was with the +issues of life and sorrow and death. She died at thirty-eight, at a +time when many men and women have hardly got a firm hold of life at +all, or have parted with weak illusions. Yet years before she had said +sternly to a friend who was meditating a flight from hard conditions of +life: "The right course is that which necessitates the greatest +sacrifice of self-interest." Many people could have said that, but I +know no figure who more relentlessly and loyally carried out the +principle than Charlotte Bronte, or who waged a more vigorous and +tenacious battle with every onset of fear. "My conscience tells me," +she once wrote about an anxious decision, "that it would be the act of +a moral poltroon to let the fear of suffering stand in the way of +improvement. But suffer I shall. No matter!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +JOHN STERLING +</H3> + +<P> +I believe that the most affecting, beautiful, and grave message ever +written from a death-bed is John Sterling's last letter to Carlyle. It +reflects, perhaps, something of Carlyle's own fine manner, but then +Sterling had long been Carlyle's friend and confidant. +</P> + +<P> +Before I give it, let me add a brief account of Sterling. He was some +ten years Carlyle's junior, the son of the redoubtable Edward Sterling, +the leader-writer of the Times, a man who in his day wielded a mighty +influence. Carlyle describes the father's way of life, how he spent the +day in going about London, rolling into clubs, volubly questioning and +talking; then returned home in the evening, and condensed it all into a +leader, "and is found," said Carlyle, "to have hit the essential +purport of the world's immeasurable babblement that day with an +accuracy above all other men." +</P> + +<P> +The younger Sterling, Carlyle's friend, was at Cambridge for a time, +but never took his degree; he became a journalist, wrote a novel, +tales, plays, endless poems—all of thin and vapid quality. His brief +life, for he died at thirty-eight, was a much disquieted one; he +travelled about in search of health, for he was early threatened with +consumption; for a short time he was a curate in the English Church, +but drifted away from that. He lived for a time at Falmouth, and +afterwards at Ventnor. He must have been a man of extraordinary charm, +and with quite unequalled powers of conversation. Even Carlyle seems to +have heard him gladly, and that is no ordinary compliment, considering +Carlyle's own volubility, and the agonies, occasionally suppressed but +generally trenchantly expressed, with which Carlyle listened to other +well-known talkers like Coleridge and Macaulay. +</P> + +<P> +Carlyle certainly had a very deep affection and admiration for +Sterling; he rains down praises upon him, in that wonderful little +biography, which is probably the finest piece of work that Carlyle ever +did. +</P> + +<P> +He speaks of Sterling as "brilliant, beautiful, cheerful with an +ever-flowing wealth of ideas, fancies, imaginations . . . with frank +affections, inexhaustible hopes, audacities, activities, and general +radiant vivacity of heart and intelligence, which made the presence of +him an illumination and inspiration wherever he went." +</P> + +<P> +But all Carlyle's love and admiration for his friend did not induce him +to praise Sterling's writings; he looked upon him as a poet, but +without the gift of expression. He says that all Sterling's work was +spoilt by over-haste, and "a lack of due inertia." The fact is that +Sterling was a sort of improvisatore, and what was beautiful and +natural enough when poured out in talk, and with the stimulus of +congenial company, grew pale and indistinct when he wrote it down; he +had, in fact, no instinct for art or for design, and he failed whenever +he tried to mould ideas into form. +</P> + +<P> +The shadow of illness darkened about him, and he spent long periods in +prostrate seclusion, tended by his wife and children, unable to write +or talk or receive his friends. Then a terrible calamity befell him. +His mother, to whom he was devotedly attached, died after a long +illness, Sterling not being allowed to go to her, or to leave his own +sick-room. He received the news one morning by letter, that all was +over, went in to tell his wife, who was ill; while they were talking, +his wife became faint, and died two hours later. So that within a few +hours he lost the two human beings whom he most devotedly loved, and on +whom he most depended for sympathy and help. +</P> + +<P> +But in all Sterling's sorrows and illnesses, he never seems to have +lost his interest in life and thought, in ideas, questions, and +problems. Again and again he came back to the surface, with an +irrepressible zest and freshness, and even gaiety, until at last all +hope of life was extinguished. He lay dying for many weeks, and it was +then that he wrote his last letter to Carlyle, which must be given in +full:— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +HILLSIDE, VENTNOR,<BR> + 10th August 1844.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +MY DEAR CARLYLE,—For the first time for many months it seems possible +to send you a few words; merely, however, for Remembrance and Farewell. +On higher matters there is nothing to say. I tread the common road into +the great darkness, without any thought of fear, and with very much of +hope. Certainty indeed I have none. With regard to you and me I cannot +begin to write; having nothing for it but to keep shut the lid of those +secrets with all the iron weights that are in my power. Towards me it +is still more true than towards England that no man has been and done +like you. Heaven bless you! If I can lend a hand when THERE, that will +not be wanting. It is all very strange, but not one hundredth part so +sad as it seems to the standers-by. +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Your Wife knows my mind towards her, and will believe it without +asseverations.—Yours to the last, JOHN STERLING. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +That letter may speak for itself. In its dignity, its nobleness, its +fearlessness, it is one of the finest human documents I know. But let +it be remembered that it is not the letter of a mournful and +heart-broken man, turning his back on life in an ecstasy of despair; +but the letter of one who had taken a boundless delight in life, had +known upon equal terms most of the finest intellects of the day, and +had been frankly recognised by them as a chosen spirit. All Sterling's +designs for life and work had been slowly and surely thwarted by the +pressure of hopeless illness; yet he had never complained or fretted or +brooded, or indulged in any bitter recriminations against his destiny. +That seems to me a very heroic attitude; while the letter itself, in +its perfect frankness and courage, without a touch of solemnity or +affectation, or any trace of craven shrinking from his doom, makes it +in its noble simplicity one of the finest "last words" that I have ever +read, and finer, I verily believe, than any flight of poetical +imagination. +</P> + +<P> +A few days later he sent Carlyle some stanzas of verse, "written," says +Carlyle, "as if in star-fire and immortal tears; which are among my +sacred possessions, to be kept for myself alone." +</P> + +<P> +A few weeks before he wrote his last letter to Carlyle, Sterling had +written a letter to his son, who was then a boy at school in London. In +that he says: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"When I fancy how you are walking in the same streets, and moving along +the same river, that I used to watch so intently, as if in a dream, +when younger than you are—I could gladly burst into tears, not of +grief, but with a feeling that there is no name for. Everything is so +wonderful, great and holy, so sad and yet not bitter, so full of Death +and so bordering on Heaven. Can you understand anything of this? If you +can, you will begin to know what a serious matter our Life is; how +unworthy and stupid it is to trifle it away without heed; what a +wretched, insignificant, worthless creature anyone comes to be, who +does not as soon as possible bend his whole strength, as in stringing a +stiff bow, to doing whatever task lies first before him." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +That again is a noble letter; but over it I think there lies a little +shadow of regret, a sense that he had himself wasted some of the force +of life in vague trifling; but even that mood had passed away in the +nearness of the great impending change, leaving him upborne upon the +greatness of God, in deep wonder and hope, knowing nothing more, in his +weariness and his suffering, but the calmness of the Eternal Will. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +INSTINCTIVE FEAR +</H3> + +<P> +The fears then from which men suffer, and even the greatest men not +least, seem to be strangely complicated by the fact that nature does +not seem to work as fast in the physical world as in the mental world. +The mosquitoes of South American swamps are all fitted with a perfect +tool-box of implements for piercing the hides of warm-blooded animals +and drawing blood, although warm-blooded animals have long ceased to +exist in those localities. But as the mosquito is one of the few +creatures which can propagate its kind without ever partaking of food, +the mosquito has therefore not died out; and though for many +generations billions upon billions of mosquitoes have never had a +chance of doing what they seem born to do, they have not discarded +their apparatus. If mosquitoes could reason and philosophise, the +prospect of such a meal might remain as a far-off and inspiring ideal +of life and conduct, a thing which heroes in the past had achieved, and +which might be possible again if they remained true to their highest +instincts. So it is with humanity. Many of our fears do not correspond +to any real danger; they are part of a panoply which we inherit, and +have to do with the instinct of self-preservation. We are exposed to +dangers still, dangers of infection for instance, but we have developed +no instinctive fear which helps us to recognise the presence of +infection. We take rational precautions against it when we recognise +it, but the vast prevalence and mortality of consumption a generation +or two ago was due to the fact that men did not recognise consumption +as infectious; and many fine lives—Keats and Emily Bronte, to name but +two—were sacrificed to careless proximity as well as to devoted +tendance; but here nature, with all her instinct of self-preservation, +did not hang out any danger signal, or provide human beings with any +instinctive fear to protect them. Our instinctive fears, such as our +fear of darkness and solitude, and our suspicion of strangers, seem to +date from a time when such conditions were really dangerous, though +they are so no longer. +</P> + +<P> +At the same time the development of the imaginative faculty has brought +with it a whole series of new terrors, through our power of +anticipating and picturing possible calamities; while our increased +sensitiveness as well as our more sentimental morality expose us to yet +another range of fears. Consider the dread which many of us feel at the +prospect of a painful interview, our avoidance of an unpleasant scene, +our terror of arousing anger. The basis of all this is the primeval +dread of personal violence. We are afraid of arousing anger, not +because we expect to be assailed by blows and wounds, but because our +far-off ancestors expected anger to end in an actual assault. We may +know that we shall emerge from an unpleasant interview