1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987
3988
3989
3990
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998
3999
4000
4001
4002
4003
4004
4005
4006
4007
4008
4009
4010
4011
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021
4022
4023
4024
4025
4026
4027
4028
4029
4030
4031
4032
4033
4034
4035
4036
4037
4038
4039
4040
4041
4042
4043
4044
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
4057
4058
4059
4060
4061
4062
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070
4071
4072
4073
4074
4075
4076
4077
4078
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088
4089
4090
4091
4092
4093
4094
4095
4096
4097
4098
4099
4100
4101
4102
4103
4104
4105
4106
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114
4115
4116
4117
4118
4119
4120
4121
4122
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134
4135
4136
4137
4138
4139
4140
4141
4142
4143
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151
4152
4153
4154
4155
4156
4157
4158
4159
4160
4161
4162
4163
4164
4165
4166
4167
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177
4178
4179
4180
4181
4182
4183
4184
4185
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193
4194
4195
4196
4197
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202
4203
4204
4205
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222
4223
4224
4225
4226
4227
4228
4229
4230
4231
4232
4233
4234
4235
4236
4237
4238
4239
4240
4241
4242
4243
4244
4245
4246
4247
4248
4249
4250
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260
4261
4262
4263
4264
4265
4266
4267
4268
4269
4270
4271
4272
4273
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281
4282
4283
4284
4285
4286
4287
4288
4289
4290
4291
4292
4293
4294
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302
4303
4304
4305
4306
4307
4308
4309
4310
4311
4312
4313
4314
4315
4316
4317
4318
4319
4320
4321
4322
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330
4331
4332
4333
4334
4335
4336
4337
4338
4339
4340
4341
4342
4343
4344
4345
4346
4347
4348
4349
4350
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361
4362
4363
4364
4365
4366
4367
4368
4369
4370
4371
4372
4373
4374
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386
4387
4388
4389
4390
4391
4392
4393
4394
4395
4396
4397
4398
4399
4400
4401
4402
4403
4404
4405
4406
4407
4408
4409
4410
4411
4412
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422
4423
4424
4425
4426
4427
4428
4429
4430
4431
4432
4433
4434
4435
4436
4437
4438
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448
4449
4450
4451
4452
4453
4454
4455
4456
4457
4458
4459
4460
4461
4462
4463
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473
4474
4475
4476
4477
4478
4479
4480
4481
4482
4483
4484
4485
4486
4487
4488
4489
4490
4491
4492
4493
4494
4495
4496
4497
4498
4499
4500
4501
4502
4503
4504
4505
4506
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516
4517
4518
4519
4520
4521
4522
4523
4524
4525
4526
4527
4528
4529
4530
4531
4532
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540
4541
4542
4543
4544
4545
4546
4547
4548
4549
4550
4551
4552
4553
4554
4555
4556
4557
4558
4559
4560
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572
4573
4574
4575
4576
4577
4578
4579
4580
4581
4582
4583
4584
4585
4586
4587
4588
4589
4590
4591
4592
4593
4594
4595
4596
4597
4598
4599
4600
4601
4602
4603
4604
4605
4606
4607
4608
4609
4610
4611
4612
4613
4614
4615
4616
4617
4618
4619
4620
4621
4622
4623
4624
4625
4626
4627
4628
4629
4630
4631
4632
4633
4634
4635
4636
4637
4638
4639
4640
4641
4642
4643
4644
4645
4646
4647
4648
4649
4650
4651
4652
4653
4654
4655
4656
4657
4658
4659
4660
4661
4662
4663
4664
4665
4666
4667
4668
4669
4670
4671
4672
4673
4674
4675
4676
4677
4678
4679
4680
4681
4682
4683
4684
4685
4686
4687
4688
4689
4690
4691
4692
4693
4694
4695
4696
4697
4698
4699
4700
4701
4702
4703
4704
4705
4706
4707
4708
4709
4710
4711
4712
4713
4714
4715
4716
4717
4718
4719
4720
4721
4722
4723
4724
4725
4726
4727
4728
4729
4730
4731
4732
4733
4734
4735
4736
4737
4738
4739
4740
4741
4742
4743
4744
4745
4746
4747
4748
4749
4750
4751
4752
4753
4754
4755
4756
4757
4758
4759
4760
4761
4762
4763
4764
4765
4766
4767
4768
4769
4770
4771
4772
4773
4774
4775
4776
4777
4778
4779
4780
4781
4782
4783
4784
4785
4786
4787
4788
4789
4790
4791
4792
4793
4794
4795
4796
4797
4798
4799
4800
4801
4802
4803
4804
4805
4806
4807
4808
4809
4810
4811
4812
4813
4814
4815
4816
4817
4818
4819
4820
4821
4822
4823
4824
4825
4826
4827
4828
4829
4830
4831
4832
4833
4834
4835
4836
4837
4838
4839
4840
4841
4842
4843
4844
4845
4846
4847
4848
4849
4850
4851
4852
4853
4854
4855
4856
4857
4858
4859
4860
4861
4862
4863
4864
4865
4866
4867
4868
4869
4870
4871
4872
4873
4874
4875
4876
4877
4878
4879
4880
4881
4882
4883
4884
4885
4886
4887
4888
4889
4890
4891
4892
4893
4894
4895
4896
4897
4898
4899
4900
4901
4902
4903
4904
4905
4906
4907
4908
4909
4910
4911
4912
4913
4914
4915
4916
4917
4918
4919
4920
4921
4922
4923
4924
4925
4926
4927
4928
4929
4930
4931
4932
4933
4934
4935
4936
4937
4938
4939
4940
4941
4942
4943
4944
4945
4946
4947
4948
4949
4950
4951
4952
4953
4954
4955
4956
4957
4958
4959
4960
4961
4962
4963
4964
4965
4966
4967
4968
4969
4970
4971
4972
4973
4974
4975
4976
4977
4978
4979
4980
4981
4982
4983
4984
4985
4986
4987
4988
4989
4990
4991
4992
4993
4994
4995
4996
4997
4998
4999
5000
5001
5002
5003
5004
5005
5006
5007
5008
5009
5010
5011
5012
5013
5014
5015
5016
5017
5018
5019
5020
5021
5022
5023
5024
5025
5026
5027
5028
5029
5030
5031
5032
5033
5034
5035
5036
5037
5038
5039
5040
5041
5042
5043
5044
5045
5046
5047
5048
5049
5050
5051
5052
5053
5054
5055
5056
5057
5058
5059
5060
5061
5062
5063
5064
5065
5066
5067
5068
5069
5070
5071
5072
5073
5074
5075
5076
5077
5078
5079
5080
5081
5082
5083
5084
5085
5086
5087
5088
5089
5090
5091
5092
5093
5094
5095
5096
5097
5098
5099
5100
5101
5102
5103
5104
5105
5106
5107
5108
5109
5110
5111
5112
5113
5114
5115
5116
5117
5118
5119
5120
5121
5122
5123
5124
5125
5126
5127
5128
5129
5130
5131
5132
5133
5134
5135
5136
5137
5138
5139
5140
5141
5142
5143
5144
5145
5146
5147
5148
5149
5150
5151
5152
5153
5154
5155
5156
5157
5158
5159
5160
5161
5162
5163
5164
5165
5166
5167
5168
5169
5170
5171
5172
5173
5174
5175
5176
5177
5178
5179
5180
5181
5182
5183
5184
5185
5186
5187
5188
5189
5190
5191
5192
5193
5194
5195
5196
5197
5198
5199
5200
5201
5202
5203
5204
5205
5206
5207
5208
5209
5210
5211
5212
5213
5214
5215
5216
5217
5218
5219
5220
5221
5222
5223
5224
5225
5226
5227
5228
5229
5230
5231
5232
5233
5234
5235
5236
5237
5238
5239
5240
5241
5242
5243
5244
5245
5246
5247
5248
5249
5250
5251
5252
5253
5254
5255
5256
5257
5258
5259
5260
5261
5262
5263
5264
5265
5266
5267
5268
5269
5270
5271
5272
5273
5274
5275
5276
5277
5278
5279
5280
5281
5282
5283
5284
5285
5286
5287
5288
5289
5290
5291
5292
5293
5294
5295
5296
5297
5298
5299
5300
5301
5302
5303
5304
5305
5306
5307
5308
5309
5310
5311
5312
5313
5314
5315
5316
5317
5318
5319
5320
5321
5322
5323
5324
5325
5326
5327
5328
5329
5330
5331
5332
5333
5334
5335
5336
5337
5338
5339
5340
5341
5342
5343
5344
5345
5346
5347
5348
5349
5350
5351
5352
5353
5354
5355
5356
5357
5358
5359
5360
5361
5362
5363
5364
5365
5366
5367
5368
5369
5370
5371
5372
5373
5374
5375
5376
5377
5378
5379
5380
5381
5382
5383
5384
5385
5386
5387
5388
5389
5390
5391
5392
5393
5394
5395
5396
5397
5398
5399
5400
5401
5402
5403
5404
5405
5406
5407
5408
5409
5410
5411
5412
5413
5414
5415
5416
5417
5418
5419
5420
5421
5422
5423
5424
5425
5426
5427
5428
5429
5430
5431
5432
5433
5434
5435
5436
5437
5438
5439
5440
5441
5442
5443
5444
5445
5446
5447
5448
5449
5450
5451
5452
5453
5454
5455
5456
5457
5458
5459
5460
5461
5462
5463
5464
5465
5466
5467
5468
5469
5470
5471
5472
5473
5474
5475
5476
5477
5478
5479
5480
5481
5482
5483
5484
5485
5486
5487
5488
5489
5490
5491
5492
5493
5494
5495
5496
5497
5498
5499
5500
5501
5502
5503
5504
5505
5506
5507
5508
5509
5510
5511
5512
5513
5514
5515
5516
5517
5518
5519
5520
5521
5522
5523
5524
5525
5526
5527
5528
5529
5530
5531
5532
5533
5534
5535
5536
5537
5538
5539
5540
5541
5542
5543
5544
5545
5546
5547
5548
5549
5550
5551
5552
5553
5554
5555
5556
5557
5558
5559
5560
5561
5562
5563
5564
5565
5566
5567
5568
5569
5570
5571
5572
5573
5574
5575
5576
5577
5578
5579
5580
5581
5582
5583
5584
5585
5586
5587
5588
5589
5590
5591
5592
5593
5594
5595
5596
5597
5598
5599
5600
5601
5602
5603
5604
5605
5606
5607
5608
5609
5610
5611
5612
5613
5614
5615
5616
5617
5618
5619
5620
5621
5622
5623
5624
5625
5626
5627
5628
5629
5630
5631
5632
5633
5634
5635
5636
5637
5638
5639
5640
5641
5642
5643
5644
5645
5646
5647
5648
5649
5650
5651
5652
5653
5654
5655
5656
5657
5658
5659
5660
5661
5662
5663
5664
5665
5666
5667
5668
5669
5670
5671
5672
5673
5674
5675
5676
5677
5678
5679
5680
5681
5682
5683
5684
5685
5686
5687
5688
5689
5690
5691
5692
5693
5694
5695
5696
5697
5698
5699
5700
5701
5702
5703
5704
5705
5706
5707
5708
5709
5710
5711
5712
5713
5714
5715
5716
5717
5718
5719
5720
5721
5722
5723
5724
5725
5726
5727
5728
5729
5730
5731
5732
5733
5734
5735
5736
5737
5738
5739
5740
5741
5742
5743
5744
5745
5746
5747
5748
5749
5750
5751
5752
5753
5754
5755
5756
5757
5758
5759
5760
5761
5762
5763
5764
5765
5766
5767
5768
5769
5770
5771
5772
5773
5774
5775
5776
5777
5778
5779
5780
5781
5782
5783
5784
5785
5786
5787
5788
5789
5790
5791
5792
5793
5794
5795
5796
5797
5798
5799
5800
5801
5802
5803
5804
5805
5806
5807
5808
5809
5810
5811
5812
5813
5814
5815
5816
5817
5818
5819
5820
5821
5822
5823
5824
5825
5826
5827
5828
5829
5830
5831
5832
5833
5834
5835
5836
5837
5838
5839
5840
5841
5842
5843
5844
5845
5846
5847
5848
5849
5850
5851
5852
5853
5854
5855
5856
5857
5858
5859
5860
5861
5862
5863
5864
5865
5866
5867
5868
5869
5870
5871
5872
5873
5874
5875
5876
5877
5878
5879
5880
5881
5882
5883
5884
5885
5886
5887
5888
5889
5890
5891
5892
5893
5894
5895
5896
5897
5898
5899
5900
5901
5902
5903
5904
5905
5906
5907
5908
5909
5910
5911
5912
5913
5914
5915
5916
5917
5918
5919
5920
5921
5922
5923
5924
5925
5926
5927
5928
5929
5930
5931
5932
5933
5934
5935
5936
5937
5938
5939
5940
5941
5942
5943
5944
5945
5946
5947
5948
5949
5950
5951
5952
5953
5954
5955
5956
5957
5958
5959
5960
5961
5962
5963
5964
5965
5966
5967
5968
5969
5970
5971
5972
5973
5974
5975
5976
5977
5978
5979
5980
5981
5982
5983
5984
5985
5986
5987
5988
5989
5990
5991
5992
5993
5994
5995
5996
5997
5998
5999
6000
6001
6002
6003
6004
6005
6006
6007
6008
6009
6010
6011
6012
6013
6014
6015
6016
6017
6018
6019
6020
6021
6022
6023
6024
6025
6026
6027
6028
6029
6030
6031
6032
6033
6034
6035
6036
6037
6038
6039
6040
6041
6042
6043
6044
6045
6046
6047
6048
6049
6050
6051
6052
6053
6054
6055
6056
6057
6058
6059
6060
6061
6062
6063
6064
6065
6066
6067
6068
6069
6070
6071
6072
6073
6074
6075
6076
6077
6078
6079
6080
6081
6082
6083
6084
6085
6086
6087
6088
6089
6090
6091
6092
6093
6094
6095
6096
6097
6098
6099
6100
6101
6102
6103
6104
6105
6106
6107
6108
6109
6110
6111
6112
6113
6114
6115
6116
6117
6118
6119
6120
6121
6122
6123
6124
6125
6126
6127
6128
6129
6130
6131
6132
6133
6134
6135
6136
6137
6138
6139
6140
6141
6142
6143
6144
6145
6146
6147
6148
6149
6150
6151
6152
6153
6154
6155
6156
6157
6158
6159
6160
6161
6162
6163
6164
6165
6166
6167
6168
6169
6170
6171
6172
6173
6174
6175
6176
6177
6178
6179
6180
6181
6182
6183
6184
6185
6186
6187
6188
6189
6190
6191
6192
6193
6194
6195
6196
6197
6198
6199
6200
6201
6202
6203
6204
6205
6206
6207
6208
6209
6210
6211
6212
6213
6214
6215
6216
6217
6218
6219
6220
6221
6222
6223
6224
6225
6226
6227
6228
6229
6230
6231
6232
6233
6234
6235
6236
6237
6238
6239
6240
6241
6242
6243
6244
6245
6246
6247
6248
6249
6250
6251
6252
6253
6254
6255
6256
6257
6258
6259
6260
6261
6262
6263
6264
6265
6266
6267
6268
6269
6270
6271
6272
6273
6274
6275
6276
6277
6278
6279
6280
6281
6282
6283
6284
6285
6286
6287
6288
6289
6290
6291
6292
6293
6294
6295
6296
6297
6298
6299
6300
6301
6302
6303
6304
6305
6306
6307
6308
6309
6310
6311
6312
6313
6314
6315
6316
6317
6318
6319
6320
6321
6322
6323
6324
6325
6326
6327
6328
6329
6330
6331
6332
6333
6334
6335
6336
6337
6338
6339
6340
6341
6342
6343
6344
6345
6346
6347
6348
6349
6350
6351
6352
6353
6354
6355
6356
6357
6358
6359
6360
6361
6362
6363
6364
6365
6366
6367
6368
6369
6370
6371
6372
6373
6374
6375
6376
6377
6378
6379
6380
6381
6382
6383
6384
6385
6386
6387
6388
6389
6390
6391
6392
6393
6394
6395
6396
6397
6398
6399
6400
6401
6402
6403
6404
6405
6406
6407
6408
6409
6410
6411
6412
6413
6414
6415
6416
6417
6418
6419
6420
6421
6422
6423
6424
6425
6426
6427
6428
6429
6430
6431
6432
6433
6434
6435
6436
6437
6438
6439
6440
6441
6442
6443
6444
6445
6446
6447
6448
6449
6450
6451
6452
6453
6454
6455
6456
6457
6458
6459
6460
6461
6462
6463
6464
6465
6466
6467
6468
6469
6470
6471
6472
6473
6474
6475
6476
6477
6478
6479
6480
6481
6482
6483
6484
6485
6486
6487
6488
6489
6490
6491
6492
6493
6494
6495
6496
6497
6498
6499
6500
6501
6502
6503
6504
6505
6506
6507
6508
6509
6510
6511
6512
6513
6514
6515
6516
6517
6518
6519
6520
6521
6522
6523
6524
6525
6526
6527
6528
6529
6530
6531
6532
6533
6534
6535
6536
6537
6538
6539
6540
6541
6542
6543
6544
6545
6546
6547
6548
6549
6550
6551
6552
6553
6554
6555
6556
6557
6558
6559
6560
6561
6562
6563
6564
6565
6566
6567
6568
6569
6570
6571
6572
6573
6574
6575
6576
6577
6578
6579
6580
6581
6582
6583
6584
6585
6586
6587
6588
6589
6590
6591
6592
6593
6594
6595
6596
6597
6598
6599
6600
6601
6602
6603
6604
6605
6606
6607
6608
6609
6610
6611
6612
6613
6614
6615
6616
6617
6618
6619
6620
6621
6622
6623
6624
6625
6626
6627
6628
6629
6630
6631
6632
6633
6634
6635
6636
6637
6638
6639
6640
6641
6642
6643
6644
6645
6646
6647
6648
6649
6650
6651
6652
6653
6654
6655
6656
6657
6658
6659
6660
6661
6662
6663
6664
6665
6666
6667
6668
6669
6670
6671
6672
6673
6674
6675
6676
6677
6678
6679
6680
6681
6682
6683
6684
6685
6686
6687
6688
6689
6690
6691
6692
6693
6694
6695
6696
6697
6698
6699
6700
6701
6702
6703
6704
6705
6706
6707
6708
6709
6710
6711
6712
6713
6714
6715
6716
6717
6718
6719
6720
6721
6722
6723
6724
6725
6726
6727
6728
6729
6730
6731
6732
6733
6734
6735
6736
6737
6738
6739
6740
6741
6742
6743
6744
6745
6746
6747
6748
6749
6750
6751
6752
6753
6754
6755
6756
6757
6758
6759
6760
6761
6762
6763
6764
6765
6766
6767
6768
6769
6770
6771
6772
6773
6774
6775
6776
6777
6778
6779
6780
6781
6782
6783
6784
6785
6786
6787
6788
6789
6790
6791
6792
6793
6794
6795
6796
6797
6798
6799
6800
6801
6802
6803
6804
6805
6806
6807
6808
6809
6810
6811
6812
6813
6814
6815
6816
6817
6818
6819
6820
6821
6822
6823
6824
6825
6826
6827
6828
6829
6830
6831
6832
6833
6834
6835
6836
6837
6838
6839
6840
6841
6842
6843
6844
6845
6846
6847
6848
6849
6850
6851
6852
6853
6854
6855
6856
6857
6858
6859
6860
6861
6862
6863
6864
6865
6866
6867
6868
6869
6870
6871
6872
6873
6874
6875
6876
6877
6878
6879
6880
6881
6882
6883
6884
6885
6886
6887
6888
6889
6890
6891
6892
6893
6894
6895
6896
6897
6898
6899
6900
6901
6902
6903
6904
6905
6906
6907
6908
6909
6910
6911
6912
6913
6914
6915
6916
6917
6918
6919
6920
6921
6922
6923
6924
6925
6926
6927
6928
6929
6930
6931
6932
6933
6934
6935
6936
6937
6938
6939
6940
6941
6942
6943
6944
6945
6946
6947
6948
6949
6950
6951
6952
6953
6954
6955
6956
6957
6958
6959
6960
6961
6962
6963
6964
6965
6966
6967
6968
6969
6970
6971
6972
6973
6974
6975
6976
6977
6978
6979
6980
6981
6982
6983
6984
6985
6986
6987
6988
6989
6990
6991
6992
6993
6994
6995
6996
6997
6998
6999
7000
7001
7002
7003
7004
7005
7006
7007
7008
7009
7010
7011
7012
7013
7014
7015
7016
7017
7018
7019
7020
7021
7022
7023
7024
7025
7026
7027
7028
7029
7030
7031
7032
7033
7034
7035
7036
7037
7038
7039
7040
7041
7042
7043
7044
7045
7046
7047
7048
7049
7050
7051
7052
7053
7054
7055
7056
7057
7058
7059
7060
7061
7062
7063
7064
7065
7066
7067
7068
7069
7070
7071
7072
7073
7074
7075
7076
7077
7078
7079
7080
7081
7082
7083
7084
7085
7086
7087
7088
7089
7090
7091
7092
7093
7094
7095
7096
7097
7098
7099
7100
7101
7102
7103
7104
7105
7106
7107
7108
7109
7110
7111
7112
7113
7114
7115
7116
7117
7118
7119
7120
7121
7122
7123
7124
7125
7126
7127
7128
7129
7130
7131
7132
7133
7134
7135
7136
7137
7138
7139
7140
7141
7142
7143
7144
7145
7146
7147
7148
7149
7150
7151
7152
7153
7154
7155
7156
7157
7158
7159
7160
7161
7162
7163
7164
7165
7166
7167
7168
7169
7170
7171
7172
7173
7174
7175
7176
7177
7178
7179
7180
7181
7182
7183
7184
7185
7186
7187
7188
7189
7190
7191
7192
7193
7194
7195
7196
7197
7198
7199
7200
7201
7202
7203
7204
7205
7206
7207
7208
7209
7210
7211
7212
7213
7214
7215
7216
7217
7218
7219
7220
7221
7222
7223
7224
7225
7226
7227
7228
7229
7230
7231
7232
7233
7234
7235
7236
7237
7238
7239
7240
7241
7242
7243
7244
7245
7246
7247
7248
7249
7250
7251
7252
7253
7254
7255
7256
7257
7258
7259
7260
7261
7262
7263
7264
7265
7266
7267
7268
7269
7270
7271
7272
7273
7274
7275
7276
7277
7278
7279
7280
7281
7282
7283
7284
7285
7286
7287
7288
7289
7290
7291
7292
7293
7294
7295
7296
7297
7298
7299
7300
7301
7302
7303
7304
7305
7306
7307
7308
7309
7310
7311
7312
7313
7314
7315
7316
7317
7318
7319
7320
7321
7322
7323
7324
7325
7326
7327
7328
7329
7330
7331
7332
7333
7334
7335
7336
7337
7338
7339
7340
7341
7342
7343
7344
7345
7346
7347
7348
7349
7350
7351
7352
7353
7354
7355
7356
7357
7358
7359
7360
7361
7362
7363
7364
7365
7366
7367
7368
7369
7370
7371
7372
7373
7374
7375
7376
7377
7378
7379
7380
7381
7382
7383
7384
7385
7386
7387
7388
7389
7390
7391
7392
7393
7394
7395
7396
7397
7398
7399
7400
7401
7402
7403
7404
7405
7406
7407
7408
7409
7410
7411
7412
7413
7414
7415
7416
7417
7418
7419
7420
7421
7422
7423
7424
7425
7426
7427
7428
7429
7430
7431
7432
7433
7434
7435
7436
7437
7438
7439
7440
7441
7442
7443
7444
7445
7446
7447
7448
7449
7450
7451
7452
7453
7454
7455
7456
7457
7458
7459
7460
7461
7462
7463
7464
7465
7466
7467
7468
7469
7470
7471
7472
7473
7474
7475
7476
7477
7478
7479
7480
7481
7482
7483
7484
7485
7486
7487
7488
7489
7490
7491
7492
7493
7494
7495
7496
7497
7498
7499
7500
7501
7502
7503
7504
7505
7506
7507
7508
7509
7510
7511
7512
7513
7514
7515
7516
7517
7518
7519
7520
7521
7522
7523
7524
7525
7526
7527
7528
7529
7530
7531
7532
7533
7534
7535
7536
7537
7538
7539
7540
7541
7542
7543
7544
7545
7546
7547
7548
7549
7550
7551
7552
7553
7554
7555
7556
7557
7558
7559
7560
7561
7562
7563
7564
7565
7566
7567
7568
7569
7570
7571
7572
7573
7574
7575
7576
7577
7578
7579
7580
7581
7582
7583
7584
7585
7586
7587
7588
7589
7590
7591
7592
7593
7594
7595
7596
7597
7598
7599
7600
7601
7602
7603
7604
7605
7606
7607
7608
7609
7610
7611
7612
7613
7614
7615
7616
7617
7618
7619
7620
7621
7622
7623
7624
7625
7626
7627
7628
7629
7630
7631
7632
7633
7634
7635
7636
7637
7638
7639
7640
7641
7642
7643
7644
7645
7646
7647
7648
7649
7650
7651
7652
7653
7654
7655
7656
7657
7658
7659
7660
7661
7662
7663
7664
7665
7666
7667
7668
7669
7670
7671
7672
7673
7674
7675
7676
7677
7678
7679
7680
7681
7682
7683
7684
7685
7686
7687
7688
7689
7690
7691
7692
7693
7694
7695
7696
7697
7698
7699
7700
7701
7702
7703
7704
7705
7706
7707
7708
7709
7710
7711
7712
7713
7714
7715
7716
7717
7718
7719
7720
7721
7722
7723
7724
7725
7726
7727
7728
7729
7730
7731
7732
7733
7734
7735
7736
7737
7738
7739
7740
7741
7742
7743
7744
7745
7746
7747
7748
7749
7750
7751
7752
7753
7754
7755
7756
7757
7758
7759
7760
7761
7762
7763
7764
7765
7766
7767
7768
7769
7770
7771
7772
7773
7774
7775
7776
7777
7778
7779
7780
7781
7782
7783
7784
7785
7786
7787
7788
7789
7790
7791
7792
7793
7794
7795
7796
7797
7798
7799
7800
7801
7802
7803
7804
7805
7806
7807
7808
7809
7810
7811
7812
7813
7814
7815
7816
7817
7818
7819
7820
7821
7822
7823
7824
7825
7826
7827
7828
7829
7830
7831
7832
7833
7834
7835
7836
7837
7838
7839
7840
7841
7842
7843
7844
7845
7846
7847
7848
7849
7850
7851
7852
7853
7854
7855
7856
7857
7858
7859
7860
7861
7862
7863
7864
7865
7866
7867
7868
7869
7870
7871
7872
7873
7874
7875
7876
7877
7878
7879
7880
7881
7882
7883
7884
7885
7886
7887
7888
7889
7890
7891
7892
7893
7894
7895
7896
7897
7898
7899
7900
7901
7902
7903
7904
7905
7906
7907
7908
7909
7910
7911
7912
7913
7914
7915
7916
7917
7918
7919
7920
7921
7922
7923
7924
7925
7926
7927
7928
7929
7930
7931
7932
7933
7934
7935
7936
7937
7938
7939
7940
7941
7942
7943
7944
7945
7946
7947
7948
7949
7950
7951
7952
7953
7954
7955
7956
7957
7958
7959
7960
7961
7962
7963
7964
7965
7966
7967
7968
7969
7970
7971
7972
7973
7974
7975
7976
7977
7978
7979
7980
7981
7982
7983
7984
7985
7986
7987
7988
7989
7990
7991
7992
7993
7994
7995
7996
7997
7998
7999
8000
8001
8002
8003
8004
8005
8006
8007
8008
8009
8010
8011
8012
8013
8014
8015
8016
8017
8018
8019
8020
8021
8022
8023
8024
8025
8026
8027
8028
8029
8030
8031
8032
8033
8034
8035
8036
8037
8038
8039
8040
8041
8042
8043
8044
8045
8046
8047
8048
8049
8050
8051
8052
8053
8054
8055
8056
8057
8058
8059
8060
8061
8062
8063
8064
8065
8066
8067
8068
8069
8070
8071
8072
8073
8074
8075
8076
8077
8078
8079
8080
8081
8082
8083
8084
8085
8086
8087
8088
8089
8090
8091
8092
8093
8094
8095
8096
8097
8098
8099
8100
8101
8102
8103
8104
8105
8106
8107
8108
8109
8110
8111
8112
8113
8114
8115
8116
8117
8118
8119
8120
8121
8122
8123
8124
8125
8126
8127
8128
8129
8130
8131
8132
8133
8134
8135
8136
8137
8138
8139
8140
8141
8142
8143
8144
8145
8146
8147
8148
8149
8150
8151
8152
8153
8154
8155
8156
8157
8158
8159
8160
8161
8162
8163
8164
8165
8166
8167
8168
8169
8170
8171
8172
8173
8174
8175
8176
8177
8178
8179
8180
8181
8182
8183
8184
8185
8186
8187
8188
8189
8190
8191
8192
8193
8194
8195
8196
8197
8198
8199
8200
8201
8202
8203
8204
8205
8206
8207
8208
8209
8210
8211
8212
8213
8214
8215
8216
8217
8218
8219
8220
8221
8222
8223
8224
8225
8226
8227
8228
8229
8230
8231
8232
8233
8234
8235
8236
8237
8238
8239
8240
8241
8242
8243
8244
8245
8246
8247
8248
8249
8250
8251
8252
8253
8254
8255
8256
8257
8258
8259
8260
8261
8262
8263
8264
8265
8266
8267
8268
8269
8270
8271
8272
8273
8274
8275
8276
8277
8278
8279
8280
8281
8282
8283
8284
8285
8286
8287
8288
8289
8290
8291
8292
8293
8294
8295
8296
8297
8298
8299
8300
8301
8302
8303
8304
8305
8306
8307
8308
8309
8310
8311
8312
8313
8314
8315
8316
8317
8318
8319
8320
8321
8322
8323
8324
8325
8326
8327
8328
8329
8330
8331
8332
8333
8334
8335
8336
8337
8338
8339
8340
8341
8342
8343
8344
8345
8346
8347
8348
8349
8350
8351
8352
8353
8354
8355
8356
8357
8358
8359
8360
8361
8362
8363
8364
8365
8366
8367
8368
8369
8370
8371
8372
8373
8374
8375
8376
8377
8378
8379
8380
8381
8382
8383
8384
8385
8386
8387
8388
8389
8390
8391
8392
8393
8394
8395
8396
8397
8398
8399
8400
8401
8402
8403
8404
8405
8406
8407
8408
8409
8410
8411
8412
8413
8414
8415
8416
8417
8418
8419
8420
8421
8422
8423
8424
8425
8426
8427
8428
8429
8430
8431
8432
8433
8434
8435
8436
8437
8438
8439
8440
8441
8442
8443
8444
8445
8446
8447
8448
8449
8450
8451
8452
8453
8454
8455
8456
8457
8458
8459
8460
8461
8462
8463
8464
8465
8466
8467
8468
8469
8470
8471
8472
8473
8474
8475
8476
8477
8478
8479
8480
8481
8482
8483
8484
8485
8486
8487
8488
8489
8490
8491
8492
8493
8494
8495
8496
8497
8498
8499
8500
8501
8502
8503
8504
8505
8506
8507
8508
8509
8510
8511
8512
8513
8514
8515
8516
8517
8518
8519
8520
8521
8522
8523
8524
8525
8526
8527
8528
8529
8530
8531
8532
8533
8534
8535
8536
8537
8538
8539
8540
8541
8542
8543
8544
8545
8546
8547
8548
8549
8550
8551
8552
8553
8554
8555
8556
8557
8558
8559
8560
8561
8562
8563
8564
8565
8566
8567
8568
8569
8570
8571
8572
8573
8574
8575
8576
8577
8578
8579
8580
8581
8582
8583
8584
8585
8586
8587
8588
8589
8590
8591
8592
8593
8594
8595
8596
8597
8598
8599
8600
8601
8602
8603
8604
8605
8606
8607
8608
8609
8610
8611
8612
8613
8614
8615
8616
8617
8618
8619
8620
8621
8622
8623
8624
8625
8626
8627
8628
8629
8630
8631
8632
8633
8634
8635
8636
8637
8638
8639
8640
8641
8642
8643
8644
8645
8646
8647
8648
8649
8650
8651
8652
8653
8654
8655
8656
8657
8658
8659
8660
8661
8662
8663
8664
8665
8666
8667
8668
8669
8670
8671
8672
8673
8674
8675
8676
8677
8678
8679
8680
8681
8682
8683
8684
8685
8686
8687
8688
8689
8690
8691
8692
8693
8694
8695
8696
8697
8698
8699
8700
8701
8702
8703
8704
8705
8706
8707
8708
8709
8710
8711
8712
8713
8714
8715
8716
8717
8718
8719
8720
8721
8722
8723
8724
8725
8726
8727
8728
8729
8730
8731
8732
8733
8734
8735
8736
8737
8738
8739
8740
8741
8742
8743
8744
8745
8746
8747
8748
8749
8750
8751
8752
8753
8754
8755
8756
8757
8758
8759
8760
8761
8762
8763
8764
8765
8766
8767
8768
8769
8770
8771
8772
8773
8774
8775
8776
8777
8778
8779
8780
8781
8782
8783
8784
8785
8786
8787
8788
8789
8790
8791
8792
8793
8794
8795
8796
8797
8798
8799
8800
8801
8802
8803
8804
8805
8806
8807
8808
8809
8810
8811
8812
8813
8814
8815
8816
8817
8818
8819
8820
8821
8822
8823
8824
8825
8826
8827
8828
8829
8830
8831
8832
8833
8834
8835
8836
8837
8838
8839
8840
8841
8842
8843
8844
8845
8846
8847
8848
8849
8850
8851
8852
8853
8854
8855
8856
8857
8858
8859
8860
8861
8862
8863
8864
8865
8866
8867
8868
8869
8870
8871
8872
8873
8874
8875
8876
8877
8878
8879
8880
8881
8882
8883
8884
8885
8886
8887
8888
8889
8890
8891
8892
8893
8894
8895
8896
8897
8898
8899
8900
8901
8902
8903
8904
8905
8906
8907
8908
8909
8910
8911
8912
8913
8914
8915
8916
8917
8918
8919
8920
8921
8922
8923
8924
8925
8926
8927
8928
8929
8930
8931
8932
8933
8934
8935
8936
8937
8938
8939
8940
8941
8942
8943
8944
8945
8946
8947
8948
8949
8950
8951
8952
8953
8954
8955
8956
8957
8958
8959
8960
8961
8962
8963
8964
8965
8966
8967
8968
8969
8970
8971
8972
8973
8974
8975
8976
8977
8978
8979
8980
8981
8982
8983
8984
8985
8986
8987
8988
8989
8990
8991
8992
8993
8994
8995
8996
8997
8998
8999
9000
9001
9002
9003
9004
9005
9006
9007
9008
9009
9010
9011
9012
9013
9014
9015
9016
9017
9018
9019
9020
9021
9022
9023
9024
9025
9026
9027
9028
9029
9030
9031
9032
9033
9034
9035
9036
9037
9038
9039
9040
9041
9042
9043
9044
9045
9046
9047
9048
9049
9050
9051
9052
9053
9054
9055
9056
9057
9058
9059
9060
9061
9062
9063
9064
9065
9066
9067
9068
9069
9070
9071
9072
9073
9074
9075
9076
9077
9078
9079
9080
9081
9082
9083
9084
9085
9086
9087
9088
9089
9090
9091
9092
9093
9094
9095
9096
9097
9098
9099
9100
9101
9102
9103
9104
9105
9106
9107
9108
9109
9110
9111
9112
9113
9114
9115
9116
9117
9118
9119
9120
9121
9122
9123
9124
9125
9126
9127
9128
9129
9130
9131
9132
9133
9134
9135
9136
9137
9138
9139
9140
9141
9142
9143
9144
9145
9146
9147
9148
9149
9150
9151
9152
9153
9154
9155
9156
9157
9158
9159
9160
9161
9162
9163
9164
9165
9166
9167
9168
9169
9170
9171
9172
9173
9174
9175
9176
9177
9178
9179
9180
9181
9182
9183
9184
9185
9186
9187
9188
9189
9190
9191
9192
9193
9194
9195
9196
9197
9198
9199
9200
9201
9202
9203
9204
9205
9206
9207
9208
9209
9210
9211
9212
9213
9214
9215
9216
9217
9218
9219
9220
9221
9222
9223
9224
9225
9226
9227
9228
9229
9230
9231
9232
9233
9234
9235
9236
9237
9238
9239
9240
9241
9242
9243
9244
9245
9246
9247
9248
9249
9250
9251
9252
9253
9254
9255
9256
9257
9258
9259
9260
9261
9262
9263
9264
9265
9266
9267
9268
9269
9270
9271
9272
9273
9274
9275
9276
9277
9278
9279
9280
9281
9282
9283
9284
9285
9286
9287
9288
9289
9290
9291
9292
9293
9294
9295
9296
9297
9298
9299
9300
9301
9302
9303
9304
9305
9306
9307
9308
9309
9310
9311
9312
9313
9314
9315
9316
9317
9318
9319
9320
9321
9322
9323
9324
9325
9326
9327
9328
9329
9330
9331
9332
9333
9334
9335
9336
9337
9338
9339
9340
9341
9342
9343
9344
9345
9346
9347
9348
9349
9350
9351
9352
9353
9354
9355
9356
9357
9358
9359
9360
9361
9362
9363
9364
9365
9366
9367
9368
9369
9370
9371
9372
9373
9374
9375
9376
9377
9378
9379
9380
9381
9382
9383
9384
9385
9386
9387
9388
9389
9390
9391
9392
9393
9394
9395
9396
9397
9398
9399
9400
9401
9402
9403
9404
9405
9406
9407
9408
9409
9410
9411
9412
9413
9414
9415
9416
9417
9418
9419
9420
9421
9422
9423
9424
9425
9426
9427
9428
9429
9430
9431
9432
9433
9434
9435
9436
9437
9438
9439
9440
9441
9442
9443
9444
9445
9446
9447
9448
9449
9450
9451
9452
9453
9454
9455
9456
9457
9458
9459
9460
9461
9462
9463
9464
9465
9466
9467
9468
9469
9470
9471
9472
9473
9474
9475
9476
9477
9478
9479
9480
9481
9482
9483
9484
9485
9486
9487
9488
9489
9490
9491
9492
9493
9494
9495
9496
9497
9498
9499
9500
9501
9502
9503
9504
9505
9506
9507
9508
9509
9510
9511
9512
9513
9514
9515
9516
9517
9518
9519
9520
9521
9522
9523
9524
9525
9526
9527
9528
9529
9530
9531
9532
9533
9534
9535
9536
9537
9538
9539
9540
9541
9542
9543
9544
9545
9546
9547
9548
9549
9550
9551
9552
9553
9554
9555
9556
9557
9558
9559
9560
9561
9562
9563
9564
9565
9566
9567
9568
9569
9570
9571
9572
9573
9574
9575
9576
9577
9578
9579
9580
9581
9582
9583
9584
9585
9586
9587
9588
9589
9590
9591
9592
9593
9594
9595
9596
9597
9598
9599
9600
9601
9602
9603
9604
9605
9606
9607
9608
9609
9610
9611
9612
9613
9614
9615
9616
9617
9618
9619
9620
9621
9622
9623
9624
9625
9626
9627
9628
9629
9630
9631
9632
9633
9634
9635
9636
9637
9638
9639
9640
9641
9642
9643
9644
9645
9646
9647
9648
9649
9650
9651
9652
9653
9654
9655
9656
9657
9658
9659
9660
9661
9662
9663
9664
9665
9666
9667
9668
9669
9670
9671
9672
9673
9674
9675
9676
9677
9678
9679
9680
9681
9682
9683
9684
9685
9686
9687
9688
9689
9690
9691
9692
9693
9694
9695
9696
9697
9698
9699
9700
9701
9702
9703
9704
9705
9706
9707
9708
9709
9710
9711
9712
9713
9714
9715
9716
9717
9718
9719
9720
9721
9722
9723
9724
9725
9726
9727
9728
9729
9730
9731
9732
9733
9734
9735
9736
9737
9738
9739
9740
9741
9742
9743
9744
9745
9746
9747
9748
9749
9750
9751
9752
9753
9754
9755
9756
9757
9758
9759
9760
9761
9762
9763
9764
9765
9766
9767
9768
9769
9770
9771
9772
9773
9774
9775
9776
9777
9778
9779
9780
9781
9782
9783
9784
9785
9786
9787
9788
9789
9790
9791
9792
9793
9794
9795
9796
9797
9798
9799
9800
9801
9802
9803
9804
9805
9806
9807
9808
9809
9810
9811
9812
9813
9814
9815
9816
9817
9818
9819
9820
9821
9822
9823
9824
9825
9826
9827
9828
9829
9830
9831
9832
9833
9834
9835
9836
9837
9838
9839
9840
9841
9842
9843
9844
9845
9846
9847
9848
9849
9850
9851
9852
9853
9854
9855
9856
9857
9858
9859
9860
9861
9862
9863
9864
9865
9866
9867
9868
9869
9870
9871
9872
9873
9874
9875
9876
9877
9878
9879
9880
9881
9882
9883
9884
9885
9886
9887
9888
9889
9890
9891
9892
9893
9894
9895
9896
9897
9898
9899
9900
9901
9902
9903
9904
9905
9906
9907
9908
9909
9910
9911
9912
9913
9914
9915
9916
9917
9918
9919
9920
9921
9922
9923
9924
9925
9926
9927
9928
9929
9930
9931
9932
9933
9934
9935
9936
9937
9938
9939
9940
9941
9942
9943
9944
9945
9946
9947
9948
9949
9950
9951
9952
9953
9954
9955
9956
9957
9958
9959
9960
9961
9962
9963
9964
9965
9966
9967
9968
9969
9970
9971
9972
9973
9974
9975
9976
9977
9978
9979
9980
9981
9982
9983
9984
9985
9986
9987
9988
9989
9990
9991
9992
9993
9994
9995
9996
9997
9998
9999
10000
10001
10002
10003
10004
10005
10006
10007
10008
10009
10010
10011
10012
10013
10014
10015
10016
10017
10018
10019
10020
10021
10022
10023
10024
10025
10026
10027
10028
10029
10030
10031
10032
10033
10034
10035
10036
10037
10038
10039
10040
10041
10042
10043
10044
10045
10046
10047
10048
10049
10050
10051
10052
10053
10054
10055
10056
10057
10058
10059
10060
10061
10062
10063
10064
10065
10066
10067
10068
10069
10070
10071
10072
10073
10074
10075
10076
10077
10078
10079
10080
10081
10082
10083
10084
10085
10086
10087
10088
10089
10090
10091
10092
10093
10094
10095
10096
10097
10098
10099
10100
10101
10102
10103
10104
10105
10106
10107
10108
10109
10110
10111
10112
10113
10114
10115
10116
10117
10118
10119
10120
10121
10122
10123
10124
10125
10126
10127
10128
10129
10130
10131
10132
10133
10134
10135
10136
10137
10138
10139
10140
10141
10142
10143
10144
10145
10146
10147
10148
10149
10150
10151
10152
10153
10154
10155
10156
10157
10158
10159
10160
10161
10162
10163
10164
10165
10166
10167
10168
10169
10170
10171
10172
10173
10174
10175
10176
10177
10178
10179
10180
10181
10182
10183
10184
10185
10186
10187
10188
10189
10190
10191
10192
10193
10194
10195
10196
10197
10198
10199
10200
10201
10202
10203
10204
10205
10206
10207
10208
10209
10210
10211
10212
10213
10214
10215
10216
10217
10218
10219
10220
10221
10222
10223
10224
10225
10226
10227
10228
10229
10230
10231
10232
10233
10234
10235
10236
10237
10238
10239
10240
10241
10242
10243
10244
10245
10246
10247
10248
10249
10250
10251
10252
10253
10254
10255
10256
10257
10258
10259
10260
10261
10262
10263
10264
10265
10266
10267
10268
10269
10270
10271
10272
10273
10274
10275
10276
10277
10278
10279
10280
10281
10282
10283
10284
10285
10286
10287
10288
10289
10290
10291
10292
10293
10294
10295
10296
10297
10298
10299
10300
10301
10302
10303
10304
10305
10306
10307
10308
10309
10310
10311
10312
10313
10314
10315
10316
10317
10318
10319
10320
10321
10322
10323
10324
10325
10326
10327
10328
10329
10330
10331
10332
10333
10334
10335
10336
10337
10338
10339
10340
10341
10342
10343
10344
10345
10346
10347
10348
10349
10350
10351
10352
10353
10354
10355
10356
10357
10358
10359
10360
10361
10362
10363
10364
10365
10366
10367
10368
10369
10370
10371
10372
10373
10374
10375
10376
10377
10378
10379
10380
10381
10382
10383
10384
10385
10386
10387
10388
10389
10390
10391
10392
10393
10394
10395
10396
10397
10398
10399
10400
10401
10402
10403
10404
10405
10406
10407
10408
10409
10410
10411
10412
10413
10414
10415
10416
10417
10418
10419
10420
10421
10422
10423
10424
10425
10426
10427
10428
10429
10430
10431
10432
10433
10434
10435
10436
10437
10438
10439
10440
10441
10442
10443
10444
10445
10446
10447
10448
10449
10450
10451
10452
10453
10454
10455
10456
10457
10458
10459
10460
10461
10462
10463
10464
10465
10466
10467
10468
10469
10470
10471
10472
10473
10474
10475
10476
10477
10478
10479
10480
10481
10482
10483
10484
10485
10486
10487
10488
10489
10490
10491
10492
10493
10494
10495
10496
10497
10498
10499
10500
10501
10502
10503
10504
10505
10506
10507
10508
10509
10510
10511
10512
10513
10514
10515
10516
10517
10518
10519
10520
10521
10522
10523
10524
10525
10526
10527
10528
10529
10530
10531
10532
10533
10534
10535
10536
10537
10538
10539
10540
10541
10542
10543
10544
10545
10546
10547
10548
10549
10550
10551
10552
10553
10554
10555
10556
10557
10558
10559
10560
10561
10562
10563
10564
10565
10566
10567
10568
10569
10570
10571
10572
10573
10574
10575
10576
10577
10578
10579
10580
10581
10582
10583
10584
10585
10586
10587
10588
10589
10590
10591
10592
10593
10594
10595
10596
10597
10598
10599
10600
10601
10602
10603
10604
10605
10606
10607
10608
10609
10610
10611
10612
10613
10614
10615
10616
10617
10618
10619
10620
10621
10622
10623
10624
10625
10626
10627
10628
10629
10630
10631
10632
10633
10634
10635
10636
10637
10638
10639
10640
10641
10642
10643
10644
10645
10646
10647
10648
10649
10650
10651
10652
10653
10654
10655
10656
10657
10658
10659
10660
10661
10662
10663
10664
10665
10666
10667
10668
10669
10670
10671
10672
10673
10674
10675
10676
10677
10678
10679
10680
10681
10682
10683
10684
10685
10686
10687
10688
10689
10690
10691
10692
10693
10694
10695
10696
10697
10698
10699
10700
10701
10702
10703
10704
10705
10706
10707
10708
10709
10710
10711
10712
10713
10714
10715
10716
10717
10718
10719
10720
10721
10722
10723
10724
10725
10726
10727
10728
10729
10730
10731
10732
10733
10734
10735
10736
10737
10738
10739
10740
10741
10742
10743
10744
10745
10746
10747
10748
10749
10750
10751
10752
10753
10754
10755
10756
10757
10758
10759
10760
10761
10762
10763
10764
10765
10766
10767
10768
10769
10770
10771
10772
10773
10774
10775
10776
10777
10778
10779
10780
10781
10782
10783
10784
10785
10786
10787
10788
10789
10790
10791
10792
10793
10794
10795
10796
10797
10798
10799
10800
10801
10802
10803
10804
10805
10806
10807
10808
10809
10810
10811
10812
10813
10814
10815
10816
10817
10818
10819
10820
10821
10822
10823
10824
10825
10826
10827
10828
10829
10830
10831
10832
10833
10834
10835
10836
10837
10838
10839
10840
10841
10842
10843
10844
10845
10846
10847
10848
10849
10850
10851
10852
10853
10854
10855
10856
10857
10858
10859
10860
10861
10862
10863
10864
10865
10866
10867
10868
10869
10870
10871
10872
10873
10874
10875
10876
10877
10878
10879
10880
10881
10882
10883
10884
10885
10886
10887
10888
10889
10890
10891
10892
10893
10894
10895
10896
10897
10898
10899
10900
10901
10902
10903
10904
10905
10906
10907
10908
10909
10910
10911
10912
10913
10914
10915
10916
10917
10918
10919
10920
10921
10922
10923
10924
10925
10926
10927
10928
10929
10930
10931
10932
10933
10934
10935
10936
10937
10938
10939
10940
10941
10942
10943
10944
10945
10946
10947
10948
10949
10950
10951
10952
10953
10954
10955
10956
10957
10958
10959
10960
10961
10962
10963
10964
10965
10966
10967
10968
10969
10970
10971
10972
10973
10974
10975
10976
10977
10978
10979
10980
10981
10982
10983
10984
10985
10986
10987
10988
10989
10990
10991
10992
10993
10994
10995
10996
10997
10998
10999
11000
11001
11002
11003
11004
11005
11006
11007
11008
11009
11010
11011
11012
11013
11014
11015
11016
11017
11018
11019
11020
11021
11022
11023
11024
11025
11026
11027
11028
11029
11030
11031
11032
11033
11034
11035
11036
11037
11038
11039
11040
11041
11042
11043
11044
11045
11046
11047
11048
11049
11050
11051
11052
11053
11054
11055
11056
11057
11058
11059
11060
11061
11062
11063
11064
11065
11066
11067
11068
11069
11070
11071
11072
11073
11074
11075
11076
11077
11078
11079
11080
11081
11082
11083
11084
11085
11086
11087
11088
11089
11090
11091
11092
11093
11094
11095
11096
11097
11098
11099
11100
11101
11102
11103
11104
11105
11106
11107
11108
11109
11110
11111
11112
11113
11114
11115
11116
11117
11118
11119
11120
11121
11122
11123
11124
11125
11126
11127
11128
11129
11130
11131
11132
11133
11134
11135
11136
11137
11138
11139
11140
11141
11142
11143
11144
11145
11146
11147
11148
11149
11150
11151
11152
11153
11154
11155
11156
11157
11158
11159
11160
11161
11162
11163
11164
11165
11166
11167
11168
11169
11170
11171
11172
11173
11174
11175
11176
11177
11178
11179
11180
11181
11182
11183
11184
11185
11186
11187
11188
11189
11190
11191
11192
11193
11194
11195
11196
11197
11198
11199
11200
11201
11202
11203
11204
11205
11206
11207
11208
11209
11210
11211
11212
11213
11214
11215
11216
11217
11218
11219
11220
11221
11222
11223
11224
11225
11226
11227
11228
11229
11230
11231
11232
11233
11234
11235
11236
11237
11238
11239
11240
11241
11242
11243
11244
11245
11246
11247
11248
11249
11250
11251
11252
11253
11254
11255
11256
11257
11258
11259
11260
11261
11262
11263
11264
11265
11266
11267
11268
11269
11270
11271
11272
11273
11274
11275
11276
11277
11278
11279
11280
11281
11282
11283
11284
11285
11286
11287
11288
11289
11290
11291
11292
11293
11294
11295
11296
11297
11298
11299
11300
11301
11302
11303
11304
11305
11306
11307
11308
11309
11310
11311
11312
11313
11314
11315
11316
11317
11318
11319
11320
11321
11322
11323
11324
11325
11326
11327
11328
11329
11330
|
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
<title>A Sheaf by John Galsworthy</title>
<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg"/>
<meta name="cover" content="images/cover.jpg" />
<meta name="DC.Title" content="A Sheaf"/>
<meta name="DC.Creator" content="John Galsworthy"/>
<meta name="DC.Language" content="en"/>
<meta name="DC.Created" content="1916"/>
<meta name="Pubdate" content="1916"/>
<meta name="DC.Subject" content="non-fiction, essay, World War I, social commentary, animal welfare"/>
<meta name="Tags" content="non-fiction, essay, World War I, social commentary, animal welfare"/>
<meta name="generator" content="fpgen 4.56d"/>
<style type="text/css">
body { margin-left:8%;margin-right:10%; }
.pageno { right: 1%; font-size: x-small; background-color: inherit; color: silver;
text-indent: 0em; text-align: right; position: absolute;
border:1px solid silver; padding:1px 3px; font-style:normal;
font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration:none; }
.pageno:after { color: gray; content: attr(title); }
.it { font-style:italic; }
.bold { font-weight:bold; }
.sc { font-variant:small-caps; }
.ul { text-decoration:underline; }
p { text-indent:0; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em;
text-align: justify; }
div.lgc { }
div.lgl { }
div.lgc p { text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; }
div.lgl p { text-indent: -17px; margin-left:17px; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; }
div.lgp { }
div.lgp p {
text-align:left; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;
}
.poetry-container {
display:block; text-align:left; margin-left:2em;
}
.stanza-inner {
display:inline-block;
}
.stanza-outer {
page-break-inside: avoid;
}
.stanza-inner .line0 {
display:inline-block;
}
.stanza-outer .line0 {
display:block;
}
h1 {
text-align:center;
font-weight:normal;
page-break-before: always;
font-size:1.2em; margin:2em auto 1em auto
}
h2 {
text-align:center;
font-weight:normal;
font-size:1.1em;
margin:1em auto 0.5em auto;
}
h3 {
text-align:center;
font-weight:normal;
font-size:1.0em;
margin:1em auto 0.5em auto;
page-break-after:avoid;
}
hr.tbk100{ border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; width:10%; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; text-align:center; margin-left:45%; margin-right:45% }
hr.tbk101{ border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; width:10%; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; text-align:center; margin-left:45%; margin-right:45% }
hr.tbk102{ border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; width:10%; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; text-align:center; margin-left:45%; margin-right:45% }
hr.tbk103{ border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; width:10%; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; text-align:center; margin-left:45%; margin-right:45% }
hr.tbk104{ border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:90%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:2em; text-align:center; margin-left:5%; margin-right:5% }
hr.pbk { border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:100%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:2em }
hr.footnotemark {
border:none;
border-bottom:1px solid silver;
width:10%;
margin:1em auto 1em 0;
page-break-after: avoid;
}
.figcenter {
text-align:center;
margin:1em auto;
page-break-inside: avoid;
}
div.blockquote { margin:1em 2em; text-align:justify; }
.footnote td p.pindent:first-child { text-indent: 0; }
.footnote { margin:0 4em 0 0; }
.footnoteid { width: 3em; }
.nobreak { page-break-before: avoid; }
p.line { text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; }
div.lgp p.line0 { text-indent:-3em; margin:0 auto 0 3em; }
table { page-break-inside: avoid; }
table.center { margin:0.5em auto; border-collapse: collapse; padding:3px; }
table.flushleft { margin:0.5em 0em; border-collapse: collapse; padding:3px; }
table.left { margin:0.5em 1.2em; border-collapse: collapse; padding:3px; }
.tab1c1 { }
.tab1c2 { }
.tab1c3 { }
.tab2c1 { }
.tab2c2 { }
.tab2c3 { }
.tab1c1-col2 { border-right: 0px solid black; }
.tdStyle0 {
padding: 2px 5px; text-align:left; vertical-align:top;padding-left:29px; text-indent:-24px;
}
.tdStyle1 {
padding: 2px 5px; text-align:right; vertical-align:top;
}
.tdStyle2 {
padding: 2px 5px; text-align:center; vertical-align:top;
}
.tdStyle3 {
padding: 2px 5px; text-align:left; vertical-align:top;
}
.pindent { margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:1.5em; }
.noindent { margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-indent:0; }
.hang { padding-left:1.5em; text-indent:-1.5em; }
</style>
<style type="text/css">
h1 { font-size: 1.3em; font-weight:bold;}
.pindent {margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0em;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57778 ***</div>
<div class='figcenter'>
<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0000' style='width:70%;height:auto;'/>
</div>
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' -->
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line' style='font-size:2.5em;font-weight:bold;'>A SHEAF</p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'>BY</p>
<p class='line' style='font-size:1.5em;font-weight:bold;'>JOHN GALSWORTHY</p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<div class='figcenter'>
<img src='images/logo.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0001' style='width:100px;height:auto;'/>
</div>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'>LONDON</p>
<p class='line'>WILLIAM HEINEMANN</p>
</div> <!-- end rend -->
<hr class='pbk'/>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;'><span class='it'>London: William Heinemann.</span> 1916.</p>
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' -->
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'>To</p>
<p class='line'>WILLIAM ARCHER</p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
</div> <!-- end rend -->
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div><h1>AUTHOR’S NOTE</h1></div>
<p class='pindent'>This volume is but a garnering of non-creative
writings; mostly pleas of some sort or other—wild
oats of a novelist, which he has been asked to
bind up. He cannot say that he had any wanton
pleasure in sowing any of them; and lest there be
others of the same opinion as the anonymous gentleman
who thus joyously addressed him last July:
“But there—I suppose you are getting a bit out of
it. Men of your calibre will do anything for filthy
lucre—you old and cunning reptile!”—he mentions
that he has not, personally, profited a penny by anything
in this volume, and that the future proceeds
therefrom will be given to St. Dunstan’s, and the
National Institute for the Blind, London.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In these days of manifold human misery, many will
be impatient reading some of the pleas written before
the war; but the war will not last for ever, and in the
peace that follows life will be rougher, the need for
those pleas even more insistent than it was.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The writings have been pruned a little, and a few
have not yet met the public eye.</p>
<p class='pindent'>To the many Editors of Journals and Reviews
wherein the others have appeared—cordial thanks.</p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:right;margin-right:2em;margin-top:0.25em;'>J. G.</p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>August, 1916.</span></p>
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div><h1>CONTENTS</h1></div>
<table id='tab1' summary='' class='center'>
<colgroup>
<col span='1' style='width: 22.5em;'/>
<col span='1' style='width: 3em;'/>
<col span='1' style='width: 0.5em;'/>
</colgroup>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'></td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><span style='font-size:smaller'>PAGE</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tab1c1-col2 tdStyle2' colspan='2'><span style='font-size:larger'>MUCH CRY—LITTLE WOOL</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'></td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'> </td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'> </td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>ON THE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>CONCERNING LAWS</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_77'>77</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>ON PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_130'>130</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>ON SOCIAL UNREST</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_148'>148</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>ON PEACE</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_160'>160</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'></td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'> </td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'> </td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'></td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'> </td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'> </td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tab1c1-col2 tdStyle2' colspan='2'><span style='font-size:larger'>THE WAR</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'></td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'> </td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'> </td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>VALLEY OF THE SHADOW</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_169'>169</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>CREDO</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#credo'>169</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>FRANCE</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_171'>171</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>REVEILLE</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_173'>173</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_175'>175</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>THE HOPE OF LASTING PEACE</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_188'>188</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_194'>194</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>OUR LITERATURE AND THE WAR</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_204'>204</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>ART AND THE WAR</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_210'>210</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_219'>219</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_223'>223</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>TOTALLY DISABLED</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_243'>243</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>CARTOON</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_247'>247</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>HARVEST</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_249'>249</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'></td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'> </td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'> </td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tab1c1-col2 tdStyle2' colspan='2'><span style='font-size:larger'>AND—AFTER?</span></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'></td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'> </td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'> </td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>PRELUDE</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_255'>255</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>FREEDOM AND PRIVILEGE</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_260'>260</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>THE NATION AND TRAINING</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_266'>266</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>HEALTH, HUMANITY, AND PROCEDURE</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_276'>276</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>A LAST WORD</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_283'>283</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'><a href='#Page_289'>289</a></td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle1'></td></tr>
</table>
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' -->
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line' style='font-size:1.3em;'>MUCH CRY—LITTLE WOOL</p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
</div> <!-- end rend -->
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div><span class='pageno' title='3' id='Page_3'></span><h1>ON THE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS</h1></div>
<h2 class='nobreak'>I</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>For Love of Beasts</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(A Paper in the <span class='it'>Pall Mall Gazette</span>, 1912.)</p>
<h3>§ 1.</h3>
<p class='pindent'>We had left my rooms, and were walking briskly
down the street towards the river, when my friend
stopped before the window of a small shop and said:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Gold-fish!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>I<a id='r1'/><a href='#f1' style='text-decoration:none'><sup><span style='font-size:0.9em'>[1]</span></sup></a> looked at him very doubtfully; one had known
him so long that one never looked at him in any
other way.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Can you imagine,” he went on, “how any sane
person can find pleasure in the sight of those swift
things swimming for ever and ever in a bowl about
twice the length of their own tails?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“No,” I said, “I cannot—though, of course,
they’re very pretty.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“That is, no doubt, the reason why they are kept
in misery.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Again I looked at him; there is nothing in the world
I distrust so much as irony.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“People don’t think about these things,” I said.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You are right,” he answered, “they do not. Let
me give you some evidence of that. . . . I was travelling
last spring in a far country, and made an expedition
to a certain woodland spot. Outside the little
forest inn I noticed a ring of people and dogs gathered
round a gray animal rather larger than a cat. It had
a sharp-nosed head too small for its body, and bright
black eyes, and was moving restlessly round and round
a pole to which it was tethered by a chain. If a dog
came near, it hunched its bushy back and made a
rush at him. Except for that it seemed a shy-souled,
timid little thing. In fact, by its eyes, and the way
it shrank into itself, you could tell it was scared of
everything around. Now, there was a small, thin-faced
man in a white jacket holding up a tub on end
and explaining to the people that this was the little
creature’s habitat, and that it wanted to get back
underneath; and, sure enough, when he held the tub
within its reach, the little animal stood up at once on
its hind legs and pawed, evidently trying to get the
tub to fall down and cover it. The people all laughed
at this; the man laughed too, and the little creature
went on pawing. At last the man said: ‘Mind your
back-legs, Patsy!’ and let the tub fall. The show was
over. But presently another lot came up; the white-coated
man lifted the tub, and it began all over again.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘What is that animal?’ I asked him.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘A ’coon.’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘How old?’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Three years—too old to tame.’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Where did you catch it?’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘In the forest—lots of ’coons in the forest.’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Do they live in the open, or in holes?’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Up in the trees, sure; they only gits in the
hollows when it rains.’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Oh! they live in the open? Then isn’t it queer
she should be so fond of her tub?’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘she do that to git away from
people!’ and he laughed—a genial little man. ‘She
not like people and dogs. She too old to tame. She
know <span class='it'>me</span>, though.’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘I see,’ I said. ‘You take the tub off her, and
show her to the people, and put it back again. Yes,
she <span class='it'>would</span> know you!’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Yes,’ he repeated, rather proudly, ‘she know
me—Patsy, Patsy! Presently, you bet, we catch
lot more, and make a cage, and put them in.’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“He was gazing very kindly at the little creature,
who on her gray hind legs was anxiously begging for
the tub to come down and hide her, and I said:
‘But isn’t it rather a miserable life for this poor little
devil?’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“He gave me a very queer look. ‘There’s lots of
people,’ he said—and his voice sounded as if I’d hurt
him—‘never gits a chance to see a ’coon’—and he
dropped the tub over the racoon. . . .</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well! Can you conceive anything more pitiful
than that poor little wild creature of the open, begging
and begging for a tub to fall over it and shut out all
the <span class='it'>light and air</span>? Doesn’t it show what misery caged
things have to go through?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“But, surely,” I said, “those other people would
feel the same as you. The little white-coated man was
only a servant.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He seemed to run them over in his memory. “Not
one!” he answered slowly. “Not a single one! I
am sure it never even occurred to them—why should
it? They were there to enjoy themselves.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>We walked in silence till I said:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I can’t help feeling that your little white-coated
man was acting good-heartedly according to his lights.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Quite! And after all what are the sufferings of
a racoon compared with the enlargement of the human
mind?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Don’t be extravagant! You know he didn’t
mean to be cruel.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Does a man ever mean to be cruel? He merely
makes or keeps his living; but to make or keep his
living he will do anything that does not absolutely
prick to his heart through the skin of his indolence or
his obtuseness.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I think,” I said, “that you might have expressed
that less cynically, even if it’s true.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Nothing that’s true is cynical, and nothing that is
cynical is true. Indifference to the suffering of beasts
always comes from over-absorption in our own comfort.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Absorption, not over-absorption, perhaps.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Ha! Let us see that! Very soon after seeing the
racoon I was staying at the most celebrated health
resort of that country, and, walking in its grounds,
I came on an aviary. In the upper cages were canaries,
and in the lower cage a splendid hawk. It was as large
as our buzzard hawk, brown-backed and winged, light
underneath, and with the finest dark-brown eyes of
any bird I ever saw. The cage was quite ten feet each
way—a noble allowance for the very soul of freedom!