unscathed in +fortune and in limb, but we anticipate it with a quite irrational +terror, because we are still haunted by fears which date from a time +when injury was the natural outcome of wrath. It may be our duty, and +we may recognise it to be our duty, to make a protest of an unpleasant +kind, or to withstand the action of an irritable person; but though we +know well enough that he has no power to injure us, the flashing eye, +the distended nostril, the rising pallor, the uplifted voice have a +disagreeable effect on our nerves, although we know well that no +physical disaster will result from it. Mrs. Browning, for instance, +though she had high moral courage and tenacity of purpose, could not +face an interview with her father, because an exhibition of his anger +caused her to faint away on the spot. One does not often experience +this whiff of violent anger in middle life; but the other day I had +occasion to speak to a colleague of mine on a Board of which I am a +member, at the conclusion of a piece of business in which I had +proposed and carried a certain policy. I did not know that he +disapproved of the policy in question, but I found on speaking to him +that he was in a towering passion at my having opposed the policy which +he preferred. He grew pale with rage; the hair on his head seemed to +bristle, his eyes flashed fire; he slammed down a bundle of papers in +his hand on the table, he stamped with passion; and I confess that it +was profoundly disturbing and disconcerting. I felt for a moment that +sickening sense of misgiving with which as a little boy one confronted +an angry schoolmaster. Though I knew that I had a perfect right to my +opinion, though I recognised that my sensations were quite irrational, +I felt myself confronted with something demoniacal and insane, and the +basis of it was, I am sure, physical and not moral terror. If I had +been bullied or chastised as a child, I should be able to refer the +discomfort I felt to old associations. But I feel no doubt that my +emotion was something far more primeval than that, and that the dumb +and atrophied sense of self-preservation was at work. The fear then +that I felt was an instinctive thing, and was experienced in the inner +nature and not in the rational mind; and the perplexity of the +situation arises from the fact that such fear cannot be combated by +rational considerations. Though no harm whatever resulted or could +result from such an interview, yet I am certain that the prospect of +such an outbreak would make me in the future far more cautious in +dealing with this particular man, more anxious to conciliate him, and +probably more disposed to compromise a matter. +</P> + +<P> +Such an incident makes one unpleasantly aware of the quality of one's +nature and temperament. It shows one that though one may have a strong +moral and intellectual sense of what is the right and sensible course +to take, one may be sadly hampered in carrying it out, by this secret +and hidden instinct of which one may be rationally ashamed, but which +is characteristic of what seems to be the stronger and more vital part +of one's self. +</P> + +<P> +The whole of civilisation is a combat between these two forces, a +struggle between the rational and the instinctive parts of the mind. +The instinctive mind bids one follow profit, need, advantage, the +pleasure of the moment; the rational part of the mind bids one abstain, +resist, balance contingencies, act in accordance with a moral standard. +Many such abstentions become a mere matter of habit. If one is hungry +and thirsty, and meets a child carrying bread or milk, one has no +impulse to seize the food and eat it. One does not reflect upon the +possible outcome of following the impulse of plunder; it simply does +not enter one's head so to act. And there is of course a slow process +going on in the world by which this moral restraint is becoming +habitual and instinctive; but notably in the case of fear our instinct +is a belated one, and results in many causeless and baseless anxieties +which our reason in vain assures us are wholly false. +</P> + +<P> +What then is our practical way of escape from the dominion of these +shadows? Not, I am sure, in any resolute attempt to combat them by +rational weapons; the rational argument, the common-sense consolation, +only touches the rational part of the mind; we have got to get behind +and below that, we have got somehow to fight instinct by instinct, and +quell the terror in its proper home. By our finite nature we are +compelled to attend to one thing at a time, and thus if we use rational +argument, we are recognising the presence of the irrational fear; it is +of little use then to array our advantages against our disadvantages, +our blessings against our sufferings, as Michael Finsbury did with such +small effect in The Wrong Box; our only chance is to turn tail +altogether, and try to set some other dominant instinct at work; while +we remember, we shall continue to suffer; our best chance lies in +forgetting, and we can only do that by calling some other dominant +emotion into play. +</P> + +<P> +And here comes in the peculiarly paralysing effect of these baser +emotions. As Victor Hugo once said, in a fine apophthegm, "Despair +yawns." Fear and anxiety bring with them a particular kind of physical +fatigue which makes us listless and inert. They lie on the spirit with +a leaden dullness, which takes from us all possibility of energy and +motion. Who does not know the instinct, when one is crushed and +tortured by depression, to escape into solitude and silence, and to let +the waves and streams flow over one. That is a universal instinct, and +it is not wholly to be disregarded; it shows that to torture oneself +into rational activity is of little use, or worse than useless. +</P> + +<P> +When I was myself a sufferer from long nervous depression, and had to +face a social gathering, I used out of very shame, and partly I think +out of a sense of courtesy due to others, to galvanise myself into a +sort of horrid merriment. The dark tide flowed on beneath in its sore +and aching channels. It was common enough then for some sympathetic +friend to say, "You seemed better to-night—you were quite yourself; +that is what you want; if you would only make the effort and go out +more into society, you would soon forget your troubles." There is +something in it, because the sick mind must be persuaded if possible +not to grave its dolorous course too indelibly in the temperament; but +no one else could see the acute and intolerable reaction which used to +follow such a strain, or how, the excitement over, the suffering +resumed its sway over the exhausted self with an insupportable agony. I +am sure that in my long affliction I never suffered more than after +occasions when I was betrayed by excitement into argument or lively +talk, and the worst spasms of melancholy that I ever endured were the +direct and immediate results of such efforts. +</P> + +<P> +The counteracting force in fact must be an emotional and instinctive +one, not a rational and deliberate one; and this must be our next +endeavour, to see in what direction the counterpoise must lie. +</P> + +<P> +In depression then, and when causeless fears assail us, we must try to +put the mind in easier postures, to avoid excess and strain, to live +more in company, to do something different. Human beings are happiest +in monotony and settled ways of life; but these also develop their own +poisons, like sameness of diet, however wholesome it may be. It is, I +believe, an established fact that most people cannot eat a pigeon a day +for fourteen days in succession; a pigeon is not unwholesome, but the +digestion cannot stand iteration. There is an old and homely story of a +man who went to a great doctor suffering from dyspepsia. The doctor +asked him what he ate, and he said that he always lunched off bread and +cheese. "Try a mutton chop," said the doctor. He did so with excellent +results. A year later he was ill again and went to the same doctor, who +put him through the same catechism. "What do you have for luncheon?" +said the doctor. "A chop," said the patient, conscious of virtuous +obedience. "Try bread and cheese," said the doctor. "Why," said the +patient, "that was the very thing you told me to avoid." "Yes," said +the doctor, "and I tell you to avoid a chop now. You, are suffering not +from diet, but from monotony of diet—and you want a change." +</P> + +<P> +The principle holds good of ordinary life; it is humiliating to confess +it, but these depressions and despondencies which beset us are often +best met by very ordinary physical remedies. It is not uncommon for +people who suffer from them to examine their consciences, rake up +forgotten transgressions, and feel themselves to be under the anger of +God. I do not mean that such scrutiny of life is wholly undesirable; +depression, though it exaggerates our sinfulness, has a wonderful way +of laying its finger on what is amiss, but we must not wilfully +continue in sadness; and sadness is often a combination of an old +instinct with the staleness which comes of civilised life; and a return +to nature, as it is called, is often a cure, because civilisation has +this disadvantage, that it often takes from us the necessity of doing +many of the things which it is normal to man by inheritance to +do—fighting, hunting, preparing food, working with the hands. We +combat these old instincts artificially by games and exercises. It is +humiliating again to think that golf is an artificial substitute for +man's need to hunt and plough, but it is undoubtedly true; and thus to +break with the monotony of civilisation, and to delude the mind into +believing that it is occupied with primal needs is often a great +refreshment. Anyone who fishes and shoots knows that the joy of +securing a fish or a partridge is entirely out of proportion to any +advantages resulting. A lawyer could make money enough in a single week +to buy the whole contents of a fishmonger's shop, but this does not +give him half the satisfaction which comes from fishing day after day +for a whole week, and securing perhaps three salmon. The fact is that +the old savage mind, which lies behind the rational and educated mind, +is having its fling; it believes itself to be staving off starvation by +its ingenuity and skill, and it unbends like a loosened bow. +</P> + +<P> +We may be enjoying our work, and we may even take glad refuge in it to +stave off depression, but we are then often adding fuel to the fire, +and tiring the very faculty of resistance, which hardly knows that it +needs resting. +</P> + +<P> +The smallest change of scene, of company, of work may effect a +miraculous improvement when we are feeling low-spirited and listless. +It is not idleness as a rule that we want, but the use of other +faculties and powers and muscles. +</P> + +<P> +And thus though our anxieties may be a real factor in our success, and +may give us the touch of prudence and vigilance we want, it does not do +to allow ourselves to drift into vague fears and dull depressions, and +we must fight them in a practical way. We must remember the case of +Naaman, who was vexed at being told to go and dip himself in a +mud-stained stream running violently in rocky places, when he might +have washed in Abana and Pharpar, the statelier, purer, fuller streams +of his native land. It is just the little homely torrent that we need, +and part of our cares come from being too dignified about them. It is +pleasanter to think oneself the battle-ground for high and tragical +forces of a spiritual kind, than to realise that some little homely bit +of common machinery is out of gear. But we must resist the temptation +to feel that our fears have a dark and great significance. We must +simply treat them as little sicknesses and ailments of the soul. +</P> + +<P> +I therefore believe that fears are like those little fugitive gliding +things that seem to dart across the field of the eye when it is weak +and ailing, vague clusters and tangles and spidery webs, that float and +fly, and can never be fixed and truly seen; and that they are best +treated as we learn to treat common ailments, by not concerning +ourselves very much about them, by enduring and evading them and +distracting the mind, and not by facing them, because they will not be +faced; nor can they be dispelled by reason, because they are not in the +plane of reason at all, but phantoms gathered by the sick imagination, +distorted out of their proper shape, evil nightmares, the horror of +which is gone with the dawn. They are the shadows of our childishness, +and they show that we have a long journey before us; and they gain +their strength from the fact that we gather them together out of the +future like the bundle of sticks in the fable, when we shall have the +strength to snap them singly as they come. +</P> + +<P> +The real way to fight them is to get together a treasure of interests +and hopes and beautiful visions and emotions, and above all to have +some definite work which lies apart from our daily work, to which we +can turn gladly in empty hours; because fears are born of inaction and +idleness, and melt insensibly away in the warmth of labour and duty. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing can really hurt us except our own despair. But the problem +which is difficult is how to practise a real fulness of life, and yet +to keep a certain detachment, how to realise that what we do is small +and petty enough, but that the greatness lies in our energy and +briskness of action; we should try to be interested in life as we are +interested in a game, not believing too much in the importance of it, +but yet intensely concerned at the moment in playing it as well and +skilfully as possible. The happiest people of all are those who can +shift their interest rapidly from point to point, and throw themselves +into the act of the moment, whatever it may be. Of course this is +largely at first a matter of temperament, but temperament is not +unalterable; and self-discipline working along the lines of habit has a +great attractiveness, the moment we feel that life is beginning to +shape itself upon real lines. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FEAR OF LIFE +</H3> + +<P> +Let us divide our fears up into definite divisions, and see how it is +best to deal with them. Lowest and worst of all is the shapeless and +bodiless fear, which is a real disease of brain and nerves. I know no +more poignant description of this than in the strange book Lavengro: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"'What ails you, my child,' said a mother to her son, as he lay on a +couch under the influence of the dreadful one; 'what ails you? you seem +afraid!' +</P> + +<P> +"Boy. And so I am; a dreadful fear is upon me. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother. But of what? there is no one can harm you; of what are you +apprehensive? +</P> + +<P> +"Boy. Of nothing that I can express; I know not what I am afraid of, +but afraid I am. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother. Perhaps you see sights and visions; I knew a lady once who was +continually thinking that she saw an armed man threaten her, but it was +only an imagination, a phantom of the brain. +</P> + +<P> +"Boy. No armed man threatens me; and 'tis not a thing that would cause +me any fear. Did an armed man threaten me, I would get up and fight +him; weak as I am, I would wish for nothing better, for then, perhaps, +I should lose this fear; mine is a dread of I know not what, and there +the horror lies. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother. Your forehead is cool, and your speech collected. Do you know +where you are? +</P> + +<P> +"Boy. I know where I am, and I see things just as they are; you are +beside me, and upon the table there is a book which was written by a +Florentine. All this I see, and that there is no ground for being +afraid. I am, moreover, quite cool, and feel no pain—but—but— +</P> + +<P> +"And then there was a burst of 'gemiti, sospiri ed alti guai.' Alas, +alas, poor child of clay! as the sparks fly upward, so wast thou born +to sorrow—Onward!" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +That is a description of amazing power, but of course we are here +dealing with a definite brain-malady, in which the emotional centres +are directly affected. This in a lesser degree no doubt affects more +people than one would wish to think; but it may be considered a +physical malady of which fear is the symptom and not the cause. +</P> + +<P> +Let us then frankly recognise the physical element in these irrational +terrors; and when one has once done this, a great burden is taken off +the mind, because one sees that such fear may be a real illusion, a +sort of ghastly mockery, which by directly affecting the delicate +machinery through which emotion is translated into act, may produce a +symptom of terror which is both causeless and baseless, and which may +imply neither a lack of courage nor self-control. +</P> + +<P> +And, therefore, I feel, as against the Ascetic and the Stoic, that I am +meant to live and to taste the fulness of life; and that if I begin by +choosing the wrong joys, it is that I may learn their unreality. I have +learned already to compromise about many things, to be content with +getting much less than I desire, to acquiesce in missing many good +things altogether. But asceticism for the sake of prudence seems to me +a wilful error, as though a man practised starvation through uneasy +days, because of the chance that he might some day find himself with +not enough to eat. The only self-denial worth practising is the +self-denial that one admires, and that seems to one to be fine and +beautiful. +</P> + +<P> +For we must emphatically remember that the saint is one who lives life +with high enjoyment, and with a vital zest; he chooses holiness because +of its irresistible beauty, and because of the appeal it makes to his +mind. He does not creep through life ashamed, depressed, anxious, +letting ordinary delights slip through his nerveless fingers; and if he +denies himself common pleasures, it is because, if indulged, they +thwart and mar his purer and more lively joys. +</P> + +<P> +The fear of life, the frame of mind which says, "This attractive and +charming thing captivates me, but I will mistrust it and keep it at +arm's length, because if I lose it, I shall experience discomfort," +seems to me a poor and timid handling of life. I would rather say, "I +will use it generously and freely, knowing that it may not endure; but +it is a sign to me of God's care for me, that He gives me the desire +and the gratification; and even if He means me to learn that it is only +a small thing, I can learn that only by using it and trying its +sweetness." +</P> + +<P> +This may be held a dangerous doctrine; but I do not mean that life must +be a foolish and ingenuous indulgence of every appetite and whim. One +must make choices; and there are many appetites which come hand in hand +with their own shadow. I am not here speaking of tampering with sin; I +think that most people burn their fingers over that in early life. But +I am speaking rather of the delights of the body that are in no way +sinful, food and drink, games and exercise, love itself; and of the +joys of the mind and the artistic sense; free and open relations with +men and women of keen interests and eager fancies; the delights of +work, professional success, the doing of pleasant tasks as vigorously +and as perfectly as one can—all the stir and motion and delight of +life. +</P> + +<P> +To shrink back in terror from all this seems to me a sort of cowardice; +and it is a cowardice too to go on indulging in things which one does +not enjoy for the sake of social tradition. One must not be afraid of +breaking with social custom, if one finds that it leads one into dreary +and useless formalities, stupid and expensive entertainments, tiresome +gatherings, dull and futile assemblies. I think that men and women +ought gaily and delightedly to choose the things that minister to their +vigour and joy, and to throw themselves willingly into these things, so +long as they do not interfere with plainer and simpler duties. +</P> + +<P> +Another way of escape from the importunities of fear is to be very +resolute in fighting against our personal claims to honour and esteem. +We are sorely wounded through our ambitions, whether they be petty or +great; and it is astonishing to find how frail a basis often serves for +a sense of dignity. I have known lowly and unimportant people who were +yet full of pragmatical self-concern, and whose pride took the form not +so much of exalting their own consequence as of thinking meanly of +other people. It is easy to restore one's own confidence by dwelling +with bitter emphasis on the faults and failings of those about one, by +cataloguing the deficiencies of those who have achieved success, by +accustoming oneself to think of one's own lack of success as a sign of +unworldliness, and by attributing the success of others to a cynical +and unscrupulous pursuit of reputation. There is nothing in the world +which so differentiates men and women as the tendency to suspect and +perceive affronts, and to nurture grievances. It is so fatally easy to +think that one has been inconsiderately treated, and to mistake +susceptibility for courage. Let us boldly face the fact that we get in +this world very much what we earn and deserve, and there is no surer +way of being excluded and left out from whatever is going forward than +a habit of claiming more respect and deference than is due to one. If +we are snubbed and humiliated, it is generally because we have put +ourselves forward and taken more than our share. Whereas if we have +been content to bear a hand, to take trouble, and to desire useful work +rather than credit, our influence grows silently and we become +indispensable. A man who does not notice petty grumbling, who laughs +away sharp comments, who does not brood over imagined insults, who +forgets irritable passages, who makes allowance for impatience and +fatigue, is singularly invulnerable. The power of forgetting is +infinitely more valuable than the power of forgiving, in many +conjunctions of life. In nine cases out of ten, the wounds which our +sensibilities receive are the merest pin-pricks, enlarged and fretted +by our own hands; we work the little thorn about in the puncture till +it festers, instead of drawing it out and casting it away. +</P> + +<P> +Very few of the prizes of life that we covet are worth winning, if we +scheme to get them; it is the honour or the task that comes to us +unexpectedly that we deserve. I have heard discontented men say that +they never get the particular work that they desire and for which they +feel themselves to be suited; and meanwhile life flies swiftly, while +we are picturing ourselves in all sorts of coveted situations, and +slighting the peaceful happiness, the beautiful joys which lie all +around us, as we go forward in our greedy reverie. +</P> + +<P> +I have been much surprised, since I began some years ago to receive +letters from all sorts of unknown people, to realise how many persons +there are in the world who think themselves unappreciated. Such are not +generally people who have tried and failed;—an honest failure very +often brings a wholesome sense of incompetence;—but they are generally +persons who think that they have never had a chance of showing what is +in them, speakers who have found their audiences unresponsive, writers +who have been discouraged by finding their amateur efforts unsaleable, +men who lament the unsuitability of their profession to their +abilities, women who find themselves living in what they call a +thoroughly unsympathetic circle. The failure here lies in an incapacity +to believe in one's own inefficiency, and a sturdy persuasion of the +malevolence of others. +</P> + +<P> +Here is a soil in which fears spring up like thorns and briars. +"Whatever I do or say, I shall be passed over and slighted, I shall +always find people determined to exclude and neglect me!" I know +myself, only too well, how fertile the brain is in discovering almost +any reason for a failure except what is generally the real reason, that +the work was badly done. And the more eager one is for personal +recognition and patent success, the more sickened one is by any hint of +contempt and derision. +</P> + +<P> +But it is quite possible, as I also know from personal experience, to +go patiently and humbly to work again, to face the reasons for failure, +to learn to enjoy work, to banish from the mind the uneasy hope of +personal distinction. We may try to discern the humour of Providence, +because I am as certain as I can be of anything that we are humorously +treated as well as lovingly regarded. Let me relate two small incidents +which did me a great deal of good at a time of self-importance. I was +once asked to give a lecture, and it was widely announced. I saw my own +name in capital letters upon advertisements displayed in the street. On +the evening appointed, I went to the place, and met the chairman of the +meeting and some of the officials in a room adjoining the hall where I +was to speak. We bowed and smiled, paid mutual compliments, +congratulated each other on the importance of the occasion. At last the +chairman consulted his watch and said it was time to be beginning. A +procession was formed, a door was majestically thrown open by an +attendant, and we walked with infinite solemnity on to the platform of +an entirely empty hall, with rows of benches all wholly unfurnished +with guests. I think it was one of the most ludicrous incidents I ever +remember. The courteous confusion of the chairman, the dismay of the +committee, the colossal nature of the fiasco filled me, I am glad to +say, not with mortification, but with an overpowering desire to laugh. +</P> + +<P> +I may add that there had been a mistake about the announcement of the +hour, and ten minutes later a minute audience did arrive, whom I +proceeded to address with such spirit as I could muster; but I have +always been grateful for the humorous nature of the snub administered +to me. +</P> + +<P> +Again on another occasion I had to pay a visit of business to a remote +house in the country. A good-natured friend descanted upon the +excitement it would be to the household to entertain a living author, +and how eagerly my utterances would be listened to. I was received not +only without respect but with obvious boredom. In the course of the +afternoon I discovered that I was supposed to be a solicitor's clerk, +but when a little later it transpired what my real occupations were, I +was not displeased to find that no member of the party had ever heard +of my existence, or was aware that I had ever published a book, and +when I was questioned as to what I had written, no one had ever come +across anything that I had printed, until at last I soared into some +transient distinction by the discovery that my brother was the author +of Dodo. +</P> + +<P> +I cannot help feeling that there is something gently humorous about +this good-humoured indication that the whole civilised world is not +engaged in the pursuit of literature, and that one's claims to +consideration depend upon one's social merits. I do honestly think that +Providence was here deliberately poking fun at me, and showing me that +a habit of presenting one's opinions broadcast to the world does not +necessarily mean that the world is much aware either of oneself or of +one's opinions. +</P> + +<P> +The cure then, it seems to me, for personal ambition, is the humorous +reflection that the stir and hum of one's own particular teetotum is +confined to a very small space and range; and that the witty +description of the Greek politician who was said to be well known +throughout the whole civilised world and at Lampsacus, or of the +philosopher who was announced as the author of many epoch-making +volumes and as the second cousin of the Earl of Cork, represents a very +real truth,—that reputation is not a thing which is worth bothering +one's head about; that if it comes, it is apt to be quite as +inconvenient as it is pleasant, while if one grows to depend upon it, +it is as liable to part with its sparkle as soda-water in an open glass. +</P> + +<P> +And then if one comes to consider the commoner claim, the claim to be +felt and respected and regarded in one's own little circle, it is +wholesome and humiliating to observe how generously and easily that +regard is conceded to affectionateness and kindness, and how little it +is won by any brilliance or sharpness. Of course irritable, +quick-tempered, severe, discontented people can win attention easily +enough, and acquire the kind of consideration which is generally +conceded to anyone who can be unpleasant. How often families and groups +are drilled and cautioned by anxious mothers and sisters not to say or +do anything which will vex so-and-so! Such irritable people get the +rooms and the chairs and the food that they like, and the talk in their +presence is eagerly kept upon subjects on which they can hold forth. +But how little such regard lasts, and how welcome a relief it is, when +one that is thus courted and deferred to is absent! Of course if one is +wholly indifferent whether one is regarded, needed, missed, loved, so +long as one can obtain the obedience and the conveniences one likes, +there is no more to be said. But I often think of that wonderful poem +of Christina Rossetti's about the revenant, the spirit that returns to +the familiar house, and finds himself unregretted: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "'To-morrow' and 'to-day,' they cried;<BR> + I was of yesterday!"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +One sometimes sees, in the faces of old family servants, in unregarded +elderly relatives, bachelor uncles, maiden aunts, who are entertained +as a duty, or given a home in charity, a very beautiful and tender +look, indescribable in words but unmistakable, when it seems as if +self, and personal claims, and pride, and complacency had really passed +out of the expression, leaving nothing but a hope of being loved, and a +desire to do some humble service. +</P> + +<P> +I saw it the other day in the face of a little old lady, who lived in +the house of a well-to-do cousin, with rather a bustling and vigorous +family pervading the place. She was a small frail creature, with a +tired worn face, but with no look of fretfulness or discontent. She had +a little attic as a bedroom, and she was not considered in any way. She +effaced herself, ate about as much as a bird would eat, seldom spoke, +uttering little ejaculations of surprise and amusement at what was +said; if there was a place vacant in the carriage, she drove out. If +there was not, she stopped at home. She amused herself by going about +in the village, talking to the old women and the children, who half +loved and half despised her for being so very unimportant, and for +having nothing she could give away. But I do not think the little lady +ever had a thought except of gratitude for her blessings, and +admiration for the robustness and efficiency of her relations. She +claimed nothing from life and expected nothing. It seemed a little +frail and vanquished existence, and there was not an atom of what is +called proper pride about her; but it was fine, for all that! An +infinite sweetness looked out of her eyes; she suffered a good deal, +but never complained. She was glad to live, found the world a beautiful +and interesting place, and never quarrelled with her slender share of +its more potent pleasures. And she will slip silently out of life some +day in her attic room; and be strangely mourned and missed. I do not +consider that a failure in life, and I am not sure that it is not +something much more like a triumph. I know that as I watched her one +evening knitting in the corner, following what was said with intense +enjoyment, uttering her little bird-like cries, I thought how few of +the things that could afflict me had power to wound her, and how little +she had to fear. I do not think she wanted to take flight, but yet I am +sure she had no dread of death; and when she goes thitherward, leaving +the little tired and withered frame behind, it will be just as when the +crested lark springs up from the dust of the roadway, and wings his way +into the heart of the dewy upland. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SIMPLICITY +</H3> + +<P> +If we are to avoid the dark onset of fear, we must at all costs +simplify life, because the more complicated and intricate our life is, +and the more we multiply our defences, the more gates and posterns +there are by which the enemy can creep upon us. Property, comforts, +habits, conveniences, these are the vantage-grounds from which fears +can organise their invasions. The more that we need excitement, +distraction, diversion, the more helpless we become without them. All +this is very clearly recognised and stated in the Gospel. Our Saviour +does not seem to regard the abandonment of wealth as a necessary +condition of the Christian life, but He does very distinctly say that +rich men are beset with great difficulties owing to their wealth, and +He indicates that a man who trusts complacently in his possessions is +tempted into a disastrous security. He speaks of laying up treasure in +heaven as opposed to the treasures which men store up on earth; and He +points out that whenever things are put aside unused, in order that the +owner may comfort himself by the thought that they are there if he +wants them, decay and corruption begin at once to undermine and destroy +them. What exactly the treasure in heaven can be it is hard to define. +It cannot be anything quite so sordid as good deeds done for the sake +of spiritual investment, because our Saviour was very severe on those +who, like the Pharisees, sought to acquire righteousness by +scrupulosity. Nothing that is done just for the sake of one's own +future benefit seems to be regarded in the Gospel as worth doing. The +essence of Christian giving seems to be real giving, and not a sort of +usurious loan. There is of course one very puzzling parable, that of +the unjust steward, who used his last hours in office, before the news +of his dismissal could get abroad, in cheating his master, in order to +win the favour of the debtors by arbitrarily diminishing the amount of +their debts. It seems strange that our Saviour should have drawn a +moral out of so immoral an incident. Perhaps He was using a well-known +story, and even making allowances for the admiration with which in the +East resourcefulness, even of a fraudulent kind, was undoubtedly +regarded. But the principle seems clear enough, that if the Christian +chooses to possess wealth, he runs a great risk, and that it is +therefore wiser to disembarrass oneself of it. Property is regarded in +the Gospel as an undoubtedly dangerous thing; but so far from our Lord +preaching a kind of socialism, and bidding men to co-operate anxiously +for the sake of equalising wealth, He recommends an individualistic +freedom from the burden of wealth altogether. But, as always in the +Gospel, our Lord looks behind practice to motive; and it is clear that +the motive for the abandonment of wealth is not to be a desire to act +with a selfish prudence, in order to lay an obligation upon God to +repay one generously in the future for present sacrifices, but rather +the attainment of an individual liberty, which leaves the spirit free +to deal with the real interests of life. And one must not overlook the +definite promise that if a man seeks virtue first, even at the cost of +earthly possessions and comforts, he will find that they will be added +as well. +</P> + +<P> +Those who would discredit the morality of the Gospel would have one +believe that our Saviour in dealing with shrewd, homely, literal folk +was careful to promise substantial future rewards for any worldly +sacrifices they might make; but not so can I read the Gospel. Our +Saviour does undoubtedly say plainly that we shall find it worth our +while to escape from the burdens and anxieties of wealth, but the +reward promised seems rather to be a lightness and contentment of +spirit, and a freedom from heavy and unnecessary bonds. +</P> + +<P> +In our complicated civilisation it is far more difficult to say what +simplicity of life is. It is certainly not that expensive and dramatic +simplicity which is sometimes contrived by people of wealth as a +pleasant contrast to elaborate living. I remember the son of a very +wealthy man, who had a great mansion in the country and a large house +in London, telling me that his family circle were never so entirely +happy as when they were living at close quarters in a small Scotch +shooting-lodge, where their life was comparatively rough, and luxuries +unattainable. But I gathered that the main delight of such a period was +the sense of laying up a stock of health and freshness for the more +luxurious life which intervened. The Anglo-Saxon naturally loves a kind +of feudal dignity; he likes a great house, a crowd of servants and +dependants, the impression of power and influence which it all gives; +and the delights of ostentation, of having handsome things which one +does not use and indeed hardly ever sees, of knowing that others are +eating and drinking at one's expense, which is a thing far removed from +hospitality, are dear to the temperament of our race. We may say at +once that this is fatal to any simplicity of life; it may be that we +cannot expect anyone who is born to such splendours deliberately to +forego them; but I am sure of this, that a rich man, now and here, who +spontaneously parted with his wealth, and lived sparely in a small +house, would make perhaps as powerful an appeal to the imagination of +the English world as could well be made. If a man had a message to +deliver, there could be no better way of emphasizing it. It must not be +a mere flight from the anxiety of worldly life into a more congenial +seclusion. It should be done as Francis of Assisi did it, by continuing +to live the life of the world without any of its normal conveniences. +Patent and visible self-sacrifice, if it be accompanied by a tender +love of humanity, will always be the most impressive attitude in the +world. +</P> + +<P> +But if one is not capable of going to such lengths, if indeed one has +nothing that one can resign, how is it possible to practise simplicity +of life? It can be done by limiting one's needs, by avoiding luxuries, +by having nothing in one's house that one cannot use, by being detached +from pretentiousness, by being indifferent to elaborate comforts. There +are people whom I know who do this, and who, even though they live with +some degree of wealth, are yet themselves obviously independent of +comfort to an extraordinary degree. There is a Puritanical dislike of +waste which is a very different thing, because it often coexists with +an extreme attachment to the particular standard of comfort that the +man himself prefers. I know people who believe that a substantial +midday meal and a high tea are more righteous than a simple midday meal +and a substantial dinner. But the right attitude is one of unconcern +and the absence of uneasy scheming as to the details of life. There is +no reason why people should not form habits, because method is the +primary condition of work; but the moment that habit becomes tyrannous +and elaborate, then the spirit is at once in bondage to anxiety. The +real victory over these little cares is not for ever to have them on +one's mind; or one becomes like the bread-and-butter fly in Through the +Looking-Glass, whose food was weak tea with cream in it. "But supposing +it cannot find any?" said Alice. "Then it dies," says the gnat, who is +acting the part of interpreter. "But that must happen very often?" said +Alice. "It ALWAYS happens!" says the gnat with sombre emphasis. +</P> + +<P> +Simplicity is, in fact, a difficult thing to lay down rules for, +because the essence of it is that it is free from rules; and those who +talk and think most about it, are often the most uneasy and complicated +natures. But it is certain that if one finds oneself growing more and +more fastidious and particular, more and more easily disconcerted and +put out and hampered by any variation from the exact scheme of life +that one prefers, even if that scheme is an apparently simple one, it +is certain that simplicity is at an end. The real simplicity is a sense +of being at home and at ease in any company and mode of living, and a +quiet equanimity of spirit which cannot be content to waste time over +the arrangements of life. Sufficient food and exercise and sleep may be +postulated; but these are all to be in the background, and the real +occupations of life are to be work and interests and talk and ideas and +natural relations with others. One knows of houses where some trifling +omission of detail, some failure of service in a meal, will plunge the +hostess into a dumb and incommunicable despair. The slightest lapse of +the conventional order becomes a cloud that intercepts the sun. But the +right attitude to life, if we desire to set ourselves free from this +self-created torment, is a resolute avoidance of minute preoccupations, +a light-hearted journeying, with an amused tolerance for the incidents +of the way. A conventional order of life is useful only in so far as it +removes from the mind the necessity of detailed planning, and allows it +to flow punctually and mechanically in an ordered course. But if we +exalt that order into something sacred and solemn, then we become +pharisaical and meticulous, and the savour of life is lost. +</P> + +<P> +One remembers the scene in David Copperfield which makes so fine a +parable of life; how the merry party who were making the best of an +ill-cooked meal, and grilling the chops over the lodging-house fire, +were utterly disconcerted and reduced to miserable dignity by the entry +of the ceremonious servant with his "Pray, permit me," and how his +decorous management of the cheerful affair cast a gloom upon the circle +which could not even be dispelled when he had finished his work and +left them to themselves. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AFFECTION +</H3> + +<P> +One of the ways in which our fears have power to wound us most +grievously is through our affections, and here we are confronted with a +real and crucial difficulty. Are we to hold ourselves in, to check the +impulses of affection, to use self-restraint, not multiply intimacies, +not extend sympathies? One sees every now and then lives which have +entwined themselves with every tendril of passion and love and +companionship and service round some one personality, and have then +been bereaved, with the result that the whole life has been palsied and +struck into desolation by the loss. I am thinking now of two instances +which I have known; one was a wife, who was childless, and whose whole +nature, every motive and every faculty, became centred upon her +husband, a man most worthy of love. He died suddenly, and his wife lost +everything at one blow; not only her lover and comrade, but every +occupation as well which might have helped to distract her, because her +whole life had been entirely devoted to her husband; and even the hours +when he was absent from her had been given to doing anything and +everything that might save him trouble or vexation. She lived on, +though she would willingly have died at any moment, and the whole +fabric of her life was shattered. Again, I think of a devoted daughter +who had done the same office for an old and not very robust father. I +heard her once say that the sorrow of her mother's death had been +almost nullified for her by finding that she could do everything for +and be everything to her father, whom she almost adored. She had +refused an offer of marriage from a man whom she sincerely loved, that +she might not leave her father, and she never even told her father of +the incident, for fear that he might have felt that he had stood in the +way of her happiness. When he died, she too found herself utterly +desolate, without ties and without occupation, an elderly woman almost +without friends or companions. +</P> + +<P> +Ought one to feel that this kind of jealous absorption in a single +individual affection is a mistake? It certainly brought both the wife +and daughter an intense happiness, but in both cases the relation was +so close and so intimate that it tended gradually to seclude them from +all other relations. The husband and the father were both reserved and +shy men, and desired no other companionship. One can see so easily how +it all came about, and what the inevitable result was bound to be, and +yet it would have been difficult at any point to say what could have +been done. Of course these great absorbed emotions involve large risks; +and it may be doubted whether life can be safely lived on these +intensive lines. These are of course extreme instances, but there are +many cases in the world, and especially in the case of women whose life +is entirely built up on certain emotions like the love and care of +children; and when that is so, a nature becomes liable to the sharpest +incursions of fear. It is of little use arguing such cases +theoretically, because, as the proverb says, as the land lies the water +flows,—and love makes very light of all prudential considerations. +</P> + +<P> +The difficulty does not arise with large and generous natures which +give love prodigally in many directions, because if one such relation +is broken by death, love can still exercise itself upon those that +remain. It is the fierce and jealous sort of love that is so hard to +deal with, a love that exults in solitariness of devotion, and cannot +bear any intrusion of other relations. +</P> + +<P> +Yet if one believes, as I for one believe, that the secret of the world +is somehow hidden in love, and can be interpreted through love alone, +then one must run the risks of love, and seek for strength to bear the +inevitable suffering which love must bring. +</P> + +<P> +But men and women are very differently made in this respect. Among +innumerable minor differences, certain broad divisions are clear. Men, +in the first place, both by training and temperament, are far less +dependent upon affection than women. Career and occupation play a much +larger part in their thoughts. If one could test and intercept the +secret and unoccupied reveries