The bird had every luxury. There was water, and a
large piece of raw meat that hadn’t been touched.
Yet it was never still for a moment, flying from perch
to perch, and dropping to the ground again and again
so lightly, to run, literally run, up to the bars to see
if perhaps—they were not there. Its face was as
intelligent as any dog’s——”</p>
<p class='pindent'>My friend muttered something I couldn’t catch,
and then went on:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“That afternoon I took the drive for which one visits
that hotel, and it occurred to me to ask my chauffeur
what kind of hawk it was. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I ain’t
just too sure what it is they’ve got caged up now;
they changes ’em so often.’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Do you mean,’ I said, ‘that they die in captivity?’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘them big birds soon gits
moulty and go off.’ Well, when I paid my bill I went
up to the semblance of proprietor—it was one of those
establishments where the only creature responsible
is ‘Co.’—and I said:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘I see you keep a hawk out there?’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Yes. Fine bird. Quite an attraction!’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘People like to look at it?’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Just so. They’re uncommon—that sort.’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I call it cruel to keep a hawk shut
up like that.’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘Cruel? Why? What’s a hawk, anyway—cruel
devils enough!’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘My dear sir,’ I said, ‘they earn their living just
like men, without caring for other creatures’ sufferings.
You are not shut up, apparently, for doing that.
Good-bye.’ ”</p>
<p class='pindent'>As he said this, my friend looked at me, and
added:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You think that was a lapse of taste. What would
<span class='it'>you</span> have said to a man who cloaked the cruelty of his
commercial instincts by blaming a hawk for being
what Nature had made him?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>There was such feeling in his voice that I hesitated
long before answering.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well,” I said, at last, “in England, anyway, we
only keep such creatures in captivity for scientific
purposes. I doubt if you could find a single instance
nowadays of its being done just as a commercial
attraction.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He stared at me.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” he said, “we do it publicly and scientifically,
to enlarge the mind. But let me put to you this question.
Which do you consider has the larger mind—the
man who has satisfied his idle curiosity by staring at
all the caged animals of the earth, or the man who has
been brought up to feel that to keep such indomitable
creatures as hawks and eagles, wolves and panthers,
shut up, to gratify mere curiosity, is a dreadful thing?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>To that singular question I knew not what to answer.
At last I said:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I think you underrate the pleasure they give. We
English are so awfully fond of animals!”</p>
<hr class='footnotemark'/>
<div class='footnote'>
<table summary='footnote_1'>
<colgroup>
<col span='1' class='footnoteid'/>
<col span='1'/>
</colgroup>
<tr><td style='vertical-align:top;'>
<div class='footnote-id' id='f1'><a href='#r1'>[1]</a></div>
</td><td>
<p class='pindent'>For “I” read “almost anyone.”—J. G.</p>
</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
<h3>§ 2.</h3>
<p class='pindent'>We had entered Battersea Park by now, and since
my remark about our love of beasts we had not spoken.
A wood-pigeon which had been strutting before us
just then flew up into a tree and began puffing out
its breast. Seeking to break the silence, I said:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Pigeons are so complacent.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>My friend smiled in his dubious way, and answered:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Do you know the ‘blue rock’?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“No.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Ah! there you have a pigeon who has less complacency
than any living thing. You see, it depends
on circumstances. Suppose, for instance, that we happened
to keep Our Selves—perhaps the most complacent
class of human beings—in a large space
enclosed by iron railings, feeding them up carefully,
until their natural instincts caused them to run up
and down at a considerable speed from side to side of
the enclosure. And suppose when we noticed that they
had attained the full speed and strength of their legs
we took them out, holding them gingerly in order
that they might not become exhausted by struggling,
and placed them in little tin compartments so dark
and stuffy that they would not care of their own accord
to stay there, and then stood back about thirty paces
with a shot gun and pressed a spring which let the tin
compartment collapse. And then, as each one of Our
Selves ran out, we let fly with the right barrel and
peppered him in the tail, whereon, if he fell, we sent
a dog out to fetch him in by the slack of his breeches,
and after holding him idly for a minute by the neck
we gave it a wring round; or, if he did not fall, we
prayed Heaven at once and let fly with the left barrel.
Do you think in these circumstances Our Selves would
be complacent?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Don’t be absurd!” I said.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Very well,” he replied, “I will come to ‘blue
rocks’—do you still maintain that they are so complacent
as to deserve their fate?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I don’t know—I know nothing about their
fate.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“What the eyes do not swallow, the heart does
not throw up! There are other places, but—have you
been to Monte Carlo?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“No, and I should never think of going there.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Oh, well,” he answered, “it’s a great place; but
there’s just one little thing about it, and that’s in the
matter of those ‘blue rocks.’ You’ll agree, I suppose,
that one can’t complain of people amusing themselves
in any way they like so long as they hurt no one but
themselves——”</p>
<p class='pindent'>I caught him up: “I don’t agree at all.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He smiled: “Yours is perhaps the English point
of view. Still——”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It’s more important that they shouldn’t hurt
themselves than that they shouldn’t hurt pigeons, if
that’s what you’re driving at,” I said.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“There wouldn’t appear to you, I suppose, to be any
connection in the matter?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I tell you,” I repeated, “I know nothing about
pigeon-shooting!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He stared very straight before him.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Imagine,” he said, “a blue sea, and a half-circle of
grass, with a low wall. Imagine on that grass five
traps, from which lead paths—like the rays of a star—to
the central point on the base of that half-circle.
And imagine on that central point a gentleman with
a double-barrelled gun, another man, and a retriever
dog. And imagine one of those traps opening, and a
little dazed gray bird (not a bit like that fellow you saw
just now) emerge and fly perhaps six yards. And
imagine the sound of the gun and the little bird
dipping in its flight, but struggling on. And imagine
the sound of the gun again and the little bird falling
to the ground and wriggling on along it. And imagine
the retriever dog run forward and pick it up and walk
slowly back with it, still quivering, in his mouth. Or
imagine, once in a way, the little bird drop dead as a
stone at the first sound. Or imagine again that it
winces at the shots, yet carries on over the boundary,
to fall into the sea. Or—but this very seldom—imagine
it wing up and out, unhurt, to the first freedom
it has ever known. My friend, the joke is this: To the
man who lets no little bird away to freedom comes
much honour, and a nice round sum of money! Do
you still think there is no connection?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well,” I said, “it doesn’t sound too sportsman-like.
And yet, I suppose, looking at it quite broadly,
it does minister in a sort of way to the law of the survival
of the fittest.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“In which species—man or pigeon?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“The sportsman is necessary to the expansion of
Empire. Besides, you must remember that one does
not expect high standards at Monte Carlo.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He looked at me. “Do you never read any sporting
paper?” he asked.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“No.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Did you ever hunt the carted stag?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“No, I never did.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well, you’ve been coursing, anyway.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Certainly; but there’s no comparing that with
pigeon-shooting.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“In coursing I admit,” he said, “there’s pleasure to
the dogs, and some chance for the hare, who, besides,
is not in captivity. Also that where there is no coursing
there are few hares, in these days. And yet——”; he
seemed to fall into a reverie.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Then, looking at me in a queer, mournful sort of
way, he said suddenly:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I don’t wish to attack that sport, when there are
so many much worse, but by way of showing you how
liable all these things are to contribute to the improvement
of our species I will tell you a little experience
of my own. When I was at college I was in a rather
sporting set; we hunted, and played at racing, and
loved to be ‘<span class='it'>au courant</span>’ with all that sort of thing.
One year it so happened that the uncle of one of us
won the Waterloo Cup with a greyhound whose name
was—never mind. We became at once ardent lovers
of the sport of coursing, consumed by the desire to
hold a Waterloo Cup Meeting in miniature, with
rabbits for hares and our own terriers for greyhounds.
Well, we held it; sixteen of us nominating our dogs.
Now kindly note that of those sixteen eight at least
were members of the aristocracy, and all had been at
public schools of standing and repute. For the purposes
of our meeting, of course, we required fifteen
rabbits caught and kept in bags. These we ordered of a
local blackguard, with a due margin over to provide
against such of the rabbits as might die of fright before
they were let out, or be too terrified to run after being
loosed. We made the fellow whose uncle had won the
Waterloo Cup judge, apportioned among ourselves
the other officers, and assembled—the judge on horseback,
in case a rabbit might happen to run, say, fifty
yards. Assembled with us were many local cads, two
fourth-rate bookies, our excited, yapping terriers,
and twenty-four bagged rabbits. The course was
cleared. Two of us advanced, holding our terriers
by the loins; the judge signed that he was ready;
the first rabbit was turned down. It crept out of the
bag, and squatted, close to the ground, with its ears
laid back. The local blackguard stirred it with his
foot. It crept two yards, and squatted closer. All
the terriers began shrieking their little souls out, all
the cads began to yell, but the rabbit did not move—its
heart, you see, was broken. At last the local blackguard
took it up and wrung its neck. After that some
rabbits ran, and some did not, till all were killed!
The terrier of one of us was judged victor by him
whose uncle had won the Waterloo Cup; and we
went back to our colleges to drink everybody’s health.
Now, my friend, mark! We were sixteen decent
youths, converted by infection into sixteen rabbit-catching
cads. Two of us are dead; but the rest of
us—what do we think of it now? I tell you this
little incident, to confirm you in your feeling that
pigeon-shooting, coursing, and the like, tend to
improve our species, even here in England.”</p>
<h3>§ 3.</h3>
<p class='pindent'>Before I could comment on my friend’s narrative we
were spattered with mud by passing riders, and
stopped to repair the damage to our coats.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Jolly for my new coat!” I said. “Do you notice,
by the way, that they are cutting men’s tails longer
this spring? More becoming to a fellow, I think.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He raised those quizzical eyebrows of his and
murmured:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“And horses’ tails shorter. Did you see those that
passed just now?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“No.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“There were none!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Nonsense!” I said. “My dear fellow, you really
are obsessed about beasts! They were just ordinary.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Quite—a few scrubby hairs, and a wriggle.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Now, please,” I said, “don’t begin to talk of the
cruelty of docking horses’ tails, and tell me a story of
an old horse in a pond.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“No,” he answered, “for I should have to invent
that. What I was going to say was this: Which do
you think the greater fools in the matter of fashion—men
or women?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Oh! Women.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Why?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“There’s always some sense at the bottom of men’s
fashions.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Even of docking tails?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You can’t compare it, anyway,” I said, “with
such a fashion as the wearing of ‘aigrettes.’ That’s
a cruel fashion if you like.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Ah! But you see,” he said, “the women who
wear them are ignorant of its cruelty. If they were
not, they would never wear them. No gentlewoman
wears them, now that the facts have come out.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“What is that you say?” I remarked.</p>
<p class='pindent'>He looked at me gravely.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Do you mean to tell me,” he asked, “that
any woman of gentle instincts, who <span class='it'>knows</span> that the
‘aigrette,’ as they call it, is a nuptial plume sported
by the white egret only during the nesting season—and
that, in order to obtain it, the mother-birds are shot,
and that, after their death, practically all their young
die from hunger and exposure—do you mean to tell
me that any gentlewoman, knowing that, wears them?
Why! most women are mothers themselves! What
would they think of gods who shot women with babies
in arms for the sake of obtaining their white skins or
their crop of hair to wear on their heads, eh?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“But, my dear fellow,” I said, “you see these
plumes about all over the place!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Only on people who don’t mind wearing imitation
stuff.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>I gaped at him.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You need not look at me like that,” he said.
“A woman goes into a shop. She knows that real
‘aigrettes’ mean killing mother-birds and starving all
their nestlings. Therefore, if she’s a real gentlewoman
she doesn’t ask for a real ‘aigrette.’ But still less does
she ask to be supplied with an imitation article so
good that people will take her for the wearer of the
real thing. I put it to you, would she want to be
known as an encourager of such a practice? You can
never have seen a <span class='it'>lady</span> wearing an ‘aigrette.’ ”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“What!” I said. “What?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“So much for the woman who knows about
‘aigrettes,’ ” he went on. “Now for the woman who
doesn’t. Either, when she is told these facts about,
‘aigrettes’ she sets them down as ‘hysterical stuff,’
or she is simply too ‘out of it’ to know anything.
Well, she goes in and asks for an ‘aigrette.’ Do you
think they sell her the real thing—I mean, of course,
in England—knowing that it involves the shooting of
mother-birds at breeding time? I put it to you:
Would they?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>His inability to grasp the real issues astonished me,
and I said:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You and I happen to have read the evidence about
‘aigrettes’ and the opinion of the House of Lords’
Committee that the feathers of egrets imported into
Great Britain are obtained by killing the birds during
the breeding season; but you don’t suppose, do you,
that people whose commercial interests are bound up
with the selling of ‘aigrettes’ are going to read it,
or believe it if they do read it?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“That,” he answered, “is cynical, if you like. I
feel sure that, in England, people do not sell suspected
articles about which there has been so much talk and
inquiry as there has been about ‘aigrettes’ without
examining in good faith into the facts of their origin.
No, believe me, none of the ‘aigrettes’ sold in England
can have grown on birds.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“This is fantastic,” I said. “Why! if what you’re
saying is true, then—then real ‘aigrettes’ are all
artificial; but that—that would be cheating!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Oh, no!” he said. “You see, ‘aigrettes’ are in
fashion. The word ‘real’ has therefore become parliamentary.
People don’t want to be cruel, but they
must have ‘real aigrettes.’ So, all these ‘aigrettes’
are ‘real,’ unless the customer has a qualm, and
then they are ‘real imitation aigrettes.’ We are a
highly-civilized people!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“That is very clever,” I said, “but how about
the statistics of real egret plumes imported into this
country?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He answered like a flash: “Oh, those, of course,
are only brought here to be exported again at once to
countries where they do not mind confessing to
cruelty; yes, all exported, except—well, <span class='it'>those that
aren’t</span>!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Oh!” I said: “I see! You have been speaking
ironically all this time.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Have you grasped that?” he answered.
“Capital!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>After that we walked in silence.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“The fact is,” I said, presently, “ordinary people,
shopmen and customers alike, never bother their
heads about such things at all.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” he replied sadly, “they take the line of
least resistance. It is just that which gives Fashion
its chance to make such fools of them.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You have yet to prove that it does make fools of
them.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I thought I had; but no matter. Take horses’ tails—what’s
left of them—do you defend that fashion?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well,” I said, “I——”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Would you if you were a horse?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“If you mean that I am a donkey——?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Oh, no! Not at all!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It’s going too far,” I said, “to call docking cruel.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Personally,” he answered, “I don’t think it is
going too far. It’s painful in itself, and Heaven alone
knows what irritation horses have to suffer from flies
through being tailless. I admit that it saves a little
brushing, and that some people are under the delusion
that it averts carriage accidents. But put cruelty and
utility aside, and look at it from the point of view of
fashion. Can anybody say it doesn’t spoil a horse’s
looks?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You know perfectly well,” I said, “that many
people think it smartens him up tremendously. They
regard a certain kind of horse as nothing with a tail;
just as some men are nothing with beards.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“The parallel with man does not hold, my friend.
We are not shaved—with or against our wills—by
demi-gods!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Exactly! And isn’t that in itself an admission
that we are superior to beasts, and have a right to some
say in their appearance?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I will not,” he answered, “for one moment allow
that men are superior to horses in point of looks. Take
yourself, or any other personable man, and stand him
up against a thoroughbred and ask your friends to
come and look. How much of their admiration do
you think you will get?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>It was not the sort of question I could answer.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I am not speaking at random,” he went on; “I
have seen the average lord walking beside the average
winner of the Derby.” He cackled disagreeably.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“But it’s just on this point of looks that people
defend docking,” I said. “They breed the horses,
and have a right to their own taste. Many people
dislike long swishy appendages.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“And bull-terriers, or Yorkshires, or Great Danes,
with natural ears; and fox-terriers and spaniels with
uncut tails; and women with merely the middles
so small as Nature gave them?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“If you’re simply going to joke——”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I never was more serious. The whole thing is of
a piece, and summed up in the word ‘smart,’ which
you used just now. That word, sir, is the guardian
angel of all fashions, and if you don’t mind my saying
so, fashions are the guardian angels of vulgarity. Now,
a horse is not a vulgar animal, and I can never get
away from the thought that to dock his tail must
hurt his feelings of refinement.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well, if that’s all, I dare say he’ll get over it.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“But will the man who does it?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You must come with me to the Horse Show,”
I said, “and look at the men who have to do with
horses; then you’ll know if such a thing as docking the
tails of these creatures can do them harm or not. And,
by the way, you talk of refinement and vulgarity.
What is your test? Where is the standard? It’s all
a matter of taste.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You want me to define these things?” he asked.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Yes.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Very well! Do you believe in what we call the
instincts of a gentleman?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Of course.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Such as—the instinct to be self-controlled; not
to be rude or intolerant; not to ‘slop-over’; not to
fuss, nor to cry out; to hold your head up, so that
people refrain from taking liberties; to be ready to do
things for others, to be chary of asking others to do
things for you, and grateful when they do them?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” I said, “all these I believe in.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“What central truth do you imagine that these
instincts come from?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well, they’re all such a matter of course—I don’t
think I ever considered.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“If by any chance,” he replied, “you ever do, you
will find they come from an innate worship of balance,
of the just mean; an inborn reverence for due proportion,
a natural sense of harmony and rhythm, and
a consequent mistrust of extravagance. What is a
bounder? Just a man without sufficient sense of
proportion to know that he is not so important in
the scheme of things as he thinks he is!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You are right there!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Very well. Refinement is a quality of the individual
who has—and conforms to—a true (not a
conventional) sense of proportion; and vulgarity is
either the natural conduct of people without that
sense of proportion, or of people who imitate and
reproduce the tricks of refinement wholesale, without
any real feeling for proportion; or again, it is mere
conscious departure from the sense of proportion for
the sake of cutting a dash.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Ah!” I said; “and to which of these kinds of
vulgarity is the fashion of docking horses’ tails a
guardian angel?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Imagine,” he answered gravely, “that you dock
your horse’s tail. You are either horribly deficient in
feeling for a perfectly proportioned horse, or you
imitate what you believe—goodness knows why—to be
the refined custom of docking horses’ tails, without
considering the question of proportion at all.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” I said; “but what makes so many people
do it, if there isn’t something in it, either useful or
ornamental?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Because people as a rule do not love proportion;
they love the grotesque. You have only to look at
their faces, which are very good indications of their
souls.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You have begged the question,” I said. “Who are
you to say that the perfect horse is not the horse——?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“With the imperfect tail?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Imperfect? Again, you’re begging.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“As Nature made it, then. Oh!” he went on with
vehemence, “think of the luxury of having your own
tail. Think of the cool swish of it. Think of the real
beauty of it! Think of the sheer hideousness of all
that great front balanced behind by a few scrub hairs
and a wriggle! It became ‘smart’ to dock horses’
tails; and smart to wear ‘aigrettes.’ ‘Smart’—‘neat’—‘efficient’—for
all except the horse and the
poor egrets.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Your argument,” I said, “is practically nothing
but æsthetics.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He fixed his eyes upon my hat.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well,” he said slowly, “I admit that neither on
horse nor on man would long tails go at all well with
that bowler hat of yours. Odd how all of a piece taste
is! From a man’s hat, or a horse’s tail, we can reconstruct
the age we live in, like that scientist, you
remember, who reconstructed a mastodon from its
funny-bone.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>The thought went sharply through my head: Is
his next tirade to be on mastodons? Till I remembered
with relief that the animal was extinct, at all
events in England.</p>
<h3>§ 4.</h3>
<p class='pindent'>With but little further talk we had nearly reached
my rooms, when he said abruptly:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“A lark! Can’t you hear it? Over there, in that
wretched little gold-fish shop again.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>But I could only hear the sounds of traffic.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It’s your imagination,” I said. “It really is too
lively on the subject of birds and beasts.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I tell you,” he persisted, “there’s a caged lark
there. Very likely, half-a-dozen.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“My dear fellow,” I said, “suppose there are!
We could go and buy them and set them free, but it
would only encourage the demand. Or we could
assault the shopmen. Do you recommend that?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I don’t joke on this subject,” he answered shortly.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“But surely,” I said, “if we can’t do anything to
help the poor things we had better keep our ears from
hearing.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“And our eyes shut? Suppose we all did that, what
sort of world should we be living in?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Very much the same as now, I expect.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Blasphemy! Rank, hopeless blasphemy!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Please don’t exaggerate!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I am not. There is only one possible defence of
that attitude, and it’s this: The world is—and was
deliberately meant to be—divided into two halves:
the half that suffers and the half that benefits by that
suffering.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Is it so?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Perhaps.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You acquiesce in that definition of the world’s
nature? Very well, if you belong to the first half you
are a poor-spirited creature, consciously acquiescing
in your own misery. If to the second, you are a brute,
consciously acquiescing in your own happiness, at
the expense of others. Well, which are you?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I have not said that I belong to either.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“There are only two halves to a whole. No, my
friend, disabuse yourself once for all of that cheap and
comfortable philosophy of shutting your eyes to what
you think you can’t remedy, unless you are willing
to be labelled ‘brute.’ ‘He who is not with me is
against me,’ you know.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well,” I said, “after that, perhaps you’ll be good
enough to tell me what I can do by making myself
miserable over things I can’t help?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I will,” he answered. “In the first place, kindly
consider that you are not living in a private world of
your own. Everything you say and do and think has
its effect on everybody around you. For example, if you
feel, and say loudly enough, that it is an infernal shame
to keep larks and other wild song-birds in cages, you
will infallibly infect a number of other people with
that sentiment, and in course of time those people
who feel as you do will become so numerous that
larks, thrushes, blackbirds, and linnets will no longer
be caught and kept in cages. Whereas, if you merely
think: ‘Oh! this is dreadful, quite too dreadful, but,
you see, I can do nothing; therefore consideration for
myself and others demands that I shall stop my ears
and hold my tongue,’ then, indeed, nothing will ever
be done, and larks, blackbirds, etc., will continue to be
caught and prisoned. How do you imagine it ever
came about that bears and bulls and badgers are no
longer baited; cocks no longer openly encouraged to
tear each other in pieces; donkeys no longer beaten
to a pulp? Only by people going about and shouting
out that these things made them uncomfortable. How
did it come about that more than half the population
of this country are not still classed as ‘serfs’ under
the law? Simply because a few of our ancestors were
made unhappy by seeing their fellow-creatures owned
and treated like dogs, and roundly said so—in fact,
were not ashamed to be sentimental humanitarians
like me.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“That is all obvious. But my point is that there is
moderation in all things, and a time for everything.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“By your leave,” he said, “there is little moderation
desirable when we are face to face with real
suffering, and, as a general rule, no time like the
present.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“But there is, as you were saying just now, such
a thing as a sense of proportion. I cannot see that it’s
my business to excite myself about the caging of
larks when there are so many much greater evils.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Forgive my saying so,” he answered, “but if,
when a caged lark comes under your nose, excitement
does not take hold of you, with or against your will,
there is mighty little chance of your getting excited
about anything. For, consider what it means to be
a caged lark—what pining and misery for that little
creature, which only lives for its life up in the blue.
Consider what blasphemy against Nature, and what
an insult to all that is high and poetic in man, it is to
cage such an exquisite thing of freedom!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You forget that it is done out of love for the song—to
bring it into towns where people can’t otherwise
hear it.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It is done for a living—and that people without
imagination may squeeze out of unhappy creatures
a little gratification!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It is not a crime to have no imagination.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“No, sir; but neither is the lack of it a thing to
pride oneself on, or pass by in silence, when it inflicts
suffering.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I am not defending the custom of caging larks.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“No; but you are responsible for its continuance.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You! and all those other people who believe in
minding their own business.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Really,” I said; “you must not attack people
on that ground. We cannot all be busybodies!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“The saints forbid!” he answered. “But when a
thing exists which you really abhor—as you do this—I
do wish you would consider a little whether, in letting
it strictly alone, you are minding your own business on
principle, or because it is so jolly comfortable to do so.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Speaking for myself——”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” he broke in; “quite! But let me ask you
one thing: Have you, as a member of the human
race, any feeling that you share in the advancement of
its gentleness, of its sense of beauty and justice—that,
in proportion as the human race becomes more lovable
and lovely, you too become more lovable and lovely?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Naturally.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Then is it not your business to support all that you
feel makes for that advancing perfection?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I don’t say that it isn’t.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“In that case it is <span class='it'>not</span> your business to stop your
ears, and shut your eyes, and hold your tongue, when
you come across wild song-birds caged.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>But we had reached my rooms.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Before I go in,” I said, “there is just one little thing
I’ve got to say to you: Don’t you think that, for a
man with your ‘sense of proportion,’ you exaggerate
the importance of beasts and their happiness?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He looked at me for a long time without speaking,
and when he did speak it was in a queer, abstracted voice:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I have often thought over that,” he said, “and
honestly I don’t believe I do. For I have observed
that before men can be gentle and broad-minded with
each other, they are always gentle and broad-minded
about beasts. These dumb things, so beautiful—even
the plain ones—in their different ways, and so touching
in their dumbness, do draw us to magnanimity, and
help the wings of our hearts to grow. No; I don’t
think I exaggerate, my friend. Most surely I don’t
want to; for there is no disservice one can do to all
these helpless things so great as to ride past the
hounds, to fly so far in front of public feeling as to
cause nausea and reaction. But I feel that most of us,
deep down, really love these furred and feathered
creatures that cannot save themselves from us—that
are like our own children, because they are helpless;
that are in a way sacred, because in them we watch,
and through them we understand, those greatest
blessings of the earth—Beauty and Freedom. They
give us so much, they ask nothing from us. What can
we do in return but spare them all the suffering we
can? No, my friend; I do not think—whether for
their sakes or our own—that I exaggerate.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>When he had said those words he turned away, and
left me standing there.</p>
<h2>II</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>Reverie of a Sportsman</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Fortnightly Review</span>, 1915.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>I set out one morning in late August, with some
potted grouse sandwiches in one pocket and a magazine
in the other, for a tramp toward Causdon. I had not
been in that particular part of the moor since I used to
go snipe-shooting there as a boy—my first introduction,
by the way, to sport. It was a very lovely day,
almost too hot; and I never saw the carpet of the moor
more exquisite—heather, fern, the silvery white
cotton grass, dark peat turves, and green bog-moss,
all more than customarily clear in hue under a very
blue sky. I walked till two o’clock, then sat down
in a little scoop of valley by a thread of stream, which
took its rise from an awkward-looking bog at the top.
It was wonderfully quiet. A heron rose below me and
flapped away; and while I was eating my potted grouse
I heard the harsh cheep of a snipe, and caught sight
of the twisting bird vanishing against the line of
sky above the bog. “That must have been one of the
bogs we used to shoot,” I thought; and having
finished my snack of lunch, I rolled myself a cigarette,
opened the magazine, and idly turned its pages. I
had no serious intention of reading—the calm and
silence were too seductive, but my attention became
riveted by an exciting story of some man-eating
lions, and I read on till I had followed the adventure
to the death of the two ferocious brutes, and found
my cigarette actually burning my fingers. Crushing
it out against the dampish roots of the heather, I lay
back with my eyes fixed on the sky, thinking of nothing.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Suddenly I became conscious that between me and
that sky a leash of snipe high up were flighting and
twisting and gradually coming lower; I appeared,
indeed, to have a sort of attraction for them. They
would dash toward each other, seem to exchange
ideas, and rush away again, like flies that waltz
together for hours in the centre of a room. As they
came lower and lower over me I could almost swear I
heard them whisper to each other with their long bills,
and presently I absolutely caught what they were
saying: “Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh,
look at him!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Amazed at such an extraordinary violation of
all the laws of Nature, I began to rub my ears,
when I distinctly heard the “Go-back, go-back” of
an old cock grouse, and, turning my head cautiously,
saw him perched on a heathery knob within twenty
yards of where I lay. Now, I knew very well that all
efforts to introduce grouse on Dartmoor have been
quite unsuccessful, since for some reason connected
with the quality of the heather, the nature of the
soil, or the over-mild dampness of the air, this king of
game birds most unfortunately refuses to become
domiciled there; so that I could hardly credit my
senses. But suddenly I heard him also: “Look at
him! Go back! The ferocious brute! Go back!”
He seemed to be speaking to something just below;
and there, sure enough, was the first hare I had ever
seen out on the full of the moor. I have always
thought a hare a jolly beast, and not infrequently
felt sorry when I rolled one over; it has a way of
crying like a child if not killed outright. I confess then
that in hearing it, too, whisper: “Look at him! The
ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!” I experienced
the sensation that comes over one when one has not
been quite fairly treated. Just at that moment, with
a warm stirring of the air, there pitched within six
yards of me a magnificent old black-cock—the very
spit of that splendid fellow I shot last season at Balnagie,
whose tail my wife now wears in her hat. He was
accompanied by four gray-hens, who, settling in a
semi-circle, began at once: “Look at him! Look at
him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!” At
that moment I say with candour that I regretted the
many times I have spared gray-hens with the sportsmanlike
desire to encourage their breed.</p>
<p class='pindent'>For several bewildered minutes after that I could
not turn my eyes without seeing some bird or other
alight close by me: more and more grouse, and
black game, pheasants, partridges—not only the
excellent English bird, but the very sporting Hungarian
variety—and that unsatisfactory red-legged
Frenchman which runs any distance rather than get
up and give you a decent shot at him. There were
woodcock too, those twisting delights of the sportsman’s
heart, whose tiny wing-feather trophies have
always given me a distinct sensation of achievement
when pinned in the side of my shooting-cap; wood-pigeons
too, very shy and difficult, owing to the thickness
of their breast-feathers—and, after all, only
coming under the heading “sundry”; wild duck,
with their snaky dark heads, that I have shot chiefly
in Canada, lurking among rushes in twilight at flighting
time—a delightful sport, exciting, as the darkness
grows; excellent eating too, with red pepper and
sliced oranges in oil! Certain other sundries kept
coming also; landrails, a plump, delicious little bird;
green and golden plover; even one of those queer little
creatures, moorhens, that always amuse one by their
quick, quiet movements, plaintive note, and quaint
curiosity, though not really, of course, fit to shoot,
with their niggling flight and fishy flavour! Ptarmigan,
too, a bird I admire very much, but have only once or
twice succeeded in bringing down, shy and scarce as it
is in Scotland. And, side by side, the alpha and omega
of the birds to be shot in these islands, a capercailzie
and a quail. I well remember shooting the latter in a
turnip-field in Lincolnshire—a scrap of a bird, the only
one I ever saw in England. Apart from the pleasurable
sensation at its rarity, I recollect feeling that it was
almost a mercy to put the little thing out of its loneliness.
It ate very well. There, too, was that loon or
northern diver that I shot with a rifle off Denman
Island as it swam about fifty yards from the shore.
Handsome plumage; I still have the hat it made.
One bird only seemed to refuse to alight, remaining up
there in the sky, and uttering continually that trilling
cry which makes it perhaps the most spiritual of all
birds that can be eaten—I mean, of course, the curlew.
I certainly never shot one. They fly, as a rule, very
high and seem to have a more than natural distrust
of the human being. This curlew—ah! and a blue
rock (I have always despised pigeon-shooting)—were
the only two winged creatures that one can shoot for
sport in this country that did not come and sit round
me.</p>
<p class='pindent'>There must have been, I should say, as many
hundred altogether as I have killed in my time—a
tremendous number. They sat in a sort of ring, moving
their beaks from side to side, just as I have seen penguins
doing on the films that explorers bring back from
the Antarctic; and all the time repeating to each
other those amazing words: “Look at him! The
ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Then, to my increased astonishment, I saw behind
the circles of the birds a number of other animals
besides the hare. At least five kinds of deer—the
red, the fallow, the roe, the common deer, whose
name I’ve forgotten, which one finds in Vancouver
Island, and the South African springbok, that swarm
in from the Karoo at certain seasons, among which I
had that happy week once in Namaqualand, shooting
them from horseback after a gallop to cut them off—very
good eating as camp fare goes, and making nice
rugs if you sew their skins together. There, too, was
the hyena I missed, probably not altogether; but he
got off, to my chagrin—queer-looking brute! Rabbits
of course had come—hundreds and hundreds of them.
If—like everybody else—I’ve done such a lot of it,
I can’t honestly say I’ve ever cared much for shooting
rabbits, though the effect is neat enough when you
get them just right and they turn head over heels—and
anyway, the prolific little brutes have to be kept down.
There, too, actually was my wild ostrich—the one
I galloped so hard after, letting off my Winchester
at half a mile, only to see him vanish over the horizon.
Next him was the bear whose lair I came across at the
Nanaimo Lakes. How I did lurk about to get that
fellow! And, by Jove! close to him, two cougars.
I never got a shot at them, never even saw one of the
brutes all the time I was camping in Vancouver
Island, where they lie flat along the branches over your
head, waiting to get a chance at deer, sheep, dog, pig,
or anything handy. But they had come now sure
enough, glaring at me with their greenish cats’ eyes—powerful-looking
creatures! And next them sat a
little meerkat—not much larger than a weasel—without
its head! Ah yes!—that trial shot, as we trekked
out from Rous’ farm, and I wanted to try the little new
rifle I had borrowed. It was sitting over its hole fully
seventy yards from the wagon, quite unconscious of
danger. I just took aim and pulled; and there it was,
without its head, fallen across its hole. I remember
well how pleased our “boys” were. And I too! Not
a bad little rifle, that!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Outside the ring of beasts I could see foxes moving,
not mixing with the stationary creatures, as if afraid
of suggesting that I had shot them, instead of being
present at their deaths in the proper fashion. One,
quite a cub, kept limping round on three legs—the
one, no doubt, whose pad was given me, out cubbing,
as a boy. I put that wretched pad in my hat-box,
and forgot it, so that I was compelled to throw the
whole stinking show away. There were quite a lot
of grown foxes; it certainly showed delicacy on their
part, not sitting down with the others. There was
really a tremendous crowd of creatures altogether
by this time! I should think every beast and bird I
ever shot, or even had a chance of killing, must have
been there, and all whispering: “Look at him!
The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Animal lover, as every true sportsman is, those
words hurt me. If there is one thing on which we
sportsmen pride ourselves, and legitimately, it is a
humane feeling toward all furred and feathered
creatures—and, as every one knows, we are foremost
in all efforts to diminish their unnecessary sufferings.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The corroboree about me which they were obviously
holding became, as I grew used to their manner of talking,
increasingly audible. But it was the quail’s
words that I first distinguished.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“He certainly ate me,” he said; “said I was good,
too!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I do not believe”—this was the first hare speaking—“that
he shot me for that reason; he did shoot
me, and I was jugged, but he wouldn’t touch me. And
the same day he shot eleven brace of partridges, didn’t
he?” Twenty-two partridges assented. “And he
only ate two of you all told—that proves he didn’t
want us for food.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>The hare’s words had given me relief, for I somehow
disliked intensely the gluttonous notion conveyed
by the quail that I shot merely in order to devour
the result. Any one with the faintest instincts of a
sportsman will bear me out in this.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When the hare had spoken there was a murmur
all round. I could not at first make out its significance,
till I heard one of the cougars say: “We kill only
when we want to eat”; and the bear, who, I noticed,
was a lady, added: “No bear kills anything she
cannot devour”; and, quite clear, I caught the quacking
words of a wild duck. “We eat every worm we
catch, and we’d eat more if we could get them.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Then again from the whole throng came that
shivering whisper: “Look at him! The ferocious
brute! Oh, look at him!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>In spite of their numbers, they seemed afraid of
me, seemed actually to hold me in a kind of horror—me,
an animal lover, and without a gun! I felt it
bitterly. “How is it,” I thought, “that not one of
them seems to have an inkling of what it means to be
a sportsman, not one of them seems to comprehend
the instinct which makes one love sport just for the—er—danger
of it?” The hare spoke again.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Foxes,” it murmured, “kill for the love of killing.
Man is a kind of fox.” A violent dissent at once rose
from the foxes, till one of them, who seemed the eldest,
said: “We certainly kill as much as we can, but we
should always carry it all off and eat it if man gave
us time—the ferocious brutes!” You cannot expect
much of foxes, but it struck me as especially foxy that
he should put the wanton character of his destructiveness
off on man, especially when he must have known
how carefully we preserve the fox, in the best interests
of sport. A pheasant ejaculated shrilly: “He killed
sixty of us one day to his own gun, and went off that
same evening without eating even a wing!” And
again came that shivering whisper: “Look at him!