of men, when the mind moves idly among +the objects which most concern it, it would be found, I do not doubt, +that men's minds occupy themselves much more about definite and +tangible things—their work, their duties, their ambitions, their +amusements—and centre little upon the thought of other people; an +affection, an emotional relation, is much more of an incident than a +settled preoccupation; and then with men there are two marked types, +those who give and lavish affection freely, who are interested and +attracted by others and wish to attach and secure close friends; and +there are others who respond to advances, yet do not go in search of +friendship, but only accept it when it comes; and the singular thing is +that such natures, which are often cold and self-absorbed, have a power +of kindling emotion in others which men of generous and eager feeling +sometimes lack. It is strange that it should be so, but there is some +psychological law at the back of it; and it is certainly true in my +experience that the men who have been most eagerly sought in friendship +have not as a rule been the most open-hearted and expansive natures. I +suppose that a certain law of pursuit holds good, and that people of +self-contained temperament, with a sort of baffling charm, who are +critical and hard to please, excite a certain ambition in those who +would claim their affection. +</P> + +<P> +Women, I have no doubt, live far more in the thought of others, and +desire their intention; they wish to arrive at mutual understanding and +confidence, to explore personality, to pierce behind the surface, to +establish a definite relation. Yet in the matter of relations with +others, women are often, I believe, less sentimental, and even less +tender-hearted than men, and they have a far swifter and truer +intuition of character. Though the two sexes can never really +understand each other's point of view, because no imagination can cross +the gulf of fundamental difference, yet I am certain that women +understand men far better than men understand women. The whole range of +motives is strangely different, and men can never grasp the comparative +unimportance with which women regard the question of occupation. +Occupation is for men a definite and isolated part of life, a thing +important and absorbing in itself, quite apart from any motives or +reasons. To do something, to make something, to produce something—that +desire is always there, whatever ebb and flow of emotions there may be; +it is an end in itself with men, and with many women it is not so; for +women mostly regard work as a necessity, but not an interesting +necessity. In a woman's occupation, there is generally someone at the +end of it, for whom and in connection with whom it is done. This is +probably largely the result of training and tradition, and great +changes are now going on in the direction of women finding occupations +for themselves. But take the case of such a profession as teaching; it +is quite possible for a man to be an effective and competent teacher, +without feeling any particular interest in the temperaments of his +pupils, except in so far as they react upon the work to be done. But a +woman can hardly take this impersonal attitude; and this makes women +both more and less effective, because human beings invariably prefer to +be dealt with dispassionately; and this is as a rule more difficult for +women; and thus in a complicated matter affecting conduct, a woman as a +rule forms a sounder judgment on what has actually occurred than a man, +and is perhaps more likely to take a severe view. The attitude of a +Galileo is often a useful one for a teacher, because boys and girls +ought in matters that concern themselves to learn how to govern +themselves. +</P> + +<P> +Thus in situations involving relation with others women are more liable +to feel anxiety and the pressure of personal responsibility; and the +question is to what extent this ought to be indulged, in what degree +men and women ought to assume the direction of other lives, and whether +it is wholesome for the director to allow a desire for personal +dominance to be substituted for more spontaneous motives. +</P> + +<P> +It very often happens that the temperaments which most claim help and +support are actuated by the egotistical desire to find themselves +interesting to others, while those who willingly assume the direction +of other lives are attracted more by the sense of power than by genuine +sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +But it is clear that it is in the region of our affections that the +greatest risks of all have to be run. By loving, we render ourselves +liable to the darkest and heaviest fears. Yet here, I believe, we ought +to have no doubt at all; and the man who says to himself, "I should +like to bestow my affection on this person and on that, but I will keep +it in restraint, because I am afraid of the suffering which it may +entail,"—such a man, I say, is very far from the kingdom of God. +Because love is the one quality which, if it reaches a certain height, +can altogether despise and triumph over fear. When ambition and delight +and energy fail, love can accompany us, with hope and confidence, to +the dark gate; and thus it is the one thing about which we can hardly +be mistaken. If love does not survive death, then life is built upon +nothingness, and we may be glad to get away; but it is more likely that +it is the only thing that does survive. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SIN +</H3> + +<P> +It is every one's duty to take himself seriously—that is the right +mean between taking oneself either solemnly or apologetically. There is +no merit in being apologetic about oneself. One has a right to be +there, wherever one is, a right to an opinion, a right to take some +kind of a hand in whatever is going on; natural tact is the only thing +which can tell us exactly how far those rights extend; but it is +inconvenient to be apologetic, because if one insists on explaining how +one comes to be there, or how one comes to have an opinion, other +people begin to think that one needs explanation and excuse; but it is +even worse to be solemn about oneself, because English people are very +critical in private, though they are tolerant in public, because they +dislike a scene, and have not got the art of administering the delicate +snub which indicates to a man that his self-confidence is exuberant +without humiliating him; when English people inflict a snub, they do it +violently and emphatically, like Dr. Johnson, and it generally means +that they are relieving themselves of accumulated disapproval. An +Englishman is apt to be deferential, and one of the worst temptations +of official life is the temptation to be solemn. There is an old story +about Scott and Wordsworth, when the latter stayed at Abbotsford; +Scott, during the whole visit, was full of little pleasant and +courteous allusions to Wordsworth's poems; and one of the guests +present records how at the end of the visit not a single word had ever +passed Wordsworth's lips which could have indicated that he knew his +host to have ever written a line of poetry or prose. +</P> + +<P> +I was sitting the other day at a function next a man of some eminence, +and I was really amazed at the way in which he discoursed of himself +and his habits, his diet, his hours of work, and the blank indifference +with which he received similar confidences. He merely waited till the +speaker had finished, and then resumed his own story. +</P> + +<P> +It is this sort of solemn egotism which makes us overvalue our +anxieties quite out of all proportion to their importance, because they +all appear to us as integral elements of a dignified drama in which we +enact the hero's part. We press far too heavily on the sense of +responsibility; and if we begin by telling boys, as is too often done +in sermons, that whatever they do or say is of far-reaching +consequence, that every lightest word may produce an effect, that any +carelessness of speech or example may have disastrous effects upon the +character of another, we are doing our best to encourage the +self-emphasis which is the very essence of priggishness. +</P> + +<P> +There is a curious conflict going on at the present time in English +life between light-mindedness and solemnity; there is a great appetite +for living, a love of amusement, a tendency to subordinate the +interests of the future to the pleasure of the moment, and to think +that the one serious evil is boredom; that is a healthy manifestation +enough in its way, because it stands for interest and delight in life; +but there is another strain in our nature, that of a rather heavy +pietism, inherited from our Puritan ancestors. It must not be forgotten +that the Puritan got a good deal of interest out of his sense of sin; +as the old combative elements of feudal ages disappeared, the soldierly +blood retained the fighting instinct, and turned it into moral regions. +The sense of adventure is impelled to satiate itself, and the Pilgrim's +Progress is a clear enough proof that the old combativeness was all +there, revelling in danger, and exulting in the thought that the human +being was in the midst of foes. Sin represented itself to the Puritan +as a thing out of which he could get a good deal of fun; not the fun of +yielding to it, but the fun of whipping out his sword and getting in +some shrewd blows. When preachers nowadays lament that we have lost the +sense of sin, what they really mean is that we have lost our +combativeness: we no longer believe that we must treat our foes with +open and brutal violence, and we perceive that such conduct is only +pitting one sin against another. There is no warrant in the Gospel for +the combative idea of the Christian life; all such metaphors and +suggestions come from St. Paul and the Apocalypse. The fact is that the +world was not ready for the utter peaceableness of the Gospel, and it +had to be accommodated to the violence of the world. +</P> + +<P> +Now again the Christian idea is coloured by scientific and medical +knowledge, and sin, instead of an enemy which we must fight, has become +a disease which we must try to cure. +</P> + +<P> +Sins, the ordinary sins of ordinary life, are not as a rule instincts +which are evil in themselves, so much as instincts which are selfishly +pursued to the detriment of others; sin is in its essence the +selfishness which will not cooperate, and which secures advantages +unjustly, without any heed to the disadvantage of others. SYMPATHETIC +IMAGINATION is the real foe of sin, the power of putting oneself in the +place of another; and much of the sentiment which is so prevalent +nowadays is the evidence of the growth of sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +The old theory of sin lands one in a horrible dilemma, because it +implies a treacherous enmity on the part of God, to create man weak and +unstable, and to pit his weakness against tyrannous desires; to allow +his will to do evil to be stronger than his power to do right, is a +satanical device. One must not sacrifice the truth to the desire for +simplicity and effective statement. The truth is intricate and obscure, +and to pretend that it is plain and obvious is mere hypocrisy. The +strength of Calvinism is its horrible resemblance to a natural +inference from the facts of life; but if any sort of Calvinism is true, +then it is a mere insult to the intelligence to say that God is loving +or just. The real basis for all deep-seated fear about life is the fear +that one will not be dealt with either lovingly or justly. But we have +to make a simple choice as to what we will believe, and the only hope +is to believe that immediate harshness and injustice is not ultimately +inconsistent with Love. No one who knows anything of the world and of +life can pretend to think or say that suffering always results from, or +is at all proportioned to, moral faults; and if we are tempted to +regard all our disasters as penal consequences, then we are tempted to +endure them with gloomy and morbid immobility. +</P> + +<P> +It is far more wholesome and encouraging to look upon many disasters +that befall us as opportunities to show a little spirit, to evoke the +courage which does not come by indolent prosperity, to increase our +sympathy, to enlarge our experience, to make things clearer to us, to +develop our mind and heart, to free us from material temptations. Past +suffering is not always an evil, it is often an exciting reminiscence. +It is good to take life adventurously, like Odysseus of old. What would +one feel about Odysseus if, instead of contriving a way out of the +Cyclops' cave, he had set himself to consider of what forgotten sin his +danger was the consequence? Suffering and disaster come to us to +develop our inventiveness and our courage, not to daunt and dismay us; +and we ought therefore to approach experience with a sense of humour, +if possible, and with a lively curiosity. I recollect hearing a man the +other day describing an operation to which he had been subjected. "My +word," he said, his eyes sparkling with delight at the recollection, +"that was awful, when I came into the operating-room, and saw the +surgeons in their togs, and the pails and basins all about, and was +invited to step up to the table!" There is nothing so agreeable as the +remembrance of fears through which we have passed; and we can only +learn to despise them by finding out how unbalanced they were. +</P> + +<P> +I do not mean that fears can ever be pleasant at the time, but we do +them too much honour if we court them and defer to them. However much +we may be tortured by them, there is always something at the back of +our mind which despises our own susceptibility to them; and it is that +deeper instinct which we ought to trust. +</P> + +<P> +But we cannot even begin to trust it, as long as we allow ourselves to +believe pietistically that the Mind of God is set on punishment. That +is the ghastly error which humanity tends to make. It has been dinned +into us, alas, from our early years, and religious phraseology is +constantly polluted by it. Our Saviour lent no countenance to this at +all; He spoke perfectly plainly against the theory of "judgments." Of +course suffering is sometimes a consequence of sin, but it is not a +vindictive punishment; it is that we may learn our mistake. But we must +give up the revengeful idea of God: that is imported into our scale of +values by the grossest anthropomorphism. Only the weak man, who fears +that his safety will be menaced if he does not make an example, deals +in revenge. He is indignant at anything which mortifies his vanity, +which implies any doubt of his power or any disregard of his wishes. +Revenge is born of terror, and to think of God as vindictive is to +think of Him as subject to fear. Serene and unquestioned strength can +have nothing to do with fear. Milton is largely responsible for +perpetuating this belief. He makes the Almighty say to the Son— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Let us advise, and to this hazard draw<BR> + With speed what force is left, and all employ<BR> + In our defence, lest unawares we lose<BR> + This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Milton's idea of the Almighty was frankly that of a Power who had +undertaken more than he could manage, and who had allowed things to go +too far. But it is a puerile conception of God; and to allow ourselves +to think or speak of God as a Power that has to take precautions, or +that has anything to fear from the exercise of human volition, is to +cloud the whole horizon at once. +</P> + +<P> +But we ought rather to think of God as a Power which for some reason +works through imperfection. The battle of the world is that of force +against inertness: and our fears are the shadow of that combat. +</P> + +<P> +Fear should then rather show us that we are being confronted with +experience; and that our duty is to disregard it, to march forward +through it, to come out on the other side of it. It is all an +adventure, in fact! The disaster in which we are involved is not sent +to show us that the Eternal Power which created us is vexed at our +failures, or bent on crushing us. It is exactly the opposite; it is to +show us that we are worth testing, worth developing, and that we are to +have the glory of going on; the very fear of death is the last test of +our belief in Love. We are assuredly meant to believe that the coward +is to learn the beauty of courage, that the laggard is to perceive the +worth of energy, that the selfish man is to be taught sympathy. If we +must take a metaphor, let us rather think of God as the graver of the +gem than as the child that beats her doll for collapsing instead of +sitting upright. +</P> + +<P> +It is our dishonouring thought of God as jealous, suspicious, fond of +exhibiting power, revengeful, cruel, that does us harm. We must rather +think of His Heart as full of courage, energy, and hope; as teeming +with joy, lightness, zest, mirth; and then we can begin to think of +failures, fears, delays as things small and unimportant, not as +malicious ambushes, but as rough bits of road, as obstacles to reveal +and to develop our strength and gaiety. There is no joy in the world so +great as the joy of finding ourselves stronger than we know; and that +is what God is bent upon showing us, and not upon proving to us that we +are vile and base, in the spirit of the old Calvinist who said to his +own daughter when she was dying of a painful disease, that she must +remember that all short of Hell was mercy. It is so; but Hell is rather +what we start from, and out of which we have to find our way, than the +waste-paper basket of life, the last receptacle for our shattered +purposes. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SERENITY +</H3> + +<P> +To achieve serenity we must have the power of keeping our hearts and +minds fixed upon something which is beyond and above the passing +incidents of life, which so disconcert and overshadow us, and which are +after all but as clouds in the sky, or islets in a great ocean. Think +with what smiling indifference a man would meet indignation and abuse +and menace, if he were aware that an hour hence he would be +triumphantly vindicated and applauded. How calmly would a man sleep in +a condemned cell if he knew that a free pardon were on its way to him! +Of course the more eagerly and enjoyably we live, so much the more we +are affected by little incidents, beyond which we can hardly look when +they bring us so much pleasure or so much discomfort; and thus it is +always the men and women of keen and highly-strung natures, who taste +the quality of every moment, in its sweetness and its bitterness, who +will most feel the influence of fear. Edward FitzGerald once sadly +confessed that, as life went on, days of perfect delight—a beautiful +scene, a melodious music, the society of those whom he loved +best—brought him less and less joy, because he felt that they were +passing swiftly, and could not be recalled. And of course the +imaginative nature which lives tremulously in delight will be most apt +to portend sadness in hours of happiness, and in sorrow to anticipate +the continuance of sorrow. That is an inevitable effect of temperament; +but we must not give way helplessly to temperament, or allow ourselves +to drift wherever the mind bears us. Just as the skilled sailor can +tack up against the wind, and use ingenuity to compel a contrary breeze +to bring him to the haven of his desire, so we must be wise in trimming +our sails to the force of circumstance; while there is an eager delight +in making adverse conditions help us to realise our hopes. +</P> + +<P> +The timid soul that loves delight is apt to say to itself, "I am happy +now in health and circumstances and friends, but I lean out into the +future, and see that health must fail and friends must drift away; +death must part me from those I love; and beyond all this, I see the +cloudy gate through which I must myself pass, and I do not know what +lies beyond it." That is true enough! It is like the story of the old +prince, as told by Herodotus, who said in his sorrowful age that the +Gods gave man only a taste of life, just enough to let him feel that +life was sweet, and then took the cup from his lips. But if we look +fairly at life, at our own life, at other lives, we see that pleasure +and contentment, even if we hardly realised that it was contentment at +the time, have largely predominated over pain and unhappiness; a man +must be very rueful and melancholy before he will deliberately say that +life has not been worth living, though I suppose that there have +probably been hours in the lives of all of us when we have thought and +said and even believed that we would rather not have lived at all than +suffer so. Neither must we pass over the fact that every day there are +men and women who, under the pressure of calamity and dismay, bring +their lives to a voluntary end. +</P> + +<P> +But we have to be very dull and thankless and slow of heart not to feel +that by being allowed to live, for however short a time, we have been +allowed to take part in a very beautiful and wonderful thing. The +loveliness of earth, its colours, its lights, its scents, its savours, +the pleasures of activity and health, the sharp joys of love and +friendship, these are surely very great and marvellous experiences, and +the Mind which planned them must be full of high purpose, eager +intention, infinite goodwill. And we may go further than that, and see +that even our sorrows and failures have often brought something great +to our view, something which we feel we have learned and apprehended, +something which we would not have missed, and which we cannot do +without. If we will frankly recognise all this, we cannot feebly +crumple up at the smallest touch of misery, and say suspiciously and +vindictively that we wish we had never opened our eyes upon the world; +and even if we do say that, even if we abandon ourselves to despair, we +yet cannot hope to escape; we did not enter life by our own will, it is +not our own prudence that has kept us there, and even if we end it +voluntarily, as Carlyle said, by noose or henbane, we cannot for an +instant be sure that we are ending it; every inference in the world, in +fact, would tend to indicate that we do not end it. We cannot destroy +matter, we can only disperse and rearrange it; we cannot generate a +single force, we can only summon it from elsewhere, and concentrate it, +as we concentrate electricity, at a single glowing point. Force seems +as indestructible as matter, and there is no reason to think that life +is destructible either. So that if we are to resign ourselves to any +belief at all, it must be to the belief that "to be, or not to be" is +not a thing which is in our power at all. We may extinguish life, as we +put out a light; but we do not destroy it, we only rearrange it. +</P> + +<P> +And we can thus at least practise and exercise ourselves in the belief +that we cannot bring our experiences to an end, however petulantly and +irritably we desire to do so, because it simply is not in our power to +effect it. We talk about the power of the will, but no effort of will +can obliterate the life that we have lived, or add