The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!” It was too
absurd! As if they could not realize that a sportsman
shoots almost entirely for the mouths of others! But I
checked myself, remembering that altruism is a purely
human attribute. “They get a big price for us!”
said a woodcock, “especially if they shoot us early.
<span class='it'>I</span> fetched several shillings.” Really, the ignorance of
these birds! As if modern sportsmen knew anything
of what happens after a day’s shooting! All that is
left to the butler and the keeper. Beaters, of course,
and cartridges must be paid for, to say nothing of the
sin of waste. “I would not think them so much worse
than foxes,” said a rabbit, “if they didn’t often hurt
you, so that you take hours dying. I was seven hours
dying in great agony, and one of my brothers was
twelve. Weren’t you, brother?” A second rabbit
nodded. “But perhaps that’s better than trapping,”
he said. “Remember mother!” “Ah!” a partridge
muttered, “foxes at all events do bite your head off
clean. But men often break your wing, or your leg,
and leave you!” And again that shivering whisper
rose: “Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look
at him!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>By this time the whole thing was so getting on my
nerves that if I could have risen I should have rushed
at them, but a weight as of lead seemed to bind me
to the ground, and all I could do was to thank God
that they did not seem to know of my condition, for,
though there were no man-eaters among them, I
could not tell what they might do if they realized that
I was helpless—the sentiments of chivalry and generosity
being confined to man, as we all know.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” said the capercailzie slowly, “I am a shy
bird, and was often shot at before this one got me;
and though I’m strong, my size is so against me that I
always took a pellet or two away with me; and what
can you do then? Those ferocious brutes take the
shot out of their faces and hands when they shoot
each other by mistake—I’ve seen ’em; but we have
no chance to do that.” A snipe said shrilly: “What
I object to is that he doesn’t eat us till he’s had too
much already. I come in on toast at the fifth course;
it hurts one’s feelings.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Ferocious brute, killing everything he sees.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>I felt my blood fairly boil, and longed to cry
out: “You beasts! You know that we don’t kill
everything we see! We leave that to cockneys, and
foreigners.” But just as I had no power of movement,
so I seemed to have no power of speech. And suddenly
a little voice, high up over me, piped down: “They
never shoot us larks.” I have always loved the lark;
how grateful I felt to that little creature—till it
added: “They do worse; they take and shut us up
in little traps of wire till we pine away! Ferocious
brutes!” In all my life I think I never was more
disappointed! The second cougar spoke: “He once
passed within spring of me. What do you say, friends;
shall we go for him?” The shivering answer came
from all: “Go for him! Ferocious brute! Oh, go
for him!” And I heard the sound of hundreds of
soft wings and pads ruffling and shuffling. And,
knowing that I had no power to move an inch, I shut
my eyes. Lying there motionless, as a beetle that
shams dead, I felt them creeping, creeping, till all
round me and over me was the sound of nostrils sniffing;
and every second I expected to feel the nip of
teeth and beaks in the fleshy parts of me. But nothing
came, and with an effort I reopened my eyes. There
they were, hideously close, with an expression on their
faces that I could not read; a sort of wry look, every
nose and beak turned a little to one side. And suddenly
I heard the old fox saying: “It’s impossible, with a
smell like that; we could never eat him!” From
every one of them came a sort of sniff or sneeze as of
disgust, and as they began to back away I distinctly
heard the hyena mutter: “He’s not wholesome—not
wholesome—the ferocious brute!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>The relief of that moment was swamped by my
natural indignation that these impudent birds and
beasts should presume to think that I, a British sportsman,
would not be good to eat. Then that beastly
hyena added: “If we killed him, you know, and
buried him for a few days, he might be tolerable.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>An old cock grouse called out at once: “Go back!
Let us hang him! <span class='it'>We</span> are always well hung. They
like us a little decayed—ferocious brutes! Go back!”
And once more I felt, from the stir and shuffle, that
my fate hung in the balance; and I shut my eyes
again, lest they might be tempted to begin on them.
Then, to my infinite relief, I heard the cougar—have
we not always been told that they were the friends
of man?—mutter: “Pah! It’s clear we could never
eat him fresh, and what we do not eat at once we do
not touch!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>All the birds cried out in chorus: “No! That would
be crow’s work.” And again I felt that I was saved.
Then, to my horror, that infernal loon shrieked:
“Kill him and have him stuffed—specimen of Ferocious
Brute! Or fix his skin on a tree, and look at it—as he
did with me!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>For a full minute I could feel the currents of opinion
swaying over me, at this infamous proposal; then
the old black cock, the one whose tail is in my wife’s
hat, said sharply: “Specimen! He’s not good
enough!” And once more, for all my indignation at
that gratuitous insult, I breathed freely.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Come!” said the lady bear quietly: “Let us
dribble on him a little, and go. The ferocious brute
is not worth more!” And, during what seemed to me
an eternity, one by one they came up, deposited on me
a little saliva, looking into my eyes the while with a
sort of horror and contempt, then vanished on the
moor. The last to come up was the little meerkat
without its head. It stood there; it could neither
look at me nor drop saliva, but somehow it contrived
to say: “I forgive you, ferocious brute; but I was
very happy!” Then it, too, withdrew. And from
all around, out of invisible presences in the air and the
heather, came once more the shivering whisper:
“Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at
him!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>I sat up. There was a trilling sound in my ears.
Above me in the blue a curlew was passing, uttering
its cry. Ah! Thank Heaven!—I had been asleep!
My day-dream had been caused by the potted grouse,
and the pressure of the <span class='it'>Review</span>, which had lain, face
downwards, on my chest, open at the page where I had
been reading about the man-eating lions, and the
death of those ferocious brutes. It shows what tricks
of disproportion little things will play with the mind
when it is not under reasonable control.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And, to get the unwholesome taste of it all out of
my mouth, I at once jumped up and started for home
at a round pace.</p>
<h2>III</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>The Slaughter of Animals for Food</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(Papers in the <span class='it'>Daily Mail</span>, 1912.)<a id='r2'/><a href='#f2' style='text-decoration:none'><sup><span style='font-size:0.9em'>[2]</span></sup></a></p>
<p class='pindent'>The thing is horrible, but it is necessary. Why
then drag it out into the light? Why make our
thoughts miserable with contemplation of horrors
which must exist?</p>
<p class='pindent'>If it were true that the present methods of slaughtering
animals for food in this country were necessary,
if all the suffering they involve was inevitable, I should
be the first to say: “Let us shut our eyes!” For,
needless suffering—even to ourselves—is stupid. It
is just because this particular suffering is avoidable,
and easily avoidable, that one feels we must face the
matter if we want to call ourselves a decent people.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I am a meat-eater—we are nearly all meat-eaters.
Well! We cannot sit down at present to a single
meal without complicity in methods that produce a
large amount of preventable suffering to creatures for
whom the least sensitive among us has at heart a certain
friendly feeling. For, to those who say that they do not
care for animals, or that animals, even domestic ones,
have no rights except such as for our own advantage
we accord them, let me at once reply: I do not agree,
but for the sake of argument, granted; and then
conceive, if you can, a world without cattle, sheep,
and pigs, and tell me honestly whether you do not miss
something friendly. No! the fact is, we, who are the
descendants of countless generations to whom these
animals have been literally the breath of life, cannot—even
now that we have become such highly civilized
townsmen—disclaim all sensibility in their regard.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Consider the magnitude of this matter. The calculations
of an expert give the following approximate
numbers of animals annually killed for food in England
and Wales: 1,850,000 beasts, 8,500,000 sheep, and
3,200,000 pigs. These figures are hard to come at, and
may be a million or so out, one way or the other, but
even if they be, is there any feature of the national
life which can touch this for possibilities of preventable
physical suffering? And is there any department so
neglected by public opinion and the law?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Save the eating of bread, have we any practice in
our lives so consistent as that of eating meat, or any
from which we, perhaps wrongly, consider that we
derive more benefit, or any about whose conditions,
sanitary or humane, we are so careless?</p>
<p class='pindent'>If a donkey is beaten to death, a dog stoned, or a cat
killed with a riding-whip, the chances are that a prosecution
will ensue or a question be asked in Parliament;
for public opinion and the law lay it down that the
infliction of unnecessary suffering on animals is
an offence punishable by fine or imprisonment.
But if in slaughter-houses some 8,000,000 sheep are
killed yearly, <span class='it'>without first being stunned</span>, by a method
which, even in the hands of an expert, produces some
seconds of acute suffering (Report of the Admiralty
Committee on Humane Slaughtering of Animals,
1904); if thousands of cattle require two or more blows
of that primitive instrument, the pole-axe (if even only
one in a hundred cattle requires a second blow it means
18,000 in a year); if pigs are driven in gangs into a
small space and there killed, one by one, with the others
squealing in terror round their dead bodies; if all this
preventable suffering is inflicted daily in our slaughterhouses,
what does public opinion know of it, and what
does the law care?</p>
<p class='pindent'>There was a time in this country when men beat
their donkeys, set cocks fighting, baited bears and
badgers, tied tin pots to dogs’ tails, with the lightest
of light hearts and no consciousness at all that they
were outside the pale of decency in doing so. We,
their descendants, now look on the unnecessary
suffering involved in such doings with aversion; but
we still allow our sheep and pigs to be killed without
stunning, our pigs to be driven in gangs into the
slaughtering chamber, and the uncertain pole-axe to
be used for cattle—all without a qualm.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Why should this enormous field, wherein does
occur such an amount of easily preventable suffering,
be left so unpatrolled by the law, which has interested
itself in warding off all needless suffering
from cats and dogs and horses? Well! The law
stands idle partly because the animals we kill for
food are not so near and dear to us as those others.
We should never stand the horses and dogs and cats
we make such pets of being killed when their time comes
in the manner in which we kill our sheep and pigs.
And partly the law stands idle because in the case of
horses and dogs and cats there is no large leagued
interest, such as that of the meat trades, unconvinced
of the need for improvement.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I am told that the meat trades constitute the
strongest body in the kingdom. And well they may,
considering the vast proportions of their business.
The meat trades are controlled by men like ourselves—as
humane, and undesirous of inflicting unnecessary
suffering. Surely they will reconsider their convictions
and accept such simple, elementary safeguards against
unnecessary suffering as were outlined by the Admiralty
Committee on Humane Slaughtering, of 1904. There
is nothing really prejudicial to their interest in these
suggestions. Nothing extravagant, or experimental.
The case has been proved up to the hilt. What
is the good of appointing a governmental committee
of first-rate men<a id='r3'/><a href='#f3' style='text-decoration:none'><sup><span style='font-size:0.9em'>[3]</span></sup></a> to examine into facts if
their Report is to be paid about as much attention to
as one would pay to the suggestions of seven lunatics?
Why set going a laborious inquiry, for negligible or
puny results? It can no longer be pretended that
humane-killers are not effective, in the face of so
much evidence from abroad; in the face of numerous
testimonials from butchers in this country; in the
face of the fact that Mr. Christopher Cash (for whose
consistent advocacy of humane slaughtering the
thanks of us all are due) in the year 1910 had 4,000
animals, the property of thirty butchers, killed by
“humane” methods, and though he was in every
case willing to pay full compensation for any injury he
might do to a carcase, had not one single claim made
on him. (From a pamphlet entitled “The Humane
Slaughtering of Animals for Food,” by Christopher
Cash. Issued by the R.S.P.C.A.).</p>
<p class='pindent'>Butchers and slaughtermen perform a necessary
task from which most of us would shrink, and it is
both unbecoming and nonsensical to suggest intentional
cruelty on their part. <span class='it'>I do not for a moment.</span>
But I do say that it is the business of the law so to
control the methods of slaughter as to obviate to the
utmost all needless suffering, however unintentionally
it may be inflicted.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In the following brief summary of our want of
system I am not dealing at all with the Jewish method
of killing, for not being a Jew, I cannot pretend to be
qualified to discuss a custom which appears to have been
necessary hitherto to the peace of the Jewish mind.
I only urge a people in some respects more humane
than ourselves to search their consciences, and see
if they can still endure this method. Neither am I
speaking as to Scotland, which is ahead of us, having
provided by the Burgh Police Act, of 1892, that
where there are public there shall be no private
slaughter-houses; and where—at all events in Edinburgh—they
have abattoirs that compare, I am told,
with the best on the Continent.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The following is a rough outline of what at present
seems good to a nation which prides itself on being at
once the most practical and the most humane in the
whole world: —</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>A mixed system of private and public slaughter-houses—thousands
of private slaughter-houses
(some of them highly insanitary) alongside of a
few municipally controlled abattoirs.</p>
<p class='pindent'>No regulation that where there are public
abattoirs there shall be no private ones; <span class='it'>hence</span>
great difficulty in making these public slaughterhouses
pay their way.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Inspection of private slaughter-houses, in spite
of all the good intentions of local authorities and
medical officers, admitted to be very inefficient in
so far as condition of meat and method of slaughter
are concerned.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Supervision of public slaughter-houses much
hampered by the present widespread custom of
allowing butchers to send in their beasts with
their own slaughtermen.</p>
<p class='pindent'>No general statutory regulations as to method of
slaughter. Model by-laws have been drawn up by
the Local Government Board and recommended to
local authorities—but they are not compulsory and
have been as yet but sparsely adopted.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Slaughtermen not licensed; nor—except in
slaughterhouses directly controlled by a Government
Department (such as the Admiralty)—required
by law to be proficient before they commence
slaughtering.</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>These are the methods of slaughter we adopt at
present: —</p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>Cattle</span> are almost universally stunned before their
throats are cut. So far—good! But they are still,
for the most part, stunned with the pole-axe. This
weapon produces complete unconsciousness at the
first blow, <span class='it'>if well wielded</span>. <span class='it'>If not well wielded</span>——!
I have been assured that the cases of misfire amount
to a very small percentage. But I can only say, on the
first two beasts slaughtered before my eyes the first
blow of the pole-axe—wielded in each case by an
experienced slaughterman—descended without effect.
The animals moaned, and waited for the second and
successful blow. Thanks to the efforts of the Royal
Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the
Council of Justice to Animals, the Humanitarian
League, of Mr. Christopher Cash, and others, there are
now a considerable number of improved instruments
for stunning cattle in use—the Greener and Behr
pistols; the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals humane-killer and large captive-bolt pistol;
the Swedish Cattle-killer (used throughout Scandinavia),
and others. But the number of these improved instruments
in use at present is only a fringe to the mass
of time-hallowed and uncertain pole-axes.</p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>Calves.</span>—“The usual practice in this country
appears to be to run the animal up first (by a tackle
fastened to its hind legs) and then to stun it, previous
to bleeding.” (Report of the Admiralty Committee.)
On this method the Committee thus commented:
“This order of procedure is not so humane, and
appears to be unnecessary.” . . . “Calves should
first be stunned by a blow on the head with a club”—<span class='it'>i.e.</span>,
before being run up. <span class='it'>When this Committee
conducted its investigation in 1904, the best humane-killers
had not been invented, or were not known here.</span></p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>Sheep</span>, with few exceptions, are not stunned before
they are bled. The method of killing them and the
amount of suffering they undergo are thus summed up
in the Report of the Admiralty Committee:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“The usual method in this country is to lay the
sheep on a wooden ‘crutch’ and then to thrust a knife
through the neck below the ears, and with a second
motion to insert the point from within between the
joints of the vertebrae, thus severing the spinal cord.
In the hands of an expert this method is fairly
rapid but somewhat uncertain, the time which <span class='it'>elapses
between the first thrust of the knife and complete loss of
sensibility varying, according to Professor Starling’s
observations, from five to thirty seconds. In the hands
of an inexpert operator it may be some time before death
supervenes, and there can be little doubt that this method
must be very painful to the sheep as long as consciousness
remains</span>.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“At the best it is a somewhat difficult operation and
yet in practice is often entrusted to the younger and
less experienced hands in the slaughter-house, the
probable reason being that sheep are easy to handle,
and do not struggle or give trouble when stuck. . . .”</p>
</div>
<p class='noindent'>In other words, the more helpless the creature the less
need for humanity!</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“In Denmark and many parts of Germany and
Switzerland the law requires that sheep shall always
be stunned previous to being stuck, and the Committee
have satisfied themselves, by practical experiments
and observation, that this can be done expeditiously
and without difficulty. A small club with a
heavy head should be used, and the sheep should be
struck on the top of the head between the ears. This
point is important, as it is almost impossible to stun
a sheep by striking it on the forehead. . . . It was also
clearly demonstrated that the stunning caused no
injury to the sheep’s head or to the ‘scrag of mutton’
which could in any way depreciate their market value.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Notwithstanding this recommendation, the Local
Government Board had (up to 1915) omitted from
their model by-laws (which, as before said, are not
obligatory) a regulation requiring the stunning of
sheep. In 1915, however, they added the following
alternative clause:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“9 (<span class='it'>b</span>). A person shall not in a slaughter-house
proceed to slaughter <span class='it'>any animal</span> until the same shall
have been effectually stunned with a mechanically
operated instrument suitable and sufficient for the
purpose.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>And in their memorandum they say:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“At the present time the Board understand that a
‘humane-killer’ can be got which is adapted for
stunning <span class='it'>any kind of animal</span>, reasonable in cost, and
effective and simple in operation. It appears, too,
that the use of the improved instruments can readily
be learnt, so that no prolonged training is needed for
their proper manipulation.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>One can only hope that every Local Authority will
now adopt this clause, and insist on the stunning of
sheep as well as of all other animals.</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>Pigs.</span>—“The Committee ascertained that it is the
usual practice in <span class='it'>large establishments</span> in England to stun
pigs by a blow on the forehead previous to sticking
them, and there is no difficulty in carrying this out, as
the pig’s head is soft as compared with that of the sheep.
The Committee are of opinion that the preliminary
stunning should be enforced in all cases, the evidence
tending to show that this operation is often limited to
pigs which are so large or strong as to give trouble, or
to cases where, owing to the location of the slaughter-house,
the squeals of the stuck pigs cause annoyance
to the neighbourhood. <span class='it'>The Committee feel that considerations
of humanity are at least as important as those
above mentioned.</span>”</p>
</div>
<p class='noindent'>A sentiment with which most of us will presumably
agree. Note, however, that the Admiralty Committee
refer above only to <span class='it'>large</span> establishments. Pigs still
appear to be killed in ways that the following quotation
describes:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“I, with another witness, saw five pigs killed—three
small ones and two large ones. The pigs were
‘knifed’ one at a time and allowed to wander round
the slaughter-house bleeding and in a drunken, reeling,
rolling state, and at the same time uttering most
plaintive cries.” (From a letter to a daily journal.)</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>And Mr. R. O. P. Paddison (one of the foremost
workers in the cause of humane slaughtering) thus
describes the method adopted in most of our bacon
factories:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“First the animals are hung up alive head downwards
by a chain fastened to a hind foot, and then
they are stuck and bleed to death. The work is done
quickly in a collective sense—at the rate possibly of
100 to 200 pigs an hour, but each individual pig
suffers from forty seconds to two or three minutes, and
several pigs struggle and shriek at the same time.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>I have not personally witnessed either of the methods
so described.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I understand that some bacon-curers consider, or did
consider, stunning cruel, on the ground that several
blows were often required. The use of humane-killers
disposes of this objection.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The late eminent physiologist, Sir Benjamin Ward
Richardson, in a paper read before the Medical Society
of London some years ago, says:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“Pigs, I have said, <span class='it'>suffer a mental terror of death</span>,
and to them commonly is also given a severe degree of
physical pain. . . . When they are killed by the knife
alone they die by a hæmorrhage that may extend with
persistent consciousness over three or four minutes of
time.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>In relation to the pig’s mental horror of death,
I myself saw the following sight:—Fifteen or so pigs
in a slaughtering chamber just large enough to hold
them and the slaughterer. Of these pigs three or
four had already been stunned and knifed and lay
dead and bleeding among their living brethren, who
with manifest terror were squealing and straining here
and there against the walls, while the slaughterer
moved about among them selecting the next victim.
A blow, a cut, and there was another dead pig, and this
would go on, no doubt, till the whole fifteen were
despatched and their bodies shot down the slide. Terror
of death! Yes! At all this, by the way, a boy of
about thirteen was looking on—and this in a public
slaughter-house with a good superintendent and under
municipal control.</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>Segregation of Animals</span> <span class='it'>about to be slaughtered from
slaughtering operations</span>.—“It appears to be the common
practice, even in modern and well-regulated
slaughter-houses, to keep the animals, which are
immediately awaiting slaughter, in pens which are
mere annexes to the slaughter chamber itself, and in
many cases in full view of all that goes on inside . . .
There is no point which the Committee have more carefully
investigated than the question as to whether
animals do or do not suffer from fear from this contact,
and the evidence of those best qualified to judge
is so conflicting that no absolute verdict can be given . . .
The animal should be given the full benefit of the
doubt.” (Report of the Admiralty Committee.)</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>But the animal is <span class='it'>not</span> given the benefit of the doubt.
Whatever the degree of consciousness of animals
awaiting slaughter (sometimes for a whole hour) just
divided by a door which, all regulations to the contrary,
is far from always shut, whether they know or not that
it is death which awaits them, any spectator accustomed
to animals in their normal state has only to
look at their eyes, as they stand waiting, to feel sure
that they are in fear of something.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Such then, in brief and in rough, are the conditions
and methods of slaughter which still seem good to us.
When the Admiralty Committee issued their report
in 1904 they made the following recommendations: —</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>(<span class='it'>a</span>) All animals (cattle, calves, sheep, lambs,
and pigs) without exception must be stunned or
otherwise rendered unconscious before blood is
drawn.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(<span class='it'>b</span>) Animals awaiting slaughter must be so
placed that they cannot see into the slaughter-house,
and the doors of the latter must be kept
closed while slaughtering is going on.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(<span class='it'>c</span>) The drainage of the slaughter-house must
be so arranged that no blood or other refuse can
flow out within the sight or smell<a id='r4'/><a href='#f4' style='text-decoration:none'><sup><span style='font-size:0.9em'>[4]</span></sup></a> of animals
awaiting slaughter, and no such refuse shall be
deposited in proximity to the waiting pens.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(<span class='it'>d</span>) If more animals than one are being slaughtered
in one slaughter-house at one time they
must not be in view of each other.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(<span class='it'>e</span>) None but licensed men shall be employed
in or about slaughter-houses.</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>What has been done to carry out these recommendations,
the fruit of most thorough and laborious
investigations carried out at a considerable expenditure
of public money and presumably with some object, by
men well qualified for their task?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Just this much has been done. The recommendations
have been adopted and are worked successfully
by the Admiralty themselves, and they form the basis
of certain clauses in the Local Government Board’s
Voluntary Model Bye-laws, to which attention is only
just beginning to be paid.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Seeing that the condition of affairs is such as I have
detailed; seeing that the Admiralty Committee made
the following wise remarks: “However humane and
scientific in theory may be the methods of slaughter,
it is inevitable that abuses and cruelty may result
in practice, unless there is a proper system of official
inspection”; and: “In the interests not only of
humanity, but of sanitation, order, and ultimate
economy, it is highly desirable that, where circumstances
permit, private slaughter-houses should be
replaced by public abattoirs, and that no killing should
be permitted except in the latter under official supervision”;
seeing the enormous dimensions of this
matter, and that our methods are behind those of
nearly every Continental country, and very much
behind those of Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany, it
would occur to the simple mind that here was eminently
a case for broad and sweeping action on the part of
the Legislature.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I have not even thought it worth while to dwell
on the <span class='it'>insanitary</span> aspect of the present system, because
the Royal Commission on Food from Tuberculous
Animals (again at a considerable expenditure of
public money) reported thus—“The actual amount
of tuberculous disease among certain classes of food
animals is so large as to afford to man frequent occasions
for contracting tuberculous disease through his
food. We think it probable that an appreciable part of
the tuberculosis that affects man is obtained through
his food”—practically without effect! If the public
likes to spend its money on ascertaining a risk to itself
and likes to disregard that risk to itself when ascertained,
far be it from me to gainsay the public. But if any one
be interested in the sanitary side of our want of system,
let him go to the superintendent of some large public
slaughter-house and ask what percentage of meat is
condemned daily; then let him ask some medical
officer of health how far it is possible to inspect the
condition of carcases in <span class='it'>private</span> slaughter-houses;
and then let him go home and think! There I leave
the matter. For, frankly, it is not this, but the disregard
by the public of needless suffering inflicted on
helpless creatures, bred and killed for its own advantage,
that moves me. Surely no one can call the
following suggestions unreasonable:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>No animal to be bled before being stunned (or
otherwise rendered instantaneously insensible).</span></p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>No animal to be slaughtered in sight of another
animal.</span></p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>No slaughter-refuse and blood to be allowed within
sight or smell of an animal awaiting slaughter.</span></p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>No stunning or slaughtering implement to be used
that has not been approved by the Local Government
Board.</span></p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>The licence of no slaughter-house to be renewed
unless it possesses these approved stunning and
slaughtering implements, a copy of official instructions
how to use them, and can prove that it does
use them and them alone.</span></p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>All offenders against these regulations to be liable
to penalties on summary conviction.</span></p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Why has not this simple harmless minimum of
decent humanity been—as in other countries—long
ago adopted? For the usual reasons: Dislike
of change; dislike of a little extra trouble and a
little extra expense; liberty of the subject. To take
the last point first. Dictate to a man how he shall
slaughter his own animals—what next! Well! I am
all for liberty of the subject. I am for letting him
hurt <span class='it'>himself</span> as much as ever he likes. I even go so far
as to say that prosecutions for attempted suicide are
wrong and ridiculous; but where the subject claims
to hurt the helpless with impunity, then it seems to me
time to hurt the subject.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I fancy that in most men’s minds there lurks the
feeling: “Oh! a little extra suffering to animals who
are going to die anyway in a minute or two—what does
it matter? Now, if you were to put it on the ground
that it hurts the slaughterer, there’d be something in
it!” Yes! It certainly may hurt the <span class='it'>morale</span> of the
slaughterer—but not much, for he inflicts the needless
suffering <span class='it'>without consciousness of cruelty</span>; and ill
actions of which one is not conscious only negatively
deteriorate <span class='it'>morale</span>, in so far as they are a waste of time
in which good actions might have been performed.
But to say that it does not matter whether we needlessly
hurt the sheep or pig because they are going to
die anyway is really to say that no suffering matters,
however unnecessary, since we must all die and it will
be all the same a hundred years hence. It is at all
events not a saying that I can imagine coming out of
the mouth of a human being in perfect health and the
possession of all his faculties, with a knife going in
just behind his right ear and wiggling about in his
neck and head till it finds his spinal cord between the
joints of his vertebræ. And though you may think
that the infliction of some seconds of excruciating
torture on an animal does not really hurt the animal
because she cannot tell you that it does—it conceivably
might hurt <span class='it'>you</span> a little to feel it was needlessly
inflicted.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The meat-trades and butchers generally deny the
need for change, and claim that the humanity of
existing methods cannot be improved on. I really
cannot understand this. Take for example two conversations
I had with quite humane butchers.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I: “So you never stun your sheep before bleeding
them?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>First Butcher: “Oh! no.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Why not?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It isn’t necessary.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Not to avoid pain?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Oh! no; there’s no pain.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Ten minutes later:—</p>
<p class='pindent'>I: “You always stun your cattle before bleeding
them?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Same Butcher: “Oh! yes, always.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Why!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Oh! it avoids a lot of pain.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>To the second butcher:—</p>
<p class='pindent'>I: “Then you never stun your sheep before bleeding
them.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Second Butcher: “No, never.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Why not? Is there any objection?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“No, I don’t see any objection; only it’s never
done. I’ve never seen a sheep stunned.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Just custom?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Yes, just that.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>The old, ignorant prejudice that animals do not
bleed freely if stunned first is now, I think, never
advanced.</p>
<p class='pindent'>So much for custom and dislike of change.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But now we come to what is perhaps the real gravamen
of the resistance—a little extra trouble, a suspicion
of extra expense. This touches all the points in the
irreducible minimum of reform. For instance, the
various R.S.P.C.A. humane-killers cost about thirty-five
shillings; the Swedish cattle-killer ten shillings
and sixpence, with cartridges four shillings per hundred.
You must spend perhaps an hour in learning how to
use them, and five minutes or so per day in cleaning
them. They are still new things—“fads”—although
they have passed all tests, been proved by dozens of
testimonials from butchers in this country to be
perfectly efficient; <span class='it'>and the Swedish cattle-killer is used
throughout several countries</span>.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Again, it is convenient not to have to be careful
to shut doors between slaughtering chambers and
animals awaiting slaughter, or to have to pave your
floors so that blood runs well away from the waiting
pens. It is handy (especially in ill-constructed
slaughter-houses) to kill animals in sight of each
other. It is always, in fact, a nuisance to make any
change that involves readjustment. And unfortunately
animals have no force behind them, are not represented
on the public bodies of the country; cannot
lobby in the House of Commons, withdraw votes or
commit outrages; cannot instruct counsel; have
no rights save those which mere chivalry shall give
them. “Besides,” says Defence, “everything is
already done as well as it can be done. Switzerland,
Denmark—who knows whether they are really better?
The ways of our own country are good enough for us—the
good old-fashioned methods—if there were any
real need for reform we should be the first to undertake
it!” Waste-paper, then, the Admiralty Report!
Waste-paper!</p>
<p class='pindent'>I have reckoned that in the case of sheep alone the
amount of needless suffering inflicted must amount to
some 33,000 hours of solid, uninterrupted death agony
each year (number of sheep slaughtered without
stunning, 8,000,000; period of suffering, five to
thirty seconds—Admiralty Committee’s report)—all
preventable by a few strokes of the legislative pen.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But the truth is we don’t reflect; or if by any
chance we do, we pass on with the thought: “Nothing
can be done till the butchers themselves are convinced!”
Is that true?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Just this far true: As in every other case of new law,
there would be required at first a little special activity.
It is only a question of starting a new standard. In
two years’ time, if these simple, harmless regulations
concerning the slaughter of animals for food were
enforced—not merely recommended, as now—there
would hardly be an animal in this country bled
without first being stunned by humane methods, or
any beasts watching their fellows being killed.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I attack no one in this matter; I blame no one, for
I am not in a position to—the charge of callousness
falls heavily on my own shoulders, who have eaten
meat all these years without ever troubling as to what
went before it. Nor can I hope that these words will
do more than ruffle the nerves of the public; but I do
trust that such of our legislators as may chance to
read them may be moved to feel that it is their part
to save patient creatures, who cannot plead in their
own behalf, from all suffering that the proper satisfaction
of our wants <span class='it'>does not compel</span> us to inflict on them.</p>
<p class='pindent'>If what I have written has seemed extravagant, he
who reads has only to go and see for himself. And let
those who would attack this plea train their guns on
the Report of the Admiralty Committee, 1904. For
I have but conveniently summarized the unanimous
verdict of able and disinterested men, who, officially
appointed to examine the whole matter, held many
sittings, heard many witnesses, saw with their own
eyes, and made their own experimental investigations.
I have, in fact, done nothing but give an added
publicity to the deliberate conclusions of an impartial
tribunal, which had an unique opportunity of forming
and delivering a comprehensive, dispassionate judgment,
and delivered it—to what end?</p>
<hr class='footnotemark'/>
<div class='footnote'>
<table summary='footnote_2'>
<colgroup>
<col span='1' class='footnoteid'/>
<col span='1'/>
</colgroup>
<tr><td style='vertical-align:top;'>
<div class='footnote-id' id='f2'><a href='#r2'>[2]</a></div>
</td><td>
<p class='pindent'>Things have moved a little, I believe, but not nearly enough.—J. G.</p>
</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
<div class='footnote'>
<table summary='footnote_3'>
<colgroup>
<col span='1' class='footnoteid'/>
<col span='1'/>
</colgroup>
<tr><td style='vertical-align:top;'>
<div class='footnote-id' id='f3'><a href='#r3'>[3]</a></div>
</td><td>
<p class='pindent'>The Admiralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering, 1904
Chairman, Mr. Arthur Lee, M.P.</p>
</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
<div class='footnote'>
<table summary='footnote_4'>
<colgroup>
<col span='1' class='footnoteid'/>
<col span='1'/>
</colgroup>
<tr><td style='vertical-align:top;'>
<div class='footnote-id' id='f4'><a href='#r4'>[4]</a></div>
</td><td>
<p class='pindent'>I believe it is the smell of blood, rather than the sight, which
affects animals.—J. G.</p>
</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
<h2>IV</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'><span class='sc'>On Performing Animals</span></p>
<h3>(1)</h3>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;'>(A Letter to the <span class='it'>Daily Express</span>, 1913.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>Writing from the standpoint of one whose love of
animals at one time caused him to enjoy the spectacle
of them performing tricks and capers, into the educational
history of which he never thought of going, I
believe I well understand the attraction of “the
animal show” in music-halls or circuses. Nor do I
doubt that there are animal trainers with such a natural
gift and love of beasts that the process of training
becomes almost pleasurable to creatures who are not
by nature intended to ape mankind.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I even believe that there may be animals, especially
among dogs, who grow to appreciate the glamour of
the footlights, and the sense of their own importance.
But when all this is said, I have come to abominate
the thought of the whole thing, and I fancy that any
one who takes the trouble to think the matter out,
any one who does not allow his natural delight in
animals to run away with his sense of proportion and
the fitness of things, must come to the same conclusion.</p>
<p class='pindent'>To simply bring a horse, a dog, a cat, or even an
elephant or camel on the stage as part of the atmosphere
or machinery of a play, treating it with the kindness
that is invariable I believe in such cases, is one thing,
and I by no means object to it. But the deliberate
training and use, for the purpose of making a living
out of them, of numbers of animals, taking them from
place to place, hall to hall, suitable or unsuitable, is
a very different “proposition,” as Americans would
say.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The very nature of it invites suffering. And I do
not well see how any amount of inspection and the
granting of licences is going to do away with the
greater part of a wretchedness that comes from forcing
creatures away from more or less natural to highly
unnatural conditions of life; nor can I see how, for
the purpose of granting licences, satisfactory evidence
is ever going to be obtained that training (which is
and must be quite a private affair between trainer
and animal) is not accompanied by cruelty.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In a word, I would like to see the “animal show”
abolished in this country. It is too ironical altogether
that our love of beasts should make us tolerate and
even enjoy what our common sense, when we let it
loose, tells us must, in the main, spell misery for the
creatures we profess to be so fond of.</p>
<h3>(2)</h3>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;'>(A Speech made at Kensington Town Hall, 1913.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>I am here to say a very few words on the whole
question of the treatment of animals by our civilized
selves. For I have no special knowledge, like some
who will speak to you, of the training of performing
animals; I have only a certain knowledge of
human and animal natures, and a common sense
which tells me that wild animals are more happy in
freedom than in captivity—domestic animals more
happy as companions than as clowns. And, quite
apart from the definite question of inhumanity, it is
perfectly clear to me that these animal shows are among
the many surviving evidences, the lingering symptoms,
of a creed that—thank Heaven!—is beginning to
pass, and must pass, from us. That creed said: We
human beings have the right, for our pleasure, convenience,
and distraction, to disregard, in the matter
of dumb creatures, those principles which our religion,
morality, and education fix as the guiding stars of our
conduct towards human beings. (Please note that I
do not touch on the question of our rights over dumb
creatures in so far as our actual self-preservation is
concerned; I limit my words to pleasure, convenience,
profit, and distraction.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>Now, “Do unto others as you would they should do
unto you!” is not only the first principle of Christianity,
but the first principle of all social conduct—the
essence of that true gentility which is the only
saving grace of men and women in all ranks of life.
And I am certain that the word “others” cannot any
longer be limited to the human creature. Whether
or no animals have what are called “rights” is an
academic question of no value whatever in the consideration
of this matter. But, lest there be any one
who wishes to take up this point of abstruse philosophy,
I admit at once that animals have no more rights
than have babies under the age when they may be
said to have duties (on which rights, we are told,
depend), that animals have no more rights than
imbeciles, or those who are deaf, dumb, and blind.
Rights or no rights, I care not; the fact remains that
by so much as we inflict on sentient creatures <span class='it'>unnecessary</span>
suffering, by so much have we outraged our own
consciences, by so much fallen short of that secret
standard of gentleness and generosity, that, believe
me, is the one firm guard of our social existence, the one
bulwark we have against relapse into savagery. Once
admit that we have the right to inflict unnecessary
suffering, and you have destroyed the very basis of
human society, as we know it in this age. You have
committed blasphemy, the only blasphemy that really
matters—against your conscience. For the true conscience
of this country is proved by the wording of
the law, with its ruling that the infliction of unnecessary
suffering is an offence; and in a country like
this, the law does not precede, but follows, conscience.
Let me quote the law, and the latest judicial <span class='it'>dictum</span>
upon it.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Section 1 (1) of the Protection of Animals Act, 1911:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“If any person (<span class='it'>a</span>) shall cruelly ill-treat any animal
. . . or being the owner shall by . . . unreasonably
doing or omitting to do any act . . . cause any
unnecessary suffering,” he shall be guilty of an offence.</p>
</div>
<p class='noindent'>And Mr. Justice Darling, on November 19th, 1913,
said:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“Where unnecessary suffering is caused by some
act of an owner, it cannot be justified on the ground
of old custom, and of benefit to commercial persons.”</p>
</div>
<p class='noindent'>Nothing so endangers the fineness of the human heart
as the possession of power over others; nothing so
corrodes it as the callous or cruel exercise of that
power; and the more helpless the creature over whom
power is cruelly or callously exercised, the more the
human heart is corroded. It is recognition of this
truth which has brought the conscience of our age
and with it the law, to say that we cannot any longer
with impunity regard ourselves as licensed torturers
of the rest of creation; that we cannot, for our own
sakes, afford it.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In all this matter, then, of the treatment of
animals it comes to the definition of the words “unnecessary
suffering.” And I say this: All suffering that
is inflicted merely for our pleasure, distraction, and
even for our convenience, and profit, as distinct
from our preservation, is unnecessary and an abomination.
And the fact that it is inflicted on creatures
unable to raise hand to help themselves, or voice to
tell us what they suffer, makes it ever the more
abominable. Whether it be the destruction of
mother-birds (with their whole families of nestlings)
for the sake of the nuptial plumes to be worn in the
hats and hair of human mothers, or the painful docking
of the tails of horses, their sole weapon against the
torment of stinging flies, for the sake of an ugly fashion;
whether it be the treacherous sale of horses worn out
in our service, the snaring of rabbits in needlessly
cruel traps, the turning adrift of friendly but unwanted
dogs and cats; whether it be the unnecessarily slow
and painful slaughtering of animals for food, the
wretched keeping in captivity of wild song-birds, the
prisoning of eagles, hawks, and many another creature
that cannot bear confinement, in zoos and other places;
whether it be any of these, or this sometimes distressing
and always unnatural training of performing animals,
in all suffering is inflicted for our pleasure, distraction,
convenience or profit, and all of it is unnecessary,
all against the conscience of the age.</p>
<p class='pindent'>To those who, tempted by the devil of irreflection,
say “But this is the creed of sentiment and
softness,” I return the answer, “Sirs, no man
ever became a stoic, and acquired the virtues of
fortitude and courage, by inflicting pain on others.”
There is nothing in this new creed that prevents any
one from inflicting on himself as much hardship, risk,
and privation as he considers needful to inspire him
with fortitude.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Let me draw your attention to an anomaly, which
accounts for most of our callousness towards the
sufferings of animals. Nearly every one who witnesses
with his own eyes the infliction of needless pain
on an animal feels revolted, and even hastens to
the creature’s aid; yet these same men and women,
or the vast majority of them, merely hearing or reading
of such things, pass by on the other side, with
the feeling that to pay attention would be either
credulous or sentimental. Now, in regard to credulousness,
note that it is hardly ever to the interest of
any one to draw attention to cruelty—certainly not to
fabricate such a charge; very much the contrary.
And in regard to sentiment, there seems to be a slight
confusion as to the meaning of that word. A man
only moved by cruelty seen with his own eyes is no
whit less sentimental than the man who takes fire at
the mere recital of it; he is only more deficient in
understanding, more cautious in judgment, or more
sluggish in blood. Just as sentimental, but less sensitive.
The longer I live the more I become convinced
that people only use that favourite reproach—sentimental—to
stigmatize sympathy with sufferings that
they themselves have been unwilling or unable to
realize. The moment they do realize, they become just
as “sentimental,” just as moved by pity and anger—for
that is what sentimental means—as those at
whom they sneer.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Ah! but—says the public—even if there be suffering
for animals, the pleasure that their freaks or their
fur or their feathers give us is greater than this suffering;
we are entitled to weigh the one against the other.
Yet few of that same public would dream of saying
this if with their own eyes they saw the tortures; for
then the pleasure they talk of would have vanished
in the memory of those quivering visions. Out of sheer
sluggishness of imagination, out of mere laziness of
mind, then, is made that rather pitiable plea—our
pleasure is greater than their suffering.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Yes! Nearly all the suffering we inflict, whether on
human beings or on animals, comes from our not
thinking. Many people gravely distrust that practice.
For all that, I venture to suggest that a little more
thought will do no harm to any of us.</p>
<p class='pindent'>We pass this way but once, but once tread this
world, and live in communion with these furred
and feathered things, many of them beautiful, in
a thousand ways so like ourselves, often friendly
if we would let them be, and yet who, one and all, are
so simple and helpless in the face of our force and
ingenuity. Shall we, as we vanish, say: “I have lived
my life as a true lord of creation, taking toll from the
captivities and sufferings of every creature that had
not my strength and cunning!” Or shall we pass out
with the thought: “I wish I had not given needless
pain to any living thing!”</p>
<h2>V</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>Vivisection of Dogs</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(Letters to <span class='it'>The Times</span>, 1913.)</p>
<h3>(1)</h3>
<p class='pindent'>Whatever one’s beliefs concerning the whole question
of experiments on the living body, the vivisection
of dogs is a strange anomaly. Even if it be granted that
the dog, by reason of its intelligence and nervous
organisation, is more fitted than other animals for
certain vivisectional experiments (though I believe
this is disputed), there are yet basic considerations
which make such treatment of the dog a scandalous
betrayal. Man, no doubt, first bound or bred the dog
to his service and companionship for purely utilitarian
reasons; but we of to-day, by immemorial tradition
and a sentiment that has become almost as inherent
in us as the sentiment towards children, give him a
place in our lives utterly different from that which we
accord to any other animal (not even excepting cats);
a place that he has won for himself throughout the
ages, and that he ever increasingly deserves. He is
by far the nearest thing to man on the face of the earth;
the one link that we have spiritually with the animal
creation; the one dumb creature into whose eyes we
can look and tell pretty well for certain what emotion,
even what thought is at work within; the one dumb
creature which—not as a rare exception, but almost
always—steadily feels the sentiments of love and trust.
This special nature of the dog is our own handiwork, a
thing instilled into him through thousands of years of
intimacy, care, and mutual service, deliberately and
ever more carefully fostered; extraordinarily precious
even to those of us who profess to be without sentiment.
It is one of the prime factors of our daily lives in all
classes of society—this mute partnership with dogs;
and—we are still vivisecting them!</p>
<p class='pindent'>I am told that pro-vivisectionists are fighting tooth
and nail against the Bill (now in committee stage in the
House of Commons) which has for object the exemption
of dogs from all vivisectional and inoculative experiments.
If it indeed be so, I ask them: “Would you,
any one of you, give your own dog up to the vivisector’s
knife, or respect a man who gave or sold you
his dog for your experiments?” I take it they would
reply: “We would not give our own dogs. We should
think poorly of the man who sold or gave us his dog.
The dogs we use are homeless, masterless, dogs.” And
in turn I would answer: “There are no dogs born
in this country without home or master. The dogs
you use are those who have already fallen on cruelty
or misfortune, whom as kindly men you pity or should
pity; these are the dogs, the lost dogs that you take
for your experiments, to make their ends more wretched
than their lives have been!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>If this be sentiment, it is not mere cultured sentiment,
but based on a very real and simple sense of what
is decent. Miners, farmers, shepherds, little shopmen,
gamekeepers, and humble men of all sorts, who own
dogs, have precisely the same feeling—that the dog
is essentially the friend of man, deserving loyal treatment.
We all have this feeling; yet, when for our
alleged benefit we want to violate it, we can still say:
“Oh! it does not matter; this dog is already down!”
In a word, what we would not do with our own
dogs we have no right to do with dogs that have not
had the luck to be ours. It is not so much a question of
love of dogs as of good faith in men.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I do not wish to enter here into the general question
of vivisection, but I do plead that, whether we believe
in vivisection or not, we are bound, in common honour,
to make a clean and whole-hearted exception of the
one creature whom we have trained to really trust and
love us. By not doing so we injure the human spirit.</p>
<h3>(2)</h3>
<p class='pindent'>I answer the rejoinders to my plea for the exemption
of dogs from vivisection in no spirit of hostility to
science, with all respect for investigators who are
inspired by the desire to lessen the sum of suffering in
the world, and not at all assuming that those who support
the vivisection of dogs must needs be without
fondness for their companionship.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I suggest that there is a distinction between being
“vivisected” (and in that word I include inoculations)
to save your own life or lessen your own suffering and
being vivisected by your neighbours to save their
lives or lessen their sufferings. The distinction indeed
might almost be called profound. And if my contention
that the dog has earned for himself a consideration
from man, I do not say equal, but analogous,
to that which man has for his own species, be admitted,
it would follow that if we approve of cutting up and
inoculating the dog, not for his individual benefit,
but for our benefit and for that of his fellow-dogs, we
must also approve of cutting up and inoculating our
children and ourselves, not for our individual benefit,
but for the benefit of the race, having regard to the
immeasurably more direct results which science would
secure from vivisections and inoculations on the human
body. It is possible, indeed, that some vivisectors
are prepared, in the interests of the scientific treatment
of disease, to say: “I am so entirely, so definitely,
convinced of the benefits to the human race of these
experiments that I am ready to give not only my dog
but my child, my wife, myself if necessary, for the good
of mankind.” But I personally—and I venture to
think there may be others of the same opinion—am
not prepared to go so far. And I plead simply that if
we are not ready to make martyrs of our children and
heroes of ourselves, the time has come when we are
no longer entitled to make martyrs of dogs. The issue
raised, in fact, is whether or no the dog has reached a
position where it becomes unethical to treat him as if
he had not reached that position.</p>
<p class='pindent'>There are innumerable people in all ranks of our
civilized world who would echo the words I heard last
night: “If I were condemned to spend twenty-four
hours alone with a single creature, I would choose to
spend them with my dog.” Granting that most people
would make two or three human exceptions, the saying
expresses a true feeling. There is a quiet comfort
in the companionship of a dog, with its ever-ready
touching humility, which human companionship, save of
the nearest, does not bring; and I assert that this boon,
to mankind—of dog’s companionship—does raise the
dog on to the peculiar plane of ethical consideration
which we apply to ourselves. There is no need to
adduce stories of how “Dash” or “Don” saved the
gardener’s baby from setting herself on fire, or swam
to the rescue of little Thomas who was drowning;
we have only to watch dogs in house or street. I noted
three yesterday afternoon, the only three in the street
at the moment. The first, a fox-terrier, was trotting
along quite by himself with an air of mastery of London
that could not have been excelled by the best “man of
the world” amongst us. No other sort of animal
could have even begun to walk the streets of man with
that quiet busy confidence. The second, a spaniel,
was looking up at his mistress—it is not often that
children and their mothers have the confidence in
each other that those two certainly had. The third,
a retriever, was towing an infirm old gentleman.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Yes, the position of the dog is unique. We have made
him intelligent; and it is sinister ethics to choose him
for vivisections or inoculations because of the very
intelligence we have implanted. We have taught him
faith and love, and I feel are ourselves bound by what
we have taught him. Into other animals we have not
instilled these qualities, we are therefore not bound to
the same special faith with them that we owe to the dog.</p>
<p class='pindent'>My plea being simply that men cannot make friends
of dogs and then treat them as if that relationship did
not exist, I am not concerned to discuss the disputed
question of whether or not special benefit does arise
from experiments on dogs; but, in regard to suffering
in such experiments, take the Home Office Returns for
1911: “Dogs and cats experimented upon <span class='it'>without
anæsthetics</span>, 452. Dogs and cats allowed to recover
after serious operations, 393”; and the words of the
Report of the Royal Commission on Vivisection: “It
is clear that even if the initial procedure may be
regarded as trivial, the subsequent results of this
procedure must in some cases, at any rate, be productive
of great pain and much suffering.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>After all, we have not only bodies but spirits, and
when our minds have once become alive to ethical
doubt on a question such as this (there are 870,000
signatures to a petition for the total exemption of dogs
from vivisection), when we are no longer sure that we
have the right so to treat our dog comrades, there has
fallen a shadow on the human conscience that will
surely grow, until, by adjustment of our actions to our
ethical sense, it has been remedied.</p>
<h2>VI</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'><span class='sc'>Horses in Mines</span></p>
<h3>(1)</h3>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:1em;'>(A Letter to <span class='it'>The Times</span>, 1910.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>The experience which has just befallen the 300
horses and ponies imprisoned underground during the
strike riots at Clydach Vale spurs me to an appeal to
all owners of collieries and mines to abandon, <span class='it'>as far as
possible</span> the use of horses and ponies below ground.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The question of the treatment of pit ponies has of
late attracted much attention, and is under examination
by the Royal Commission on Mines. Into discussion
of the truth of particular stories of cruelty I
do not intend to enter. I have no first-hand knowledge,
and, short of becoming a pit-pony driver, or
mine inspector, no real chance of obtaining any. I
wish simply to draw the attention of owners and
managers of collieries and mines to certain considerations
that need not in the least hurt a just belief
in their own humanity or that of their employees.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Apart from the aberrations of human brutes, who
flourish as well above ground as below, cruelty in these
days is not deliberate, but requires for its existence
three primary fostering conditions: the first, an
overdriven or irritated state of nerves; the second,
secrecy; the third, a helpless object.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The first of these conditions is always more or less
present in mine work, not only because of the atmosphere
and unnatural environment, but also because a
certain amount of work has to be got through under
difficulties in a certain amount of time. The second
of these conditions is always present to a greater extent
than almost anywhere above ground. The third
of these conditions is obviously present. In mines
and collieries, therefore, we have human nature,
neither better nor worse underground than it is above,
working continually under circumstances in which the
three primary fostering conditions of cruelty are
present. We, thus have a <span class='it'>primâ facie</span> case for supposing—all
other things being equal—that there must be
more cruelty in the treatment of animals underground
than on the surface. If there were not, it would mean
that miners were not only as humane as the rest of
mankind, which is freely admitted, but much more
humane, which is not likely. The existence of these
three primary fostering conditions in perpetual combination,
in fact, renders the conclusion, apart from all
actual evidence, as inevitable as a chemical equation.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But far beyond all this we have the fact that herbivorous
animals, accustomed to daylight and fresh
air, are kept from the age of four to the age at which
they are about to die in a place where no green thing of
any sort can grow, where the air is strange and dark,
and there is neither rain nor sunshine. And, further,
we have those occasional catastrophes, such as that
which so nearly did to death the unfortunate 300
horses in Clydach Vale.</p>
<p class='pindent'>One assumes as a matter of course that mine owners
are as personally humane in their treatment of animals
as the rest of us; that they do not lack desire to see
that their ponies and horses underground are treated
well; that they would recoil from the sight of neglectful
treatment of four-legged creatures that came under
their own eyes. I merely appeal to them to consider,
apart from the breezes and contradictions of a vexed
question, the plain common sense of the matter. There
are, no doubt, thousands of well-fed, well-treated, well-kept
ponies employed in pits; but with human nature
and animal nature fixed quantities, and the conditions
what they are, must there not inevitably be far more
suffering, on the whole, in their lives underground than
in the lives of animals employed on the surface? The
heart of the matter lies in the unnatural conditions.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Small engines are used with success both here and
abroad for some kinds of mine traction. For other
kinds of mine traction animals may always have to be
employed—though that is a hard saying, seeing what
human ingenuity can accomplish. But surely a great
deal more of the traction in English collieries and mines
could be done by engines with safety and economy.
Is it too much to beg kindly men that they should do
their utmost to substitute, so far as possible, this
mechanical traction for the labour of those four-legged
creatures whose lives underground must, even in the
best circumstances, be unnatural and sad.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is no more desirable for human beings than for
animals to have to spend their lives underground;
and what men can put up with animals certainly can.
But men have at all events some choice in the
matter, and they do spend half the week at least on
the surface.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The unnatural conditions of our own lives do not
justify us in employing animals under unnatural conditions
where we can avoid it. I take it we all wish to
see suffering reduced to its irreducible minimum.</p>
<h3>(2)</h3>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:1em;'>(A Letter to <span class='it'>The Times</span>, 1913.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>The inspectors appointed to carry out the provisions
of the Coal Mines (Regulation) Act in regard
to pit ponies are to be six in number: one for each
division in the United Kingdom, which contains
3,325 coal mines.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I understand that this provision is based on the
grounds that the ordinary mine inspectors, of whom
there are many, will not be thereby absolved from
that part of their duties; and that the multiplication
of officials is an expensive and undesirable thing.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I wish to point out that the ordinary inspectors will,
almost to a man, feel that the appointment of special
inspectors, in regard to a particular branch of their
duties, relieves them from what is a very thankless
job. It is only human nature not to want to spy on
one’s own kind if one is not absolutely obliged.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Under the ordinary system of inspection, the figures
for the year 1907 give only twenty-two prosecutions
for cruelty to animals, underground, in the United
Kingdom. Taking the boys and men employed in
mines as average kindly folk, neither more nor less
given to cruelty than the rest of us, this number of
prosecutions would work out, relatively to opportunity,
at extraordinarily below the number of prosecutions
above ground. And we can only deduce from this the
fact that the conditions in mines are such that acts
which above ground would lead to prosecution pass
unnoticed underground.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I do beg the Home Secretary to reconsider this
aspect of the question—that is to say, the certainty
that the appointment of special inspectors of animals
will in practice bring a feeling of absolution to the
ordinary inspector from the duty of reporting on
animals.</p>
<p class='pindent'>For, if this is admitted, the number of six special
inspectors is shown to be ludicrous. It means about
two mines a day all the year round for each inspector.
Those of us who have been down coal mines know how
perfunctory such inspection must be.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is certainly undesirable to multiply officials without
due cause; but there really is a point of common
sense and compromise which will hardly be reached
even if twelve instead of six special inspectors are
appointed.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The new regulations are admirably wide and directed
to bettering the lives of these unfortunate little beasts;
for, putting everything at the best, they remain unfortunate
compared with their brethren above ground.
But these regulations will want a lot of looking after,
especially at first, if they are not to be a dead letter.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The great bulk of our material comfort comes out
of our coal mines; surely we can spare a little more
of it than this to guarantee so far as we can the
welfare of the ponies.</p>
<h2>VII</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>The Docking of Horses’ Tails</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(Foreword to a Pamphlet, 1913.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>In the year <span style='font-size:smaller'>A.D.</span> 785 the Council of Celchyth—it
seems—thus addressed our ancestors:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“From the influence of a vile and unbecoming
custom you deform and mutilate your horses. . . .
You cut off their tails; and when you enjoy them uninjured
and perfect, you choose rather to maim and
blemish them, so as to make them odious and disgustful
objects to all who see them. . . . This you are
admonished to renounce.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Thus the Council of Celchyth in <span style='font-size:smaller'>A.D.</span> 785. The
Council of Westminster in <span style='font-size:smaller'>A.D.</span> 1913 has not yet been
moved to admonish us, in the only way it can—by
law—to renounce this “vile and unbecoming custom”
of docking the tails of horses.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Vile and unbecoming!” If it be not, still, vile
to mutilate a defenceless beast (sometimes at cost of
acute suffering) for the sake of a fashion, and of a
market value dictated by that fashion; if it be
not, still, vile to deprive a very sensitive animal of
its natural protection against stinging insects, and
against the exposure of what ought to be protected—by
what word shall we describe this practice? And
if it be not, still, unbecoming to destroy the untouched
sweep and grace of one of the most beautiful of
creatures, and turn what is natural and decent into
the indecently grotesque—what significance has all
our talk of beauty, and all our so-called taste? The
idea that a natural tail causes carriage accidents is
an exploded myth. The plea that a docked tail saves
trouble in cleaning is readily met, if need be, by
shortening the hair of the tail as far as the end of the
“dock” or bone of the tail, without touching the
bone itself. The tail will then be as short as even a
stable hand can reasonably desire, the horse not
mutilated, and the hair ready to grow again.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In certain exceptional circumstances it may be
necessary to dock a horse. But, to make a fashion of
it. . . .!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Ye gods! What a sense of beauty and of decency
we must have, to approve the miserable stumps left
on our horses by this “disgustful” practice! If we
must indulge in mutilation for the sake of “beauty”
let us perform on ourselves; tattoo our faces, perforate
our lips, flatten our craniums, with other
devices suitable to savages. But let us leave the
horse alone, who in his unmutilated state is far less in
need of “decoration” than we.</p>
<p class='pindent'>There are some customs that seem to spell despair.
How far, indeed, are we removed from savages, when
we can blindly follow a custom so thoughtless and
tormenting, so stupid and ugly?</p>
<h2>VIII</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>Aigrettes</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(A note in <span class='it'>Pearson’s Magazine</span>, 1913.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>Am I in favour of legislation prohibiting the importation
of plumage into Great Britain?</p>
<p class='pindent'>I cannot conceive of any one, man or woman, with
imagination, and knowledge of the facts, who would
not be in favour of such legislation. That English
women—English <span class='it'>ladies</span>—after years of revelation concerning
this dismal matter, should continue to support
by their demands the killing of myriads of beautiful
birds <span class='it'>at breeding season</span> is the most discouraging
instance I know of the blindness of the human creature
whose vanity is threatened.</p>
<p class='pindent'>American law has banned the aigrette; why does
English law lag behind?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Not one of our legislators would torture a bird, yet
because a few thousand miles separate them from the
scenes of this butchery, they seem either unable to
imagine what it means or to find time to put a stop to
it. I commend to one and all the Report of the House
of Lords Committee who examined the whole question
some years ago, and said:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“The evidence has been such as to show conclusively,
in the opinion of the Committee, that not only are
birds of many species slaughtered recklessly, but also
that the methods employed for slaughter are such as
in many cases, and especially in that of egrets, to
involve the destruction of the young birds and eggs.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Birds are, as a rule, in their finest plumage at the
time of nesting, and have been shown to be especially
the prey of hunters at that season.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Such Committees should not be appointed if their
conclusions are not to be paid attention to.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='77' id='Page_77'></span><h1>CONCERNING LAWS</h1></div>
<h2 class='nobreak'>I</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>On Procedure in Parliament</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(A Letter to <span class='it'>The Times</span>, March, 1914.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>I am moved to speak out what, I am sure, many are
feeling. We are a so-called civilized country; we have
a so-called Christian religion; we profess humanity.
We have an elected Parliament, to each member of
which we pay £400 a year; so that we have at least
some right to say: “Please do our business, and that
quickly!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>And yet we sit and suffer such barbarities and mean
cruelties to go on amongst us as must dry the heart of
God. I cite at random a few only of the abhorrent
things done daily, daily left undone—done and left
undone, without a shadow of a doubt, against the
conscience and general will of the community: —</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>(1) Sweating of women workers.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(2) Insufficient feeding of children.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(3) Employment of boys on work that to all
intents ruins their chances in after-life.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(4) Foul housing of those who have as much
right as you and I to the first decencies of life.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(5) Consignment of paupers (that is, those
without money or friends) to lunatic asylums on
the certificate of one doctor—the certificate of two
doctors being essential in the case of a person who
has money or friends.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(6) Export of horses worn out in work.
Export that, for a few pieces of blood-money,
delivers up old and faithful servants to wretchedness.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(7) Mutilation of horses by docking, so that they
suffer, offend the eye, and are defenceless against
the attacks of flies.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(8) Caging of wild things, especially wild song-birds,
by those who themselves think liberty
the breath of life.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(9) Slaughter for food of millions of creatures
every year by methods that can easily be improved.</p>
<p class='pindent'>(10) Importation of the plumes of ruthlessly
slain wild birds, mothers with young in the nest,
to decorate our women.</p>
</div>
<p class='noindent'>Such as these—shameful barbarities done to helpless
creatures—we suffer amongst us year after year.
They are admitted to be anathema; in favour of their
abolition there would be found at any moment a round
majority of unfettered parliamentary and general
opinion. One and all they are removable, and many
of them by small expenditure of parliamentary time,
public money, and expert care. It is pitiable that,
for mere want of parliamentary time, we cannot get
manifest sores such as these treated and banished
once for all from the nation’s body; pitiable that
due machinery cannot be devised to deal with these
and other barbarities to man and beast, concerning
which, in the main, no real controversy exists;
scandalous that their removal should be left to the mercy
of the ballot, to private members’ Bills—for ever liable
to be obstructed; or to the hampered and inadequate
efforts of societies unsupported by legislation.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Rome, I know, was not built in a day. Parliament
works hard, has worked harder during these last
years than ever perhaps before; all honour to it for
that! It is an august assembly of which I wish to
speak with all respect. But it works without sense
of proportion, or sense of humour. Over and over
again it turns things already talked into their graves;
over and over again listens to the same partizan
bickerings, to arguments which everybody knows by
heart. And all the time the fires of live misery that
could, most of them, so easily be put out are raging,
and the reek thereof is going up.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is I, of course, who will be mocked at for lack of
the senses of proportion and humour. But if the tale
of hours spent on certain party measures be set against
the tale of hours not yet spent on measures of health and
humanity, the mockers will yet be mocked.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I am not one of those who believe we can do without
party; but I do see and I do say that party business
absorbs far too much of the time that our common
sense and common humanity demands for the redress
of crying shames. And if laymen see this with grief and
anger, how much more poignant must be the feeling
of members of Parliament themselves, to whom alone
remedy has been entrusted!</p>
<h2>II</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>The Nature of Laws</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(Written in 1914.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>Among comments on the foregoing letter there
occurred again and again criticisms conveniently
summed up in a sentence from an American journal:
“It is not the part of Government to make men
moral.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>One who is generally blamed for offering no practical
remedies for the hard cases he provides is not quite
so foolish as to think men are to be made into angels
by law. Cut-and-dried formulæ are hardly his little
gods; and he knows well that far more important
than change and reform of laws and systems is improvement
in the spirit of the men who administer them.
For all that, it is fatal to think that public feeling can
be divorced from law in the social organism. In effect
these critics say:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It is impossible to diminish cruelty and injustice
by law; any attempt to do so will only divert the
cruelty or injustice banned to another form of expression.”
Very well! It is therefore demonstrably
needless and even ridiculous to prohibit, by law,
murder, rape, and the deliberate torture of children.
The murderer, the ravisher, and the torturer should
be allowed to vent their cruelty in these forms, for
fear that if they are not so allowed they will vent it in
other forms! That is the <span class='it'>reductio ad absurdum</span> implicit
in all such anarchistic doctrine; and how far
it is really held by those who talk of the futility of
passing laws against inhumanity one must leave to
their own consciences. In any case, the doctrine takes
no account of the real nature of laws. In a democratic
society, such as ours, only public opinion, or, I would
rather say, the true secret consensus of general
thought, makes laws possible—I am speaking of laws
against inhumanity. And laws so made are but constant
reminders to every one that public opinion is
against such and such a thing. Laws were made against
murder and rape because public feeling against such
acts became so strong that, until the laws were made,
normal individuals did not rest till they had torn
to pieces persons who acted in such abnormal ways.
It was therefore considered more convenient that
certain recognized professional persons should undertake
the work of punishment. And so on through all
the gamut of laws down to those against quite minor
cruelties, which would not perhaps provoke individual
retaliation, but which nevertheless would evoke pity
and anger from a majority of those who with their
own eyes saw them inflicted. Admitting that the
state of public feeling toward a particular form of
cruelty must always be more or less a matter of
discretionary judgment for legislators, it is yet quite
wrong to suppose that laws must wait until the
majority of individuals in a community have openly
declared a feeling of which perhaps, never having been
tested personally, they are not conscious. When
one urges the passing of laws to prohibit certain
cruelties, one is only urging that the Legislature should
give concrete expression to what it believes would be
the general opinion of the country, if every man and
woman therein could be taken apart—isolated, as
juries are—and then actually put face to face with
instances of these cruelties, so that they might judge
them with the fresh and genuine feelings of unfettered
men and women. One is, in fact, only urging the
recording of a judgment which he believes to have been
secretly delivered; asking that this secret judgment
should be published in the form of law as a daily and
forcible reminder that some things are “not done.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Still!” would say these critics who want to see
no more laws made because men cannot be made
humane by law, and who certainly should logically
wish all our present laws removed by law (for this
criticism is radical and not one of degree!). “Still!”
they would say, “all you have done is to make
A. and B. mechanically avoid, for example, caging
wild song-birds, or docking horses’ tails; but the devil
of natural man is so strong in A. and B. that they will
instantly set to work to invent some other form of
torture.” This is too cynical. Many of the cruelties
that <span class='it'>can</span> be prohibited by law—that is to say, those
for whose prohibition the true and secret public feeling
is ripe—are cruelties that come rather from lack of
thought than from a natural savagery. And it is a
very large order to say that, because you stop A. and
B. from “not thinking” in a certain direction, their
lack of thought must result in other cruelties. True,
the reason for their “lack of thought” is often
that they profit by it; but, even so, it does not
follow that if one channel of thoughtless and pain-provoking
profit be cut off, they must necessarily
seek another. As a fact, many social cruelties (such
as the sweating of women, foul housing, and the
harmful kind of child labour) are but dubious sources
of profit in the long run; and some cruelties practised
on animals (such as the wearing of certain feathers,
or the docking of horses’ tails) are but the outcome
of “fashion.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>To put it another way. We feel there are certain
things <span class='it'>our neighbours</span> must not do—we even feel that
we ourselves must not do them; and we pass laws to
put it out of our own reach to yield to the temptation
of profit or temper!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Take a person who is guiltless of thought or temptation
in the matter, and show him first a number of
wild song-birds in freedom, and then a bird fancier’s
shop, with the same kinds of birds in their tiny cages,
and ask him whether or no he thinks they ought to be
kept like that. In nine cases out of ten he will say:
“Poor little beggars! No.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>If then, the Legislature passes a law to penalize
such caging, this law will be effective and will in time
stop wild birds from being caged, because the secret
feeling of the majority is really against such a practice.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But pass a law to penalize the moderate smacking of
small naughty children, it will simply be disregarded,
because nine out of ten people do not see any harm
in either their neighbours or themselves moderately
smacking their imps.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Spirit and body (that is, public feeling and the law)
in the social organism are as inextricably conjoint as
the spirit and body of a man—public feeling needing
its proper clothing of laws, as our souls need due clothing
by our bodies. And if men cannot be made kind by
law, they can and are by law reminded that they must
not, under temptation, do what, in cool and disinterested
blood, they disapprove of their neighbours
doing.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But there is another and perhaps more convincing
answer to these critics. “You say it’s no good passing
laws. If men are prevented from ill-treating one
object, they’ll only ill-treat another.” So be it! Is
that any reason for not trying to save the victims of
such cruelty as we can actually see. Are we in fact
to disregard the sufferer because his torturer may break
out in a fresh direction. That would be as much as to
say that a man watching another making his beasts
go faster to market by jabbing them with a pitch-fork
must pass by on the other side and do nothing to
help the creatures, because if the prodder be prevented
he may to-morrow cut off the tail of his horse
to improve the poor brute’s value. No! Where you
see cruelty, stop it! On that principle the individual
and the State know where they are; the opposite is
but that: “What’s the good of anyfink—why!
noffink!” philosophy which, purged from all need for
effort, in a world of facts, is so truly ethereal and
pleasant to hold!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Some of these critics, no doubt, would carry the
matter further. “We don’t think of the object,” they
would say, “because the weak must go to the wall,
cruelty being inherent in the struggle for existence.”
Well! The sort of cruelties we have any chance of
legislating against are certainly not necessary to the
preservation of our existence; they are luxuries,
excrescences, or that kind of short-cut which often takes
one round the longer way. The struggle for sheer
existence we cannot, of course, annul; it goes on, and
always will. But in this age the human being is surely
bound to say: “I am not only thankful that I am
alive, but that all these other creatures are alive; I
am not only thankful that I am without pain, but that
none of these others are in pain either. I wish the world
to be a decent place for them as well as for myself!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>And if these critics, returning to their mutton, say:
“Quite so, sir, we desire that as much as you, perhaps
more; we only tell you that you can’t make men feel
like that by law!” the answer once more is: “Freely
admitted! But if you do not concrete and record in
laws such humane feelings as you secretly and truly
have, if you do not keep the body of the social organism
in time and tune with its soul, you are handicapping the
growth of your humane feeling for want of signboards
against temptation to profit at the expense of others;
and you are passing by on the other side instead of
going to the help of those you see being ill-treated.”</p>
<h2>III</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>Passing</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Westminster Gazette</span>, 1914.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>I was standing on the Bridge before dawn of the
summer morning; heat-mist down on the water, and
the bright face of Big Ben up there, disjoint, set as it
were in sky—so dark it was.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I had been there some time, seeking what air there
might be in the town, staring vaguely down the broadway
of blackness between the misted lights of the
river banks, thinking idle thoughts, dreaming perhaps
a little, when suddenly I became conscious of something
on the parapet. It seemed to be perching there,
a thin, gray shape, without face or limbs; and, peering
at it, I sidled along, till I found that I was getting no
nearer! Startled, I said:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“What is that? Who is it?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Only a faint sigh answered.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I called again: “Who are you?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>A soft voice replied: “Don’t be alarmed, sir, I am
the Plumage Bill.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Its shape had grown no clearer; but in sheer
amazement I went on speaking as though it were a
being.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you
in there?” And I pointed to Big Ben.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The voice answered again: “They have no time for
me, sir. I am resting a moment before I pass.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“But,” I said, “you ‘pass’ in there, not out
here!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>I could have sworn I heard it laugh, much as a
dying child will laugh if you show it a jumping toy:
“Oh! no, sir! It is here we pass into nothing and
the summer night.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>And, as it spoke, around me came the most extraordinary
beating and vibration in the air, a kind of
white-gray wonder of invisible wings wheeling and
hovering. The whole of dark space seemed full of
millions of these invisible wings, so that I stood utterly
bewildered. Then from out of that noiseless swirl
rose suddenly hundreds of thousands of tiny voices
as of birds too young to fly, calling, crying, calling.
And, flinging up my hands, I pressed them against the
drums of my ears till I thought I should break them
in; but still I heard the hundreds of thousands of
shrill little voices crying, and crying. “Hush!” I
called out: “For heaven’s sake, hush!” But on they
went, feeble and shrill amid that invisible swirl of
winged mothers trying to reach and feed them; then,
just when I thought I could bear it no longer, the mist
on the water curled over and broke like a wave,
something sighed out “Farewell!” and the thin
gray shape was no longer there.</p>
<p class='pindent'>All was still once more. The Bridge stretched empty.
Big Ben glowed in the sky. I drew a long breath and
turned to look down at the water. There, on the
parapet, was that thin gray shape again!</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Not gone?” I cried.</p>
<p class='pindent'>A voice answered: “Sir, I have only just come. I
am the Bill of the Worn-out Horses.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“What!” I cried; “had they no time even for
you?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>And, as I spoke, I heard the sound of thousands of
hoofs, and saw, passing me slowly on the dark air,
the gaunt shapes of horses. From side to side, up,
down—horses dragging worn feet, halting, passing—their
heads lower than their hoofs.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And I cried out: “For Christ’s sake, pass!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>The voice answered: “We pass, sir. Farewell!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>With a sound of plunging the water rose black
through the mist to the level of the Bridge, fell again,
and all was once more still.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I’m haunted!” I thought; and crossed to the
other side. There, again, before me on the parapet
was a gray shape that said: “I am the Bill of the
Slaughtered Beasts.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>And, on the instant, there came at me in the air, as
though I were the centre of a wheel, a million spokes
of beasts, great beasts and little, snorting, writhing,
quivering, with a sound of the gurgling of blood. And
in terror I cried: “Pass!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>The voice answered: “We pass, sir. Farewell.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>And the river ran by below, swollen to the height of
a hill—all red.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I began to run, crying out: “Enough!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>But still there on the parapet before me was the thin
gray shape, and its voice said: “I am the Bill of the
Caged Wild Songbirds.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>And from the darkness above came the flutter of
myriads of tiny hearts maddened with terror, and a
sound such as no other man can have heard—of
thousands on thousands of little wings struggling,
beating, struggling against cage wires. That sound
came slanting down to the water like a swallow dipping,
and passed—invisible as wind.</p>
<p class='pindent'>On either parapet, before me, behind, were many,
many thin gray shapes, like rows of penguins. They
sighed and waved, moving this way and that, as though
saying farewell, then one by one dived and passed into
the dark water below. And the whole air was alive with
the sobbing of men and women, of children, and the
cries of pain and terror from beasts and birds. And
just as I thought that I, too, would leap down into
the water and escape, the dawn broke . . .</p>
<p class='pindent'>I rubbed my eyes. Nothing there, save the river
running quiet and full, with a gray sheen on it; that
bright clock joined once more to earth by its tower;
and the sky flecked from pole to pole with tiny white
clouds. A breeze fanned my face. Beside me on the
Bridge a gentleman in top hat and black coat was
stretching himself, and breathing deeply. I turned
to him.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Did you see them, sir?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“See what?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“The Bills.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“What Bills?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“The Bills of Suffering! There, on the parapet;
thin gray things, passing into nothing and the summer
night?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He looked at me, and I saw he thought I was
demented. Then, with a smile on his pleasant red face,
he pointed to the Clock Tower, and said:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Bills! I get enough of them in there!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Didn’t you even hear them?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He answered coldly:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“My dear Sir, I am a matter-of-fact and hard-worked
man, with no time to ‘see’ things; I have
seen and heard nothing. I came out here for a breath
of air after sitting there all night!” And pounding
with his clenched fist at the air, he added:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“We have just had a glorious scrap!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Understanding then that I must have dreamed, I
begged his pardon and moved towards home, passing
the Clock Tower.</p>
<h2>IV</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>The Modern Stoic: An Ill-natured Duologue.</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Outlook</span>, 1913.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Well, I can only say that to my mind it’s just
another appeal to false emotion; pandering to the softness
of our times. This mawkish humanitarianism is
undermining our virility. I protest against all this
agitation and rot about suffering.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Suffering of <span class='it'>others</span> is what you mean, I believe?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“How do you know they suffer?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Forgive me, but where there is all the <span class='it'>primâ
facie</span> evidence of suffering, it is surely ‘up’ to you to
prove its non-existence. Now, if you yourself were to try
these various experiences of animals which you tell us
it is mawkish to concern ourselves about, then when
you say they are nothing, we shall perhaps believe
you.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Ah! Will you be good enough to suggest how I can
do that?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Get yourself chained to your study chair—as
a watchdog is to its kennel—for a year or so. You
could then write convincingly on our morbidity for
desiring to do away with your chain by law. ‘It is
nothing,’ you would say; ‘no virile person——’ Or,
better, cause yourself to be taken down a mine and kept
there all your life working goodness knows how many
hours a day, like one of those pit ponies, to gush about
whose sufferings you told me was effeminate. The papers
would be delighted to get a letter from your death-bed
saying that it was all greatly exaggerated.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Your suggestions don’t excite me, so far.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Very well. Why not, in the interests of science,
submit your body to some of the less exacting vivisections,
in order that you may reinforce from personal
experience your remarks about the squeamishness of
cranks, and the efficacy of curare. For, think how much
more valuable to us all experiments on the human
<span class='it'>you</span> would be! I won’t go so far as to suggest that you
should be killed for food; for even under the comparatively
slow present methods, which, in contempt of
morbid sensibility I suppose you would uphold, you
would not be in a condition (though you might possibly
have time) to write a letter to the paper saying that
your suffering was really nothing. No! I should
rather advise you to have little bits cut off your ears—a
pity you have not a tail!—but the effect can well be
got by having your hands tied behind you on a hot
day in a fly-infested field. We should then get from
you a definite pronouncement that the sufferings of
being nicked and docked are nothing, instead of the
mere contemptuous silence with which you at present
regard our mawkish attempts to stop these processes.
Oh! there are lots of things you could experience,
so that your letters to the Press might acquire that
convincing quality which at present seems to me
rather lacking.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Quite finished? You forget a little, don’t you, that
a human being is not an animal; so that if I followed
your charming suggestions I should still be no nearer
knowing whether or no animals suffer, as you say they
do.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Oh! there’s no necessity for you to restrict your
experiences to those which you advocate for animals.
I’ve noticed that you are always complaining of the
morbid twaddle talked about the sufferings of criminals,
the unhappily married, and the poor. It would very
much increase our respect for your pronouncements
if you would cause yourself to be confined in a space
eight feet by twelve, in your own company, for twenty-three
hours out of twenty-four, for those nine months,
whose reduction not long ago, in the case of convicts,
I remember you disapproved of. Or again, if you
would marry a hopeless inebriate, or merely grow to
hate your wife—a letter from you to some well-known
journal to say that it was all really of no consequence
would then be of incalculably greater value than it is
at present. Or dare I hope that you might be induced
to embrace the career of making match-boxes, or carding
buttons, or sewing shirts or trousers for, say, twelve
or fifteen hours a day, on a wage of seven shillings or so
a week, in order that we might have the benefit of
knowing that your strenuous remarks about the
mawkishness of believing that the poor really suffer
were inspired by a thorough and personal knowledge
of the subject.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You’re unfortunate in your choice of sufferings.
Those you mention are all necessary—society being
what it is.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Oh! then you admit that they are sufferings?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“To an extent—much exaggerated.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Very well! You have not yet, I perceive, grasped
my points: First, what gives <span class='it'>you</span> the right to say
these sufferings are necessary to society, and to interfere
with our attempts to reduce them so far as we
can? Secondly, what makes <span class='it'>you</span> an authority at all
on the nature and degree of suffering?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I refuse to answer your first question, which I
consider insolent. As to the second, which is also
insolent, of what use is one’s imagination, if not to
gauge the experiences of others without experiencing
them oneself?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“My dear sir, imagination is not, believe me,
a mere capacity for failing to grasp what you have
not yourself experienced. It is an active quality, and
even when stretched to the utmost is a little liable
to fall short of the poignancy of experience. Let me
remind you of Poe’s tale about the man on whom the
walls of a room gradually closed in. That tale, I am
sure, made even you feel that his sufferings might
not be <span class='it'>nil</span>—though I honestly believe it only roused
you because it was so obviously romance. But do you
think your imagination when you read the story really
provided you with the intensity of the sensations of
that man, especially at the moment when the walls
were grinding his bones?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“That was, as you say, romance. But you humanitarians
are always magnifying and distorting into the
dreadful what is very ordinary experience; your
imaginations are your masters, not your servants.
What you want is to be familiarized with the ordinary
sights of Nature, and the look of blood; we shouldn’t
then have all this namby-pambyism to put up with.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You recommend that we should be familiarized
with the sight of blood? Might I suggest that no blood
could be so educative as that of one who propounds
the doctrine: Suffering is <span class='it'>nil</span>! Let your own blood
flow for our enlightenment. Believe me, we shall pay
a much more rapt attention to it than we should to
that of any other creature.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“That, as you well know, is an absurd suggestion.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Yes! Quite. But what I want you to appreciate
is, how tiny the difference between us is. <span class='it'>We</span> think,
that a man should make light of his own suffering,
but make light the suffering of others. Now, transposing
that first ‘of’ would make our philosophy
identical with yours.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“And how do you know that I have not sufferings,
made light of—hidden from every one?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Have you? We have, you see, no means of
knowing; and you must prove it if you wish for the
luxury of having attention paid to you when you
make light of suffering for others. But if indeed
you have, are you not a most unhappy person in that
you do not let a fellow-feeling make you wondrous
kind?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Ah! I thought that was coming. Shall I tell you
my opinion of you, sir? You are a sickly sentimentalist.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“My feeling about you, is not so hackneyed.
With your philosophy of: ‘<span class='it'>I</span> am all right. Let <span class='it'>them</span>
suffer!’—you are—the Modern Stoic.”</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='95' id='Page_95'></span><h1>ON PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT</h1></div>
<h2 class='nobreak'>I</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'><span class='sc'>Solitary Confinement</span></p>
<h3>(1)</h3>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='hang'>(An Open Letter to the Home Secretary—at that
time, May, 1909, the Right Hon. Herbert John
Gladstone, M.P.—printed in <span class='it'>The Nation</span>.)</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>Sir</span>,—In addressing you, I desire to say that I do
so with a gratitude and respect that must be shared
by those who know how much you have already done
for the improvement of our prison system.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I head this letter “Solitary Confinement” because,
though the expression has long been officially abandoned
in favour of the term “Separate Confinement,”
it more adequately defines the seclusion undergone
by prisoners in closed cells, and distinguishes that
system from a practice obtaining in local prisons of
setting prisoners to work separately in their cells with
open doors (when it is impossible to find them work
in association).</p>
<p class='pindent'>Solitary, or closed-cell, confinement—that is to say,
complete seclusion every day for nearly twenty-three
hours out of twenty-four—is now, sir, as you, but not
all men, know, endured by every convict (persons
sentenced to penal servitude for three years and over)
during the first three, six, or nine months of his sentence,
according to class—star, intermediate, or recidivist,
and for the first month of their sentence by all
prisoners (except juveniles) sentenced to hard labour.
Closed-cell confinement for women convicts lasts four
months.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is the object of this letter to urge on you the complete
abandonment of this <span class='it'>closed-cell</span> confinement, save
where it is rendered necessary by the conduct of the
convict or prisoner after his arrival in prison.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In order to demonstrate the weakness of the case
for its retention, I shall first quote certain paragraphs
from the Report of the Departmental Committee,
1895, over which you, sir, presided. (The italics are
my own.)</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>52. “We do not agree with the view that separate
confinement is desirable, on the ground that it enables
the prisoner to meditate on his misdeeds. We are,
however, disposed to agree that the separate system
as a general principle is the right policy. The separate
system rests on two considerations only. It is a deterrent,
and it is a necessary safeguard against contamination.
But we are not of the opinion that association
for industrial labour under proper conditions is productive
of harm. On the contrary, we believe that
<span class='it'>the advantages largely outweigh the disadvantages</span>. . . .
Subject to this condition” (careful supervision) “and
to a proper system of classification, Colonel Garsia,
a prison official of great experience, stated in his evidence
that there was <span class='it'>no danger whatever</span> in associated
work. . . .”</p>
<p class='pindent'>53. “. . . We think that this limited form of
association is desirable for several reasons. (1) It is
a welcome relief to most prisoners from the dull and
wearying monotony of the constant isolation which
forces men back on themselves, and <span class='it'>in many cases
leads to moral and physical deterioration</span>. (2) It can
be made in the nature of a privilege liable to suspension,
and would be, therefore, a satisfactory addition to the
best kind of available punishment. (3) It materially
lessens the difficulty of providing and organising
industrial labour in prisons. Prisoners can be taught
trades in classes, and they can then work in association
under proper and economical supervision in regular
workshops or halls provided for the purpose. (4) It
is more healthy. <span class='it'>It is desirable that cells should be
untenanted for some hours in the day</span>, and in any case
it is better that work which produces dust should not
be carried on in the cells.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>55. “In recommending a wider adoption of associated
work, we must admit that several competent
witnesses expressed disapproval of the principle. . . .
But upon cross-examination, it <span class='it'>did not appear that
they could sustain their objection to associated labour
properly supervised, and they seemed to us to have
formed their opinion rather because separation has been
the accepted rule of the prison system than on any
experience of failure of the associated system</span>. . . .”</p>
<p class='pindent'>76. “In the consideration of several matters contained
in the reference we had to touch upon the
practice of confining convicts for nine months’ ” (now,
1909, three, six or nine) “solitary imprisonment either
in local or convict prisons. . . . The history of it is
interesting and suggestive. It was originated in 1842
by Sir James Graham, then Home Secretary. . . . We
shall show how complete a change in the apparent
object of the practice has since occurred.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>77. “. . . The convict was to undergo eighteen
months’ solitary imprisonment, but he was to be
<span class='it'>freely visited</span> by chaplain and prison officials . . . he
was to be kept in a state of cheerfulness; hope,
energy, resolution, and virtue were to be imparted
to him, and he was to be trained to be fully competent
to make his own way and become a respectable
member in the penal settlements. . . .”</p>
<p class='pindent'>78. “In 1848 it was determined that, eighteen
months being too long a period for isolated confinement,
a system should be introduced based on a period of
separate confinement, followed by a term of associated
labour, with a maximum of twelve months. This was
reduced by Lord Palmerston in 1853 to nine months.
The original intention of Sir J. Graham, which was
that this period should be <span class='it'>primarily of a reformatory
character, appears fifteen years later to have been lost sight
of</span>. . . .”</p>
<p class='pindent'>79. “It would appear from Sir J. Jebb’s evidence
in 1853 that the main object of the separate (solitary)
confinement had come to be <span class='it'>deterrence</span>. . . .”</p>
<p class='pindent'>80. “<span class='it'>In effect, this is the purpose which it must
be regarded as now designed to serve</span>. . . . It is certainly
a practical convenience in the sense that the expense
of sending convicts immediately after sentence to
convict prisons, either singly or in small detachments,
is curtailed by the system of gathering prisons. <span class='it'>This
consideration alone is not sufficient to justify the practice.</span>
The argument that it is a necessary discipline for penal
servitude, <span class='it'>if true</span>, is no argument for sending the convicts
to local prisons. We do not regard the system
with favour. We see no objection to short periods of
detention in local prisons for the purpose of collecting
parties for transfer to the convict prisons; <span class='it'>but if the
system is a good one at all</span>, we think it ought, as far as
possible, to be worked out in the convict prisons from
first to last. <span class='it'>We think it cannot be denied that cases
occur in which a nervous condition, agitated by remorse
and by a long continuance of the separate system, may be
injuriously affected by it.</span> From the evidence before
us, we have no reason to believe that such cases are of
other than exceptional occurrence. We think it is
worth considering whether the severity of the system
<span class='it'>might not be mitigated by a substantial reduction in the
period of separation</span>. . . .”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>These, sir, were the conclusions of your Committee
as far back as 1895. I submit that, as a whole, they
point to the existence of very grave doubts in the
minds of its members as to the wisdom of retaining
this system of closed-cell confinement at all. Since then
great strides have been made in the direction of the
classification of prisoners, and of associated labour,
and the whole slow trend of thought and effort in
regard to prisons has been in the direction of reformation
of the prisoner.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The late Sir Edmund Du Cane, though one of its
chief supporters, has called solitary confinement “. . .
<span class='it'>an artificial state of existence absolutely opposed to that
which Nature points out as the condition of mental,
moral, and physical health</span> . . .” (“The Punishment
and Prevention of Crime,” p. 138.) Its effect on a
highly-strung temperament is thus described by a
young woman who had served a long term of penal
servitude.</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“. . . It is like nothing else in the world—it
is impossible to describe it; no words can paint its
miseries, nothing that I can say would give any idea
of the horrors of solitary confinement—it maddens
one even to think of it. No one who has not been
through it can conceive the awful anguish one endures
when shut up in a living tomb, thrown back upon yourself
. . . The overpowering sensation is one of suffocation.
You feel you must and can smash the walls,
burst open the doors, kill yourself! . . .”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Add to this Sir Robert Anderson’s description of his
sensations (<span class='it'>Nineteenth Century</span>, March, 1902), after
he had caused himself to be locked up for only a few
hours with a political prisoner. “I seemed to be in a
pit. There was no want of air, and yet I felt smothered.
My nerves would not have long stood the strain of it.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>This is the conclusion, from personal experience, of
H. B. Montgomery:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“The whole of this procedure” (solitary confinement)
“is cruel and barbarous, unworthy of a humane
or civilized nation. To my knowledge it drives many
men mad, and even when it does not induce lunacy,
mentally affects a large proportion of those subjected
to it . . .” And: “The less a prisoner is thrown in
on himself and the more he is encouraged to foster
his home ties, the less likely is he to descend into that
condition of despair and demoralization which are such
potent factors in driving men to perdition.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>These are the words of Colonel Baker, of the Salvation
Army, before your Departmental Committee of
1895:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“As to convicts on discharge, I should like to say
that we find a great number of them incapable of pursuing
any ordinary occupation. They are <span class='it'>mentally
weak and wasted</span>, requiring careful treatment for
months after they have been received by us. In
several cases they are men who are only fit to be sent
off home or to a hospital.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>These, after personal experience, are the comments
of W. B. N. in his moderate, and stoical, book “Penal
Servitude”:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“. . . but, at the best, the system of ‘separate
confinement’ is a very bad one. It is only solitary
confinement slightly improved, and it has some of the
worst effects of that terrible punishment. The intention
of it, doubtless, is to impress the prisoner with
the gravity of his offence against society, and to bring
him to a better state of mind. But in some cases,
I am convinced, it has quite the opposite result. The
solitude and the hopeless monotony, with nothing to
think of but the long years of suffering and disgrace
ahead, produces nervous irritation approaching, in
some cases, to frenzy, and instead of softening the man
brings out all the evil there is in him. Under such
conditions, the worst companions he could have are
his own thoughts. In men of a different temperament,
again, it deadens all sensibility, so that they do not
care a straw what happens afterwards, but would just
as soon become habitual criminals as not. It is this
sullen hatred of themselves and of everybody else
engendered and fostered during the long dismal months
of separate confinement that makes the most dangerous
and troublesome prisoners at a later stage. There are
a third class, who, having no criminal instincts, nor
any strong instincts at all, merely give way mentally,
without any acute distress, and become little better
than half-witted by the time their separate confinement
is at an end. . . .”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>These are the remarks of Professor Prins, Inspector-General
of Belgian prisons:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“Solitude produces in him (the vacuous-minded,
erratic, and animal person who is usually the criminal)
no intellectual activity and no searching of conscience;
it serves to deepen his mental vacuity and to deliver
him over to unnatural indulgence in the one animal
appetite of which he cannot be deprived.” (“The
Criminal,” Havelock Ellis, p. 328.)</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Beltrani-Scalia, formerly Inspector-General of
Prisons in Italy, is of the same opinion, and remarks
that “the cellular system looks upon man as a brother
of La Trappe.” (“The Criminal,” p. 329.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>The following passage, taken from Prince Kropotkin’s
“Memoirs of a Revolutionist,” refers to a peasant
confined solitarily in a cell beneath him in the Fortress
of Peter and Paul, and with whom he and his neighbour
could communicate by knocking.</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“Soon I began to notice, to my terror, that from
time to time his mind wandered. Gradually his
thoughts became more and more confused and we two
perceived, step by step, day by day, evidences that his
reason was failing, until his talk became at last that of
a lunatic. Frightful noises and wild cries came next
from the lower storey; our neighbour was mad. . . .
To witness the destruction of a man’s mind under such
conditions was terrible.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Finally, this is the judgment of the rector of St.
Marylebone, Dr. W. D. Morrison (after more than ten
years’ experience as Prison Chaplain): “It tends to
have a demoralising effect upon many classes of
prisoners.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Such evidence might be multiplied indefinitely.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Now, sir, in regard to the object of solitary confinement
we have surely no need to go behind the
finding of your committee:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It would appear that the main object of the
separate” (closed-cell) “confinement had come to be
deterrence . . . In effect this is the purpose which it
must be regarded as now designed to serve.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>In regard to its nature, we have, as surely, no need
of other description than its supporter’s, the late Sir
Edmund Du Cane’s “An artificial state of existence
absolutely opposed to that which Nature points out as
the condition of mental, moral, and physical health.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>The questions arising, then, are two:—</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>(<span class='it'>a</span>) Is this practice of solitary confinement,
in fact, deterrent?</p>
<p class='pindent'>(<span class='it'>b</span>) Has a civilized nation the right to retain
offenders for months in a state of existence absolutely
opposed to mental, moral, and physical
health, even for the purpose of deterrence?</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>As to question (<span class='it'>a</span>). No support can be gathered
for the plea of deterrence from the statistics of penal
servitude; mere severity of punishment has never
been proved to be a factor of deterrence. When men
were hung for horse or sheep stealing those offences
were far more prevalent than they are now. Moreover,
the nature of their coming punishment is too vaguely
known to those who have never been in prison for the
thought of solitary confinement to have any deterrent
effect on ninety-nine out of a hundred first offenders.
Indeed, that it is not sufficiently present to any man’s
mind is shown by the fact that so humane a public as
ours knows and thinks so little about the suffering of
solitary confinement as to have allowed it to remain
part of their prison system.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The effect of a period of solitary confinement which
comes <span class='it'>at the beginning</span> of long years of imprisonment is
inevitably wiped out by the monotony of the prison
life which follows. Mechanical adjustment to environment
is always going on in the human being. Solitary
confinement is a smothering process to which the mind
must adapt itself, or perish. The mental demoralization
remains after the confinement comes to an end,
but the consciousness of that mental ruin, the consciousness
of the suffering, has become dulled; from
his closed cell the convict passes on to the ordinary
prison life, actually unable to appreciate the extent
of the misery he has undergone. Obviously, moreover,
deterrence (if there be deterrence) paid for by mental
and moral weakening is not true deterrence; <span class='it'>for the
acquired power of resistance to crime, if any, is nullified
through deterioration of the prisoner’s fibre</span>.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The true deterrence of imprisonment lies in the
general fear of loss of liberty; in that nightmare of
a thought all details of impending punishment (even if
known) mechanically merge.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This solitary confinement, however, is sometimes
justified on the ground that it is necessary to buoy the
convict up with hope. It is thought that by placing
him at the outset in the seventh hell of pain we lessen
his sufferings in the minor hells which await him at
the expiration of those first dire months. That, sir,
is humanity with a vengeance. Imagine this principle
logically applied to social life. The husband would
beat the wife that she might not so greatly feel the
inevitable wear and tear of matrimony; the mother
would starve the child that it might experience with
more equanimity the ordinary pangs of hunger; the
master would withhold wages that the servant might
more duly appreciate the receipt of what was due to
him. It appears, indeed, to be almost what is called
a vicious principle.</p>
<p class='pindent'>To question (<span class='it'>b</span>)—Whether a civilized country has
the right to retain its offenders in a state of existence
absolutely opposed to mental, moral, and physical
health, even for the sake of a supposed deterrence—I
conceive, sir, but this one answer: Only so long as
we do not realize what this solitary confinement
means.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Six months (to take the mean sentence) is a short
time to a free man; it is an eternity to a prisoner
confined in solitude. One hundred and eighty days—four
thousand hours, of utter solitude and silence
in a cell, which—in the words of Sir Robert
Anderson (<span class='it'>Nineteenth Century</span>, March, 1902)—“differs
from every other sort of apartment designed for human
habitation in that all view of external nature,
such as might soothe, and possibly alleviate, the
mind, is, with elaborate care, excluded”—solitude
broken only by one hour a day, of chapel, and walking
up and down a yard, by the sight of a warder, three
times or so a day, bringing in food; by a ten minutes’
visit perhaps from chaplain or governor.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Four thousand hours of utter solitude in a closed
space thirteen feet by seven—with the prospect of
anything from two to twenty years of monotonous
routine and loss of liberty to follow! Can a Public
Opinion, which succeeds in bringing these facts home
to its imagination, justly say that two and a half to
twenty years of loss of liberty, with all that this
means in prison, is not sufficient punishment for any
crime that man can commit, without the preliminary
agony of four thousand hours of solitude in a closed
space thirteen feet by seven?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Sir, Public Opinion has never yet succeeded in
realizing what this so-called separate confinement
means. In the year ending March, 1907, we set 1,035
persons, of whom 691 had never been sentenced to
penal servitude before, to endure these hours of agony
and demoralization. In the year ending March, 1908,
we set another 1,179 to endure the same, 749 of them
for the first time. At the present moment another
thousand, more or less, are undergoing it.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In thus subjecting year by year a thousand persons
to nine, six, or three months of an “artificial state of
existence absolutely opposed to that which Nature
points out as the condition of mental, moral, and
physical health,” we are annually committing an offence
against our reason, of which we reap the full reward
in the mental, moral, and physical deterioration of
persons already demoralized enough; and an offence
against our humanity in reality as great as if we had
placed them on the rack.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I by no means lose sight of the fact that this
closed-cell confinement falls with different effect on
different temperaments; it falls, no doubt, far less
heavily on the sluggish and the brutalized than on the
nervous types, of which, however, we are now breeding
great numbers. But, sir, even the habitual criminal—popularly
supposed to dread flogging more than anything—has
been known while enduring solitary confinement
to beg for the lash in place of it. Sir J. Jebb,
giving evidence before the Penal Servitude Acts Commission
in 1863, uses these words: “With burglars
and reckless characters I think that separate confinement
is dreaded more than any other kind of discipline.”
And in regard to other effects on the habitual
criminal, the words of Professor Prins, above quoted,
are significant. The sluggish brutality of many recidivists
is produced in the first place by this very process
of closed-cell confinement. Man, even the lowest type
of man, is a social and gregarious animal—all that is
best in him depends on, and is brought out by, contact
with his fellow-creatures; if that be not so, our religion
and whole social scheme are falsely conceived. Deprive
man of all contact with his fellow-man, shut him in
upon himself, hopelessly, utterly, month by month,
and he will come out of that artificial existence lower
and more brutal than when he entered it. Prolonged
starvation and agony of the mind is worse than starvation
and agony of the body, carrying, as it does, the
wreck of the body with it.</p>
<p class='pindent'>We have the right to restrain offenders and to safeguard
society; in doing this we unavoidably punish
with that already terrible punishment “loss of liberty.”
But, sir, we have—surely—not the right to inflict
<span class='it'>unnecessary and harmful suffering</span>. I recognise to the
full that there is no lack of humanity among those who
work our prison system; recognise to the full that they
would not willingly inflict any suffering that they
acknowledged to be unnecessary; but in every department
of life those who administer a system are, in the
nature of things, with rare exceptions, too habituated
to that system, too close to it, to be able to see it in
due perspective.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I ask you, sir, and I ask the common sense of the
public, whether harmful and unnecessary suffering
must not inevitably be endured by the mind, and
through the mind by the body, of a human being during
these thousands of hours of closed-cell confinement.
To answer that question fairly each member of the
public has but to ask what would be the effect on
himself or herself of nine or six or even three months’
utter seclusion (except for one hour each day) from all
sight and sound not only of human beings, but of
animals, trees, flowers, and from the sight even of the
sky, all but a patch no bigger than a tea-tray. We are
on the whole a humane people; and it is not so much
a question of our humanity as of our imaginations.
The position is plainly this: Those who have to work
our prison system perhaps could not do so at all if
they allowed their imaginations fair play. The community
are too aloof to realize what that prison
system means. And so the unnecessary demoralization
and suffering caused by this closed-cell confinement
goes on at the rate of (for convicts alone) more
than four million hours a year!</p>
<p class='pindent'>I do not base the appeal of this letter so much on
humanity as on common sense. Why, when we are
faced with appalling statistics of criminality, with
appalling difficulties in dealing with and reforming
criminals, do we deliberately continue a practice which
both evidence and reason tell us contributes to the more
complete demoralization of such as are already
demoralized?</p>
<p class='pindent'>In the Report of your Departmental Committee of
1895 occur these words:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“It should be the object of the prison authorities,
through the prison staff and any suitable auxiliary
effort that can be employed, to humanize the prisoners,
to prevent them from feeling that the State merely
chains them for a certain period and cares nothing about
them beyond keeping them in safe custody and under
iron discipline.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>And again: “. . . it strengthens our belief that the
main fault of our prison system is that it treats prisoners
too much as irreclaimable criminals instead of reclaimable
men and women.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>I submit that no unprejudiced man can regard
this closed-cell confinement as a humanizing influence,
except in the rarest cases, or maintain that it helps
to reclaim men and women.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I refer again to this paragraph in the Report of your
Committee:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“It” (the detention of convicts in closed-cell confinement
at local prisons) “is certainly a practical
convenience in the sense that the expense of sending
convicts immediately after sentence to convict prisons,
either singly or in detachments, is curtailed by the
system of gathering prisons. <span class='it'>This consideration alone
is not sufficient to justify the practice.</span>”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>I am credibly informed that the whole matter is
one of administration, and can be modified without
Act of Parliament. I appeal, then, to you, sir, who
have already done so much towards reforming our
prison system, to work for the abandonment of this
custom of confining convicts in closed cells for nine,
six or three months, <span class='it'>or any less period</span>, either in local
or in convict prisons; to substitute therefore work in
association from the commencement of sentence; or,
where such is not immediately possible, work in separate
cells <span class='it'>with open doors</span>. And I would further appeal
to you to advocate the reduction of the twenty-eight
days, closed-cell confinement endured by prisoners
serving sentences of hard labour.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Than this great and necessary reform I can conceive
none that will, at a single stroke, remove so
much harmful and unnecessary suffering, or do more
to reconcile our Penal Laws with Justice and Common
Sense.</p>
<h3>(2)</h3>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='hang'>(From a Letter to Sir Evelyn Ruggles Brise, K.C.B.,
Prison Commission, Whitehall, July, 1909.)</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>“. . . I was at X. Prison on Tuesday, at Y. Prison
yesterday. Saw all the officials, and talked with
twelve convicts. . . .</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It was suggested to me at X. that I ought to stay
some days there and see every convict. I would be
willing, if you will allow me, to stay some days at X.