a cubit to our +stature; we cannot abrogate any law of nature, or destroy a single atom +of matter. What it seems that we can do with the will is to make a +certain choice, to select a certain line, to combine existing forces, +to use them within very small limits. We can oblige ourselves to take a +certain course, when every other inclination is reluctant to do it; and +even so the power varies in different people. It is useless then to +depend blindly upon the will, because we may suddenly come to the end +of it, as we may come to the end of our physical forces. But what the +will can do is to try certain experiments, and the one province where +its function seems to be clear, is where it can discover that we have +often a reserve of unsuspected strength, and more courage and power +than we had supposed. We can certainly oppose it to bodily +inclinations, whether they be seductions of sense or temptations of +weariness. And in this one respect the will can give us, if not +serenity, at least a greater serenity than we expect. We can use the +will to endure, to wait, to suspend a hasty judgment; and impulse is +the thing which menaces our serenity most of all. The will indeed seems +to be like a little weight which we can throw into either scale. If we +have no doubt how we ought to act, we can use the will to enforce our +judgment, whether it is a question of acting or of abstaining; if we +are in doubt how to act, we can use our will to enforce a wise delay. +</P> + +<P> +The truth then about the will is that it is a force which we cannot +measure, and that it is as unreasonable to say that it does not exist +as to say that it is unlimited. It is foolish to describe it as free; +it is no more free than a prisoner in a cell is free; but yet he has a +certain power to move about within his cell, and to choose among +possible employments. +</P> + +<P> +Anyone who will deliberately test his will, will find that it is +stronger than he suspects; what often weakens our use of it is that we +are so apt to look beyond the immediate difficulty into a long +perspective of imagined obstacles, and to say within ourselves, "Yes, I +may perhaps achieve this immediate step, but I cannot take step after +step—my courage will fail!" Yet if one does make the immediate effort, +it is common to find the whole range of obstacles modified by the +single act; and thus the first step towards the attainment of serenity +of life is to practise cutting off the vista of possible contingencies +from our view, and to create a habit of dealing with a case as it +occurs. +</P> + +<P> +I am often tempted myself to send my anxious mind far ahead in vague +dismay; at the beginning of a week crammed with various engagements, +numerous tasks, constant labour, little businesses, many of them with +their own attendant anxiety, it is easy to say that there is no time to +do anything that one wants to do, and to feel that the matters +themselves will be handled amiss and bungled. But if one can only keep +the mind off, or distract it by work, or beguile it by a book, a walk, +a talk, how easily the thread spins off the reel, how quietly one comes +to harbour on the Saturday evening, with everything done and finished! +</P> + +<P> +Again, I am personally much disposed to dread the opposition and the +displeasure of colleagues, and to shrink nervously from anything which +involves dealing with a number of people. I ought to have found out +before now how futile such dread is; other people forget their vexation +and even grow ashamed of it, much as one does oneself; and looking back +I can recall no crisis which turned out either as intricate or as +difficult as one expected. +</P> + +<P> +Let me admit that I have more than once in life made grave mistakes +through this timidity and indolence, or through an imaginativeness +which could see in a great opportunity nothing but a sea of troubles, +which would, I do not doubt, have melted away as one advanced. But no +one has suffered except myself! Institutions do not depend upon +individuals; and I regard such failures now just as the petulant +casting away of a chance of experience, as a lesson which I would not +learn; but there is nothing irreparable about it; one only comes, more +slowly and painfully, to the same goal at last. I dare not say that I +regret it all, for we are all of us, whether small or great, being +taught a mighty truth, whether we wish it or know it; and all that we +can do to hasten it is to put our will into the right scale. I do not +think mistakes and failures ought to trouble one much; at all events +there is no fear mingled with them. But I do not here claim to have +attained any real serenity—my own heart is too impatient, too fond of +pleasure for that!—yet I can see clearly enough that it is there, if I +could but grasp it; and I know well enough how it is to be attained, by +being content to wait, and by realising at every instant and moment of +life that, in spite of my tremors and indolences, my sharp impatiences, +my petulant disgusts, something very real and great is being shown me, +which I shall at last, however dimly, perceive; and that even so the +goal of the journey is far beyond any horizon that I can conceive, and +built up like the celestial city out of unutterable brightness and +clearness, upon a foundation of peace and joy. +</P> + +<P> +It is very difficult to determine, by any exercise of the intellect or +imagination, what fears would remain to us if we were freed from the +dominion of the body. All material fears and anxieties would come to an +end; we should no longer have any poverty to dread, or any of the +limitations or circumscriptions which the lack of the means of life +inflicts upon us; we should have no ambitions left, because the +ambitions which centre on influence—that is, upon the desire to direct +and control the interests of a nation or a group of individuals—have +no meaning apart from the material framework of civil life. The only +kind of influence which would survive would be the influence of +emotion, the direct appeal which one who lives a higher and more +beautiful life can make to all unsatisfied souls, who would fain find +the way to a greater serenity of mood. Even upon earth we can see a +faint foreshadowing of this in the fact that the only personalities who +continue to hold the devotion and admiration of humanity are the +idealists. Men and women do not make pilgrimages to the graves and +houses of eminent jurists and bankers, political economists or +statisticians: these have done their work, and have had their reward. +Even the monuments of statesmen and conquerors have little power to +touch the imagination, unless some love for humanity, some desire to +uplift and benefit the race, have entered into their schemes and +policies. No, it is rather the soil which covers the bones of dreamers +and visionaries that is sacred yet, prophets and poets, artists and +musicians, those who have seen through life to beauty, and have lived +and suffered that they might inspire and tranquillise human hearts. The +princes of the earth, popes and emperors, lie in pompous sepulchres, +and the thoughts of those who regard them, as they stand in metal or +marble, dwell most on the vanity of earthly glory. But at the tombs of +men like Vergil and Dante, of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, the human +heart still trembles into tears, and hates the death that parts soul +from soul. So that if, like Dante, we could enter the shadow-land, and +hold converse with the spirits of the dead, we should seek out to +consort with, not those who have subdued and wasted the earth, or have +terrified men into obedience and service, but those whose hearts were +touched by dreams of impossible beauty, and who have taught us to be +kind and compassionate and tender-hearted, to love God and our +neighbour, and to detect, however faintly, the hope of peace and joy +which binds us all together. +</P> + +<P> +And thus if emotion, by which I mean the power of loving, is the one +thing which survives, the fears which may remain will be concerned with +all the thoughts which cloud love, the anger and suspicion that divide +us; so that perhaps the only fears which will survive at all will be +the fears of our own selfishness and coldness, that inner hardness +which has kept us from the love of God and isolated us from our +neighbour. The pride which kept us from admitting that we were wrong, +the jealousy that made us hate those who won the love we could not win, +the baseness which made us indifferent to the discomfort of others if +we could but secure our own ease, these are the thoughts which may +still have the power to torture us; and the hell that we may have to +fear may be the hell of conscious weakness and the horror of +retrospect, when we recollect how under these dark skies of earth we +went on our way claiming and taking all that we could get, and +disregarding love for fear of being taken advantage of. One of the +grievous fears of life is the fear of seeing ourselves as we really +are, in all our baseness and pettiness; yet that will assuredly be +shown us in no vindictive spirit, but that we may learn to rise and +soar. +</P> + +<P> +There is no hope that death will work an immediate moral change in us; +it may set us free from some sensual and material temptations, but the +innermost motives will indeed survive, that instinct which makes us +again and again pursue what we know to be false and unsatisfying. +</P> + +<P> +The more that we shrink from self-knowledge, the more excuses that we +make for ourselves, the more that we tend to attribute our failures to +our circumstances and to the action of others, the more reason we have +to fear the revelation of death. And the only way to face that is to +keep our minds open to any light, to nurture and encourage the wish to +be different, to pray hour by hour that at any cost we may be taught +the truth; it is useless to search for happy illusions, to look for +short cuts, to hope vaguely that strength and virtue will burst out +like a fountain beside our path. We have a long and toilsome way to +travel, and we can by no device abbreviate it; but when we suffer and +grieve, we are walking more swiftly to our goal; and the hours we spend +in fear, in sending the mind in weariness along the desolate track, are +merely wasted, for we can alter nothing so. We use life best when we +live it eagerly, exulting in its fulness and its significance, casting +ourselves into strong relations with others, drinking in beauty, making +high music in our hearts. There is an abundance of awe in the +experiences through which we pass, awe at the greatness of the vision, +at the vastness of the design, as it embraces and enfolds our weakness. +But we are inside it all, an integral and indestructible part of it; +and the shadow of fear falls when we doubt this, when we dread being +overlooked or disregarded. No such thing can happen to us; our +inheritance is absolute and certain, and it is fear that keeps us away +from it, and the fear of fearlessness. For we are contending not with +God, but with the fear which hides Him from our shrinking eyes; and our +prayer should be the undaunted prayer of Moses in the clefts of the +mountain, "I beseech Thee, show me Thy Glory!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Where No Fear Was, by Arthur Christopher Benson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE NO FEAR WAS *** + +***** This file should be named 4611-h.htm or 4611-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/1/4611/ + +Produced by Don Lainson and Charles Aldarondo. 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