Prison, see every convict, and keep record of the
answers obtained from each one as to the effect on him
of separate confinement. I think they would speak
to me freely. From all I hear, and certainly from its
situation and general airiness and lightness, X. Prison
is the best of the four collecting prisons, and there
would be no danger of getting an impression more
unfavourable to separate confinement than I should
get from seeing each convict in all four prisons.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“An expression used during our conversation the
other day leads me for a moment into the deeper and
wider significance of this question. It was the expression
‘a downright enemy of society’ used of a certain class
of prisoner. I have been thinking over that phrase ‘a
downright enemy of society’ to see if one more meditation
on it would correct the conclusions of a hundred
previous meditations, but I do not feel that it has.
I think of it like this: Every now and then, seldom
enough but still too frequently, we come across children,
in all classes, who, from the age when they begin to
act at all, show that there is something in them warped,
distorted, inherently inimical to goodness. It is in
them, of them, a taint in their blood, a lesion of their
brain. They grow up. They are not insane, but they
have a blind spot, a place in their souls or internal
economy—or whatever you like to call it—that some
mysterious, rather awful, hand has darkened. They
are doomed from their birth by reason of that blind
spot sooner or later to become criminals, that is, to
commit some action which is not consonant with the
actions of those who are born without this blind spot;
some are not found out, some are. When found out
they are known as ‘the criminal type.’ They form
a portion, not perhaps a very large one, of our convicts.
Can those, who have had the good fortune to
be born like their fellows, punish these unfortunates
<span class='it'>for the sake of punishing them</span>, for the sake of avenging
society? I cannot bring myself to think so.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“These are not, however, the bulk of our convicts.
The greater part of them are those who are born
more or less normal, but with what is called a weak
character.<a id='r5'/><a href='#f5' style='text-decoration:none'><sup><span style='font-size:0.9em'>[5]</span></sup></a> I don’t know if you have ever been much
amongst those classes which supply the vast proportion
of our criminals; if you have, you will recognize, as
I do, what a wonderful thing it is that so small a proportion
of them become criminals. You will have seen
the very dreadful struggle they have against luck from
the time when they begin to know anything. You
will feel, as I do, that keeping their heads above water
is, and must be, touch and go with them from day to
day; they’ve just a plank between them and going
down, and a very little extra sea (it runs high all the
time) tips that plank over. Many of them are bred
in slums and garrets where the only real God is Drink.
When they go under, they are suddenly up against the
most inexorable thing in life, Law and Order, to whose
mercilessness every citizen subscribes in self-defence,
whether he will or no. When they have paid their
debt to Law, they emerge into the same conditions
against which they were too weak by nature to stand
up before, with the one weapon they had, character,
either gone or gravely damaged. It is not remarkable
that they go down again, and then again, and so on,
until they become ‘enemies of society.’</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It seems to me that gentlemen (I speak in the spirit),
holding as their creed the duty of putting themselves
in the place of others, cannot reconcile it with that
creed to punish <span class='it'>for the mere sake of punishing</span> those
whose chances in life have been so vastly inferior to
their own.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“These general considerations must be platitudes
to you, and I feel that you do not, any more than I,
believe in punishment as a means of revenging society,
but merely as a means of protecting society by restraining
and trying to reform the offender. Society (I speak
in the widest sense of heredity and environment)
makes the offender; it can restrain, but it cannot with
justice exact vengeance from the victims of its own
shortcomings.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“All hope of real diminution in crime and criminals
(in default of better social conditions) depends, in my
belief, not on the infliction of ‘deterrent suffering’
in prisons, but, <span class='it'>first</span>, on the extension of probation, and
your splendid Borstal system; <span class='it'>secondly</span>, on abolition
of ‘tickets of leave,’ and that vicious principle of not
having done with the offence when you have paid
the penalty for it; <span class='it'>thirdly</span>, on a moderate, humane,
and reformatory use of the principle of detention of
the hopeless recidivist; <span class='it'>fourthly</span>, on the increase of
humanizing influences brought to bear on prisoners in
prison. I give full weight to the necessity for not making
prison life a treat, and to the consideration that
what would be hell to us may be comparative ease
to the habitual criminal; but I think that, with
‘closed-cell’ confinement abolished, society might still
make its mind easy. The man who will come back to
prison life from choice, so long as he can get his bread
in freedom, does not exist; the cumulative force of
hard and regular work, of silence, of no tobacco, of no
drink, of no knowledge of what is going on outside,
of being ordered about from morning to night, of being,
a number, not a man, of losing all touch with his
family and friends, above all, of utter monotony,
of the sense at the best of being in school, at the worst
of being in slavery, of the feeling of having whole
years sponged out of his life (for a man does not <span class='it'>live</span>
in prison), may not be easy to grasp for those who live
in liberty themselves, but it is none the less tremendous.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It is perhaps superfluous to remind you, who for
so many years have been fighting for and achieving
reforms, of what a queer, hypnotizing influence
‘things as they are’—in fact, the <span class='it'>existing system</span> has
on the minds of those who are constantly confronted
with it; and to beg you for that reason to take
due discount from the evidence of those who are
necessarily under that hypnotic influence; just as
no doubt you will, without my begging you, take
discount from my appeal on the ground that I am an
outsider.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I can’t close this letter without saying that it’s
impossible to go over our prisons and not see that the
country has in yourself a great reforming administrator;
I shall consider it a rare piece of good fortune
if any words of mine help to bring about in your mind
the belief that this particular feature of our prison
system, closed-cell confinement, requires immediate
mitigation and <span class='it'>ultimate elimination</span>, except in individual
cases. . . .”</p>
<hr class='footnotemark'/>
<div class='footnote'>
<table summary='footnote_5'>
<colgroup>
<col span='1' class='footnoteid'/>
<col span='1'/>
</colgroup>
<tr><td style='vertical-align:top;'>
<div class='footnote-id' id='f5'><a href='#r5'>[5]</a></div>
</td><td>
<p class='pindent'>Criminality, I now think, is as often the result of too strong a
character, or rather of too much unbalanced self-will.—J. G.</p>
</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
<h3>(3)</h3>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'><span class='sc'>A Minute on Separate Confinement</span></p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='hang'>Forwarded to the Home Secretary and the Prison
Commissioners, September, 1909.</p>
</div>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='hang'>(Compiled from visits paid to sixty convicts undergoing
separate confinement in X. and Y. Prisons,
July and September, 1909.)</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>By the courtesy of the Prison Commissioners, to
whom my thanks are due, I visited these convicts in
their cells, and conversed privately with each one
of them for from ten minutes to a quarter of an hour.
I put certain definite questions to each in regard to
the effect of separate confinement on themselves, and,
so far as they could tell me, on other prisoners, prefacing
each conversation by the information that I was
in no way connected with the prison authorities. My
object in the course of these conversations was to get
behind the formal question and answer to the man’s
real feelings. I met with no hostility, defiance, or
conscious evasion in any single case. In some cases
a word or two was sufficient to bring a rush of emotion.
Several men were in tears throughout the interview.
In the majority of cases, however, I found it difficult
to get the prisoners to express themselves; and in
some cases formal answers, stolidly given, were reversed
by some sudden revelation of feeling evoked, as it
were, in spite of the prisoner’s self. Generally speaking,
I judged that feelings were understated rather
than overstated.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The summary of these interviews is as follows:
(sixty convicts interviewed): —</p>
<p class='pindent'>Of these:</p>
<table id='tab2' summary='' class='center'>
<colgroup>
<col span='1' style='width: 27.5em;'/>
<col span='1' style='width: 7em;'/>
<col span='1' style='width: 0.5em;'/>
</colgroup>
<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle0'><span class='it'>Eight</span> preferred separate confinement to working in association, and were not conscious of harmful</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle3'><span class='sc'>Category A.</span></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle3'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle0'></td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle3'> </td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle3'> </td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle0'><span class='it'>Fifteen</span> would prefer work in association, but <br/>(1) Having suffered from their separate confinement, had got more or less used to it (three cases). <br/>(2) Were suffering, but thought it was good for them (three cases). <br/>(3) Were so incapable of expressing their experiences, that no definite answer could be got from them (nine cases).</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle3'><span class='sc'>Category B.</span></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle3'></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle0'></td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle3'> </td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle3'> </td></tr>
<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle0'><span class='it'>Thirty-seven</span> preferred association; suffered severely from separate confinement; and asserted that they had been harmed; that all prisoners were harmed, and some driven crazy.</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle3'><span class='sc'>Category C.</span></td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle3'></td></tr>
</table>
<p class='pindent'>Of the eight convicts in Category A, who preferred
separate:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='hang'><span class='it'>Four</span> were educated men (three of whom asserted a
natural preference for their own society in or
out of prison).</p>
<p class='hang'><span class='it'>One</span> was an old recidivist with five sentences of penal
servitude.</p>
<p class='hang'><span class='it'>Two</span> (of a callous type) preferred separate confinement
because they had no temptation to talk and get
into trouble.</p>
<p class='hang'><span class='it'>One</span> was the only prisoner I saw who said he had
deliberately committed his offence in order to
get into prison.</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>The following phrases taken from notes made
immediately after each interview indicate the general
nature of the suffering experienced by prisoners
separately confined:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“I used to look up at the window, and something
seemed to pull me back.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“The first month was awful, I didn’t hardly
know how to keep myself together. I thought
I should go mad.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It’s made me very nervous. The least thing
upsets me; I was not nervous before.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I’ve got a daughter, and I grieve over her all
the time; there’s nothing to take your mind off.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I’ve never felt right since—it’s got all over
me.” (This man cried all the time. He seemed
utterly unnerved, and broken up. A Star Class
man.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I feel it dreadfully. It gets worse as it goes
on.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It’s no life at all. I’d sooner be dead than
here.” (This man was very tearful and quavery.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“My first spell of ‘separate’ nearly drove me
raving.” (This was a recidivist serving his third
term.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It broke me down on my first sentence. It
destroys a man.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I had a cold lonely feeling. . . . Nine months
of it is killing for most men.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It’s <span class='it'>punishment</span> to shut up a man for nine
months.” (This is a fair specimen of the very
general under-statement of evidently acute feelings.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It’ll send men ‘up the stick.’ ” (Off their
heads.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I’m very miserable and down-’earted. You
feel it more and more as you get older. I hardly
know sometimes what I’m doing.” (This was
from an old man of sixty-one who had been twenty
years in prison, and said he did not expect to last
through this sentence. <span class='it'>He had still six months of
separate to run</span>, and struck me as very broken
up, and suffering.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I keep ‘picturing’ things, and walking about.
It sends men ‘up the pole!’ ” (Another bad case
of a young recidivist of twenty-nine, with five
months of his ‘separate’ still to run.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Walls seem to close in. . . . I get blankness
in the brain; have to stop reading.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“It’s hell upon earth.” (An educated
prisoner.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Almost unbearable depression.” (An educated
prisoner.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Sleep’s the only comfort.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I sit there sometimes at work, not knowing
what I’m doing.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I’ve good nerves. A man with bad nerves
would soon snuff out in ‘separate’.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“If a man had the spy-hole open even, so that
he could see out, it would make a vast deal of
difference. . . . I’ve seen numbers of men come
on the public works from their ‘separate,’ quite
silly.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I’ve seen many a man driven queer.” (This
recidivist had served four terms of penal servitude.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“I’ve seen men driven off their nuts.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>I could not get an admission from any prisoner that
the suffering they underwent in separate confinement
deterred them from coming back to prison. The two
reasons they assigned for coming back to prison were:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>(1) That they had so little chance outside.
(2) Drink.</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>It is obvious, however, that the separate period is
almost universally regarded as much the worst part
of the sentence.</p>
<p class='pindent'>My reasons for believing that, in spite of this,
separate confinement is not, in fact, deterrent were
given in my open letter to the Home Secretary (the
<span class='it'>Nation</span>, May 1st and May 8th, 1909); this belief
has been strengthened rather than weakened in the
course of this investigation. As a final result of these
visits I record my deliberate conviction that no competent
observer with any knack of getting at men’s
feelings, and the opportunity of conversing in private
and <span class='it'>as a private person</span>, with the prisoners could come
to any other conclusion than that an immense amount
of harmful and unnecessary suffering is inflicted by
closed-cell confinement extending over the periods
(especially the longer periods) now prevailing. It is
my belief that if the authorities were able to adopt
this method of getting at the real state of the case
the system would not remain unaltered for a single day.</p>
<h3>(4)</h3>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='hang'>(From a Letter to the Home Secretary, the Right Hon.
Herbert John Gladstone, M.P., October, 1909.)</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>“. . . Every day that passes with this question
undealt with means so many thousand hours of solid,
tangible, harmful, removable misery. There is a distinction
between this particular kind of misery and
any other experienced by man in a state of society such
as we now have in England. There is no other form of
acute, <span class='it'>prolonged misery enforced</span> on people in such a
way as that they can by no possibility avoid it. The
old saying, ‘He deserves all he’ll get and more,’
stultifies itself the moment it is looked into; the plea
of deterrence does not hold water; and this misery
stands out stark—a survival from the philosophy (!)
of the dark ages. . . .”</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>Note.</span>—Solitary (or separate) confinement for
convicts has been reduced from nine, six, and three
months to three months for “old hands,” and
one month for the other two classes of convicts.
But the writer feels as strongly as ever that, except
in special cases, it should be done away with
altogether.—J. G.</p>
</div>
<h2>II</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>The Spirit of Punishment</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(An Article in the <span class='it'>Daily Chronicle</span>, 1910.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>In the matter of our administration of justice there
is a very simple question to be asked by every man of
his own conscience: What do I believe is the object of
punishment? Until this question has been asked and
coherently answered by the community it is obviously
as mad to apply punishment as for a man to set out to
dine with a friend of whose address he has no knowledge.
But by how many people has this question been asked;
by how many has it been coherently answered?</p>
<p class='pindent'>The whole administration of our justice at present
treads the quicksands of ambiguity as to the object of
punishment. The vast majority of us have never put
to ourselves the question at all, being quite satisfied
that the object of punishment is to “serve people
right”; and out of the small minority who have asked
the question the far greater number have given themselves
no coherent answer. And yet it is only from a
coherent and wise answer, graven in letters of stone on
our law courts and prisons, in letters of feeling in our
hearts, that hope of diminution in crime, and in the
damage which arises from it, both to the community
and to the offender, can come.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Now, whatever sentimental relation there be between
punishment and our deep instincts of equity, <span class='it'>the object
of punishment is the protection of society and the reformation
of the offender</span>. That is the only safe rule <span class='it'>in
practice</span>; and everything in our administration of
justice which conflicts with it is falsely conceived.
But it is the commonest thing in the world for people
to accept that definition without considering in the
least what it means; for experts, after thoroughly
agreeing with it, to suddenly remark that for such and
such a crime they, personally, would have no mercy;
for sentences to be passed in which the judge has
obviously fitted the punishment to his private views
of the heinousness of the crime, without real regard
for the protection of society, or for the reformation of
the person sentenced. All which is extremely natural,
and very bad.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The confusion arises from not keeping the idea of
the protection of society closely enough coupled with
the idea of the reformation of the offender; from dwelling
too much on the past, and not looking enough to
the future; from the continued existence of the old
theory, “an eye for an eye” condemned to death
over nineteen hundred years ago, but still dying very
hard in this Christian country.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The protection of Society includes the adjustment
of punishment so as not to leave on the mind of the
injured person a crude sense of injury unhealed by
retribution. It includes the removal from individuals
of the desire to take the law into their own hands.
It is necessary to preserve in punishment a due element
of deterrence. The State and those who administer
its functions have no business with anything but the
scientific application of the best means to do all this,
and reform the offender.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Yet in the glibbest way that golden rule “protection
of society and reformation of the offender” is cited
to cover all the flaws in our administration of justice.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In its name men are prosecuted, when with better
comprehension they should be warned or helped.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In its name first offenders are imprisoned, when with
better comprehension the <span class='it'>imprisonment of first offenders</span>,
of whatever age, for whatever offence, should be
unknown; a much greater danger to society arises,
and infinitely less chance of reforming the delinquent
exists, when that delinquent has once been committed
to prison. Place him on probation, or send him to a
reformatory institution such as Borstal, for whatever
fixed period may seem necessary—but to a prison, as
prisons now are, never! To send him there is fatal,
hopeless, uneconomic, unscientific.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In its name, the continuance of closed-cell confinement
is defended; and we endeavour to reform men
by consigning them to the operation of what, in the
words of its staunch supporter (the late Sir Edmund
Du Cane), is, “an artificial state of existence, absolutely
opposed to that which Nature points out as the
condition of mental, moral, and physical health.”
We try in fact to protect society by a method that does
not reform. Many have raised their voices against
this strange practice since evidence, given before the
Select Committee on Prison Discipline, 1850, described
closed-cell confinement as dangerous to health, and
unjust to the prisoner “because it throws him back
into society with diminished physical ability to encounter
the variableness of climate, the severity of
labour, and the pinchings of want, to which as a
labourer in the market of competition he must ever
be liable.” . . .! Yet in the name of the golden rule
the practice lingers on, helping to rot men and women.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In the name of this golden rule, prisoners working in
association are, in our prisons, forced into an unnatural
silence, for ever furtively evaded. Some
silence may be good, but perpetual silence is too
unnatural not to defeat itself. Classification is the true
preventive of contamination, not complete separation,
nor perpetual silence.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In its name the handicap of the ticket-of-leave
(now, thank heaven, modified) is placed on those who
are desperately handicapped already.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The idea behind these and other practices of the
administration of our justice is that much deterrent
suffering is needful for the protection of society and the
reformation of the offender. But those who know human
nature know that, except in rare cases, human beings
cannot be <span class='it'>reformed</span> by suffering inflicted on them against
their will, and it is no use having a system of punishment
beneficial to the few and harmful to the majority.
The late Lord Coleridge once made these remarks:—</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“There are few things more frequently borne in
on a judge’s mind than the little good he can do the
criminal by the sentences he imposes. These sentences
often do nothing but unmixed harm, though I am sure
that throughout the country the greatest pains are
taken to make our prisons as useful as possible in the
way of being reformatories. But, <span class='it'>as a matter of fact,
they are not so</span>.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Greater pains are now taken than when those words
were spoken, but a man cannot go over prisons (I do
not speak of the Borstal institutions) without seeing
that they are not, <span class='it'>cannot be</span>, reformatory.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Reformation does not come from beating on the
prisoner’s fibre with the dull mallet of suffering. To
reform one must inspire. There is a spark of good in
every man’s breast; the only chance lies in fanning
that spark. But if we are not reforming men in our
prisons, how can we be said to be protecting society,
by sending them there? We are surely endangering
society; and nurturing the spirit of crime.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The fact of the matter is this: Revenge is still at
the back of our minds. Let a man argue on the subject
with whomsoever he will, ten minutes will not have
passed before he makes that discovery. The State
still feels that because a man has hurt it, it must hurt
him. And this feeling destroys all the economy and
science of our laws. When a crime is committed, all
we should be concerned with, in our own interests,
is the application of the best possible means to minimize
the results of that crime, to ensure that society
shall run the least possible risk of a repetition of the
crime, and the offender the least possible risk of remaining
a criminal.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In doing this we cannot, in very many cases, avoid
the detention of our criminals; but we can, and should,
avoid inflicting suffering on those whom we detain,
beyond the already great suffering and deprivation
inseparable from disciplinary detention, and all that
disciplinary detention implies; for by deliberately
superadding such sufferings as solitude, or perpetual
unrelieved silence, we do not to any appreciable degree
deter others from committing offences, and we do foster
in those whom we imprison the disposition to commit
fresh offences when they are released.</p>
<p class='pindent'>That diminution of crime, depends <span class='it'>not</span> on deterrent
punishment, but on wide and impalpable influences—growth
of social feeling, spread of education, betterment
of manners, decrease of intemperance, improvement
in housing, a hundred other causes—is plain from
the official statement lately issued. “The members of
the predatory classes are appreciably fewer than in 1857,
in spite of the fact that in the interim population has
almost doubled.” <span class='it'>And this in the face of admittedly
milder penal measures!</span> For further evidence that
mere severity of treatment does not deter we need
only look at the comparative success of the Elmira
Reformatory in the United States, and the Borstal
institutions here. Under these systems, which allow
the offender some kind of natural life, the percentage
of those who return to crime is most notably smaller.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Crime is disease—if not in the medical, in the moral
sense of the word. It is either the disease of weakness,
or of unbalanced self-will, or the disease of inherited
taint. We have fought against this conclusion because
we still harbour the spirit of revenge; but as knowledge
advances we shall, we must, accept it. And the
sooner we do accept it the less money we shall waste, the
less harmful and unnecessary suffering shall we inflict.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The difficulties of judicial and prison administration
are enormous, the force of prejudice encountered by
reforming administrators terrific—all the more terrific
because these prejudices, in the main conscientious,
are wholly reinforced by the fact that change means
trouble and expense, by fears of making things worse,
by all the accumulated momentum of “things as they
are.” For a man with any understanding in his composition
it is impossible not to sympathize with those
who, administering justice, earnestly desire to do
their best, and are often, one is sure, sick at heart
from the feeling that what they are doing is <span class='it'>not</span> the
best.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It rests with public opinion in this country to re-animate
our attitude towards crime; to shake itself free
of our muddled conceptions of the object of punishment;
to scotch once for all the spirit of revenge;
to rise to a higher, more scientific and incidentally
more economic, conception of our duty towards
criminals. Let us get rid of the idea that we are protecting
society and reforming offenders by inflicting
suffering that we falsely call deterrent. Let us change
our prisons into Borstal Institutions, and let us do it
as soon as is humanly possible. Loss of liberty is,
next to loss of life, the most dreaded of all fates; it
has, in and by itself, almost all the deterrent force
that is needful. There may be here and there men who
prefer to be detained under strict discipline to being
at liberty; but if there be, it can only be said that the
conditions of their lives outside prison must constitute
a disgrace to our civilization, and that our penal system
cannot safely or justly be allowed to rest on any
acquiescence in that disgrace. In the last annual
report of the Borstal Association occur the following
words:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“It is not a namby-pamby method. . . . The panic-monger
who prophesies that the ambitious youth of the
working classes will still clamour for admission through
the gateway of crime to the advantages of Borstal,
would be regarded as a humorist by those who have
been there and ‘have had enough and learnt sense.’ ”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Let us, then, take discipline and loss of liberty as
our sole deterrents, and on those whom we deprive
of liberty let us use all the resources of a common
sense that shall refuse to apply to criminals methods
which would be scouted in the reform of human beings
outside prisons.</p>
<p class='pindent'>All evidence shows that mere, so-called deterrent,
severity is useless. Let us no longer fly in the face of
evidence. Let us conform to facts. If we seriously
desire to reduce crime to its irreducible minimum we
must go to work like doctors.</p>
<h2>III</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>An Unpublished Preface</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(Written in 1910.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is not my habit to write prefaces, but there are
certain things I want to say concerning the play
“Justice,” as to its subject-matter, not its artistic
qualities, bad, good, or indifferent.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Holding perhaps a more intimate knowledge of its
author’s mind than can elsewhere be obtained, I would
remark that the play is no indictment or attack, but
a picture of the whole process of Justice as seen by
this painter’s eye. There are thickenings of line here,
and thinnings there, occasioned by lack of technical
knowledge, or demanded by the exigencies of dramatic
craft, but the spiritual essence of the matter is set down
honestly, as best it could be perceived by him.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Justice was known by the ancients to be blind; by
ourselves is admitted blind; will be acclaimed blind
by the tongues of our descendants. It is blind because
it is depart- or rather compart-mental.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The prosecutor, be he ancient Roman or Englishman
of to-day, cannot gauge or control the <span class='it'>whole</span> effect on
the offender and on society of the process which he
initiates. The Judge, be he Solon or Judge of the High
Court, cannot know enough of the temperament and
antecedents of a prisoner to adequately apportion a
sentence which he cannot see being carried out. The
prison official is tied to the terms of the sentence and
the conditions of the system, for some system there
must be. The Public, on the prisoner’s release, acts
mechanically in its own defence against a marked
man. All see only their own bits of the game.</p>
<p class='pindent'>From this general blindness, it follows that punishment
is almost always out of proportion. This is why
it seemed to me worth while to make a picture of Blind
Justice, and to hang it on the wall. There are some
who believe that this picture will rapidly become out
of date. I am not so sanguine. Short of our all
becoming not only eager, but able, to see that which
does not lie underneath our noses, I much fear that this
picture will remain valid for some considerable time
The conditions will change, but the spirit will remain—Justice
is too naturally and inevitably blind. Is
that any reason why we should not occasionally be
reminded of the evil—one of the enduring, but perhaps
diminishable, evils of human life? Even the
administrators of this Justice might like now and then
to glance at a picture of its blindness.</p>
<p class='pindent'>One word about the cell scene. It has been called
false and exaggerated. . . . Two brothers went to
see this play. At the end of the cell scene the younger,
who stammers, turned to his elder and said: “It’s
n-not so—j-j—olly as all that!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Precisely! Prisoners do not commonly enjoy the
relief of beating on their cell doors, though the incident
is not unknown. But he who can project himself
into the minds of others knows that prisoners, in
closed cells, moping and brooding week after week,
month after month, shut off from all real distraction,
from all touch with the outer world and everything they
care for, with the knowledge of years of imprisonment
before them and of broken lives when they come out—knows
that such prisoners, thousands of them, unseen
by any eye, <span class='it'>reach a state of mind</span> which would make
them constantly fling themselves for relief on their cell
doors, if it were not for fear. No, it is not so jolly as all
that!</p>
<p class='pindent'>The characteristics of all prison life, at all events
in England, are silence and solitude, physical or
spiritual; and this cell scene was selected to convey as
nearly as the limitations of the stage permitted, these
commonest characteristics of detention.</p>
<p class='pindent'>For the truth of this picture of Blind Justice as a
whole I rely on the testimonial of that theatre attendant,
employed out of charity, who, having been
prosecuted, sentenced, imprisoned, and released, knew,
let us hope, more of the matter spiritually, than those
who criticize. After the play on the first night, to the
question of his manager, “Well, is it true?” he looked
up from his sweeping, and said: “Every word of it,
sir.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>I have only this to add. If each scene is taken
separately and looked on with a departmentally professional
eye, it must needs seem out of drawing, for
it was visualized by an eye looking on each department
only in relation to the whole. When the professional
reader or spectator of the Court or Prison scene, says
“Oh! this or that is not true!” he is criticizing from
the departmental, and not from the bird’s-eye point
of view, which an author must needs assume. Even
if the sentence be more than typically severe, though
I doubt that, or the judgment not typically worded,
they serve well enough as illustrations of that blindness
which has accompanied the wisest judgments of
one human being on another since the world began.</p>
<p class='pindent'>No, the only legitimate criticism which the professional
reader or spectator can pass is that the particular
bird’s-eye view is wrong. To that criticism this bird
can make no answer, except to say with deference
and courtesy that he must believe in his own eye—for
it is all he has to see with.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='130' id='Page_130'></span><h1>ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN</h1></div>
<h2 class='nobreak'>I</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'>“<span class='sc'>Gentles, Let Us Rest!</span>”</p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(A Paper in the <span class='it'>Nation</span>, 1910.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>A man asked to define the essential characteristics
of a gentleman—using the term in its widest sense—would
presumably reply: The will to put himself in
the place of others; the horror of forcing others into
positions from which he himself would recoil; the
power to do what seems to him right without fear of
what others may say or think.</p>
<p class='pindent'>There is need just now of aid from these principles
of gentility in a question of some importance—the
future position of women.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The ground facts of difference between the sexes
few are likely to deny:</p>
<p class='pindent'>Women are not, and in all probability never will
be, physically, as strong as men.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Men are not, nor ever will be, mothers.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Women are not, and, perhaps, never should be,
warriors.</p>
<p class='pindent'>To these ground facts of difference are commonly
added, in argument, many others of more debatable
character. But it is beside the purpose of this paper
to inquire whether women have as much political
sense or aptitude as men, whether a woman has ever
produced a masterpiece of music, whether the brain
of a woman ever weighed as much as the brain of
Cuvier or Turgenev.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This paper designs to set forth one cardinal and
overmastering consideration, in comparison with which
all the other considerations affecting the question seem
to this writer but as the little stars to the full moon.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In the lives of all nations there come moments when
an idea, hitherto vaguely, almost unconsciously, held,
assumes sculptured shape, and is manifestly felt to be of
vital significance to a large, important, and steadily
increasing section of the community. At such moments
a spectre has begun to haunt the national house—a
ghost which cannot be laid till it has received
quietus.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Such a ghost now infests our home.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The full emancipation of women is an idea long
vaguely held, but only in the last half-century formulated
and pressed forward with real force and conviction,
not only by women, but by men. Of this full
emancipation of women, the political vote is assuredly
not, as is rather commonly supposed in a land of
party politics, the be-all and end-all; it is a symbol,
whose practical importance—though considerable—is
as nothing beside the fulfilment of the idea which it
symbolizes.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The Will to Power and the Will to Love have been
held up, in turn, as the animating principles of the
Universe; but these are, rather, correlative half-truths,
whose rivalry is surely stilled and reconciled
in a yet higher principle, the Will to Harmony, to
Balance, to Equity—a supreme adjustment, or harmonising
power, present wherever a man turns; by
which, in fact, he is conditioned, for he can with his
mental apparatus no more conceive of a Universe
without a Will to Equity holding it together than he
can conceive the opposite of the axiom, “Ex nihilo
nihil fit.” There is assuredly no thought so staggering
as that, if a blade of grass or the energy contained
within a single emotion were—not transmuted—but
<span class='it'>withdrawn entirely</span> from the Universe, the balance
would tip for ever and the Universe crumble in our
imaginations to thin air.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Now social and political Equity emanates slowly,
with infinite labour, from our dim consciousness of
this serene and overlording principle of Equity. There
would seem, for example, no fundamental reason why
limits should ever have been put to autocracy, the
open ballot destroyed, slavery abolished, save that
these things came to be regarded as inequitable.
In all such cases, before reaching the point of action
the society of the day puts forward practical reasons,
being, so to speak, unaware of its own sense of divinity.
But, underneath all the seeming matter-of-factness
of political and social movements, the spirit of Equity
is guiding those movements, subtly, unconsciously,
a compelling hand quietly pushing humanity onward,
ever unseen save in the rare minutes when the spirits
of men glow and light up and things are beheld for
a moment as they are. The history of a nation’s
spiritual development is but the tale of its wistful
groping towards the provision of a machinery of
State, which shall, as nearly as may be, accord with
the demand of this spirit of Equity. Society, worthy
of the name, is ever secretly shaping around it a temple,
within which all the natural weaknesses and limitations
of the dwellers shall be, not exploited and emphasized,
but to the utmost levelled away and minimized. It
is ever secretly providing for itself a roof under which
there shall be the fullest and fairest play for all human
energies, however unequal.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The destinies of mankind are seen to be guided,
very slowly, by something more coherent than political
opportunity; shaped steadily in a given direction
towards the completion of that temple of Justice.
There is no other way of explaining the growth of man
from the cave-dweller to his present case. And this
slow spiritual shaping towards Equity proceeds in
spite of the workings of the twin bodily agents, force
and expediency. Social and political growth is, in
fact, a process of evolution, controlled, directed,
spiritualized by the supreme principle of Equity.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This is to state no crazy creed, that because equality
is mathematically admirable, equality should at all
times and in all places forthwith obtain. Equality,
balance, is a dream, the greatest of all visions, the
beloved star—ever to be worshipped, never quite
reached. And the long road towards it travels the
illimitable land of compromise. It would have been
futile, as it was in fact impossible, to liberate slaves,
when the consciousness of the injustice of slavery was
present only in a few abnormal minds, and incommunicable
by them to the mind of the surrounding
society of the time. The process is slow and steady.
Equity well knows that there is a time for her, as for
all other things. She is like the brain, saying to the
limbs and senses: You are full of queer ways. It is
for me to think out gradually the best rule of life,
under which you must get on as you can, the Devil
taking the hindmost; and from trying to devise this
scheme of perfection I may not, nor ever shall, rest.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Social and political justice, then, advances by fits
and starts, through ideas—children of the one great
idea of Harmony—which are suggested now by one,
now by another, section or phase of national life.
The process is like the construction and shaping of
a work of art. For an artist is ever receiving vague
impressions from people unconsciously observed, from
feelings unconsciously experienced, till in good time
he discovers that he has an idea. This idea is but a
generalization or harmonious conception derived subconsciously
from these vague impressions. Being
moved to embody that idea, he at once begins groping
back to, and gathering in, those very types and
experiences from which he derived this general notion
in order adequately to shape the vehicle—his picture,
his poem, his novel—which shall carry his idea forth
to the world.</p>
<p class='pindent'>So in social and political progress. The exigencies
and inequalities of existing social life produce a crop
of impressions on certain receptive minds, which suddenly
burst into flower in the form of ideas. The minds
in which these abstractions or ideas have flowered
seek then to burgeon them forth, and their method of
doing so is to bring to public notice those exigencies
and inequalities which were the original fuel of their
ideas. In this way is the seed of an idea spread amongst
a community. But wherever the seed of an idea falls
it has to struggle up through layers of prejudice, to
overcome the rule of force and expediency; and if
this idea, this generalization from social exigencies or
inequalities, be petty, retrograde, or distorted, it
withers and dies during the struggle. If, on the other
hand, it be large, consonant with the future, and of
true promise, it holds fast and spreads.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Now, one may very justly say that this is all a
platitudinal explanation of the crude process of social
and political development. In taking a given idea,
such as the full emancipation of women, the fight only
begins to rage round the question whether that idea
is in fact holding fast and spreading, and, if so, whether
the community is, or is not, yet sufficiently permeated
with the idea to be safely entrusted with its fulfilment.
None the less must it be borne in mind that if this idea
can be proved to be surely spreading, it must be an
idea emanating from the root divinity in things, from
the overmastering principle of Equity, and sure of ultimate
fulfilment; and the only question will then be,
exactly how long the rule of expediency and force
may advisably postpone its fulfilment.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Now, in order to discover whether the idea of the
full emanicipation of women is in accord with the great
principle of Equity, it will be necessary, first, to show
the present inferiority of woman’s political and social
position; secondly, to consider the essential reason of that
inferiority; and, thirdly, to see whether the facts and
figures of the movement towards the removal of that
inferiority clearly prove that the idea has long been
holding fast and spreading.</p>
<p class='pindent'>To show, however, that the present political and
social position of women is not equal to that of men,
it will certainly suffice to state two admitted facts.
Women have not the political vote. Women, who
can be divorced for one offence, must, before they
obtain divorce, prove two kinds of offence against
their husbands.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And to ascertain the essential reason of this present
inferiority we need hardly go beyond the ground facts
of difference between men and women already mentioned:</p>
<p class='pindent'>Women are not physically as strong as men.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Men are never mothers.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Women are not warriors.</p>
<p class='pindent'>From these ground facts, readily admitted by all,
the reason for the present inferiority of women’s
position emerges clear and unmistakable. Women are
weaker than men. They are weaker because they are
not in general built so strongly; because they have
to bear and to rear children; because they are
unarmed. There is no getting away from it, they are
weaker; and one cannot doubt for a moment that their
inferior position is due to this weakness. But—so
runs an immemorial argument—however equal their
opportunities might be, women will never be as strong
as men! Why then, for sentimental reasons, disturb
the present order of things, why equalize those opportunities?
This is the plea which was used before
married women were allowed separate property, before
the decision in “Regina <span class='it'>versus</span> Jackson,” which forbade
a husband to hold his wife prisoner. The argument,
in fact, of expediency and force.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Now there are no finer statements of the case for
the full emancipation of women than Mill’s “Subjection
of Women,” and Miss Jane Harrison’s essay
entitled “Homo Sum.” The reasonings in the former
work are too well-known, but to the main thesis
of “Homo Sum” allusion must here be made. The
most common, perhaps most telling, plea against
raising the social and political status of women to a
level with that of men is this: Men and women <span class='it'>are
already equal</span>, but in separate spheres of activity.
The difference between their physical conformation
and functions underlies everything in the lives of both.
The province and supremacy of women are in the home;
the province and supremacy of men in the State. Why
seek to alter what Nature has ordained? A plea,
in fact, which glorifies sex <span class='it'>qua</span> sex.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But the writer of “Homo Sum” is at pains to show
that “the splendid and vital instinct of sex,” with all
its “singular power of interpenetrating and reinforcing
other energies,” is in essence egoistic, exclusive,
anti-social; and that, besides and beyond being men
and women, we are all human beings. “The whole
women’s movement,” the writer says, “is just the
learning of that lesson. It is not an attempt to arrogate
man’s prerogative of manhood; it is not even an
attempt to assert and emphasize woman’s privilege
of womanhood; it is simply the demand that in the
life of woman, as in the life of man, space and liberty
shall be found for a thing bigger than either manhood
or womanhood—for humanity.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>In fact the splendid instinct of sex—for all its universality,
for all that through and by it life is perpetuated,
for all its power of bringing delight, and of revealing
the heights and depths of human emotion—is still
essentially an agent of the rule of force. We cannot
but perceive that there is in both men and women
something more exalted and impersonal, akin to the
supreme principle of Equity, to the divinity in things;
and that this something keeps men and women together,
as strongly, as inevitably, as sex keeps them
apart. What is all the effort of civilization but the
gradual fortifying of that higher part of us—the
exaltation of the principle of Justice, the chaining of
the principle of Force? The full emancipation of women
would be one more step in the march of our civilization—a
sign that this nation was still serving humanity,
still trying to be gentle and just. For if it has ceased
to serve humanity, we must surely pray that the waters
may rise over this island, and that she may go down
all standing!</p>
<p class='pindent'>If, then, women’s position is inferior to men’s, if
the essential reason of this inferiority is her weakness,
or, in other words, the still unchecked dominance
of force, to what extent do the facts and figures of the
movement towards removing the inferiority of women’s
position prove that the idea of the full emancipation of
women is, not petty and false, withering and dying,
but large and true, holding fast and spreading?</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1866, a petition for the vote, signed by 1,499
women, was presented to Parliament by John Stuart
Mill.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1873, petitions for the suffrage from 11,000 women
were presented to Gladstone and Disraeli.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1896, an appeal was made to members of Parliament
by 257,000 women of all classes and parties.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1897, 1,285 petitions in favour of a Women’s
Suffrage Bill were presented to Parliament, being 800
more petitions than those presented in favour of any
other Bill.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1867, Mill’s amendment to substitute “person”
for “man” in the Representation of the People Act
was rejected by a majority of 121.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1908, Stanger’s Bill to enable women to vote on
the same terms as men passed its second reading by
a majority of 179.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1893, 1894, and 1895, the franchise was granted
to women in New Zealand, Colorado, South Australia,
and Utah.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1900, 1902, 1903, 1905, 1908, and 1910, the
franchise was granted to women in Western Australia,
New South Wales, Tasmania, Finland, Norway,
Victoria, and the State of Washington.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1902, a petition was signed by 750 women
graduates.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1906, a petition was signed by 1,530 women
graduates.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In 1910, the membership of the various Women’s
Suffrage Societies, and of bodies of men and women
who have declared in favour of the idea of women’s
suffrage, is estimated by some at over half a million—a
figure subject, no doubt, to great deduction; but
certainly also to very great addition for sympathisers
who belong to no such societies or bodies.</p>
<p class='pindent'>These, briefly, are the main facts and figures. From
them but one conclusion can be drawn. The idea
of the full emancipation of women having fulfilled
the requirements of steady growth over a long space
of years, and giving every promise of further steady
growth, is in accord with the principle of Equity;
intrinsically just. How long will it remain possible
in the service of expediency and force to refuse to
this idea its complete fruition; how long will it be
wise? For when the limit of wisdom is reached,
expediency has obviously become inexpedient and force
unworthy.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When out of 670 members of a House of Commons
400 have given pledges to support women’s suffrage;
when a measure for the enfranchisement of women on
the same terms as men has passed its second reading
by a majority of 179, and in face of this declaration of
sentiment Government has refused to afford facilities
for carrying it into law, there must obviously be some
definite hostile factor in the political equation. In a
country governed as ours is, it is but natural that
those who are, so to speak, trustees for its policy,
should not look with favour on any measure which
may in their opinion definitely set back that policy,
or affect it in some way which they cannot with sufficient
clearness foresee. The cause of women, in fact,
is a lost dog owned by neither party, distrusted by
both. While there is yet danger of being bitten,
each watches that dog carefully, holding out a
more or less friendly hand. But when the door of the
house is safely closed, she may howl her heart out in
the cold. The Press, too, with few exceptions is committed
to one or other of these parties. To the Press,
also, then, the cause of women is a homeless wanderer
to whom it is proper to give casual alms, but who can
hardly be brought in to the fire, lest she take up the
room of the children of the house. And so out of the
despair caused by this lost drifting in a vicious circle,
out of a position created by party expediency, the
inevitable has come to pass. Militant suffragism has
arisen—ironically, and, to my thinking, regrettably,
since the real spiritual significance and true national
benefit of the full emancipation of women will lie in
the victory of justice over force; and to employ <span class='it'>what
must needs be inferior force</span> to achieve the victory
of justice over force is not only futile, but so befogging
to the whole matter that the essential issue of Equity
is more than ever hidden from the mind of the public.
Militancy may have served certain purposes, but it has
added one more element of fixity to an <span class='it'>impasse</span> already
existing, for the woman of action is saying, “Until
you give me the vote I shall act like this,” and the
man of action is answering her, “So long as you act
like that I shall not give you the vote. To yield to
you would be to admit the efficacy of threats and
establish a bad precedent.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>None the less, human nature being what it is, militancy
was inevitable, and the wise will look at the
situation, not as it was, or might be, but as it is. We
must consider what effect that situation is having on
the national character. Every little outrage committed
on men by women is met by a little outrage
committed on women by men; and each time one of
these mutual outrages takes place, tens of thousands
of minds in this country are blunted in that most sensitive
quality, gentleness. It is idle to pretend that
women have not stood, and do not still stand, to men
as the chief reason for being gentle; that men have
not, and do not still stand to women, in the same
capacity. By every little mutual outrage, then, the
beneficence of sex is being weakened, its maleficence
awakened throughout the land. And the harm which
is thus being done is so impalpable, so subtle, as to
be beyond the power of most to notice at all, and
surely beyond the power of statesmen to assess. That
is the mischief. The scent is stealing away out of the
flower of our urbanity. It will be long before the
gardeners discover how odourless and arid that flower
has become.</p>
<p class='pindent'>For it is not so much the action of the militant
women themselves, nor that of those who are suppressing
them, which is doing this subtle harm. It is the effect
of this scrimmage on the spectators; the coarsening,
and hardening, and general embitterment; the secret
glorification of the worst side of the sex instinct;
the constant exaltation of the rule of force; the rapid
growth of a rankling sense of injustice amongst tens
of thousands of women. To say that hundreds of
thousands of women are opposed, or indifferent, to
the full emancipation of their sex is not, in truth, to
say very much. No civilizing movement was ever
brought to fruition save in the face of the indifference
or opposition of the majority. What proportion of
agricultural labourers were actively concerned to
win for themselves the vote? How small a fraction
of the people actively demanded free education!
But when these privileges were won, what number of
those for whom they were won would have been willing
to resign them? If women were fully emancipated
to-morrow, many would certainly resent what they
would deem a blow at the influence and power already
wielded by them in virtue of their sex. But in two
years’ time how many would be willing to surrender
their freedom? As certainly, not ten in a hundred!
To compare the disapproval of women raised against
their wills to a state of emancipation in which they
can remain inactive if they like with the bitter resentment
spreading like slow poison in the veins of those
who fruitlessly demand emancipation is to compare
the energy of vanishing winter snow with that of the
spring sun which melts it.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In an age when spirituality has ever a more desperate
struggle to maintain hold at all against the inroads
of materialism, any increase of bitterness in the national
life, any loss of gentleness, aspiration, and mutual
trust between the sexes, however silent, secret, and
unmeasurable, is, surely, a serious thing. Justice, neglected,
works her own insidious revenge. Every
month, every year, the germs of bitterness and brutality
will be spreading. If any think that this people has
gentleness to spare, and can afford to tamper with
the health of its spirit, they are mistaken. If any
think that repression can put an end to this aspiration—again
they are mistaken. The idea of the full emancipation
of women is so rooted that nothing can now
uproot it.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But, apart from the political <span class='it'>impasse</span>, there are those
who, satisfied that women have not the political aptitude
of men, are chiefly opposed to the granting of the
vote for fear that it will come to mean the return
of women to Parliament. Now, if their conviction
regarding the inferiority of women’s political capacity
be sound—as I for one, speaking generally, am inclined
to believe—there is no danger of women being returned
to Parliament save in such small numbers as to make
no matter. If it be unsound—if the political capacity
of woman be equal to man’s—it is time Parliament
were reinforced by women’s presence. New waters
soon find their level. Nor are such as distrust the
political capacities of women qualified to prophesy a
flood. To debar women for fear of their competition
is a policy of little spirit, and not one that the men of
this country will consciously adopt, unless we have
indeed lost the fire of our fathers. There are many, too,
who believe that the granting of the vote to women
will increase the emotional element in an electorate
whose emotional side they already distrust, and thereby
endanger our relations with foreign Powers. But it
has yet to be proved that women are, in a wide sense
of the word, more emotional than men; and, even
conceding that they are, why forget that they will
bring to the consideration of international matters
the solid reinforcement of two qualities—the first, a
practical domestic sense lacking to men, and likely to
foster national reluctance to plunge into wild-cat wars,
the second, a greater faculty for self-sacrifice, tending
to fortify national determination to persist in a war
once undertaken. It is well known that during the
American Civil War the women of the Southern
States displayed a spirit of resistance even more
heroic than that of their men folk. But, in any case,
to retain women in their present state of social and
political inferiority for reasons which are so debatable
savours, surely, somewhat of the sultanic. We have,
in fact, yet to imbibe the spirit of Mill’s wisest saying:
“Amongst all the lessons which men require for carrying
on the struggle against the evident imperfections
of their lot on earth, there is no lesson which they
more need than not to add to the evils which Nature
inflicts, by their jealous and prejudiced restrictions on
one another.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>In fine, out of the practical perplexities brooding
over this whole matter there is no way save by resort
to the first principles of gentility. It has been uncontrovertibly
established that there is in this country
a great and ever-increasing body of women suffering
from a bitter sense of injustice. What course then,
compatible with true gentility, is left open to us men?
Our whole social life is in essence but a long, slow,
striving for the victory of justice over force; and this
demand of our women for full emancipation is but a
sign of that striving. Are we not bound in honour to
admit this simple fact? Shall we not at last give fulfilment
to this idea—with the due caution that should
mark all political experiment? Has not, in truth, the
time come for us to say: From this resistance to the
claims of Equity; from this bitter and ungracious
conflict with those weaker than ourselves; from this
slow poisoning of the well-springs of our national
courtesy, and kindliness, and sense of fair play:
“Gentles, let us rest!”</p>
<h2>II</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>Appeal to the Press</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(A Letter to the <span class='it'>Daily News</span>, 1911.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>I write as a supporter of woman’s suffrage, but not
of militant suffragism. Whenever I have remonstrated
with a militant Suffragist I have received this
answer:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“We could not keep the movement before the eyes
of the public without militant tactics, because the
papers, with two or three exceptions, would not report
peaceful work. For this reason we adopted our
methods, and the event has justified us. We have
advanced the cause—simply by forcing it on people’s
attention in the only way open to us—more in the last
three years than those who pursued peaceful methods
had done in the last forty.”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Whatever may now be the feelings and intentions
of the militant Suffragists, this answer did undoubtedly
set forth the true reason for the inception of militant
tactics.</p>
<p class='pindent'>All political and social movements in this country
depend for vitality on catching the eye and the thought
of the community. And we may draw one of two alternative
morals from that prolonged silence of the Press
towards woman’s suffrage which originally brought
about the campaign of violence: Either, that men
having possession of the organs of public opinion,
deliberately kept them closed to the discussion of the
political rights of women—a supposition, I should
prefer not to entertain. Or, that reports of violence
and sensationalism are more sought after than tales
of reason and sobriety! Whichever the moral drawn,
it is very discreditable to public feeling in this
country.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Is it too late for those who are responsible for the
Press to take the lead in removing that stigma? It is
lugubrious that, in our England of free speech and
fair play, in this nation hitherto supposed to excel in
political sense, women should have found it necessary
to advocate and advertise by mere sensationalism a
political and social movement of more wide-reaching
and universal nature than any now before the public;
a movement of such epoch-making character that
few people have at present grasped its real significance.
Surely it is important that the people of this country
should be educated in the reason and the rights of a
question such as this. But in order that they may be
so educated it is necessary that they should read, not
the account of how “So-and-so’s windows were
broken,” or of how “Such an one was arrested,” but
arguments presented in speech and writing for and
against suffrage.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The extent to which the formation of public opinion
on any political measure depends on the publication
in the Press of reason, <span class='it'>pro</span> and <span class='it'>con.</span>, can be seen from
the growth of the Tariff Reform Party, which a few
years ago was a negligible faction. The imminence
and gravity of this issue of woman’s suffrage can no
longer be denied. It has to be faced. It will have
to be decided. Does the Press of this country wish it
to be decided by an electorate utterly unversed in its
merits and demerits? Would the Press of this country
wish any big political or social measure to be so
decided? Is it just, generous, or politic that, when
women try by peaceful and constitutional means to
promulgate their cause, there should be silence? If
there had not been this silence, militant suffragism
would never have been born. By the removal of this
silence militant suffragism may still be helped towards
a natural death.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I appeal to all editors (whether friends or enemies
of the movement), who have already shown themselves
alive to what is rapidly becoming the desperate
importance of this issue, to combine and advocate an
alteration of the general Press policy—to advocate the
throwing open of all journals to fair and full report,
not of the sensational, but of the reasonable, sides,
for and against, of woman’s suffrage. For, whether
consciously or unconsciously, the general Press policy
has hitherto been most unfortunate, and is fast contributing
to the growth of a bitter feeling between the
sexes, in the last degree noxious to the national life.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='148' id='Page_148'></span><h1>ON SOCIAL UNREST</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(A Paper in the <span class='it'>Daily Mail</span>, 1912.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“This is a psychological question, a matter of
mental states” (H. G. Wells). It is. And in examining
these mental states there are two, out of many
factors, on which I do not think too much emphasis
can be laid, not only because they are in themselves
vital to the evil, but because they both arise from the
same prime underlying deficiency in our national life.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The first is the influence on society at large produced
by the great and rapid growth of the fiduciary
element in the conduct of commercial enterprise and
landed estates. The agent, the director, the manager,
the trustee, have almost entirely displaced the old-time
owner, merchant, and manufacturer, who did business
by and for themselves.</p>
<p class='pindent'>A class has been created who, already in a state of
professional altruism, are impervious, and on the face
of it rightly impervious, to altruism of any other kind.</p>
<p class='pindent'>What large business nowadays is not conducted as
a limited company by a board of directors appointed
and paid by the shareholders as trustees to produce for
them a maximum of profit? What large estate is not
managed by a paid agent on the same principle? And,
however generous our aspirations, which of us does not
know the deflecting power of trusteeship, rigidified,
as it is, by law and by the sense that we are paid for
the performance of a job inimical to generosity?
True—the rates of wages and of rent come not under
rules but under the broad heading of policy; and, in
deep reality, I suspect it to be equally true that the
maximum of generosity ministers <span class='it'>in the long run</span> to
the maximum of stability and profit; nevertheless
there can be no doubt whatever that the trustee system
not only befogs and deadens the human relationship
between employer and employed, but affords an overwhelming
support to our natural instinct to take the
immediate view and line of least resistance.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Broadly speaking, where there is trusteeship, as
trusteeship is now understood, there is no wide view
of the relation of Capital to Labour in the light of the
good of Society as a whole; there is only a faithful,
cold-blooded, purblind service for the benefit of a
<span class='it'>cestui que trust</span>, who is himself freed from a sense of
personal responsibility and from all apparent need for
a wide and human outlook. The trustee system, if
not already, will soon be universal, and I see no
means of counteracting its secret, dangerous, and irritating
effect on the mind of Labour, save by such process
of education as shall soak the spirit of the prosperous
classes with an altogether larger and saner
feeling of the fundamental unity and interdependence
of Society, with a good-will so vastly increased that
the shareholder and <span class='it'>cestui que trust</span> shall no longer
require the director or trustee to consider them and
them alone, but bid him instead consider equally the
interests of the employed. Such a mood of altruism
is now, roughly speaking, absent from the minds of
the prosperous classes; and to attain to it is a consummation
that I fear will never come about under
our present system of education.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The second influence on which I would lay great
emphasis is the state of mind produced by our system
of education in the young of the prosperous classes at
our private and public schools, and, to a less extent,
at our universities. Before dwelling on this let me
suggest two truths. In life, where a fortunate person
is brought into contact with one less fortunate, the
first step towards cordial relationship must obviously
come from the fortunate. For human nature is
happily so constituted that the less fortunate feels
ashamed to make advances which, liable to misconstruction,
are not compatible with self-respect. Every
man of any worth can test, indeed is testing, this truth
continually in his own life; it cannot indeed be
doubted. Again, where advances are made by the
fortunate from sheer friendliness and without ulterior
motive, they most certainly evoke response in the
same friendly spirit from all save exceptional churls.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Now, since these primary truths concerning human
nature underlie the whole question of Labour Unrest,
it becomes of the first importance to consider how far
the young of the prosperous classes are made actively
familiar with them. How far are the legions at our
private and public schools (those legions from whom
the ranks of Capital are, in the main, recruited) made
to understand, and—more than understand—to <span class='it'>feel</span>
that they are fortunate, that Labour is less fortunate,
that they will have to live their lives in interdependence
with Labour, and that if they do not make—out of a
free and fine heart make—the first advances to good-fellowship
with less fortunate Labour, those advances
can—by a law, and a good law, of human nature—never
be made? How far are they at present brought
up to see this? I would go so far as to say—hardly at
all. In my day at a public school—and I have no reason
at all to hope that, whatever be the exceptions, the
general rule has greatly changed—the Universe was
divided into ourselves and “outsiders,” “bounders,”
“chaws,” “cads,” or whatever more or less offensive
name best seemed to us to characterise those less fortunate
than ourselves. It is true that we applied
the name mainly to the lower ranks of Capital rather
than to actual Labour, but this was only because we
lived so far away from industrial workers that we never
even thought of them. Such working folk as we
actually came into personal contact with we never
dreamed of associating with any such offensive thought
in our minds or speech on our tongues; but, generally,
the working man did not exist for us except as
a person outside, remote, and almost inimical.
From our homes, touched already by this class feeling,
caught up from political talk by chance overheard,
we went to private schools, where the teaching of
manners, mainly under clerical supervision, effectually
barred us from any contaminating influence; so that
if by chance we encountered the “lower class” boy
we burned to go for him and correct his “cheek.”
Thence we were passed into the great “caste” factory,
a public school, where the feeling became, by mere
process of being left to itself, as set and hard as iron.
It is true that a levelling process went on among the
boys themselves, so that a duke’s son was no more
accounted of than a stockbroker’s, but nevertheless
all learned to consider themselves “the elect.” Of
ten public schoolboys, seven have come from “caste-”infected
homes and private schools, and have active
prejudice already. The remaining three may still be
open-minded or indifferent; of these, two will infallibly
follow the sway of the herd instinct; one may
perhaps develop a line of his own, or adhere to the
influence of a home inimical to “caste,” and become a
“smug” or Radical. In result, failing definite sustained
effort to break up a narrow “caste” feeling, the
public school presents a practically solid phalanx of
the fortunate, insulated against real knowledge of,
or sympathy with, the less fortunate. This phalanx
marches out into the professions, into business, into
the universities, where, it is true, some awaken to a
sense of wider values—but not too many. From the
point of view of any one who tries to see things as they
are, and see them as a whole, there is something terrific
about this automatic “caste” moulding of the young.
And in the present condition of our country it is folly,
and dangerous folly, to blink it.<a id='r6'/><a href='#f6' style='text-decoration:none'><sup><span style='font-size:0.9em'>[6]</span></sup></a></p>
<p class='pindent'>For all my love of my old school, for all my realization
of the fact that her training equips her children with
certain qualities invaluable to public life and public
service, I do feel that she and all her sisters are disserving
the national welfare by refraining from really active
and resolute attempt to destroy the bad side of “caste”
feeling. They let it grow of its own momentum
through the herd instinct till it blinds the eyes and
blunts the feelings of those who, being fortunate,
must by the laws of human nature make the first
advances toward friendship with the less fortunate,
if those advances are to be made at all; and must
make them not because to neglect them is dangerous,
but out of brotherly feeling and a real hearty wish to
give all the help they can to such as are not so lucky as
themselves. I do not mean that our public schools
and universities are consciously refraining. They are
not, and their very unconsciousness in the matter is
half the danger. And I do not say that there are
no masters, or dons, conscious of the danger and trying
their best to remove it, but I do say there are not
nearly enough. A few swallows do not make a
summer.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Since, in relation to the foregoing, four objections,
at all events, are bound to be made, let me make them
myself, and answer them too. First: It is not the
public school and ’varsity man who is lacking in
sympathy and good-will towards Labour; it is the
self-made capitalist, or the grammar school man. The
truth is that, with exceptions, they all are lacking.
But the defect is more dangerous and insidious within
“the caste” than without; for not only is “the
caste” homogeneous, and far more influential in every
way, but it veils its lack of sympathy in this very pretension
of having sympathy. Next it will be said:
“You accuse us of lack of sympathy! But we would
gladly be sympathetic, if they would only let us!”
Now this in the main is a perfectly genuine belief
in members of “the caste” when they have once gone
out into life and rubbed off the rawness of youthful
hostility and prejudice. But it is the genuine belief
of people only passively inclined to friendship; in
other words, the belief of the fortunate not imbued
with a spirit sufficiently high and generous to take,
from the best motives, <span class='it'>active</span> steps towards friendship
with the less fortunate.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Further it will be said: “But Labour is not really
less fortunate than ourselves—it has freedom from
cares, responsibilities, and expenses, such as we can
never know; in fact, we are not sure that it is not
really the more fortunate class.” Well! Apart from
the fact that not one in ten thousand of “the caste”
would change places with an industrial worker, there
is this answer: “On your hypothesis, evolution, which
is ‘caste’s’ main justification, is absurd and our system
is standing on its head. If, indeed, you require Labour
to consider itself at least as fortunate as yourselves,
you must set to work at once and revalue everything,
alter every present ideal in your social life, and annul
the importance of property. Are you prepared to
do this?” Finally it will be objected: “It may be
as you say, but the evil is implicit and inevitable, for
everything possible is already done by our educational
authorities to counteract a narrow ‘caste’ spirit
and imbue the children of the fortunate with a brotherly
feeling towards the less fortunate.” The answer to
this is simply: “Has everything been done? Has
anything like everything been done? For example, is
the danger of this narrow ‘caste’ spirit ever taken into
account in the appointment of these same educational
authorities?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Besides being “snobs” in the best sense of that
word, boys are high-spirited, generous, and malleable
creatures. Let any fair-minded man of “the caste”
ask himself: “What sustained and really ‘felt’
effort did he encounter from his own teachers in school
and college days to turn that high spirit, and generosity,
and malleability of his into a state of mind that regarded
his good fortune as a thing to be held in trust
to share to the full with the less fortunate?” A few
will answer truly: “Yes, I have met with such effort.”
But how few!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Again, then, I am brought to the point of saying:
There is a general absence of active and sustained
effort to produce in the young of the prosperous classes
this “good-will” state of mind; to change such general
absence of effort into a general presence of effort is
a consummation that will never, I think, be reached
under our present system of education.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Both these influences, then, contributing to Social
Unrest—the one produced by the increasing presence
of the fiduciary element, and the other by the unchecked
growth of a narrow “caste” spirit—lead us to the same
prime underlying deficiency in our national life, the lack
of right purpose in our education. They happen to
be both incident to Capital, but it is probable that
influences incident to Labour, of which I hesitate to
speak, since I cannot from personal experience and
feeling, may also in measure be traced to the same
underlying deficiency in our education.</p>
<p class='pindent'>No national improvement can come from outside.
It must come from within, from gradually improved
feeling in the body politic. To hope for growth without
this improvement is to hope that a man shall raise himself
from the ground by the hair of his own head. But
improved feeling has no chance of spreading throughout
the body politic without that machinery of infection
which we know by the name of education. Therefore
education is the most sacred concern, indeed the
only hope, of a nation.</p>
<p class='pindent'>How do we now treat our education—this sacred
thing, this only hope? In regard to the classes, its
direction and control are left entirely to the haphazard
beck and call of each separate school or college, without
conformity to or guidance from any professed national
aim, principle, or ideal. In regard to the masses, it
is the concern of a Department of State, just as are
Trade, the Post Office, or the Navy, and is treated, not
as a spiritual matter underlying all else, but as a
material affair. The spiritual side of education is
supposed to be the concern of the religious bodies;
but if we are quite honest we have to confess that the
religious bodies have no longer sufficient hold on classes
or masses to inspire in either such wide mutual good-will
and sense of service as will forward any real
improvement in the relations between Capital and
Labour, between the fortunate and less fortunate
classes. The religious bodies, let us say, have tried
their best, but, since our last state is worse than our
first, they must be considered to have failed. Their
influence, indeed, is too incoherent and dispersed,
pervasive here and there, but without either the
centrality or force to promote in us a great national
change towards that essence of Christianity—mutual
good-will and sense of service. There is no longer,
I am afraid, hope in that direction.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Deep down, we know all this, but we have not yet
bestirred ourselves to find out what it is that we
are trying to do with our civilization, or indeed
whether we are trying to do anything except just
keep our heads above water from hour to hour.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And we have not yet bestirred ourselves, partly
because we are still breathless and uncertain after
that long and tremendous struggle within us between
Science and Orthodox Religion, which has torn the
wings off both, and partly because we are paralysed
by the word Democracy. We dare not move for fear
of endowing education with too much authority.
There may, of course, be another and far more deadly
reason why we have not bestirred ourselves. We may
be too far gone to devise any improved standard or
machinery of education, too flaccid to impart, or
even to desire to impart, to our education that spiritual
quality, that devotion to an ideal, which is our only
hope. If so, we must resign ourselves to a desperate
Class struggle, as to some bitter, poisonous tonic,
from which we may perhaps gain strength to deal with
our disease, but of which we may take too much and
die. Personally—being, as they say, a pessimist—I
prefer to think that all is not yet lost; that we are
still capable of expressing in the form of a faith the
aspiration towards Perfection that does, that must, lie
inarticulate within us; still capable of finding
machinery, and men to work it, that shall drive this
faith into the very heart of all classes.</p>
<p class='pindent'>At all events, I refuse to believe that we cannot do
a good deal more with education as a solvent of our
troubles than we have done hitherto. The main and
obvious difficulty—one might say the only real difficulty—in
education, as in all the affairs of life, is to
find the men; and to find the men we can only make
use of machinery which is acceptable to a democratic
age. Yes, we cannot now go outside Democracy,
and that is something to be profoundly grateful for.
The only trouble with Democracy is that it is slow and
inarticulate. And I do not feel that the democratic
principle—in which I believe as much as any man—will
ever do itself justice until it discovers some quicker
way than it yet has of shaping out of itself its spiritual
essence, some swifter way of extracting from itself and
utilizing for its own service the highest aspiration and
finest feeling within it. It has succeeded on the whole
fairly well in discovering and making use of its best
business and administrative minds; but so far it has
regarded spirituality as completely outside its province
and deliberately left it to religious bodies that have no
longer, nationally speaking, a real hold on us, and are
professedly autocratic. In fact, Democracy at present—and
not only here but in America—offers the spectacle
of a man running down a road followed at a more
and more respectful distance by his own soul.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Can our education any longer be safely treated in
this casual way, be safely left to Churches from whose
hand it has too far slipped; be safely left as to the
Classes to chance and to vested interests; as to the
Masses to mere business management?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Should we not rather trust it coherently and as a
whole to the finest spirits and broadest minds in the
country; to spirits that can be relied on to hold, and
to minds that can be relied on to apply, a really high
ideal; relied on, too, <span class='it'>to select and train the best men
available for the propagation of that Ideal</span>? If by
some democratic process we could sift out these minds
from among us, and endow them with wholesale
powers of selection, appointment, and training of
teachers, we should have established a sort of endless
band on which might travel a perpetual vitalizing
current of the best feeling within us. To find these
finest spirits and broadest minds we might conceivably
use the existing representative machinery of Parliament,
or some reformed representative system; or
we might institute a special straining and sifting
process, by means of plebiscite within plebiscite, till
we were reasonably sure of arriving at the men best
fitted to be entrusted with a high, coherent plan of
education. We have, then, to found and place under
their guidance a great training college, wherein the
higher leaders of education may be imbued with the
new spirit, trained in the new standards, and pass out,
as posts fall vacant, to the headship of schools and
colleges. And if it be objected, as it certainly will, that
this is to constitute a too rigid spiritual bureaucracy,
the answer is two-fold: This is the plan on which
you order all your political, your material life, without
regarding it as in the least dangerous or undemocratic.
And, secondly, you have at present exactly the same
bureaucratic methods of appointment in education,
only they are exercised in a hole-and-corner manner,
quite incoherently, and <span class='it'>without any democratic check
at all</span>.</p>
<p class='pindent'>There is no revolution in this idea, and it will certainly
prove no immediate or quack remedy. It is,
in few words, a suggestion that we should adopt for
spiritual things, for states of mind, the method that,
roughly speaking, we have found works best in material
matters. Democracy will never really flourish till it
has taken charge, and that right heartily, of its own
spirituality.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Life itself is the best education in spirituality a
nation gets. But the plea here is only for better
machinery to express and direct the experience and
latent good-will which is implicit within the nation,
and is not now brought out into the light for the
nation’s service. We are living in a parched field
under which there is plenty of water, but we have
sunk no well, put up no pumping gear, with which to
make our pasture green. Is the notion that we can
still do this a preposterous dream, a mere presumptuous
counsel of perfection?</p>
<p class='pindent'>We have at present an air charged with trouble;
if we are not to shut our eyes, fold our hands, and
drift, all that we do must be in the direction of improving
our state of mind. But there is no way of improving
a state of mind save by fertilizing it with the faith and
good-will of a higher mind. Our machinery for doing
this has failed us. Indeed, nationally speaking, we no
longer have any such machinery. What more useful
efforts, then, can we make than efforts in the direction
of discovering a new machinery? And the finer the
spirits, the broader the minds, we place in charge
thereof, the greater power we give them, always subject
to the safeguard of election, the more we may
hope to emerge gradually from our sinister situation.</p>
<hr class='footnotemark'/>
<div class='footnote'>
<table summary='footnote_6'>
<colgroup>
<col span='1' class='footnoteid'/>
<col span='1'/>
</colgroup>
<tr><td style='vertical-align:top;'>
<div class='footnote-id' id='f6'><a href='#r6'>[6]</a></div>
</td><td>
<p class='pindent'>Many think the war will alter all this. I only wish I did.—J. G.</p>
</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
<div><span class='pageno' title='160' id='Page_160'></span><h1>ON PEACE</h1></div>
<h2 class='nobreak'>I</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>The Will to Peace</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Daily Mail</span>, 1909.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>I was walking in the district known as Notting Dale
looking for signs of the Millennium, when I saw on a
poster these words: “Why England and Germany
must go to war.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>I stood gazing at them in the company of a woman
the worse for drink, a brutal-looking man, a consumptive
boy, and a half-starved horse harnessed to
a cart. With the exception of the horse, these persons
were soon replaced by a little labourer with a very
sad face, and a sick-looking woman, in a ragged shawl.
When they, in turn, passed on, I was joined in front
of the poster by three girls going home from work—the
sound of whose laughter was like the snapping of
dried sticks—and by a whisky-perfumed man with that
peculiar, brazen look in the eye which is liable to sudden
eclipse. These, too, stayed but a short time, and their
places before the poster were filled by two youths in
ragged clothes, with dun-coloured faces, and the
stumps of cigarettes between pale lips. Their foot-steps
and obscenity having died away, I was left alone
with the poster and the horse. This horse’s ribs were
conspicuous, and from the size of eggcup-shaped
hollows above eyes covered with a bluish film, he had
evidently laboured to the limit of his capacity. He
was resting one thin leg—too hairless at the knee, too
hairy at the heel. Two very young children came now,
and, holding each other’s hands, flattened their noses
against the poster in the shop window. One of them
moved her feet continually as if her boots hurt her,
while on the feet of the other were the wrecks of boots.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And I said to myself: In hundreds of towns all over
the country, people like this are standing before that
poster, or passing by it. One third of the population are
below the line of reasonable subsistence, another third
are able by the constant employment of every energy
to keep their heads just on that line. We are the richest
country in the world, so that even in organised Germany
conditions little better may very well be prevalent.
This poster declares that England and Germany must
go to war. And this poster is no joke, but the indication
of a frame of mind. Moreover, I mused, credit for
sincerity being due to all men until the opposite is
proved against them, this frame of mind must be
honest and founded on genuine fear—must be, in fact,
the conviction of many, not only in this country, but
in Germany. They contemplate a war between two
nations, two thirds of whose respective populations are
as yet barely able to make a living; a war that means
wasting many hundred million pounds and the earning
power of many hundred thousand lives; a war that
will in six months cast on to the dust heap twenty
years of social progress; a war that may well have no
semblance of nobility, no great motto, no inspiring
cause, but be a mere sordid struggle between two
business communities, for so-called commercial ends;
a war that may be unparalleled for cold-blooded horror
and myopic puerility. And the poster speaks of this
war as if it were inevitable!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Where, I asked myself, can the people who thus
think and speak have lived? Where have they kept
their hearts, and brains, and eyes, and noses? Can
they not see these millions of ghosts in their midst?
Or do they think to fatten them by war? Do they
think by war to cheapen the price of bread and coals,
to spread education, to foster the growth of science
and of the arts? Will they by war preserve the
strongest males for the improvement of the human
stock? Will they by war advance in any single way
the slow process of humanizing a civilization which
still produces in millions the beings who have been
standing with me here before that poster? No—I
thought—they will certainly reply: “War is an
evil, but it is necessary; for the human race is divided
into breeds, distinct from one another, and plunged
into struggle from their births up. Only in each
country’s jealous preservation of itself can we look for
the welfare of the whole. There is no avail in dreams
of peace; no use in preparation for it; men have
always killed each other for their own advantage
and always will; if they did not so kill their neighbours
they could not themselves survive. Life is so conditioned;
there is not enough for all. We know, therefore,
that this war must come. We see it coming. We
have fastened our eyes on it. We cannot get out of
its way. We must offer ourselves up in holy sacrifice
before this bloody, predestined monster.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Well!—I thought—if it is sacrifice you want, look
at that horse! Look at all the people who have
stood before this poster! They will take all your
powers of sacrifice before you have done with them!
And I, myself, looked at the horse; with his bleared
eyes and the curves at the corners of his mouth, I
thought I had never seen such a cynical-looking
creature. “What are you, after all,” he seemed to
be saying to me, “but a set of sanguinary tailless
animals?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>But suddenly the eyes of my mind travelled beyond
sight of that poster, and as in a vision I seemed to
see all the great lives men have lived, all the high
thoughts they have conceived, all their wonderful
ingenuity and perseverance and strength of will;
how they have always found a way to fulfil that on
which they have set their hearts. And as background
to that vision there seemed disclosed to me the untold,
unexploited wealth of the fields, woods, and waters
under the sun. And I thought: “What that poster
says is only true of such as <span class='it'>will</span> it to be true. <span class='it'>Where
there is a will to peace there is a way.</span><a id='r7'/><a href='#f7' style='text-decoration:none'><sup><span style='font-size:0.9em'>[7]</span></sup></a> War between two
such countries, two trustees of civilization need not
be inevitable. To believe that is to blaspheme; to
belittle human nature, to deny the Earth.”</p>
<hr class='footnotemark'/>
<div class='footnote'>
<table summary='footnote_7'>
<colgroup>
<col span='1' class='footnoteid'/>
<col span='1'/>
</colgroup>
<tr><td style='vertical-align:top;'>
<div class='footnote-id' id='f7'><a href='#r7'>[7]</a></div>
</td><td>
<p class='pindent'>I recollect that the journal which this poster served to sell contained
an article proposing to prove that war between England and
Germany was inevitable, because of the rivalry between their
trades. I thought then, and think now, that such a reason was
revolting. In spite of all the bitter cry for commercial war that
has now arisen, we did not begin, we never should have begun
a war with Germany for such a reason alone. The war that—alas!—has
come, has for us a better cause. None the less, I freely
admit not gauging rightly the state of mind of Germany’s ruling
classes. I always thought the question of war or no war was a great
“toss-up” between the craze for armament and the growth of
international feeling through social democracy. I thought the
latter would win if people would set their wills on peace, and we
could tide over the next few years. I was wrong.—J. G.</p>
</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
<h2>II</h2>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;'><span class='sc'>Peace of the Air</span></p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:0.25em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(A Letter to <span class='it'>The Times</span>, 1911.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>Beyond all the varying symptoms of madness in the
life of modern nations the most dreadful is this prostitution
of the conquest of the air to the ends of warfare.</p>
<p class='pindent'>If ever men presented a spectacle of sheer inanity
it is now—when, having at last triumphed in their
struggle to subordinate to their welfare the unconquered
element, they have straightway commenced
to defile that element, so heroically mastered, by
filling it with engines of destruction. If ever the gods
were justified of their ironic smile—by the gods, it
is now! Is there any thinker alive watching this still
utterly preventable calamity without horror and
despair? Horror of what must come of it if not
promptly stopped; despair that men can be so blind,
so hopelessly and childishly the slaves of their own
marvellous inventive powers. Was there ever so patent
a case for scotching at birth a hideous development
of the black arts of warfare; ever such an occasion for
the Powers in conference to ban once and for all a new
and ghastly menace?</p>
<p class='pindent'>A little reason, a grain of common sense, a gleam of
sanity before it is too late; before vested interests
and the chains of a new habit have enslaved us too
hopelessly. If this fresh devilry be not quenched within
the next few years, it will be too late. Water and earth
are wide enough for men to kill each other on. For
the love of the sun, and stars, and the blue sky, that
have given us all our aspirations since the beginning
of time, let us leave the air to innocence! Will not
those who have eyes to see, good-will, and the power
to put that good-will into practice, bestir themselves
while there is yet time, and save mankind from this
last and worst of all its follies?</p>
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' -->
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line' style='font-size:1.3em;'>THE WAR</p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
</div> <!-- end rend -->
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div><span class='pageno' title='169' id='Page_169'></span><h1>VALLEY OF THE SHADOW</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Nation</span>, 1915.)</p>
<div class='poetry-container' style=''>
<div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' -->
<div class='stanza-outer'>
<p class='line0'>God, I am travelling out to death’s sea,</p>
<p class='line0'>  I, who exulted in sunshine and laughter,</p>
<p class='line0'>Thought not of dying—death is such waste of me!—</p>
<p class='line0'>  Grant me one comfort: Leave not the hereafter</p>
<p class='line0'>Of mankind to war, as though I had died not—</p>
<p class='line0'>  I, who in battle, my comrade’s arm linking,</p>
<p class='line0'>Shouted and sang—life in my pulses hot</p>
<p class='line0'>  Throbbing and dancing! Let not my sinking</p>
<p class='line0'>In dark be for naught, my death a vain thing!</p>
<p class='line0'>  God, let me know it the end of man’s fever!</p>
<p class='line0'>Make my last breath a bugle call, carrying</p>
<p class='line0'>  Peace o’er the valleys and cold hills, for ever!</p>
</div>
</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend -->
<div><h1><a id='credo'></a>CREDO</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Neutral Press</span>, 1914.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>To love peace with all one’s heart. To feel that war
is a black stain on the humanity and fame of man. To
hate militarism. To go any length to avoid war for
material interests, war that involves no great principle,
distrusting profoundly the common meaning of the
phrase “national honour”—all this is my belief.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But there is a national honour charged with the
future happiness of man; loyalty is due from those
living to those that will come after; civilization can
only wax and flourish in a world where faith is kept;
for nations, as for individuals, there are laws of duty,
whose violation harms the whole human race; in sum,
stars of conduct shine for peoples, as for private men.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And so I hold that without tarnishing true honour,
endangering civilization present and to come, and
ruining all hope of future tranquillity, my Country
could not have refused to take up arms for the defence
of her little neighbour Belgium’s outraged neutrality,
which she had solemnly guaranteed.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I claim from the trend of events, and of national
character, during the last century that in democracy
alone lies any coherent hope of progressive civilization
or any chance of lasting peace in Europe, or the
world.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I believe that this democratic principle, however
imperfectly developed, has so worked in France, in
Britain, in the United States, that these countries
are already nearly safe from inclination to aggress,
or to subdue other nationalities that have reached
approximately their stage of development.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And I believe that while there remain autocratic
Governments basing themselves on militarism, hostile
at heart to the democratic principle, Europe will never
be free of the surcharge of swollen armaments, the
nightmare menace of wars like this—the paralysis
that creeps on civilizations which adore the god of
force.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And so I hold that without betrayal of trusteeship,
without shirking the elementary defence of beliefs
coiled within its fibre, or beliefs vital to the future
welfare of all men, my Country could not stand by and
see the ruin of France, that very cradle of democracy.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I believe that democratic culture spreads from West
to East, that only by maintenance of consolidate
democracy in Western Europe can democracy ever
hope to push on and prevail till the Eastern Powers have
also that ideal under which alone humanity can flourish.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And so I hold that my Country is justified at this
juncture in its alliance with the autocratic power of
Russia, whose people will never know freedom till her
borders are joined to the borders of a true democracy
in Central Europe.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I do not believe that jealous, frightened jingoism
has been more than the dirty fringe of Britain’s
peace-loving temper, and I profess my sacred faith
that my Country has gone to war, against her will,
because she must—for honour, for democracy, and for
the future of mankind.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='171' id='Page_171'></span><h1>FRANCE</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Westminster Gazette</span>, 1914.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>France! Beautiful word! Beautiful land! What
a proud soul lives in that France, now racked and tortured!
What chimes will ring when the last invader
is pushed back over the edge of the lost provinces!
Land for whom, when you are hard driven, the heart
most aches! Is it that you are Woman, with a
caress in your eyes, and your floating robe; with
mystery in your clear, woman’s smile, and that promise
of eternal constancy which Man never offers? Is it
that in you we feel, as in no other Land, a Presence,
such as in some houses makes life assured, and lovely;
a Presence inhabiting the air of every room, more
precious than its garniture? Take away the trappings,
make desolate that place of all material things, and
there will yet be the loved one, there will yet be the
gracious ardent spirit.</p>
<p class='pindent'>France! You, of all Countries, have the gift of
Living Form, of a coherent grace, like that of your own
flower of light, or such as haunts La Gioconda, listening
to life.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When I think of you there comes into my mind the
image of a lime-tree, in her spring garb of buds delicate,
breaking to little gay leaves ecstatic in each wind;
in her summer dress so full, so perfumed with honey-coloured
blossoms; in her autumn robe of few golden
leaves, flat on the clear air, and trembling, trembling
with each breath of the day; and in her pale winter
nakedness—ever the same essential goddess of a tree,
perfect in form.</p>
<p class='pindent'>France! It is your power to see that “soul in
things” which we call Ideals, to bring to life the truth
you have seen, and so to concrete and shape your vision
that it becomes the rock spiritual on which nations
stand. Because you are the living incarnation of your
clear, unflinching spirit, we others love you.</p>
<p class='pindent'>You stand before the world, true embodiment of
your three immortal words; as your immortal tune
is the true voice of a Land’s ardour and devotion.</p>
<p class='pindent'>You have sloughed off the gross and the vainglorious
flesh of nations! You are the flame in the night! In
this hour we see, and know you!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Great and touching comrade! Clear, invincible
France! To-day, in your grave chivalry, you were
never so high, so desirable, so true to yourself and to
Humanity!</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='173' id='Page_173'></span><h1>REVEILLE</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From <span class='it'>King Albert’s Book</span>, 1914.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>In my dream I saw a fertile plain, rich with the
hues of autumn. Tranquil it was and warm. Men,
women, children, and the beasts, worked and played
and wandered there in peace. Under the blue sky
and the white clouds low-hanging, great trees shaded
the fields; and from all the land rose a murmur as
from bees clustering on the rose-coloured blossoms of
tall clover. In my dream I roamed, looking into faces—prosperous
and well-favoured—of people living in
a land of plenty, drinking the joy of life, caring
nothing for the morrow. But I could not see their
eyes, which seemed ever cast down, watching the progress
of their feet over the rich grass and the golden
leaves already fallen from the trees. The longer I
walked among them the more I wondered that I could
see the eyes of none, not even of the little children,
not even of the beasts.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And, while I mused on this, the sky began to darken.
A mutter as of distant waters came travelling. The
children stopped their play, the beasts raised their
heads; men and women halted and cried to each
other: “The River is rising! If it floods, we are
lost! Our beasts will drown; we, even we, shall
drown! The River!” And women stood like images
of stone, listening; men shook their fists at the black
sky; the beasts sniffed the darkening air.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Then I heard a clear voice call: “Brothers! The
dyke is breaking! Link arms; with the dyke of our
bodies we will save our homes! Link arms behind us,
Sisters! Children close in! The River!” And all
that multitude, whom I had seen treading quietly
the grass, came hurrying, their eyes no longer fixed
on the rich plain, but lifted in trouble and defiance.
And the Voice called: “Hasten! The dyke is
broken.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>By thousands and thousands they pressed, shoulder
to shoulder—men, women, children, and the beasts
lying down behind, till the living dyke was formed.
And the black flood came travelling till its wave crests
glinted like the whites of glaring eyes, and the harsh
clamour of the waters was as a roar from a million
mouths. But the Voice called: “Hold, brothers!”
And from the living dyke came answer: “We hold!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Then the dark water broke; and from all the wall
of bodies rose the cry of struggle.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But above it ever the Voice called: “Hold!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>And the answer still came from the mouths of
drowning men and women, of the very children: “We
hold!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>But the water rolled over and on. Down in its black
tumult, beneath its cruel rush, I saw men still with
arms linked; women on their knees, clinging to earth;
little children drifting—all dead. But the shades of the
dead with arms yet linked were fronting the edge of
the savage waters. None had turned away . . .</p>
<p class='pindent'>Once more I dreamed. The plain was free of
darkness, free of waters. The River, shrunk and
muddied, flowed again within its banks. And Dawn
was breaking.</p>
<p class='pindent'>At first it seemed to me that only trees stood on that
plain; then, in the ground mist fast clearing, I saw
the forms of men and women, children, beasts; and
I moved among them, looking at their faces—not
broad and prosperous, but grave from suffering,
carved and strong. And their eyes were shining.</p>
<p class='pindent'>While I stood thus watching, the sun rose, and, above
the plain clad in the hues of spring, the heaven
brightened to full morning. Amazed, I saw that the
stars had not gone in, but shone there in the blue.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And clear I heard the same Voice call: “Brothers!
Behold! The Stars are lit for ever!”</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='175' id='Page_175'></span><h1>FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From <span class='it'>Scribner’s Magazine</span>, 1914.)</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 1.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>Three hundred thousand church spires raised to the
glory of Christ! Three hundred million human creatures
baptized into His service! And—War to the
death of them all! “I trust the Almighty to give
the victory to my arms!” “Let your hearts beat to
God, and your fists in the face of the enemy!” “In
prayer we call God’s blessing on our valiant troops!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>God on the lips of each potentate, and under a
hundred thousand spires prayer that twenty-two
million servants of Christ may receive from God the
blessed strength to tear and blow each other to pieces,
to ravage and burn, to wrench husbands from wives,
fathers from their children, to starve the poor, and
everywhere destroy the works of the spirit! Prayer
under the hundred thousand spires for the blessed
strength of God, to use the noblest, most loyal instincts
of the human race to the ends of carnage! “God be
with us to the death and dishonour of our foes”—whose
God He is no less than ours! The God who gave His
only begotten Son to bring on earth peace and good-will
toward men! No supernatural creed—in these
days when two and two are put together—can stand
against such reeling subversion. After this monstrous
mockery, beneath this grinning skull of irony, how
shall there remain faith in this personal outside God,
whom we can thus divide, appropriate, and invoke;
how remain faith in the articles, the formal structure
of a religion preached and practised to such ends?
When this war is over and reason resumes its sway,
our dogmas will be found to have been scored through
for ever. Whatever else be the outcome of this
business, let us at least realize the truth: It is the
death of dogmatic Christianity! Let us will that it be
the birth of a God within us, and an ethic Christianity
that men really practise!</p>
<h2>§ 2.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>Yes! Dogmatic Christianity was dying before this
war began. When it is over, or as soon as men’s
reason comes back to them, it will be dead. In France,
England, Germany, in Belgium, and the other small
countries, dead; and only kept wonderingly alive in
Russia and some parts of Austria through peasant
simplicity. “Tell me, brother, what have the Japanese
done to us that we should kill them?” So said the
Russian peasant in the Japanese war. So they may say
in this war. And at the end go back and resume praise
of the tribal God who fought for Holy Russia against
the tribal God who fought for valiant Austria and the
mailed fists of Germany.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This superstitional Christianity will not die in the
open and be buried with pomp and ceremony; it will
merely be dead—a very different thing; like the nerve
in a tooth, that, to the outward eye, is just as it was.
That which will take its place has already been a long
time preparing to come forward. It will be too much
in earnest to care for forms and ceremonies. And one
thing is certain—it will be far more Christian than the
so-called Christianity which has brought us to these
present ends. Its creed will be a noiseless and passionate
conviction that man can be saved, not by a far-away,
despotic God who can be enlisted by each combatant
for the destruction of his foes, but by the
Divine element in man, the God within the human
soul. That, in proportion as man is high, so will the
life of man be high, safe from shames like this, and
devoid of his old misery. The creed will be a fervent,
almost secret application of the saying: “Love thy
neighbour as thyself!” It will be ashamed of appeal
to God to put right that which man has bungled;
of supplications to the deity to fight against the deity.
It will have the pride of the artist and the artizan.
And it will have its own mysticism, its own wonder,
and reverence for the mystery of the all-embracing
Principle which has produced such a creature as this
man, with such marvellous potentiality for the
making of fine things, and the living of fine lives; such
heroism, such savagery; such wisdom and such black
stupidity; such a queer insuperable instinct for going
on and on and ever on!</p>
<h2>§ 3.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>The Western world has had its lesson now—the
lesson indelibly writ in death: There is no longer
room in civilization for despotic Governments. In
Germany, in Austria, in the country where despotism
most reigns supreme—our ally, Russia—they are
doomed in theory, if not as yet in fact.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The Slav is no more by nature the enemy of the
Teuton than is the Briton of the Frank. That enmity is
a fostered thing of imperial and bureaucratic dreams.</p>
<p class='pindent'>What stands out from all this welter? The ambitious
diplomacy of the despotic Powers, in pursuit of so-called
“national ideals,” a diplomacy begotten of
vicious traditions and the misconceptions of egomania,
removed by a ring fence from the people of the nations
for whom it professes to speak. An ambitious and
cynical diplomacy, battening on the knowledge that
it can at almost any time raise for its ends a whirlwind
of feeling out of the love men ever have for the land
wherein they are born.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is the divorce of executive power from popular
sanction that has made possible this greatest of all the
disasters in history. In democratic countries the
aggressive faculty is imperceptibly yet continually
weakened by the obscure but real link between
ministers elect and the people. Only in those countries
where, under a cloak perhaps of democratic forms,
the administrative force is responsible to none save an
imperial director, is a ruthless and unchecked pursuit
of so-called national dreams, an aggressive parade
of so-called national honour, possible.</p>
<p class='pindent'>If only autocracies—masquerading or naked—go
down in the wreckage of this war!</p>
<h2>§ 4.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>The superstition that unmilitarized nations suffer
from fatty degeneration of the heart has perished in
the forty-fourth year of its age, at the siege of Liège,
blown away by the heroism of a little unmilitary
nation!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Democracy and citizen armies! If this war brings
that in its train its horror will not have been all hateful.
But so surely as States remain autocratic at heart
will the dire spirit that animates almighty bureaucracy
rear its head again and demand revenge. So surely
will this war bring another, and yet another! In these
last twenty years civilization has not even marked
time; it has gone backward under the curb and pressure
of professional armaments masquerading under
the words “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” The principle
of universal service by men not professionally soldiers,
the principle that no man shall be called to fight one
step outside his native land—save as part of an international
Police to enforce the authority of a League for
Peace—these are the only principles that will in the
future still the gnawings of anxiety and gradually
guarantee the peace of the West. They are principles
that, I fear, will never obtain while States are subject to
military bureaucracy and dynastic ambitions. If they
cannot be purged of these we are “doomed to something
great” every generation—the greatness of the
shambles! It is enough to make heart stand still and
brain reel for ever if one must believe that man is never
to find better means of keeping his spirit from rust,
his body from decay, than these sporadic outbursts
of “greatness.” “War is the only cleanser!” Ah!—because
the word “patriotism” has so limited a meaning.
But—to believe that this must always be . . . !
When men have ceased to look on war as the proper
vehicle for self-sacrifice, will they not turn to a greatness
that is not soaked with blood and black with the
crows of death, to save their souls alive? Will there
not, can there not, arise an emotion as strong as this
present patriotism—a sentiment as passionate and
sweeping, bearing men on to the use of every faculty
and the forgetfulness of self, for the salvation, instead
of the destruction, of their fellow-man? Or is this a
dream, and are we forever doomed, each generation,
to the greatness of tearing each other limb from
limb?</p>
<h2>§ 5.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>Three weeks before this war began I was in one of
those East End London parishes whose inhabitants
exist from hand to mouth on casual employment
and sweated labour; where the women, poor, thin,
overworked souls, have neither time nor strength nor
inclination for cleanliness and comeliness in person
or house; where the men are undersized and underfed,
with the faces of those without a future; where pale
and stunted children playing in the gutters have a
monopoly of any mirthless gaiety there is.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In one household of two rooms they were “free of
debt, thank Gawd!” having just come back from
fruit-picking, and were preparing to take up family
existence again on the wife’s making of matchboxes
at a maximum of six shillings a week, the husband
not having found a job as yet. In another household,
of one room swarming with flies and foul with a sickly
acrid odour, a baby was half-asleep on the few rags of
a bed bereft of bedclothes, its lips pressed to something
rubbery, and flies about its eyes; dirty bowls of
messes stood about; an offal heap lay in the empty
grate; and at a table in the little window a pallid
woman of forty with a running cold was desperately
sewing the soles on to tiny babies’ shoes. Beside
her was a small dirty boy, who had just been lost
and brought home by a policeman, because he had
remembered the name of the street he lived in. The
woman looked up at us wistfully, and said: “I thought
I’d lost ’im too, I did; like the one that fell in the
canal.” Though she still had seven, though her husband
was out of work, though she only made five to
six shillings a week, she could not spare any of the
children she had borne.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Prices have gone up. What is happening to such as
these? They exist in all countries. You military
bureaucrats, who safeguard and pursue “national
aspirations,” who open the gates of the kennel and let
loose these mad dogs of war; who rive husbands
from their wives, sons from their mothers, and send
them out by the hundred thousand to become lumps
of bloody clay—spare a fraction of time to see the
peoples for “whose good” you launch this glorious
murder; come and sniff for one moment that sickly,
acrid smell in the homes of the poor! And then talk
of national aspirations and necessities!</p>
<p class='pindent'>There is only one national aspiration worth the
name, only one national necessity—to have from roof
to basement a clean, healthy, happy national house.
“War the cleanser! Without war—no sacrifice, no
nobility!” I refer you to that mother, slaving without
hope and without glory, starved and ill, and
slaving in a war with death that lasts all her life,
for the children she has borne.</p>
<h2>§ 6.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>The Russian people is not Russia, unless it should
become so in this war. There has hitherto been an
almost absolute divorce between the essentially democratic
nature of the Russian and the despotic methods
by which Russia is governed. We English and French,
fighting not only for our lives, but for democracy, for
the decent preservation of treaty rights, and a humanity
that we believe can only flourish under democratic
rule, find it somewhat ironical that we have with us a
despotism. And there is a profound reason why it
has been and will be difficult for Russia to change its
form of government. The emotional, uncalculating
Russian has little sense of money, space, or time; he
falls an easy prey to those sterner, more matter-of-fact
than himself. Bureaucracy attracts the hard and
practical elements of a population; there are, or
were, many of Teutonic origin manning Russian
officialdom. And Russia is so huge; democratic
rule will find it difficult to be swift enough; in
decentralization there is danger of disruption.
Nevertheless, we welcome the help of Russia, for, if
France and we were beaten, it would not only be our
own deaths, but the death of democracy and humanism
in Europe—perhaps in the world. The tide of democracy
sets from the West. It must permeate Germany
before it reaches Russia. Out of this war many things
may come. If Fate grant that military despotisms
fall in any country, they may well fall in all, and our
ally, Russia, gain at last a Constitution and some real
measure of democratic freedom, some real coherence
between the Russian people and Russian policy.</p>
<h2>§ 7.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>When the conscript souls disembodied by this war
meet, if they meet at all, how will they talk of this last
madness? Perhaps one in each hundred will be able
to say from his heart: “I was happy with a rifle or
sword and some of you to be killed in front of me!”
The remaining ninety-nine will say: “Like you I
loved the sun, and a woman, and the good things of
life; like you I meant well by others; I had no wish
to kill any man; no wish to die. But I was told that it
was necessary. I was told that, unless I killed as
many of you as I could, my country would suffer. I
don’t know whether in my heart I believed what I was
told, but I did know that I should feel disgraced if I
did not take rifle and sword and try to kill some of you;
I knew, too, that unless I did, they would shoot me for
a deserter. So I went. Nearly all the time that I was
marching, or resting dead-tired, or lying in the trenches,
I thought; ‘Shall I ever see home again? Let me
see home again!’ But I knew that my first duty
was to kill you, so that <span class='it'>you</span> should never see home
again. I did not <span class='it'>want</span> to kill you, but I knew I had to.
When I was under fire or tired or hungry, it is true I
hated you so that I had only a savage wish to kill you.
But when it was over I had an ache in my heart. We
used to sing while marching, make jokes, enjoy the
feel of our comrades’ shoulders touching our own,
say to ourselves: ‘We’re fine fellows, serving our
country, doing our duty!’ But still the ache went
on underneath, very deep, as if one were asleep and
could not come to the end of a bad dream. We seldom
knew what our bullets were doing, but sometimes we
came to fighting hand to hand. The first time, I
remember, we had advanced through a wood under
shell-fire, and were lying down at the edge. I had that
ache all the time I was coming through the wood; it was
fine weather, and the larches smelled sweet. But when
I saw you charging down on us with the sun gleaming
on your bayonets, it left me; I felt weak and queer
down the backs of my legs, wondering which of you,
yelling and running towards me, would plunge his steel
into my stomach. Then my officer shouted; I fired
once, twice, three times, and began to run forward.
If I had not, I should have turned and fled. I did not
feel savage, but I knew I must move every bit of me
as quick as I could, and defend myself and stab.
Then our supports came through the wood, and you
were beaten. My bayonet was bloody. One or more
of you I must have killed; I had been brave, we had
won; I felt excited and yet sick. In the evening
when I lay down my ache was worse than ever. All my
life I had been taught that to kill a fellow-man was the
worst thing man can do; it did not come natural to
me to kill. It was having to risk my life so dear to
me, <span class='it'>in order that I might kill</span>, that gave me that ache.
If I had been risking it trying to save you, it would
have been more natural; I should not have ached
then!”</p>
<h2>§ 8.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>“The glories of war!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Courage, devotion, endurance, contempt of death!
These are glories that the unmartial may not deride.
Even the humblest of brave soldiers is a hero, for all
that his heroism coins the misery of others; but what
does the soldier know, see, feel, of the real “glories
of war”? That knowledge is confined to the readers
of newspapers and books! The Pressman, the
romancer, the historian can with glowing pen call up
in the reader a feeling that war is glorious; that there
is something in itself desirable and to be admired in
that licensed murder, arson, robbery that we call war.
Glorious war! Every penny thrill of each reader of
the newspaper, every spasm of each one who sees
armed men passing, or hears the fifes and drums, is
manufactured out of blood and groans, wrung out of
the torments of the human heart and the torture of
human flesh.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When I read in the paper of some glorious charge
and the great slaughter of the enemy, I feel a thrill
through every fibre. It is grand, it is splendid! I
take a deep breath of joy, almost of rapture. Grand,
splendid! That there should be lying, with their
faces haggard to the stars, hundreds, thousands of
men like myself, better men than myself! Hundreds,
thousands, who loved life as much as I; whose women
loved them as much as mine love me! Grand, splendid!
That the blood should be oozing from them into
grass that once smelled as sweet to them as it does to
me! That their eyes which delighted in sunlight and
beauty as much as mine, should be glazing fast with
death; that their mouths, which mothers and wives
and children are aching to kiss again, should be twisted
into gaps of horror! Grand, splendid! That other
men, no more savage than myself, should have strown
them, there! Grand, splendid! That in thousands of
far-off houses women, children, and old men will soon
lie quivering with anguished memories of those lying
there dead. . .</p>
<p class='pindent'>Pressmen, romancers, historians—you have given
me a noble thrill in recounting these glories of war!</p>
<h2>§ 9.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>This is the grand defeat of all Utopians, dreamers,
poets, philosophers, idealists, humanitarians, lovers of
peace and the arts; bag and baggage they are thrown
out of a world that has for a time no use for them.
To the despot, the bureaucrat, the militarist, the man
of affairs, they have always been hateful. They are
soft, yet dangerous, because they venture to hold up
another flag in the face of the big flag of force; venture
to distract men’s attention from dwelling on the
beauty of its size. I believe solemnly that we English
have had to join this carnival of force to guard
democracy, honour, and the sanctity of treaty rights.
It was a sacred necessity; let us keep it sacred,
without the loathsome reek of a satisfaction that
peace, humanism, and the arts are down, and the
country once more showing the stuff of which it is
made, a tusky lover of a fight, as jealous and afraid of
a rival as ever.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The idealist said in his heart: The god of force is
dead, or dying. He has been proven the fool that the
man of affairs and the militarist always said he was.
But the fools of this world—generally after they are
gone—have a way of moving men which the wise and
practical believers in force have not. If they had not
this power man would still be, year in year out, the
savage that the believers in force have for the moment
once more made him. The battle between the god of
love and the god of force endures for ever. Fools of
the former camp, drummed out and beaten to their
knees, in due time will get up again and plant their
poor flag a little farther on. “All men shall be
brothers,” said the German fool, Schiller; so shall the
fools say again when the time comes; and again, and
again, after every beating!</p>
<h2>§ 10.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>Last night, when the half-moon was golden and the
white stars very high, I saw the souls of the killed
passing. They came riding through the dark—some
on grey horses, some on black; they came marching,
white-faced—hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The night smelled sweet, the breeze rustled, the
stream murmured; and past me on the air the souls
of the killed came marching. They seemed of one great
company, no longer enemies. All had the same fixed
stare, braving something strange that they were trying
terribly to push away. All had their eyes narrowed
yet fixed open in their grey-white, smoke-grimed
faces. They made no sound as they passed. Whence
were they coming, where going, trailing the ghosts of
guns, riding the ghosts of horses; into what river of
oblivion—far from horror, and the savagery of man!</p>
<p class='pindent'>They passed. The golden half-moon shone, and the
high white stars. The fields smelled sweet; the wind
gently stirred the trees. The moon and stars would be
shining over the battlefields, the wind rustling the
trees there, the earth sleeping in dark beauty. So
would it be all over the Western world. The peace of
God doth indeed pass our understanding!</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='188' id='Page_188'></span><h1>THE HOPE OF LASTING PEACE</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From a <span class='it'>Symposium on</span> “<span class='it'>Nationality</span>,” 1915.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>In these times one dread lies heavy on heart and
brain—the thought that after all the unimaginable
suffering, waste, and sacrifice of this war nothing may
come of it, no real relief, no permanent benefit to
Europe, no improvement to the future of mankind.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The pronouncements of publicists: “This must
never happen again,” “Conditions for abiding peace
must be secured,” “The United States of Europe must
be founded,” “Militarism must cease”—all such are
the natural outcome of this dread. They are proclamations
admirable in sentiment and intention. But,
human nature being what it has been and is likely
to remain, we must face the possibility that nothing
will come of the war, save the restoration of Belgium
(that, at least, is certain); some alterations of boundaries;
a long period of economic and social trouble
more bitter than before; a sweeping moral reaction
after too great effort. Cosmically regarded, this war
is a debauch rather than a purge, and debauches have
always to be paid for.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Confronting the situation in this spirit, we shall be
the more rejoiced if any of our wider hopes should by
good fortune be attained.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Leaving aside the restoration of Belgium—for what
do we continue to fight? We go on, as we began,
because we all believe in our own countries and what
they stand for. And in considering how far the principle
of nationality should be exalted, one must
remember that it is in the main responsible for the
present state of things. In truth, the principle of
nationality of itself and by itself is a quite insufficient
ideal. It is a mere glorification of self in a world full
of other selves; and only of value in so far as it forms
part of that larger ideal, an international ethic, which
admits the claims and respects the aspirations of all
nations. Without that ethic little nations are (as at
the present moment) the prey—and, according to the
naked principle of nationality, the legitimate prey—of
bigger nations. Germany absorbed Schleswig,
Alsace-Lorraine, and now Belgium, by virtue of
nationalism, of an overweening belief in the perfection
of its national self. Austria would subdue Serbia from
much the same feeling. France does not wish to absorb
or subdue any European people of another race,
because France, as ever, a little in advance of her age,
is already grounded in this international ethic of solid
respect for the rights of all nations <span class='it'>which belong,
broadly speaking, to the same stage of development</span>. The
same may now be said of the other Western democratic
Powers, Britain and America, “To live and
let live,” “To dwell together in unity,” are the guiding
maxims of the international ethic, by virtue of which
alone have the smaller communities of men—the
Belgiums, Bohemias, Polands, Serbias, Denmarks,
Irelands, Switzerlands of Europe—any chance of
security in the maintenance of their national existence.
In short, the principle of nationality, unless it is prepared
to serve this international ethic, is but a frank
abettor of the devilish maxim: “Might is right.” All
this is truism; but truisms are often the first things we
forget.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The whole question of nationality in Europe bristles
with difficulties. It cannot be solved by theory and
rule of thumb. What is a nation? Shall it be determined
by speech, by blood, by geographical boundary,
by historic tradition? The freedom and independence
of a country can and ever should be assured
when with one voice it demands the same. It is seldom
so simple as that. Belgium, no doubt, is as one man.
Poland is one man in so far as the Poles are concerned,
but what of the Austrians, Russians, Germans settled
among them? What of Ireland split into two camps?
What of the Germans in Bohemia; in Alsace; in
Schleswig? Compromise alone is possible in many
cases, going by favour of majority. And there
will always remain the very poignant question of the
rights and aspirations of the minorities. Let us by
all means clear the air by righting glaring wrongs,
removing palpable anomalies, redressing obvious
injustices, securing so far as possible the independent
national life of homogeneous groups; but let us not,
dazzled by the glamour of a word, dream that by
restoring a few landmarks, altering a few boundaries,
and raising a pæan to the word “nationality” we can
banish all clouds from the sky of Europe and muzzle
the ambitions of the stronger nations.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In my belief the best hope for lasting peace, the
chief promise of security for the rights and freedom
of little countries, the most reasonable guarantee
of international justice and general humanity, lies in
the gradual growth of democracy, of rule by consent
of the governed. When Europe is all democratic,
and its civilization on one plane—instead of as
now on two—then and then only we shall begin to
draw the breath of real assurance. Then only will the
little countries sleep quietly in their beds. It is
conceivable, nay probable, that an ideal autocracy
could achieve more good for its country and for the
world at large in a given time than the rule of the most
enlightened democracy. It is certain that ideal autocracies
hold sway but once in a blue moon.</p>
<p class='pindent'>If proof be needed that the prevalence of democracy
will end aggression among nations that belong to the
same stage of development, secure the rights of small
peoples, foster justice and humaneness in man, let the
history of this last century and a half be well examined,
and let the human probabilities be weighed. Which
is the more likely to advocate wars of aggression? They
who, by age, position, wealth, are secure against the
daily pressure of life, they who have passed their time
out of touch with the struggle for existence, in an
atmosphere of dreams, ambitions, and power over other
men? Or they who every hour are reminded how hard
life is, even at its most prosperous moments, who have
nothing to gain by war, and all, even life, to lose; who
by virtue of their own struggles have a deep knowledge
of the struggles of their fellow-creatures; an
instinctive repugnance to making those struggles
harder; who have heard little and dreamed less of
those so-called “national interests” that are so
often mere chimeras; who love, no doubt, in their
inarticulate way, the country where they were born
and the modes of life and thought to which they are
accustomed, but know of no traditional and artificial
reasons why the men of other countries should not be
allowed to love their own lands and modes of thought
and life in equal peace and security?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Assuredly, the latter of these two kinds of men are
the less likely to favour ambitious projects and aggressive
wars. According as “the people,” through their
representatives, have or have not the final decision
in such matters, the future of Europe shall be made
of war or peace, of respect or of disregard for the
rights of little nations.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is advanced against democracies that the workers
of a country, ignorant and provincial in outlook,
have no grasp of international politics. True—in a
Europe where national ambitions and dreams are still
for the most part hatched and nurtured in nests
perched high above the real needs and sentiments of
the simple working folk who form nine-tenths of the
population in each country. But once those nests
of aggressive nationalism have fallen from their high
trees, so soon as all Europe conforms to the principle
of rule by consent of the governed, it will be found—as
it has already been found in France and in this
country—that the general sense of the community
informed by growing publicity (through means of communication
ever speeding-up) is quite sufficient trustee
of national safety; quite able, even enthusiastically
able, to defend its country from attack.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is said that democracies are liable to be swept by
gusts of passion, in danger of yielding to Press or mob
sentiment. But are not the peoples of democratic
countries as firmly counselled and held in check by
their responsible ministers and elected representatives
as are the peoples of autocratically governed countries?
What power of initiative have “the people” in either
case? They act only through their leaders. But their
leaders <span class='it'>are elected</span>—that is the point.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Representative Governments must answer for their
actions to their fellow-men. Autocratic Governments
need only answer to their gods. The eyes of representative
Governments are turned habitually inwards
towards the condition of the people whom they
represent. The eyes of autocratic Governments <span class='it'>may</span>
indeed be turned inwards, but what they usually see
of the people whom they do not represent is liable to
make them turn outwards. In other words, they find
in successful foreign adventure and imperialism a
potent safeguard against internal troubles.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The problem before the world at the end of this
war is how to eliminate the virus of an aggressive
nationalism that will lead to fresh outbursts of death.
It is a problem that I, for one, fear will beat the
powers and good-will of all, unless there should come
a radical change of Governments in Central Europe;
unless the real power in Germany and Austria-Hungary
passes into the hands of the people of those
countries, through their elected representatives, as
already it has passed in France and Britain. This is
in my belief the only chance for the defeat of militarism,
of that raw nationalism, which, even if beaten
down at first, will ever be lying in wait, preparing
secret revenge and fresh attacks. How this democratization
of Central Europe can be brought about I
cannot tell. It is far off as yet. But if this be not at
long last the outcome of the war, we may still, I fear,
talk in vain of the rights of little nations, of peace,
disarmament, of chivalry, justice, and humanity.
We may whistle for a changed Europe.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='194' id='Page_194'></span><h1>DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Amsterdamer Revue</span>, 1915.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>After many months of war, search for the cause
thereof borders on the academic. Comment on the
physical facts of the situation does not come within
the scope of one who by disposition and training is
concerned with states of mind.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But as to the result: The period of surprise is over;
the forces known; the issue fully joined. It is now a
case of “Pull devil, pull baker!” and a question of
the fibre of the combatants. For this reason it may not
be amiss to try to present to any whom it may concern
as detached a picture as one can of the real nature of
that combatant who is called the Englishman. Ignorance
in Central Europe of his character tipped the
balance in favour of war, and speculation as to the
future is useless without right comprehension of his
nature.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The Englishman is taken advisedly, because he represents
four-fifths of the population of the British Isles.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And first let it be said that there is no more unconsciously
deceptive person on the face of the globe.
The Englishman does not know himself; outside
England he is but guessed at.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Racially the Englishman is so complex and so old
a blend that no one can say what he is. In character
he is just as complex. Physically, there are two main
types: one inclining to length of limb, narrowness of
face and head (you will see nowhere such long and
narrow heads as in our islands), and bony jaws; the
other approximating more to the ordinary “John
Bull.” The first type is gaining on the second. There
is little or no difference in the main character behind.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In attempting to understand the real nature of the
Englishman, certain salient facts must be borne in
mind.</p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>The Sea.</span>—To be surrounded generation after
generation by the sea has developed in him a suppressed
idealism, a peculiar impermeability, a turn for
adventure, a faculty for wandering, and for being
sufficient unto himself in far and awkward surroundings.</p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>The Climate.</span>—Whoso weathers for centuries a
climate that, though healthy and never extreme,
is, perhaps, the least reliable and one of the wettest in
the world, must needs grow in himself a counter-balance
of dry philosophy, a defiant humour, an
enforced medium temperature of soul. The Englishman
is no more given to extremes than is his climate;
against its damp and perpetual changes he has become
coated with a sort of bluntness.</p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>The Political Age of his Country.</span>—This is by
far the oldest settled Western Power, politically speaking.
For eight hundred and fifty years England has
known no serious military disturbance from without;
for nearly two hundred she has known no serious
political turmoil within. This is partly the outcome
of her isolation, partly the happy accident of her
political constitution, partly the result of the Englishman’s
habit of looking before he leaps, which comes, no
doubt, from the climate and the mixture of his blood.
This political stability has been a tremendous factor
in the formation of English character, has given the
Englishman of all ranks a certain deep slow sense of
form and order, an engrained culture—if one may
pirate the word—that makes no show, being in the
bones of the man, as it were.</p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>The Great Preponderance for Several Generations
of Town over Country Life.</span>—Taken in
conjunction with centuries of political stability, this
is the main cause of a growing inarticulate humaneness,
of which—speaking generally—the Englishman
appears to be rather ashamed.</p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>The Public Schools.</span>—This potent element in the
formation of the modern Englishman, not only in the
upper but of all classes, is something that one rather
despairs of making understood—in countries which
have no similar institution. But! Imagine one
hundred thousand youths of the wealthiest, healthiest,
and most influential classes, passed, during each generation,
at the most impressionable age, into a sort
of ethical mould, emerging therefrom stamped to the
core with the impress of a uniform morality, uniform
manners, uniform way of looking at life; remembering
always that these youths fill seven-eighths of the
important positions in the professional administration
of their country and the conduct of its commercial
enterprise; remembering too, that, through perpetual
contact with every other class, their standard of
morality and way of looking at life filters down into
the very toes of the land. This great character-forming
machine is remarkable for an unself-consciousness
which gives it enormous strength and elasticity. Not
inspired by the State, it inspires the State. The characteristics
of the philosophy it enjoins are mainly
negative, and, for that, the stronger. “Never show
your feelings—to do so is not manly, and bores your
fellows. Don’t cry out when you’re hurt, making
yourself a nuisance to other people. Tell no tales about
your companions and no lies about yourself. Avoid
all ‘swank,’ ‘side,’ ‘swagger,’ braggadocio of speech
or manner, on pain of being laughed at.” (This
maxim is carried to such a pitch that the Englishman,
except in his Press, habitually understates everything.)
“Think little of money, and speak less of it. Play
games hard, and keep the rules of them, even when
your blood is hot and you are tempted to disregard
them. In three words: <span class='sc'>Play the Game</span>”—a little
phrase which may be taken as the characteristic
understatement of the modern Englishman’s creed
of honour, in all classes. This great, unconscious
machine has great defects. It tends to the formation
of “caste”; it is a poor teacher of sheer
learning; and, æsthetically, with its universal suppression
of all interesting and queer individual traits
of personality—it is almost horrid. Yet it imparts
a remarkable incorruptibility to English life; it conserves
vitality, by suppressing all extremes; and it
implants everywhere a kind of unassuming stoicism
and respect for the rules of the great game—Life.
Through its unconscious example, and through its
cult of games, it has vastly influenced even the classes
not directly under its control.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Three more main facts must be borne in mind:—</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<div class='lgl' style=''> <!-- rend=';' -->
<p class='line'><span class='sc'>Essential Democracy of Government.</span></p>
<p class='line'><span class='sc'>Freedom of Speech and the Press.</span></p>
<p class='line'><span class='sc'>Absence hitherto of Compulsory Military Service.</span></p>
</div> <!-- end rend -->
</div>
<p class='pindent'>These, the outcome of the quiet and stable home life
of an island people, have done more than anything to
make the Englishman a deceptive personality to the
outside eye. He has for centuries been licensed to
grumble. There is no such confirmed grumbler—until
he really has something to grumble at; and then,
no one perhaps who grumbles less. There is no such
confirmed carper at the condition of his country,
yet no one really so profoundly convinced that it is
the best in the world. A stranger might well think
from his utterances that he was spoiled by the freedom
of his life, unprepared to sacrifice anything for a land
in such a condition. Threaten that country, and with
it his liberty, and you will find that his grumbles have
meant less than nothing. You will find, too, that
behind the apparent slackness of every arrangement
and every individual are powers of adaptability to
facts, elasticity, practical genius, a spirit of competition
amounting almost to disease, and a determination,
that are staggering. Before this war began, it was the
fashion amongst a number of English to lament the
decadence of the race. These very grumblers are now
foremost in praising the spirit shown in every part of
their country. Their lamentations, which plentifully
deceived the outside ear, were just English grumbles; for
if, in truth, England had been decadent, there could have
been no such universal display for them to be praising
now. All this democratic grumbling, and habit of
“going as you please,” serve a deep purpose. Autocracy,
Censorship, Compulsion, destroy humour in a nation’s
blood and elasticity in its fibre; they cut at the very
mainsprings of national vitality. Only if reasonably
free from control can a man really arrive at what is
or is not national necessity, and truly identify himself
with a national ideal by simple conviction from
within.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Two words of caution to strangers trying to form an
estimate of the Englishman: He must not be judged
from his Press, which, manned (with certain exceptions)
by those who are not typically English, is much
too-highly-coloured to illustrate the true English spirit;
nor can he be judged from his literature.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The Englishman is essentially inexpressive, unexpressed.
Further, he must not be judged by the
evidence of his wealth. England may be the richest
country in the world per head of population, but not
5 per cent. of that population have any wealth to
speak of, certainly not enough to have affected their
hardihood; and, with inconsiderable exceptions,
those who have enough are brought up to worship
hardihood. For the vast proportion of Englishmen,
active military service is merely a change from work
as hard, and even more monotonous.</p>
<p class='pindent'>From these main premises, then, we come to what
the Englishman really is.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When, after months of travel, one returns to England,
he can taste, smell, and feel the difference in the
atmosphere, physical and moral—the curious damp,
blunt, good-humoured, happy-go-lucky, old-established,
slow-seeming formlessness of everything. You hail
a porter; if you tell him you have plenty of time,
he muddles your things amiably with an air of, “It’ll
be all right,” till you have only just time. But if you
tell him you have no time—he will set himself to catch
that train for you, and catch it faster than a porter
of any other country. Let no foreigner, however,
experiment to prove the truth of this, for a porter—like
any other Englishman—is incapable of taking a
foreigner seriously (after a year of war he is not even
yet taking the Germans seriously); and, quite friendly,
but a little pitying, will lose him the train, assuring the
unfortunate that he can’t possibly know what train he
wants to catch.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The Englishman must have a thing brought under his
nose before he will act; bring it there and he will go
on acting after everybody else has stopped. He lives
very much in the moment because he is essentially
a man of facts and not a man of imagination. Want
of imagination makes him, philosophically speaking,
rather ludicrous; in practical affairs it handicaps
him at the start; but once he has “got going”—as
we say—it is of incalculable assistance to his stamina.
The Englishman, partly through this lack of imagination
and nervous sensibility, partly through his inbred
dislike of extremes and habit of minimising the
expression of everything, is a perfect example of the
conservation of energy. It is very difficult to come to
the end of him. Add to this his unimaginative practicality,
and tenacious moderation, his inherent spirit
of competition—not to say pugnacity—a spirit of
competition so extreme that it makes him, as it were,
patronize Fate; add the sort of vulgarity that grows
like fungus on people who despise ideas and analysis,
and make a cult of unintellectuality; add a peculiar,
ironic, “don’t care” sort of humour; an underground
humaneness, and an ashamed idealism—and you get
some notion of the pudding of English character.
It has a kind of terrible coolness, a rather awful
level-headedness—by no means reflected in his Press.
The Englishman makes constant small blunders;
but few, almost no, deep mistakes. He is a slow
starter, but there is no stronger finisher, because
he has by temperament and training the faculty of
getting through any job he gives his mind to with
a minimum expenditure of vital energy; nothing is
wasted in expression, style, spread-eagleism; everything
is instinctively kept as near to the practical
heart of the matter as possible. He is—to the eyes of
an artist—distressingly matter-of-fact; a tempting
mark for satire. And yet he is at bottom an idealist,
though it is his nature to snub, disguise, and mock
his own inherent optimism. To admit enthusiasm
is “bad form” if he is a “gentleman”; and “swank,”
or mere waste of good heat, if he is not a “gentleman.”
England produces more than its proper percentage of
cranks and poets; this is Nature’s way of redressing
the balance in a country where feelings are not shown,
sentiments not expressed, and extremes laughed at.
Not that the Englishman is cold, as is generally supposed
in foreign countries—on the contrary, he is warm-hearted
and feels strongly; but just as peasants,
for lack of words to express their feelings, become
stolid, so does the Englishman, from sheer lack of
the habit of self-expression. The Englishman’s proverbial
“hypocrisy”—that which I myself have
dubbed his “island Pharisaism”—comes chiefly, I
think, from his latent but fearfully strong instinct for
competition which will not let him admit himself
beaten, or in the wrong, even to himself; and from
an ingrained sense of form that impels him always to
“save his face”; but partly it comes from his powerlessness
to explain his feelings. He has not the clear
and fluent cynicism of expansive natures, wherewith to
confess exactly how he stands. It is the habit of men
of all nations to want to have things both ways; the
Englishman wants it both ways, I think, more strongly
than any; and he is unfortunately so unable to express
himself, <span class='it'>even to himself</span>, that he has never realized this
truth, much less confessed it—hence his “hypocrisy.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>He is sometimes abused for being over-attached
to money. His island position, his early discoveries
of coal, iron, and processes of manufacture have
made him, of course, a confirmed industrialist and
trader; but he is more of an adventurer in wealth
than a heaper-up of it. He is far from sitting on his
money-bags—has no vein of proper avarice (the
humble Englishman is probably the least provident
man in the world)—and for national ends he will spill
out his money like water, if convinced of the necessity.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In everything it comes to that with the Englishman—he
must be convinced; and he takes a lot of
convincing. He absorbs ideas slowly; would rather
not imagine anything decidedly till he is obliged;
but in proportion to the slowness with which he
can be moved, is the slowness with which he can be
removed! Hence the symbol of the bulldog. When
he does see and seize a thing, he holds fast.</p>
<p class='pindent'>For the particular situation which the Englishman
has now to face, he is terribly well adapted. Because
he has so little imagination, so little power of expression,
he is saving nerve all the time. Because he never
goes to extremes he is saving energy of body and
spirit. That the men of all nations are about equally
endowed with courage and self-sacrifice, has been
proved in these last six months; it is to other qualities
that one must look for final victory in a war of exhaustion.
The Englishman does not look into himself;
he does not brood; he sees no further forward than is
necessary; and he must have his joke. These are
fearful and wonderful advantages. Examine the
letters and diaries of the various combatants, and you
will see how far less imaginative and reflecting (though
often shrewd, practical, and humorous) the English
are than any others; you will gain, too, a deep, a
deadly conviction that behind them is a fibre like
rubber, that may be frayed and bent a little this way
and that, but can neither be permeated nor broken.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When this war began, the Englishman rubbed his
eyes steeped in peace, he is still rubbing them just a
little, but less and less every day. A profound lover
of peace by habit and tradition, he has actually
realized by now that he is “in for it” up to the neck. To
any one who really knows him—that is a portent!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Let it be freely confessed that from an æsthetic
point of view the Englishman, devoid of high lights
and shadows, coated with drab, and superhumanly
steady on his feet, is not too attractive. But for the
wearing, tearing, slow, and dreadful business of this
war, the Englishman—fighting of his own free will,
unimaginative, humorous, competitive, practical, never
in extremes, a dumb, inveterate optimist, and terribly
tenacious—is equipped with victory.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='204' id='Page_204'></span><h1>OUR LITERATURE AND THE WAR</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From <span class='it'>The Times</span> Literary Supplement, 1915.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>For the purpose of the following speculations the
word Literature is used to describe the imaginative
work of artists and thinkers—that is, of writers who
have had, and will have, something to say of more or
less lasting value; it leaves out the work of those who,
for various reasons, such as patriotic sentiment, or
the supplying of the Public with what it may be supposed
to want, will, no doubt, dish up the war as a
matter of necessity, whether serving it wholesale in
eight courses, or merely using it as sauce to the customary
meat and fish.</p>
<p class='pindent'>How will our literature, thus defined, be affected
by the war? Will it be affected at all?</p>
<p class='pindent'>One must first remember that to practically all
imaginative writers of any quality war is an excrescence
on human life, a monstrous calamity and evil. The
fact that they recognize the gruesome inevitability
of <span class='it'>this</span> war, in so far as the intervention of our country
is concerned, does not in any way lessen their temperamental
horror of war in itself, of the waste and the
misery, and the sheer stupid brutality thereof.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The nature of the imaginative artist is sensitive,
impressionable; impatient of anything superimposed;
thinking and feeling for itself; recoiling from conglomerate
views and sentiment. It regards the whole
affair as a dreadful though sacred necessity, to be got
through somehow, lest there be lost that humane
freedom which is the life-blood of any world where the
creative imagination and other even more precious
things can flourish. The point is that there is no
glamour about the business—none whatever, for this
particular sort of human being. Writers to whom war
is glamorous (with the few exceptions that prove the
rule) are not those who produce literature. We must
therefore discount at once prophecies that the war will
lift literature on to an epic plane, cause it to glow and
blow with heroic deeds, and figures eight feet high.
They come from those who do not know the temperament
of the imaginative artist, his fundamental independence,
and habit of revolting against what is
expected of him. But the whole thing is much deeper
than that.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It seems to be forgotten by some who write on this
matter that the producer of literature has been giving
of his best in the past, and will be able to do no more in
the future. The first thing that has mattered to him
has been (in the words of de Maupassant, but which
might have been those of any other first-rate writer)
“to make something fine, in the form that shall best
suit him according to his temperament.” No amount
of wars can vary for the artist that ideal—as it was for
him, so it will be. It seems also to be thought that the
war has been a startling revelation to the imaginative
writer of the heroism in human nature. This is
giving him credit for very little imagination. The
constant tragedies of peace—miners entombed, sinking
liners, volcanic eruptions, outbreaks of pestilence,
together with the long endurances of daily life, are
always bringing home to any sensitive mind the
inherent heroism of men and women. The very glut
of heroism in this war is likely, as it were, to put an
artist’s nature off, to blunt the edge of perceptions that
are always groping after fresh sensation, that <span class='it'>must</span>
be always groping, in order that expression may be of
something really felt—for novelty is, of all, the greatest
spur to sharp feeling.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The top notes of human life and conduct can be but
sparingly sung, or they grate on the nerves, and jar
the hearing of the singer, no less than of his listener.
By some mysterious law frontal attacks to capture
heroism and imprison it in art are almost always
failures. Few of the great imagined figures of literature
are heroic.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Another thing is forgotten. The real artist does
not anticipate and certainly cannot regulate the
impulses that shall move his brain and heart and hand.
What exactly starts him off, even he cannot tell. He
will never write heroics to the order of the Public.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Ah! but he will now be influenced unconsciously
in the choice of subjects by sympathy with the fine
deeds of the day, a lift will come into his work, his
eyes will be raised to the stars! True, perhaps, for the
moment; but, then, such times as these are in many
ways unfavourable to the creative instinct; moreover
they will leave in restless, sensitive natures lassitude,
recoil, a sense of surfeit. Quite probably the war may
produce a real masterpiece or two, formed out of its
very stuff, by some eager mind innocent hitherto of
creative powers, for whom actual experience of the sights
and feelings of war may be a baptism into art. Almost
certainly there will come of it a masterpiece or two of
satire. But, generally speaking, this welter of sacrifice
and suffering, the sublimity and horror of these
days, their courage and their cruelty, are enveloping
the writer like the breath of a sirocco, whirling his
brain and heart around at the moment, but likely
to leave him with an intense longing for a deep draught
of peace, and quiet scented winds. On one whose whole
natural life is woven, not of deeds, but of thoughts and
visions, moods and dreams, all this intensely actual
violence, product of utterly different natures from his
own, offspring of men of action and affairs, cannot
have the permanent, deepening, clarifying influence
that long personal experience or suffering have had on
some of the world’s greatest writers—on Milton in
his blindness; on Dostoevsky, reprieved at the very
moment of death, then long imprisoned; on de Maupassant
in his fear of coming madness; on Tolstoi
in the life-struggle of his dual nature; on Beethoven
in his deafness, and Nietzsche in his deadly sickness.
It is from the stuff of his own life that the creative
writer moulds out for the world something fine,
in the form that best suits him, following his
own temperament. His momentary and, perhaps,
intense identification with the struggle of this war
has in it something spasmodic, feverish, and almost
false; a kind of deep and tragic inconsistency. It is
too foreign to the real self within him. At one
time it was said of certain new troops: “They’re
first-rate, except for one thing—they <span class='it'>will not</span> bayonet
the Germans.” It is like that in the artist writer’s
soul—with the work of his hands, the words of his
lips, his thoughts and the feelings of his heart, he
identifies himself with this war drama, yet in the
very depths of him he recoils. What would you
have? The artist-man has but one nature.</p>
<p class='pindent'>For all these reasons the war is likely to have little
deep or lasting influence on literature. But one
immediate effect it may surely have. Let who will
snatch a moment in these days to be with Nature—let
him go into a wood, or walk down the Flower
Walk in Kensington Gardens, of a fine afternoon. On
the still birch trees a pigeon will be sitting motionless
among the grey twig tracery; the cedar-branches are
dark and flat on the air; the sun warms the cheek,
and brightens the cream and pink chestnut and maple
buds just opening; the waxy hyacinths deepen in
hue, and the little green shoots everywhere swell as he
gazes. A sensation of delight begins to lift his heart,
he takes a deep breath; and suddenly, from a bench he
hears: “One of ’em’s alive an’ two’s dead.” Or:
“The Germans are movin’ ’em!” Gone is the beginning
of delight. The heavy hand comes down again.
No good! There is no Spring! The sky is <span class='it'>not</span> bright.
The heart cannot rejoice. As with any man, so, and
even more, with the artist-writer. When the war is
over and the heavy hand lifted, his heart and brain
will rush to that of which he has been deprived too
long—will rush to the beauty which, for sheer pity
and horror, he cannot now enjoy, will rush as a starved
and thirsting creature. There may well be an instant
outburst of joyful and sensuous imaginings; a painting
of beauty, not faked but really felt, by brushes at
once more searching and yet softer.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And very likely, too, there will be a spurt of zest
and frankness, as from men who have been too long
constrained to a single emotion under the spell of a
powerful drug.</p>
<p class='pindent'>One more thought may be jotted down. Unless the
national unity now prevailing lasts on into the years
of peace that follow, the country will certainly pass
through great internal stress. That stress will most
likely have a more intimate and powerful influence
upon literature than the war itself. If there is to come
any startling change, it should be five or ten years
after the war rather than at once.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='210' id='Page_210'></span><h1>ART AND THE WAR</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Atlantic Monthly</span> and <span class='it'>Fortnightly Review</span>, 1915.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>Monsieur Rodin—perhaps the greatest living
artist—has lately defined art as the pursuit of beauty,
and beauty as “the expression of what there is best
in man.” “Man,” he says, “needs to express in a
perfect form of art all his intuitive longings towards
the Unknowable.” His words may serve as warning
to those who imagine that the war will loosen one root
of the tree of art—a tree which has been growing
slowly since first soul came into men’s eyes.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This world (as all will admit) is one of the innumerable
expressions of an Unknowable Creative Purpose,
which colloquially we call God; that which not every
one will admit is that this Creative Purpose works in
its fashioning not only of matter but of what we call
spirit, through friction, through the rubbing together
of the noses, the thoughts, and the hearts of men.
While the material condition of our planet—the heat
or friction within it—remains favourable to human
life, there will, there must needs be, a continual crescendo
in the stature of Humanity, through the
ever-increasing friction of human spirits one with the
other; friction supplied by life itself, and, next after
life, by those transcripts of life, those expressions
of human longing, which we know as art. Art for art’s
sake—if it meant what it said, which is doubtful—was
always a vain and silly cry. As well contend that
an artist is not a man. Art was ever the servant as
well as the mistress of men, and ever will be. Civilization,
which after all is but the gradual conversion of
animal man into human man, has come about through
art even more than through religion, law, and science.
For the achieved “expression of man’s intuitive longing
towards the Unknowable, in more or less perfect
forms of art” has ever—after life itself—been the chief
influence in broadening men’s hearts.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The aim of human life no doubt is happiness. But,
after all, what is happiness? Efficiency, wealth, material
comfort? Many by their lives do so affirm;
few are cynical enough to say so; and on their death-beds
none will feel that they are. Not even freedom
in itself brings happiness. Happiness lies in breadth
of heart. And breadth of heart is that inward freedom,
which has the power to understand, feel with, and, if
need be, help others. In breadth of heart are founded
justice, love, sacrifice; without it there would seem
no special meaning to any of our efforts, and the tale of
all human life would still be no more than that of
very gifted animals, many of whom, indeed, are highly
efficient, and have unity partly instinctive, partly
founded on experiences of the utility thereof; but none
of whom have that conscious altruism which is without
perception of benefit to self, and works from sheer
recognition of its own beauty. In sum, human civilization
is the growth of conscious altruism; and the
directive moral purpose in the world nothing but our
dim perception, ever growing through spiritual friction,
that we are all bound more and more towards the
understanding of ourselves and each other, and all
that this carries with it. To imagine, then, that a conflagration
like this war, however vast and hellish, will
do aught but momentarily retard the crescendo of that
understanding, is to miss perception of the whole slow
process by which man has become less and less an
animal throughout the ages; and to fear that the war
will scorch and wither art, that chief agent of understanding,
is either to identify oneself with the petty
and eclectic views which merely produce æsthetic
excrescences, or to be frankly ignorant of what art
means.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Recognition of the relativity of art is constantly
neglected by those who talk and write about it. For
one school the audience does not exist; for another
nothing but the audience. Obviously neither view
is right. Art may be very naïve and still be art—still be
the expression of a childish vision appealing to childish
visions, making childish hearts beat. Thus:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<div class='poetry-container' style=''>
<div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' -->
<div class='stanza-outer'>
<p class='line0'>“Mary had a little lamb,</p>
<p class='line0'>   Its wool was white as snow,</p>
<p class='line0'> And everywhere that Mary went</p>
<p class='line0'>   The lamb was sure to go,”</p>
</div>
</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend -->
</div>
<p class='noindent'>is art to the child of five, whose heart and fancy it
affects. And:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<div class='poetry-container' style=''>
<div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' -->
<div class='stanza-outer'>
<p class='line0'>“Tiger, tiger, burning bright</p>
<p class='line0'> Through the forests of the night—</p>
<p class='line0'> What immortal hand and eye</p>
<p class='line0'> Framed thy fearful symmetry?”</p>
</div>
</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend -->
</div>
<p class='noindent'>is art to the writer and the reader of these words.</p>
<p class='pindent'>On the other hand, Tolstoi, in limiting art to such
of it as might be understanded of simple folk, served
his purpose of attacking the extravagant dandyisms
of æstheticism, but fell lugubriously short of the wide
truth. The essence of art is the power of communication
between heart and heart. Yes! But since no
one shall say to human nature: “Be of this or that
pattern,” or to the waves of human understanding:
“Thus far and no further,” so no man shall say these
things to art.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Anybody can draw a tree, but few can draw a tree
that others can see is like a tree, and not one in a
million can convey the essential spirit of Tree. The
power of getting over the footlights to some audience
or other is clearly necessary before a man can be called
an artist by any but himself. But so soon as he has
established genuine connection between his creation
and the gratified perception of others, he is making
art, though it may be, and usually is, very childish
art. The point to grasp is this, and again this: Art
is rooted in life for its inspiration, and dependent for
its existence as art on affecting other human beings,
sooner or later. The statue, the picture, or the book
which, having been given a proper chance, has failed
to move any but its creator, is certainly not art. It
does not follow that the artist should consider his
public, or try to please others than his own best self;
but if, in pleasing his best self, he does not succeed in
pleasing others, in the past, the present, or the future,
he will certainly not have produced art. Not, of
course, that the size of his public is proof of an artist’s
merit. The public of all time is generally but a small
public at any given moment. Tolstoi seems to have
forgotten that, and to have neglected the significance
attaching to the quality of a public. For, if the
essence of art be its power of bridging between heart
and heart (as he admitted), its value may well be
greater if at first it only reaches and fertilizes the
hearts of other artists rather than those of the
public, for through these other artists it sweeps
out again in further circles and ripples of expression.
Art is the universal traveller, essentially
international in influence. Revealing the spirit of
things lying behind parochial surfaces and circumstance,
delving down into the common stuff of nature
and human nature, and recreating therefrom, it passes
ten thousand miles of space, ten thousand years of
time, and yet appeals to the men it finds on those far
shores. It is the one possession of a country which
that country’s enemies usually still respect and take
delight in. War—destructive outcome of the side of
man’s nature which is hostile to all breadth of heart—can
for the moment paralyse the outward activities of
art, but can it ever chain its spirit, or arrest the inner
ferment of the creative instinct? For thousands of
generations war has been the normal state of man’s
existence, yet alongside war has flourished art, reflecting
man’s myriad aspirations and longings, and,
by innumerable expressions of individual vision and
sentiment, ever unifying human life, through the
common factor of impersonal emotion passing from
heart to heart by ways more invisible than the winds
travel, carrying the seeds and pollen of herb life. If
one could only see those countless tenuous bridges
spun by art, a dewy web over the whole lawn of life!
If for a moment we could see them, discouragement
would cease its uneasy buzzing. What can this war
do that a million wars have not? It is bigger, and
more bloody—the reaction from it will but be the
greater. If every work of art existing in the Western
world were obliterated, and every artist killed, would
human nature return to the animalism from which
art has in a measure raised it? Not so. Art makes
good in the human soul all the positions that it
conquers.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When the war is over, the world will find that the
thing which has changed least is art. There will be
less money to spend on it; some artists will have been
killed; certain withered leaves, warts, and dead
branches will have sloughed off from the tree; and that
is all. The wind of war reeking with death will neither
have warped nor poisoned it. The utility of art, which
in these days of blood and agony is mocked at, will be
rising again into the view even of the mockers, almost
before the thunder of the last shell has died away.
“Beauty is useful,” says Monsieur Rodin. Aye! it
is useful!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Who knows whether, even in the full whirlwind of
this most gigantic struggle, art work may not be produced
which, in sum of its ultimate effect on mankind,
will outlive and outweigh the total net result of that
struggle, just as the work of Euripides, Shakespeare,
Leonardo, Beethoven, and Tolstoi outweighed the
net result of the Peloponnesian, sixteenth century,
Napoleonic, and Crimean wars? War is so unutterably
tragic, because—without it—Nature, given time,
would have attained the same ends in other ways. A
war is the spasmodic uprising of old savage instincts
against the slow and gradual humanizing of the animal
called man. It emanates from restless and so-called
virile natures fundamentally intolerant of men’s
progress towards the understanding of each other—natures
that often profess a blasphemous belief in art,
a blasphemous alliance with God. It still apparently
suffices for a knot of such natures to get together, and
play on mass fears and loyalties, to set a continent
on fire. And at the end? Those of us who are able
to look back from thirty years hence on this tornado
of death will conclude with a dreadful laugh that if it
had never come the state of the world would be very
much the same.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is not the intention of these words to deny the
desperate importance of this conflict <span class='it'>now that it has
been joined</span>. Humanism and Democracy have been
forced into a sudden and spasmodic death-grapple
with their arch-enemies; and the end of that struggle
must be brought into conformity with the slow, sure,
general progress of mankind. But if, by better fortune,
this fearful conflict had not been forced upon civilization,
the same victory would have made good, in course
of time, by other processes. That is the irony. For, of
a surety, wars or no wars—the future is to Humanism.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But art has no cause to droop its head, nor artists
to be discouraged. They are the servants of the future
every bit as much as, and more than, they have been
the servants of the past; they are even the faithful
servants of the present, for they must keep their
powers in training, and their vision keen against
the time when they are once more accounted of. A
true picture is a joy that will move hearts some day,
though it may not sell now, nor even for some years
after the war; beauty none the less “the expression
of what there is best in man” because the earth is
being soaked with blood.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Monsieur Sologub, the Russian poet, speaking
recently on the future of art, seems to have indicated
his view that after the war art will move away from
the paths of naturalism; and he defines the naturalists
as “people who describe life from the standpoint of
material satisfaction.” With that definition I do not
at all agree, but it is never good to argue about words.
Confusion in regard to the meaning of terms describing
art activity is so profound that it is well to sweep them
out of our minds, and, in considering what forms art
ought to take, go deep down to the criterion of communication
between heart and heart. The only essential
is, that vision, fancy, feeling should be given the
concrete clothing that shall best make them perceptible
by the hearts of others; the simpler, the more
direct and clear and elemental the form, the better;
and that is all you can say about it. To seek remote,
intricate, and “precious” clothings for the imagination
is but to handicap vision and imperil communication
and appeal; the artists who seek them are not usually
of much account. The greatness of Blake is the greatness
of his simpler work. Though, in this connection,
it is as much affectation to pretend that men are more
childish than they are, as to pretend that they all have
the subtlety of a Robert Browning. If the range of an
artist’s vision, the essential truth of his fancy, and the
heat of his feeling be great, then, obviously, the simpler,
the more accessible the form he takes, the wider will
be his reach, the deeper the emotion he stirs, the greater
the value of his art.</p>
<p class='pindent'>“What is wanted,” says Monsieur Sologub, “is
true art.” Quite so! What is wanted in a work of
art is an unforced natural and adequate correspondence
between fancy and form, matter and spirit,
so that one shall not be distracted by its naturalism,
mysticism, cubism, whatnotism, but shall simply be
moved in a deep impersonal way by perception of
another’s vision. Two instances come into the mind:
A picture of Spring, by Jean François Millet, in the
Louvre. Therein, by simple selection, without any
departure whatever from the normal representation of
life, the very essence of Spring, the brooding and the
white flash of it, the suspense and stir, the sense of
gathered torrents, all the special emotion, which, every
Spring of the year, is sooner or later felt by every heart,
has been stored by the painter’s vision and feeling,
and projected from his eyes and heart to other eyes
and hearts.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And: Those chapters in a novel of Monsieur Sologub’s
compatriot, Turgenev—“Fathers and Children”—which
describe with the simplest naturalism the
death of Bazarov. There, too, is the heart-beat of
emotion as universal as it well can be, rendered so
vividly that one is not conscious at all of how it is
rendered.</p>
<p class='pindent'>These are two cases of that complete welding of form
and spirit which is all one need or should demand of
art; the rest is a mere question of the artist’s emotional
quality and stature. Art, in fact, will take all paths
after the war just as before; and now and then the
artist will fashion that true blend of form and fancy
which is the achievement of beauty.</p>
<p class='pindent'>For Monsieur Rodin, beauty is the adoration of all
that man perceives with his spiritual senses. Yes.
And the task of artists is to kneel before life till they
rive the heart from it and with that heart twine their
own; out of such marriages come precious offspring,
winged messengers.</p>
<p class='pindent'>There is a picture of Francesca’s in the Louvre,
too much restored—some say it is not a Francesca,
but if not, then neither are they Francescas in the
English National Gallery, and those, so far as I know,
are not disputed—a picture of the Virgin, with hands
pressed together, before her naked Babe, in a landscape
of hills and waters. Her kneeling figure has in
it I cannot tell what of devotion and beauty, which
makes the heart turn over within one. With his
spiritual senses the painter has perceived, and in
adoration set down what he has seen, mingling with
it the longings of his own heart. And they who look
on that picture know for evermore what devotion and
beauty are. And if they be artists, they go away
fortified again to the taking up of a long quest.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This is the utility of art. It plays between men
like light, showing the heights and depths of nature,
beckoning on, or warning of destruction, and ever
through emotion revealing heart to heart. It is the
priestess of Humanism, confirming to us our future,
reassuring our faltering faith in our own approach
to the Unknowable, till the tides of the Creative Purpose
turn, and our world gets cold; and Man, having
lived his day to the uttermost, finds gradual sleep.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='219' id='Page_219'></span><h1>TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Book of Italy</span>, 1916.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>Most of us who have lived a good long time have
found some part of the world to look on as the happy
hunting-ground of our spirits, the place most blessed
by memory. And within that sacred circle there will
be some spot, above all others, enchanted.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Tre Cime di Lavaredo! Drei Zinnen! You three
rock mountains above Misurina of the Italian Tyrol—how
many times have we not climbed up, to lie on your
high stony slopes, steeping our eyes in wild form and
colour, wherefrom even a dull spirit must take wings
and soar a little! Width of thought is surely born, in
some sort, of majestic sights—cloud forms, and a
burning sky, rock pinnacles, and wandering, deep-down
valleys, the gray-violet shadows on the hills,
the frozen serenity of far snows. All the outspread
miracle there lies fan-shaped to the south, south-east,
south-west, having that warmth which so makes the
heart rejoice the moment one passes over and looks
southward from any mountain. What traveller does
not feel strange loveliness steal up into his soul from
southern slopes? Domodossola below the Simplon;
Val d’Aosta beyond the Matterhorn; Bormio beneath
the Stelvio; and many another holy place. It is not
merely charm and mellowness—the South can be
savage as the North—it is some added poignancy of
form and colour, and a look of being blessed.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Tre Cime di Lavaredo! Music comes drifting up
your slopes, from pasture far down enough to give
magic to cow-bells.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But now, where but three years ago we watched a
little white cow licking its herd’s sprained hand, men
are fighting to the death. Batteries must be adorning
that steep forcella running from the refuge hut. A
new kind of thunder reverberates, in whose roar the
stones that were for ever falling will have lost their
voices. And the beasts, the gray, the dun, the white,
mild-eyed—their pasture below must be a desert!
Even the goats surely have gone. Or do they and
their young masters attend placidly on these new
mysteries, just pricking their ears now and again at
some too raucous clap and clatter of guns?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Let those who are killed up there be buried in their
tracks! Out of their bodies on the lower slopes a few
more flowers will spring—gentian, mountain-dandelion,
alpen-rose; and higher, nearer those peaks, they will
be grateful food for root of edelweiss. And may their
spirits—if men have such after death—stay up on
those wild heights! Nowhere else could they have
such free flitting space! Friend-spirit, foe-spirit,
they will fight no more, but on the winter nights in
comradeship haunt the frozen hills, where no shred
of man or beast or bird or plant is left, till Spring
comes again.</p>
<p class='pindent'>To fight up here, where Nature has designed one vast
demonstration of her own fierce untameness, of all
the stubborn face she opposes to the crafts of man!
What irony! Up in this wild stony citadel, among
these rock minarets and red-and-gold-stained bastions,
above ravines remote from man—up here, where in
winter all is ice, and even in summer no green thing
grows; on these invincible outposts of an earth not
yet subdued by incalculable human toil throughout
a million years; among these sublime unconquered
monuments, reminding us of labour and peril infinite
in our long death-grip with Nature—up here man has
fellow-man by the throat. Yea! Irony complete!
Nor the less perfect in that each soldier on these
heights who in duty clubs his fellow-Christian’s brains
out, or sends forth the shell that shall mingle his
body with the rock rubble and the edelweiss, and sets
up a little cross, perhaps, to the departed soul, is a
true hero, holding his life in his hand, throwing it
down grandly for his country’s honour. Verily we
are strange animals, we men—little walking magazines
of too great vitality! Out of our sheer rampancy
comes war; as though superfluity of vital fluid were
for ever accumulating, to free ourselves of which we
have found as yet no better way than this. Shall we
never learn to spend the surplus of our vital force in
efforts of salvation rather than destruction? If the
mountains cannot teach us, and the wide night skies
above them, sparkling with other worlds, then nothing
will. For on mountains and beneath such skies man
feels at his greatest, flies far in fancy, dreams of nobility;
yet does he perceive what a puny midget of a creature
walks on his two feet, glad of any little help he can get
or give, glad of good-will from any living thing. In
loneliness up here he would soon be frozen and starved,
or slip to death. His tiny strength, his feeble cunning,
would avail him but short span. Unroped to other
men, he is but a sigh in the night, a cross of bleaching
lime in to-morrow’s sunlight. . . .</p>
<p class='pindent'>Tre Cime di Lavaredo! Golden sounds of a golden
speech! When, if ever, we see your beloved rocks
again, that may be your only name; no longer perhaps
will the words Drei Zinnen compete for you . . . But
will you know the difference? As of old, gigantic,
silent, or, clamorously, in the loosening rains and heat,
casting down your stones—you will lift up your black
defiance in the clear mountain nights, your grandeur
to the sun by day.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Once we saw you with the young moon flying toward,
like a white swallow, like an arrow aimed at your
hearts, as it might be in duel between bright swiftness
and dark strength. The moon was vanquished—for
she flew into you that stood unmoved.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Tre Cime di Lavaredo! You will outlast the race
of men upon this earth. When we, quarrelsome
midget heroes that we be, are all frozen from this planet,
you will be there, whitened for ever from head to
foot. You will have no name, then—neither of North
nor South!</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='223' id='Page_223'></span><h1>SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From <span class='it'>Scribner’s Magazine</span>, 1915.)</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 1.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>I went out into the wind—the first south-west
wind after many days of easterly drought. All the
morning it had rained, but now the gray sky was torn;
the sun shone, and long white clouds were driven over
pools of blue, or piled up into heavenly mountains.
The land of moor and valley, the hills and fields
and woods gleamed in the sunlight, or were shadowed
dark by the drifting clouds. Moss on the top of the
old gray walls was wet, but warm to the touch; the
birds—daws, pigeons, hawks—flung themselves at
the wind. And the scent! Every frond of the bracken,
each sprig of the gorse and the heather, all the soughing
boughs of young pine-tree and oak, and the grass,
gray-powdered with rain, were exhaling their fragrance
so that each breath drawn was a draught of wild
perfume.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And in one’s heart rose an ecstasy of love for this
wind-sweetened earth, for the sun, and the clouds,
the rain, and the wind, the trees and the flowering
plants, for the streams and the rocks—for this earth
which breeds us all, and into which we reabsorb, a
passion as untutored, wild, and natural as the love of
life in the merest dumb thing that knows nothing of
ideals, of country, realms and policies, nothing of war.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Germany calls the war “this English war;” we
English as fervently believe it a Prussian war, having
deep root in Prussian will, and history. One thing is
certain: At the last moment the world, desperately
balancing, was thrust over the edge of the abyss by a
sudden swoop of the Prussian war party.</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“Pourtales (German Ambassador to Russia) called
Sazonoff’s attention in the most serious manner to the
fact that nowadays measures of mobilization would
be a highly dangerous form of diplomatic pressure;
for in that event the purely military consideration of
the question by the General Staffs would find expression,
and that <span class='it'>if that button were once touched in Germany</span>
the situation would get out of control.” (Count
Szapary, Austrian Ambassador to Russia. Austrian
Book, No. 28.)<a id='r8'/><a href='#f8' style='text-decoration:none'><sup><span style='font-size:0.9em'>[8]</span></sup></a></p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>In a Europe teeming with mutual fears a few men,
perhaps not a score in all, have had the power to strip
from millions their meed of life on this wind-sweetened
earth! For myths conceived in a few ambitious
brains, and the “strike-first” theory of a knot of
strategists, the whole world must pay with grief and
agony! What can we do, when this war is over, to
insure that we shall not again be stampeded by professional
soldiers, and those—in whatever country—who
dream paper dreams of territory, trade, and glory,
caring nothing for the lives of the simple, knowing
nothing of the beauty of the earth which is their
heritage.</p>
<hr class='footnotemark'/>
<div class='footnote'>
<table summary='footnote_8'>
<colgroup>
<col span='1' class='footnoteid'/>
<col span='1'/>
</colgroup>
<tr><td style='vertical-align:top;'>
<div class='footnote-id' id='f8'><a href='#r8'>[8]</a></div>
</td><td>
<p class='pindent'>Since this was written Maximilian Harden in his paper
<span class='it'>Zukunft</span> has used these words: “Germany is calumniated when
it is said that she wanted war, not to defend herself, but in order
to conquer. But it is equally false to suppose that England,
France, or Russia, who were either not armed at all, or only half
ready . . . deliberately planned an attack. The outbreak of the
war could not be arrested; because at the decisive moment <span class='it'>the
Will of the Strategists was stronger than the Will of the Statesmen</span>.”</p>
</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 2.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>“No corn planted, more men wanted!”—words of
the Old Dalmatian song!</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is no use crying over spilt milk, and no good throwing
down the instruments in the middle of an operation.
But there is every use in keeping before oneself perpetually
the thought that this war <span class='it'>is</span> an operation to
excise the trampling instinct; for there are many
among us willing to speak of an operation while it
serves their purpose, who unconsciously believe in
that which they profess to be cutting out. Human
nature is much the same all the world over. The
Prussian Junker is but a specially favoured variety
of a well-marked type that grows in every land. And
the business of other men is to keep circumstances from
being favourable to its development and ascendancy.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When we talk of safeguarding democracy, liberty,
and the rights of small nations, we really only mean the
muzzling of the Junkerism in human nature—the
restraint of this trampling instinct. Who would give
a rush for the immunity of any nation from the resurgence
within itself of that instinct, unless it watches
with lynx eyes? I cannot but think that, when peace
comes and Prussian Junkerism is held harmless for a
span, Junkerism in general will have a better chance
of pushing up its hydra heads than it had before this
war. Times will be very hard—the “have nots” and
“they who have” will be very nakedly set over
against each other. Circumstances will be favourable
to civil strife; and civil strife, whichever side wins,
fosters despotic leaderships and the trampling instinct.
Those not merely hoping and meaning to try for a
better world, after the war, but expecting one almost
as a matter of course, forget that the devotion and
unity, which men display under the shadow of a great
fear and the stimulus of that most powerful and
universal emotion, patriotism, will slip away from them
when the fear and the emotion are removed. If before
the war men were incapable of rising to great and
united effort for their own betterment out of sheer
desire for perfection, are they even as likely to be able
when, after the war, economic stress puts a greater
strain on each individual’s good-will?</p>
<p class='pindent'>The words of a certain prophet, “Literature, Art,
Industry, Commerce, Politics, Statesmanship will,
when this fighting day is over, come into a new and
better era,” are soothing syrup. Let us by all means
hope for and intend the best, but let us set ourselves
to face the worst.</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 3.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>Because pens lie unused, or are but feebly wielded
over the war, they would have us believe that modern
literature has been found wanting. “Look,” they say,
“how nobly the Greek and the Elizabethan pens
rhymed the epic struggles of their ages. What a degenerate,
nerveless creature is this modern pen! See
how it fails when put to the touchstone of great
events and the thrilling realities of war!” I think this
is nonsense. The greatest pens of the past were strangers
to the glamour of war. Euripides made it the subject
of a dirge; Shakespeare of casual treatment; Cervantes
of his irony. They were in advance of the feeling of
their day about war; but now their feeling has become
that of mankind at large; and the modern pen,
good, bad, or indifferent, follows—<span class='it'>longo intervallo</span>—their
prevision of war’s downfalling glory. In the
words of a certain officer, war is now “damn dull, damn
dirty, and damn dangerous.” The people of Britain,
and no doubt of the other countries—however bravely
they may fight—are fighting not because they love it,
not because it is natural to them, but because—alas!—they
must. This makes them the more heroic since
the romance of war for them is past, belonging to
cruder stages of the world’s journey.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In our consciousness to-day there is a violent divorce
between our admiration for the fine deeds, the sacrifices,
and heroisms of this war, and our feeling about
war itself. A shadowy sense of awful waste hangs
over it all in the mind of the simplest soldier as in that
of the subtlest penman. It may be real that we fight
for our conceptions of liberty and justice; but we feel
all the time that we ought not to have had to fight, that
these things should be respected of the nations; that
we have grown out of such savagery; that the whole
business is a kind of monstrous madness suddenly
let loose on the world. Such feelings were never in the
souls of ordinary men, whether soldiers or civilians,
in the days of Elizabeth or Themistocles. They
fought, then, as a matter of course. In those so-called
heroic ages “the thrilling realities of war” were truly
the realities of life and feeling. To-day they are but
a long nightmare. We have discovered that man is
a creature slowly, by means of thought and life and
art, evolving from the animal he was into the human
being he will be some day, and in that desperately
slow progression sloughing off the craving for physical
combat and the destruction of his fellow-man. This
process does not apparently mean the loss of stoicism
and courage, but rather the increase thereof, as millions
in this war, after the most peaceful century in the
world’s history, have proved. But we are a few paces
farther on toward the fully evolved human being than
were the compatriots of Themistocles or Elizabeth.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The true realities of to-day lie in peace. The great
epic of our time is the expression of man’s slow emergence
from the blood-loving animal he was. To that
great epic the modern pen has long been consecrate,
and is not likely to betray its trust.</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 4.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>One day we read in our journals how an enemy
Socialist or Pacifist has raised his voice against the
mob passions and war spite of his country, and we
think: “What an enlightened man!” And the
next day, in the same journals, we read that So-and-so
has done the same thing in our own country, and
we think: “My God! He ought to be hung!”
To-day we listen with enthusiasm to orations of our
statesmen about the last drop of our blood, and the last
pennies in our purses, and we think: “That is
patriotism!” To-morrow we read utterance by enemy
notables about arming the cats and dogs, and exclaim:
“What truculent insanity!” We learn on Monday
that some disguised fellow-countryman has risked his
life to secure information from the heart of the enemy’s
country, and we think: “That was real courage!” And
on Tuesday our bile rises at discovering that an enemy
has been arrested in our midst for espionage, and we
think: “The dirty spy!” Our blood boils on Wednesday
at hearing of the scurvy treatment of one of ourselves
resident in the enemy’s country. And on Thursday
we read of the wrecking by our mob of aliens’ shops,
and think: “Well, what could they expect, belonging
to that nation!” When one of our regiments has
defended itself with exceptional bravery, and inflicted
great loss on the enemy, we justly call it <span class='it'>heroism</span>. When
some enemy regiment has done the same, we use the
word <span class='it'>ferocity</span>. The comic papers of the enemy guy us,
and we think: “How childish!” Ours guy the enemy,
and we cry: “Ah! that’s good!” Our enemies use a
hymn of hate, and we despise them for it. We do our hate
in silence, and feel ourselves the better for the practice.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Shall we not rather fight our fight, and win it, without
these little ironies?</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 5.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>The first thing he does when he comes down each
morning is to read his paper, and the moment he has
finished breakfast he sticks the necessary flags into his
big map. He began to do that very soon after the war
broke out, and has never missed a day. It would seem
to him almost as if peace had been declared, and the
universe were suddenly unbottomed, if any morning he
omitted to alter slightly three flags at least. What will
he do when the end at last is reached, and he can no
longer tear the paper open with a kind of trembling
avidity; no longer debate within himself the questions
of strategy, and the absorbing chances of the field,
when he has, in fact, to sweep his flags into a drawer
and forget they ever were? It would haunt him, if
he thought of it. But sufficient unto his day is the
good thereof. Yes! It has almost come to that with
him; though he will still talk to you of “this dreadful
war,” and never alludes to the days as “great” or to
the times as “stirring” as some folk do. No, he
sincerely believes that he is distressed beyond measure
by the continuance of “the abominable business,”
and would not confess for worlds that he would miss it,
that it has become for him a daily “cocktail” to his
appetite for life. It is not he, after all, who is being
skinned; to the skinning of other eels the individual
eel is soon accustomed. By proxy to be “making
history,” to be witnessing the “greatest drama”
known to man since the beginning of the world—after
all it is something! He will never have such a chance
again. He still remembers with a shudder how he felt
the first weeks after war was declared; and the mere
fact that he shudders shows that his present feelings
are by no means what they were. After all, one cannot
remain for ever prepossessed with suffering that is
not one’s own, or with fears of invasion indefinitely
postponed. True, he has lost a nephew, a second cousin,
the sons of several friends. He has been duly sorry,
duly sympathetic, but then, he was not dangerously
fond of any of them. His own son is playing his part,
and he is proud of it. If the boy should be killed he
will feel poignant grief, but even then there is revenge
to be considered. His pocket is suffering, but it is
for the Country; and that almost makes it a pleasure.
And he goes on sticking in his flags in spots where the
earth is a mush of mangled flesh, and the air shrill
with the whir of shells, the moans of dying men, and
the screams of horses.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Is this pure fantasy, or does it hold a grain of
truth?</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 6.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>The war brings up with ever greater insistence the
two antagonistic feelings of which one was always
conscious: That men are radically alike. And that
there are two kinds of men, subtly but hopelessly
divided from each other.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Men are radically alike in the way they meet danger
and death, in their sentiment and in their laughter,
in their endurance, their passions, their self-sacrifice,
their selfishness, their superstitions, and their gratitude.
They are radically divided by possession, or
not, of that extra sensitiveness to proportion, form,
colour, sound, which we call the sense of beauty.
Would there still be war in a world the most of whose
dwellers had the sense of beauty? I think not. And
they who have it, so few by comparison, are tragically
compelled to live and bear their part in this hell,
created by a world of which they are not.</p>
<p class='pindent'>These two kinds of men shade subtly the one into
the other; but the division is real, for all that—the
bristles on the backs of each true specimen on either
side of the line rise at sight of the other sort.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And the war with its toil and hardships, its common
humanity, deaths and dangers and sacrifices shared,
will not bring them one jot nearer one to the other.
Is there evidence for thinking that a sense of beauty
is more common than it was? I am not sure. But
there is certainly no chance that the sense of beauty
can increase within measurable time, so as to give its
possessors a majority. No chance that wars will cease
from that reason. The little world of beauty-lovers
will for many ages yet, perhaps always, be pitifully
in tow, half-drowned by the following surge of the big
insensitive world when it loses for a time what little
feeling for harmony it has, and goes full speed ahead.</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 7.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>Some argue earnestly that what really restrains and
regulates the conduct of individuals is not force, but
the general sense of decency, the public opinion of the
community; and that the same rule applies to nations.
In other words, that there is no reason why inter-State
morality should be different from that prevailing
amongst the individuals within a State.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This argument neglects to perceive, first: That
the public opinion of a community is, in reality, latent
force; that in a real community “Right is Might,”
up to a certain point. And, secondly: That there
is as yet no community within which the nations
dwell.</p>
<p class='pindent'>An individual cannot pursue rank egotism to the
complete overriding of his neighbours without knowing
that those neighbours can and will give concrete
expression to their resentment and suppress him.
This latent force is at the back of all State-law, and of
all public opinion, which is but State-law unwritten.
The essence of its efficacy is the fact that individuals
do live in community, each one perceiving with the
non-rampant part of him that the rest are right in
squashing his rampancy, since life in community
would soon be impossible if they did not. He consents,
subconsciously, to being squashed when he is
rampant, because he recognizes himself to be part of
a whole.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Until nations have come to be parts of communities,
or group-States, there will be no really effective analogy
between individual morality and State morality.
There is, of course, a growing international decency,
a reaching out toward co-operation, a recognition that
certain things are “not done”; but it is liable to be
violated, as we have seen, at any moment by any
State which is, or thinks itself, strong enough to override
laws which have no adequate latent force behind
them. To create this latent controlling force we have
paramount need of a system of group-States, leading
on by slow degrees, through the linking of one group
with another, to a United States of the world. The
necessary line of progression is sufficiently disclosed
by the violation of Belgian neutrality and other matters
in this war. Public opinion not backed by latent
force has been proved useless. There is no such thing,
I fear, as public opinion worth the name except within
a definite community. The task of statesmen when
peace comes is the formation of a United States of
Europe—linked if possible with the countries of
America—the creation of a real public opinion backed
by a real, if latent, force.</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 8.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>Nietzsche was an individualist, a hater of the State
and of the Prussians, a sick man, a great artist in
words to be read with delight and—your tongue in
your cheek. By quaint irony his central idea, “the
ego-rampant,” was temperamentally suited to those
Prussians whom he hated. The Neo-German conception
of the State, (if one may fairly judge it out of the
mouths of certain Germans) as a law unto itself, demanding
all from the individuals who compose it, and taking
all it can get from the world at large, may be inverted
Nietzscheism, but it is the creature of Prussian history,
and of very different men. It is based on what we
others, and I should imagine many Germans, think is a
transient and false notion of what States should be.
We say they should not roam the earth considering
only their own strength. True that, in the absence
as yet of the system of group-States, States still can
seize here or seize there, if they be strong enough, but we
emphatically deny that they should do so <span class='it'>on principle</span>,
as the new German philosophy seems to teach, and
set the robber’s ideal, the robber’s fashion of morality,
for the individuals who compose those States. The
philosophy, not only of the rest of Europe, but of
Germany, before all, in the days of Kant and Hegel,
presumed that the hard-won morality of individuals
amongst themselves would ultimately become the
morality of States.</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“The fact that the sense of community among the
peoples of the earth has gone so far that the violation of
right in one place is felt everywhere, has made the idea
of a Citizenship of the world no fantastic dream, but
a necessary extension of the unwritten Code of States
and Peoples.” (Kant.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>“The binding cord is not force, but the deep-seated
feeling of order that is possessed by us all.”
(Hegel.)</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>The new German philosophy has anointed the
present immorality of States and thereby fixed it as
the morality for individuals. I think these philosophers
in their characteristic German exuberance, with its
habit of over-statement, have been hard on Germany.
For the German people at large have presumably
been acquiring throughout the ages some such instincts
toward altruism as the peoples of other countries.
The new German philosophy has succeeded to a dismal
extent in its inoculation of the German people, but it
cannot in the long run impose its logical ideal of the
wild man in the forest, though never so gorgeously
decked out, on the Germans, any more than the old
German philosophy made the Germans replicas of
Christ.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Man never attains to his philosophical ideal; but
it is just as well that he should see clearly its apotheosis
before he tries too hard to reach it.</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 9.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>Our enemy now proclaims that his objective is the
crushing of Britain’s world-power in the interests of
mankind.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Are we justified in retaining if we can what, in a by
no means unstained past, we have acquired, or should
we hand over our position, well and ill-gotten, to this
new claimant, with his new culture, for the benefit
of the world?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Man has a somewhat incurable belief that he can
manage his own affairs, and we Britons hold the faith
that our character, ideals, and experience fit us to
control our own lives and property for the general
good of mankind, side by side with other nations of
like mind. The fortunate possessors of the greater
Empire and the greater trade are not perhaps the most
convincing advocates of the principle “Live and let
live.” For all that, we find it impossible to admit
the right of any nation to an aggressive policy toward
us. Germany, after being petrified with surprise at
our intervention, now accuses us of having planned
the war and deliberately attacked her. It is divinely
easy to claim things both ways when you are at war.
We all see just now rather as in a glass darkly. And
yet, with an immense Empire, an immense trade, and
nothing that we wanted anywhere, with a crop of
serious social and political troubles on hand, “a contemptible
little army,” a tradition of abstention from
European quarrels, a Free Trade policy, a democratic
system of government, a Foreign Minister remarkable
up to then for his services to peace, and a “degenerate,
wealth-rotted, huckstering” population, it still seems
to us (always excepting our handful of pre-war
Jingoes) as improbable as it once seemed to Germany
that we hatched and set on foot such a wildcat enterprise.</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 10.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>“A war of exhaustion.” How often we use those
words! They are current in all the belligerent countries,
and in all they are unreally used, as yet. But they
are, I fear, literally true. It is a war which—save for
some happy chance—can hardly end till one group or
the other have no longer the men to hold their lines.
The sway of the fighting is of no great moment; it
does not seem to matter where precisely the killing,
maiming, and capturing go on, so long as they do go
on with a certain mathematical regularity. A year or
so hence, when the total disablement is nearer twenty
than ten millions, the meaning of the words will be a
little clearer, and they will probably only then be used
by the side whose united population is still more than
twice that of the other side. Two years hence they
will be seen to have meant exactly what they said.
All the swinging from optimism to pessimism and back
again, the cock-a-hoop of the Press one day, the dirge
of the Press the next; the alarms and excursions
about the failure of this or that—they are all storms
in teacups. The wills of the nations fighting are equally
engaged, and will not break; the energies will not
break; the food will probably not quite fail; the money
will be found somehow; but the human flesh will
give out, in time—that is all; on which side it will
give out first may be left to the child who can count
up to two. No glory about this business—just ding-dong
shambles!</p>
<p class='pindent'>If one believed, with a certain Englishman, that
there was no real struggle of ideals involved, these
words “a war of exhaustion,” meaning what they
really do, would be too intolerable even to think of.
He who denies this to be a struggle of ideals may have
a brilliant intellect, but he can surely have none of
that instinctive perception of the essence and atmosphere
of things, which is a so much surer guide than
reason. He has perceived doubtless that autocratists
and force-worshippers in England, in Russia, in Italy
(there are but few in France) are fighting against the
Central Empires as furiously as if they were the most
ardent lovers of liberty; and that the democrats
and humanists in Central Europe are fighting for their
countries as devotedly as their force-worshipping
rulers, and he has thought: “This is a mere blind
game of ‘kill your neighbour,’ with nothing real at
stake save the aggrandizement of one group of countries
or the other.” But behind all this is the
psychological heart of the matter—the states of mind
in the belligerent countries before they began to fight.
There are racial temperaments to which certain ideals
are fatal. The Teuton of all men requires the Christian,
or shall we say the humanistic, ethic, to modify something
science-ridden, overbearing, and heady in his
soul. The Teuton, before the new philosophy of
self-expansion at all costs laid hold on him, was
welcome, from his many great qualities, in a world
of other men. But his was the last nature that
could afford to succumb wholesale to the faith
that his race was the only race that mattered. If
he could see himself he would realize that the very
thoroughness and over-exaltation of his nature made
it ruinous for him to tamper with this particular
ideal, for he was bound sooner or later to run it to
death, to the danger and alarm of all other races.
No one outside Germany, unless his mind was warped,
could miss this latter-day Teutonic absorption in self;
the Teuton has dinned it into every ear, and forgotten,
in so doing, that we should not take off discount for
temperamental extravagance of diction. The German
imperialistic patriot has done an incalculable, perhaps
fatal, harm to the country he loves so passionately.
But even discounting for rhodomontade, no observer
who has feelers, can fail to be aware of the spiritual
change in Germany. I remember one tiny instance
out of many—a mere straw showing the direction of
the wind. The winter before the war there were in a
certain hotel in Egypt four Teutons. A quiet, dignified
old man, his tiny, quiet, dignified wife, and their two big
sons. The difference between the two generations was
distressing. In the older, such an air of unassuming
goodness, in the younger a demeanour so intolerant, and
domineering; those two sons were respectful and good
to their father and mother; but toward the rest of the
world—to natives, English, Americans, and other small
fry—they displayed an astounding contempt.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The Berlin Concordia has just issued maxims of
conduct to the German people, in a little book called
“Let Germany Learn.” I cull two of them: “The
soft corner in your heart for the foreigner will never
give you his affection, but only his contempt!” And:
“Everything depends on your own strength.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>It would be easy to make out some sort of case
against any of the belligerent nations. It would not
be easy to show that any nation save Germany was
in that peculiar state of full-blooded self-confidence
which upholds the Will to Power, and denies the Will
to Equity.</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 11.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>It seems certain that the practice of doping soldiers
with ether or other spirit before an attack has been
largely resorted to by certain nations in this war.
Nothing that is happening so illuminates the nature
of modern warfare; illustrates more utterly the
absorption of human bodies and souls into the
Machines that are crashing into each other. Men
have become mere lumps of coal to be converted into
driving power. And in supreme moments, lest the
bewildered spirit, brought up to peace, should move
hand or foot in protest or recoil, that spirit is first
stolen away. The usage is not prompted by motives
of mercy, yet has in it a kind of awful humanity.
Granted the premises, who dare grudge this anodyne
to the doomed?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Verily on every man who in time of peace speaks or
writes one word to foster bad spirit between nations
a curse should rest; he is part and parcel of that
malevolence which at last sets these great Engines,
fed by lumps of human coal, to crash along, and pile
up against each other, in splintered wreckage. Only
too well he plays the game of those grim schemers to
whose account lie the death, the dehumanization, the
despair of millions of their brother men.</p>
<h2 class='nobreak'>§ 12.</h2>
<p class='pindent'>A wonderful night to-night, so that the spirit goes
forth a little, enters the harmony of things, drinks the
magic of the world. How beauty moves the heart!
And war cannot destroy it, cannot take from us the
feeling that—living or dead—we belong to such perfection.
It cannot take the voice from the streams,
remove the flight of small wings in the darkness, the
gleam of moonlight, the whisper of night about us,
nor that bright star. It cannot take from within us
the soul that vibrates to loveliness, to the universal
rhythm round us.</p>
<p class='pindent'>If in this war the figures of cruelty and death
have surpassed themselves in darkness, the figure of
Humanity has never been so radiant and so lovely.
Perhaps we do not know enough what man was really
like in past ages to compare him with man to-day.
But it does seem as if he had grown in power for evil,
and even more in power for good. Or perhaps it is
only that, being more sensitive and highly strung, the
story of his doings is altogether more poignant.</p>
<p class='pindent'>From the letters of a young French painter, who,
after months in the trenches, disappeared in an
engagement on April 7th, 1915, I quote these
sayings:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“You know what I call religion—that which binds
together in man all his thoughts of the universal
and of the eternal, those two forms of God! . . . Don’t
let’s lose hope; the trials of hope are many, but all
beauty lives for ever. . . . The dead won’t hurt the
Spring! . . . Did you see yesterday’s sun? How noble
the country is, and how good Nature! She seems to
say to him who listens that nothing will be lost. . . .
We know not whether all this violence and disorder
may not be leading us toward a crowning good. . . .
Out of this torment we shall be left with one great
aspiration toward pity, fraternity, and goodness. . . .
Never has life brought me such abundance of noble
feelings;—never, perhaps, have I had such freshness
of sensibility for their recording; such a sensation of
safety in my spirit. . . . We spend the days like
children. . . . And the good from this war will be the
making young again the hearts of those who have been
through it.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>And his last written words: “Beloved mother,
I send you all my love. Whatever happens, life will
have been beautiful.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Not to many is given so clear a soul as this, so fine
a spirit. Peace and loveliness be with him, and with
all who die like him before their time, following the
light within them. And with all who live on in this
world of beauty, where the Dead harm not the Spring,
may there be—in his words—the longing for pity,
fraternity, and goodness!</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='243' id='Page_243'></span><h1>TOTALLY DISABLED</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From <span class='it'>The Observer</span>, 1916.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>If I were that! Not as one getting into the yellow
leaf, but with all the Spring-running in me. If I lay,
just turning my eyes here and there! How should I
feel?</p>
<p class='pindent'>How do <span class='it'>they</span> feel—those helpless soldiers and sailors
already lying in the old ball-room of the “Star and
Garter”?</p>
<p class='pindent'>In that hospital ward, a ghostly officer is ever crying:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Stick it, men! Stick it! Only for life! Stick it!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Only for life—how many years! In the year only
three hundred and sixty-five awakenings; only all
those returns from merciful sleep!</p>
<p class='pindent'>“Stick it, men! Stick it!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Totally disabled—incurably helpless! No! One
can’t realize what it feels like to be caught young and
strong in such a net; to be caught—not for your own
folly and excesses, not through accident or heredity,
but as reward for giving yourself body and soul to
your country. Better so, more easily borne; and yet
how much more ironically tragic!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Who knows what the freedom of limbs means, till
he has lost it? Who can measure the ecstasy of vigour,
till every power of movement has been cut off? Who
really grasps what it’s like to lie like a log dependent
for everything on others, save those who have to?
Think of the trout in the streams, of the birds of the
air, the winged creatures innumerable, think of each
beast and creeping thing—can one even imagine them
without movement? Men, also, are meant to be free
of their world, masters of their limbs and senses.</p>
<p class='pindent'>They who lie helpless are no longer quite bodies, for
the essence of body is movement; already they are
almost spirits. It is as if, in passing, one looked
at minds, nearly all in the heyday of consciousness
and will.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Sometimes I vaguely fancy that after violent death
a man’s spirit may go on clinging above the earth just
so long as his normal life would have run; that a
spirit rived before its time wanders till such date as
consciousness would have worn itself out in the body’s
natural death. If that random fancy were true, we
to-day would all be passing among unseen crowds of
these rived spirits, watching us, without envy perhaps,
being freer than ourselves. But those who lie hopelessly
disabled, having just missed that enfranchisement,
are tied to what still exists, and yet in truth
has died already. Of all men they have the chance to
prove the mettle of the human soul—that mysterious
consciousness capable of such heights and depths;
no, not a greater chance than men tortured by long
solitary confinement, or even than those who through
excess or through heredity lie for ever helpless—but
yet so great a chance that they are haloed for all of us
happier ones, who are free of our limbs and our lives.
Some among those prisoned spirits must needs shrink
and droop, and become atrophied in the long helplessness
of a broken body. But many will grow finer;
according to their natures—some pursuing the ideal
of recompense in another world; some, in the stoic
belief that serenity and fortitude are the fine flowers
of life, unconsciously following the artist’s creed—that
to make a perfect thing, even if it be only of his own
spirit, is in itself all the reward.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Whichever it be, slow decay or slow perfecting, we
others approach them with heads bowed, in as great
reverence as we give to the green graves of our brave
dead. And if pity—that pity which to some, it seems,
is but ignoble weakness—be not driven from this earth,
then with pity we shall nerve our resolve that never
shall anything be lacking to support or comfort those
who gave all for us and are so broken by their sacrifice.</p>
<p class='pindent'>As I write the sun is hot for the first time this year,
and above the snow spring is in the air. Under Richmond
Hill the river will be very bright, winding among
trees not yet green. And the helpless who are lying
there already will be thinking “I shall never walk
under trees again—nor by a riverside.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>If one dwells too much on the miseries this world
contains, there must come a moment when one will
say: “Life’s not worth living; I will end it!” But
by some dispensation few of us reach that point—too
sanely selfish, or saved by the thought that we must
work to reduce the sum of misery.</p>
<p class='pindent'>For these greatest of all sufferers—these helpless
and incurable—can we do too much, ever reach the
word: Enough?</p>
<p class='pindent'>To you, women of Great and Greater Britain, it has
fallen to raise on Richmond Hill this refuge and home
for our soldiers and sailors totally disabled. Where
thirty-two are now lying there will soon be two
hundred more. Nearly all my life I have known the
spot on which this home will stand; and truly, no
happier choice could have been made. If beauty
consoles—and it can, a little—it is there in all the
seasons; a benign English beauty of fields and trees and
water spread below, under a wide sky.</p>
<p class='pindent'>One hundred thousand pounds you need to raise
this monument of mercy in tribute to the brave.
If it were five hundred thousand you would give it;
for is not this monument to be the record and token
of your gratitude, your love, and your pity? Each
one of you, I think, however poor, must wish to lay
one brick or stone of the house that is to prove your
ministering.</p>
<p class='pindent'>If the misery through this war could be balanced
in scales, I do not think men’s suffering would pull
down that of wives, and mothers, sisters, daughters;
but this special suffering of incurable disablement—this
has been spared you, who yet by nature are better
at enduring than men. It has been spared you; and
in return you have vowed this home for the helpless;
a more sacred place than any church, for within it
every hour of day and night pain will be assuaged,
despair be overcome, actual living tenderness be
lavished.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When you have built this refuge for the prisoners
of Fate—when you have led them there to make out
the rest of their lives as best they can—remember this:
Men who are cut off in their youth from life and love
will prize beyond all things woman’s sympathy, and
the sight of woman’s beauty. Give—your money
to build, your hands to lead them home; and, when
they are there, take them your sympathy, take them
your beauty!</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='247' id='Page_247'></span><h1>CARTOON</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From <span class='it'>The Nation</span>, 1916.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>. . . I cannot describe the street I turned into,
then, like no street I have ever been in; so long, so
narrow, so regular, yet somehow so unsubstantial; one
had continually a feeling that, walking at the gray
houses on either side, one would pass through them.
I must have gone miles down it without meeting even
the shadow of a human being; till, just as it was
growing dusk, I saw a young man come silently out,
as I suppose, from a door, though none was opened.
I can depict neither his dress nor figure; like the
street he looked unsubstantial, and the expression on
his shadowy face haunted me, it was so like that
of a starving man before whom one has set a meal,
then snatched it away. And now, in the deepening
dusk, out of every house, young men like him were
starting forth in the same mysterious manner, all
with that hungry look on their almost invisible
faces.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Peering at one of them, I said:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“What is it—whom do you want?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>But he gave me no answer. It was too dark now to
see any face; and I had only the feeling of passing
between presences as I went along, without getting
to any turning out of that endless street. Presently,
in desperation, I doubled in my tracks.</p>
<p class='pindent'>A lamplighter must have been following me, for
every lamp was lighted, giving a faint flickering greenish
glare, as might lumps of phosphorescent matter hung
out in the dark. The hungry, phantom-like young men
had all vanished, and I was wondering where they
could have gone, when I saw—some distance ahead—a
sort of grayish whirlpool stretching across the street,
under one of those flickering marsh-light looking
lamps. A noise was coming from that swirl, which
seemed to be raised above the ground—a ghostly swishing,
as of feet among dry leaves, broken by the
gruntings of some deep sense gratified. I went on till
I could see that it was formed of human figures slowly
whirling round the lamp. And suddenly I stood still
in horror. Every other figure was a skeleton, and
between danced a young girl in white—the whole
swirling ring was formed alternately of skeletons
and gray-white girls. Creeping a little nearer still,
I could tell that these skeletons were the young men
I had seen starting out of the houses as I passed, having
the same look of awful hunger on their faces. And the
girls who danced between them had a wan, wistful
beauty, turning their eyes to their partners whose bony
hands grasped theirs, as though begging them to
return to the flesh. Not one noticed me, so deeply
were they all absorbed in their mystic revel. And then
I saw what it was they were dancing round. Above
their heads, below the greenish lamp, a dark thing
was dangling. It swung and turned there, never
still, like a joint of meat roasting before a fire—the
clothed body of an elderly man. The greenish lamp-light
glinted on his gray hair, and on his features,
every time the face came athwart the light. He swung
slowly from right to left, and the dancers whirled
from left to right, always meeting that revolving
face, as though to enjoy the sight of it. What did
it mean—these sad shapes rustling round the obscene
thing suspended there! What strange and awful rite
was I watching by the lamp’s ghostly phosphorescence?
More haunting even than those hungry
skeletons and wan gray girls, more haunting and
gruesome, was that dead face up there with the impress
still on it of bloated life; how it gripped and horrified
me, with its pale, fishy eyes, and its neck thick-rolled
with flabby flesh, turning and turning on its invisible
spit, to the sound of that weird swishing of dead leaves,
and those grunting sighs! Who was it they had caught
and swung up there, like some dead crow, to sway in
the winds? This gibbeted figure, which yet had a
look of cold and fattened power—what awful crime
towards these skeleton youths and bereaved gray-wan
maidens could it be expiating?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Then with a shudder I seemed to recognize that
grisly thing—suddenly I knew: I was watching the
execution of the Past! There it swung! Gibbeted
by the Future, whom, through its manifold lusts it
had done to death! And seized with panic I ran
forward through the fabric of my dream, that swayed
and rustled to left and right of me. . . .</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='249' id='Page_249'></span><h1>HARVEST</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From the <span class='it'>Book of the Homeless</span>, 1916.)</p>
<p class='pindent'>The sky to-night looks as if a million bright angels
were passing—a gleaming cloud-mesh drawn across the
heaven. One star, very clear, shines beside a full
moon white as the globe-campion flower. The hills
and valleys, the corn-stooks, casting each its shadow,
the grey boles of the beeches—all have the remoteness
of an ineffable peace. And the past day was so soft,
so glamorous; such a hum, such brightness, and the
harvest going on. . . .</p>
<p class='pindent'>These last years millions have died with energy but
one third spent; millions more unripe for death will
yet herald us into the long shades before these
shambles cease—boys born just to be the meat of war,
spitted on each other’s reddened bayonets, without
inkling of guilt or knowledge. To what shall we turn
that we may keep sane, watching this green, unripe
corn, field on field, being scythed by Death for none
to eat? There is no solace in the thought that death
is nothing!—save for those who still believe they go
straight to Paradise. To us who dare not know the
workings of the Unknowable, and in our heart of
hearts cannot tell what, if anything, becomes of us—to
us, the great majority of the modern world—life
is valuable, good, a thing worth living out for its
natural span. For, if it were not, long ere this we should
have sat with folded arms, lifting no hand till the
last sighing breath of the human race had whispered
itself out into the wind, and a final darkness come;
sat, like the Hindu Yogi, watching the sun and moon
a little, and expired. The moon would be as white,
and the sun as golden, if we were gone, the hills and
valleys as mysterious, the beech-trees just as they are,
only the stooks of corn would vanish with those who
garner them. If life were not good we should make
of ourselves dust indifferently—we human beings;
quietly, peacefully; not in murderous horror reaped
by the curving volleys, mown off by rains of shrapnel,
and the long yellow scythe of the foul gases. But life
<span class='it'>is</span> good, and no living thing wishes to die; even they
who kill themselves, despairing, resign out of sheer
love of life, out of craving for what they have found
too mutilated and starved, out of yearning for their
meed of joy cruelly frustrated. And they who die that
others may live are but those in whom the life-flame
burns so hot and bright that they can feel the life and
the longing to live in others as if it were their own—more
than their own. Yes, life carries with it a very
passion for existence.</p>
<p class='pindent'>To what, then, shall we turn that we may keep sane,
watching this harvest of too young deaths, the harvest
of the brave, whose stooks are raised before us, casting
each its shadow in the ironic moonlight? Green
corn!</p>
<p class='pindent'>If, having watched those unripe blades reaped off
and stacked so pitifully, watched the great dark
Wagoner clear those unmellowed fields, we let their
sacrifice be vain; if we sow not, hereafter, in a peaceful
Earth that which shall become harvest more golden
than the world has seen—then Shame on us, unending,
in whatever land we dwell. . . .</p>
<p class='pindent'>This harvest night is still. And yet, up there, the
bright angels are passing. One Star!</p>
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' -->
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line' style='font-size:1.3em;'>AND—AFTER?</p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'> </p>
</div> <!-- end rend -->
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div><h1>AND—AFTER?</h1></div>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1.5em;'>(From <span class='it'>The Observer</span>, 1916.)</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='255' id='Page_255'></span><h1 class='nobreak'>I—PRELUDE</h1></div>
<p class='pindent'>Peace! The thought of it has become almost
strange. Yet we must face that thought, or we
shall be as unprepared for it as we were for war.
Practical men are fighting this war, practical men will
make the peace that comes some day. And this unpractical
pen ventures no speculation on how it will
be brought about; it jots down merely some of the
wider thoughts that throng, when for a moment the
vision of Peace starts up before the mind!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Statesmen have said that the sequel of this war must
be a League for Peace—a League for the enforcement
by international action of international right. Whether
that can be brought about at a Round Table Conference
of the belligerents, or whether the League must
be formed by the victorious Allies with the adherence
of the neutral countries, and the Central Empires
invited to fall in with their conclusions, on pain of
ostracism, I hazard here no opinion. But, by whichever
means the League for Peace is formed, it will be
valueless unless three elements of security are present.
Due machinery to secure time for the arbitration of
dispute; due force to secure submission to such arbitration;
due intention on the part of individual
nations to serve the League loyally for the good of all.
And the greatest of these three is the last.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The strength of a League for Peace will depend before
all on the conduct of each separate nation. We in this
country cannot control the faith, conduct, or stability
of the other members of the League; we <span class='it'>can</span> control
our own.</p>
<p class='pindent'>However it ends, this war must leave the bitterest
feelings. League for Peace or none, there will remain
for this country a menace from without.</p>
<p class='pindent'>If Germany were what is called “crushed”—a
queer notion in connection with sixty-five millions
of people—she would smoulder with such a fire of
vengeance that a victorious British nation, slumbering
in dreams of security, waxing fat and swollen-headed,
would in a few years time be in as great danger as ever.
If Germany be merely shorn of her pretensions and
forced back within her former boundaries, then, unless
good fortune bring her a social revolution and the
comparative blessings of Democracy, Germany may be
much the same as she has been, a soldier-ridden State,
quickly or slowly gathering force, to reforge the iron
machinery of the Prussian soul, and lead the armoured
dance again. Stung to the quick by memory of mistake,
knowing that she misjudged our nature and our power,
she will not make mistake a second time. However
ardently the successful may desire to forget—it takes
two to bury the hatchet. Let no one think that Germany
will forget. Should we, if we were beaten, or
even badly thwarted?</p>
<p class='pindent'>The writer is as great a lover of Peace as any who will
resent his suggestion that enmity will not readily be
changed. But it is well to remember that the menace
from without is only increased by forgetting that human
nature is fundamentally the same all the world over;
and still more increased by not remembering that what
we dream and desire is not as a rule what we can obtain.
Granted, that all must hope and strive for the constitution
of a League for Peace, and aim at making its
conditions permanent, it will still be folly to blink
the contingency of further war for years to come.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The validity of such a League will hang on the first
years. Keep it intact, enforce respect for its decisions,
<span class='it'>get men’s minds used to it</span>, and after a short span
nothing is more unlikely than that they will forego its
blessings. But militarism will automatically and proportionately
decrease only as men gain confidence in
the League’s authority, recognizing at last that an
impartial justice may apply to nations every bit as
well as to individuals, when there is the force of general
consent behind it. Given a generation of its rule, and
the nations will no longer carry daggers to stab each
other in the back, or swords to avenge their “honour.”
There is no need for premature disarmament.
Recognition of the menace from without will not harm
a League for Peace during its first years, so long as we
shy at all spirit of aggression, and are loyal to its first
principle of “All for one, and One for all.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>But Peace will also bring to us in this country the
menace from within which was with us before the war
began, as it is with every nation at whatever time of
life—the menace of its individual failings, of its rankness
and its uncompleted justice, its riot after riches
at the expense of national health, its exaggerated
party strife, its penny wisdom and pound folly, its
lack of an ideal, and perpetual drifting it knows not
whither. If when the war ends we remain a nation,
masters of our own lives—and there is no Briton who
is not convinced that we shall—the menace from within
must again be faced; faced with a stouter heart and a
quicker brain; faced at last with some sort of corporate
will to that victory over ourselves, so much more difficult
to win than over hostile fleets and fortresses. To
win the war, and thereafter lose to our own weakness,
would cap the event with irony indeed!</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is the fashion with some to talk glibly of this war
as if it were a purge that will drain from our State
innumerable ills. The war’s honourable necessity
none of us dispute, but for us it has in truth only the
one advantage—of having revealed to ourselves our
quality, re-established our faith. That quality, that
faith, to be of any lasting use, will have to stand not
only the dreadful spasm of war, but the long exhaustion,
the manifold increase of economic stress and social
trouble that will infallibly begin when the war ends.
Unless we are resolved to carry on our effort of sacrifice,
good-will, and courage long into the future, the
last state of this land will be worse than the first. The
purge that we like to speak of will be proven nothing
but a debauch, paid for, like all debauches, by lassitude
and spleen.</p>
<p class='pindent'>All national energy at the moment is inevitably
bent to the ending of a state of things dreadful to
every man and woman living; but, while doing
this with all our might, we need to keep alive in our
minds the feeling that the fight is not for mere gratification
of the passion to down our foes, not just a
spurt of military heroism, to be drowned in the drink
and applause of victory; but a fight for something
abiding in ourselves and in the world—for spiritual,
not material, ends.</p>
<p class='pindent'>If, even while we are at war, we cannot keep the feeling
that what we are fighting for is a permanent and
steady advance in the just and reasonable life of
nations, <span class='it'>beginning with ourselves</span>, we had better never
have fought, for at the end we shall but have added to
our vanity, and taken from the stock of our patience,
our humanity, and our sense of justice. And so the
feelings of the present are linked with the feelings and
necessities that will arrive with peace. If the fine
phrases we have used, and are still using, about
Liberty, Humanity, Democracy, and Peace are not
genuinely felt, they will come home to us and roost
most vilely. By the outside world we shall be judged
according to the measure of actuality we give hereafter
to the claim we now make of being champion of
Freedom and Humanity; and only according to our
inward habit of thought during the war shall we be
able to act when it is over. We can <span class='it'>do</span> nothing now
perhaps, save prosecute the fight to its appointed end;
but, if we are not to turn out fraudulent after the event,
it is already time to feel ahead—to accustom our
minds to the thought of the future efforts, Imperial
and social, needful to meet future dangers, and to fulfil
the trusts we shall have taken up.</p>
<p class='pindent'>From facile imaginings and Utopian dreams of a
purged social life and a fortified <span class='it'>morale</span> to the real
conditions that this war will leave is likely to be the
farthest cry any of us will ever hear. We cannot have
it both ways. If war, as most of us believe, is a terrible
calamity, it will not leave an improved world. A
sloppy optimism is not the slightest good, no more
than a deliberate pessimism. “It will be all right after
the war!” is, no doubt, the attitude of many minds
just now. It will only be all right after the war if, with
all the might of a sustained national will, we take care
that it is. A great and solemn opportunity, the greatest
our country has ever known, will be there, to be made or
marred. The records of history are not too cheering,
and experience of human nature in the past brings no
very happy augury—for after too great effort comes
reaction. But this age has higher aspirations, more self-consciousness
than any that has gone before. To turn
the possible calamity of this war to blessing we shall
have to set our foot on Fatalism. There is no real
antagonism between the doctrines of Determinism
and Free Will. When things have happened, we see
that they must have happened as they did; but how
does this affect the freedom of our will <span class='it'>before</span> they
happen—before we know which way they will turn
out? Men and nations are what they make themselves.</p>
<p class='pindent'>What are we going to make ourselves—after?</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='260' id='Page_260'></span><h1>II—FREEDOM AND PRIVILEGE</h1></div>
<p class='pindent'>What is this thing called the British Empire? A
family of children, ruled by a Mother, or a gathering
of kinsfolk under the roof of one ideal? Is it in reality
an Empire or a Confederacy? It has been the first,
it is fast becoming the second.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Imperialism is governed for good or ill by the principle
that underlies it. At the time of the American
War of Independence British government stood for
the principle of Domination; even so late as the Boer
War there is much doubt whether, for the moment at
least, it stood for anything very different. A great
change has come. The British Empire stands now, as
it never yet stood, for the principle “Live and let
live”; for coherence through common ideals and
affections, rather than for coherence through force.
In this war we have not ceased to assert that,
besides the preservation of our own safety, we fight
for the independence of little countries, and the rights
of nations to settle their own affairs. By this declared
championship, unless we wish to bring down poetic
justice on our heads, we have consecrated the principle
of Freedom within the confederacy of the British
Empire; we have abrogated the right of coercion.
Whether we realize it or no, we have fixed our national
attitude. When the war is over, the feeling of Britain
towards her kindred will be warmer and more generous
than it has ever been; they have stood side by side
with us like men and brothers, in touching loyalty.
And the feeling in the kindred countries will be warmer
and fuller of respect; they have seen the Old Country
on her trial, have seen that she did not fail of what the
world expected from her; seen that she had stuff
in her beyond their hopes—for a new country is ever
inclined to impatience, even to a certain contempt,
for an old country. It was just as well for Britain’s
reputation with her kinsfolk that this war came.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Yes, we shall be a true Confederacy, a great Democratic
Confederacy, bound in honour to observe
towards the world the principles that it observes
towards itself; to keep its hands clean of narrow and
provincial patriotism, of that raw overriding of the
rights and interests of others, the ugliness of which
we have just seen in the violation of Belgium, the
Nemesis of which we are about to see.</p>
<p class='pindent'>And, looking first at home, we have got to get used
now, at once, while we are still fighting, before we
have the leisure and the energy to revive old animosities
and party cries, to the idea that civil strife in
Ireland after this war is over would be criminal lunacy,
making us the playboy of the world, and destroying
the prestige we shall have gained. It seems that our
statesmen now recognize this. But whatever seems to
settle the Irish question in time of war may not survive
the strain of the peace that follows. If the lamentable
cleavage in Ireland reappears—as it well may, for it is
based on such real differences of temperament—let us
in England be resolute not to be re-involved in partizanship.
Let us resolve to force neither one party nor the
other; confine ourselves to insisting that those who
object so strenuously to inclusion in an opposite camp
shall be as loth to include their opponents as they are
to be included. Only of its own free will can Ireland
ever be made one. If the halves be not forced, they
will become one the faster. Time is the healer; time
and forbearance, given an elastic machinery to
encourage and ripen reconciliation. Of a surety,
renewed trouble over Ireland would be the very worst
augury for the future of an Empire that stands, and
is to stand, for Freedom.</p>
<p class='pindent'>To be trustee for the principle “Live and let live”;
watchdog against aggression by herself or any other;
cornerstone of a world so built that all peoples, however
small and weak, may know that they can safely
work out their own destinies—that would be for Britain
the grand ideal. But the British Empire can only
hope to stand for it by keeping the form of a Free Confederacy,
by the most rigid scrutiny of its own conduct,
and by developing the feeling that it is beneath
Imperial dignity to wrest material benefit from the
losses of others.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When the war began we were in what is commonly
called “a tidy mess.” If we really want to extract
from the furnace of this fearful conflagration some
gold of comfort, we shall see to it that we do not go
back to the deadlock of futile and bitter strife that was
then paralyzing the country’s soul. We shall see to it
over Ireland; and over the woman’s question. Strife
is the very condition of life and human progress, but
in the name of reason let us have it over real live issues,
not over those on which the national conscience has
already in secret given judgment. Will not the first
act of justice be the giving of the vote to women on
the same terms as to men—with, perhaps, some limitation
of age to equalize numbers, since the preponderance
of women is brought about mainly by the less
dangerous nature of their lives? A more humiliating
or poisonous relation than that which prevailed between
the sexes in this country before the war over the
question of the vote can hardly be conceived. In
the supreme appeal to our patriotism, that grievous
trouble, that mischievous irritation, has vanished.
The war has exorcised mutual exasperation, refounded
mutual faith, healed many wounds, laid the ghosts
of many doubts and arguments. The old bogeys
are gone—that women are more bellicose than
men; that they are less bellicose than men; that
national safety would be imperilled one way or
the other. The old plea is gone—that, since women
do not fight and suffer for the State, they are not
worthy to vote for her—gone, dispersed by service,
sacrifice, and suffering. Every man has had to ask
his heart which he would rather do: Go, as a man
goes, to the trenches, or sit at home, as a woman has
had to do, waiting for news of his life or death. And
every man knows the answer.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The women of Britain have put themselves and their
claims aside, to work and suffer for the country of
which they are not yet citizens. It will be too black
altogether if, after all they have gone through, they
are again refused admittance to that citizenship.</p>
<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>Women who do not want the vote need never exercise it</span>;
women who think the vote bad for their sex will still
be free as air, when the vote has been given, to
organise their sex against <span class='it'>use</span> of the deadly thing.
But to continue after this war to debar from being
citizens, if they so wish, the hundreds of thousands of
women who have served as loyally as men, and suffered
more; to hang up again in hopeless chancery a measure
of common justice that has long commended itself to
nearly all the best minds in the country, a measure
that, but for political accidents, would have already
been granted, would be an unspeakable piece of national
folly and ingratitude. There is surely now a general
will to give the vote. What our minds must be turned
to is the need, at the conclusion of the war, to have
ready some means by which that general desire may
be carried into effect, and women welcomed into the
body politic, before the old deadlock difficulties and
heart-burnings can begin again.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It is not my part to suggest to superior wisdom
what those means should be; but perhaps one may
express the personal conviction that a measure of
universal suffrage, granting one vote to every man
above a certain age (not necessarily so young as
twenty-one), and one vote to every woman—possibly
over such higher age as would equalize the voting
power of the sexes, though I myself do not fear that
inequality—that such a measure would not affect to any
appreciable extent the balance between the great
parties in the State, and would ensure that those
parties in future sprang from the main cleavages of
human nature rather than from the accidents of
privilege. Is it too much to hope that, in heroic
times, such a measure might be passed by consent?
Too much to expect that after this struggle, where all
stand shoulder to shoulder, we shall feel that a man,
however poor, and a woman, however humble, has a
stake in the country which has done so little for him
or her, yet for which he or she is suffering perhaps
more than the rest of us, and, extending the hand of
fellowship, say: “It is time you stood shoulder to
shoulder with us in peace as well as war.” The voteless
man! The woman! How many of the first will have
given their lives; how many of the second their hearts!
Have heroism, death, sacrifice, gone by privilege of
property or sex, in this war? Shall we really take the
lives, the wounds, the sufferings of the many men
debarred from citizenship by mere lack of property,
the services and sacrifice of innumerable women, and
just say: “Thank you, helots!” For in a real
democracy what is he or she who has no vote, save a
helot, at the absolute disposal of the enfranchised
community? It is as the symbol of freedom that the
vote is so precious! Granted! But if from the
infancy of this country we had not been sticklers for
symbols, should we now be the free people that we
are—as peoples go?</p>
<p class='pindent'>If there is not to emerge from this community of
suffering some community of fellowship and gladness,
some sweeping out of old rancours from our hearts
and of prejudices from our brains, and a resolve to
fight the contests of the future with a greater generosity—then
Peace will be a sorry festival.</p>
<p class='pindent'>There is so much work to be done, so great a fight
for the nation’s health, ahead. It is time the decks
were cleared of lumber!</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='266' id='Page_266'></span><h1>III—THE NATION AND TRAINING</h1></div>
<p class='pindent'>We have adopted Compulsion, become a militarist
Power! Melancholy consummation; but for the period
of the war it was always, I think, a foregone conclusion.
What is to happen after? How is national security
to be guaranteed without permanent surrender to
militarism?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Assuming that attention will be paid to retaining
due command at sea and in the air, what further will
be necessary to fit us for our part in a League for Peace
if it comes, or, if it does not come, to make us safe?</p>
<p class='pindent'>There will here be put forward in roughest outline
a notion—long in the writer’s mind, but for which
there has seemed hitherto little chance of serious
consideration—with the plea that there is really no
alternative solution commensurate with the need for
being thoroughly prepared, no other adequate way,
in fact, out of a dilemma, short of retaining a measure
of Continental militarism, repugnant to our traditions,
and ruinously costly to a people in our position.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Put with the utmost brevity it is this: That all
boys between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, not
then at school, shall pass four months yearly in camps,
which shall give them continuation schooling so far
as practicable, technical education in the craft, trade,
or occupation for which the boy is most suited or
intends to adopt, together with training in all the
essentials of a soldier’s life. At the close of their
fourth training the boys should be affiliated to Territorial
regiments, and pass at once to one definite
period of military service, from three to six months,
as may be necessary to convert them into potential
soldiers; and that, from that point on, we should
rely, as hitherto, on purely voluntary service. From
such a nucleus a really efficient Territorial force of at
least a million could probably be enrolled, and the
skeleton of a much larger force kept in being.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The scheme is admittedly heroic, but it could be as
gingerly introduced as seemed good to more practical
men than is this writer.</p>
<p class='pindent'>There are in England, Scotland, and Wales some
1,500,000 boys between the ages of fourteen and
eighteen; there are eight months in the year when
such education and training could be carried on. There
will be an infinity of camps in being before the war is
over. And however unsuited these camps may be at
the moment for combining technical instruction with
military training, many of them could undoubtedly
be adapted. The chance of so much suitable material
at hand, so much organizing capacity, and so much
sense of awakened public spirit and necessity, will
never come again. Some plan more or less heroic has
got to be adopted, and it is submitted that no other
could possibly kill so many birds with one stone. For,
to the writer this proposal is even more important in
relation to the menace from within than in relation
to the menace from without.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The worst feature of our social scheme at present—the
most dangerous flaw in the machine—is the waste,
the absolute throwing away of the years between
fourteen and eighteen, the most important period of
the male life (and, for that matter, of the female life),
the years when physique and character are forming
when the instrument is malleable; years for the most
part now left to chance and to blind-alley occupations.
If we want to be a strong and healthy nation,
this is the weakness of all others to overcome. The
following is taken from the introduction to Mr. Arnold
Freeman’s intimate and careful book: “Boy Life and
Labour”: —</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“What we need to consider is not the sacrifice of
a certain number of youths through faulty industrial
arrangements, <span class='it'>but the lack of training and the manufacture
of inefficiency in the majority of boys between
school and manhood.</span></p>
<p class='pindent'>“At the present time it would seem to be the consensus
of opinion of school teachers, employers, and
all those who are intimate with the problem that great
masses of boys are growing up to manhood inefficient
for adult work, and incapable of performing the elementary
duties of home life and citizenship. The
truer mode of regarding the problem may be illustrated
by the following quotation:</p>
<p class='pindent'>“ ‘According to the main statistical sources of
information the very serious fact emerges that between
70 and 80 per cent. of the boys leaving elementary
schools enter unskilled occupations. Thus, even when
the boy ultimately becomes apprenticed or enters a
skilled trade, those intervening years from the national
point of view are entirely wasted. Indeed the boy,
naturally reacting from the discipline to which school
accustomed him, usually with abundance of spare
time not sufficiently utilized, and without educative
work, <span class='it'>is shaped during these years directly towards
evil</span>.’ (Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission,
Part VI., Chap. VII.)”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>Now, if the richer classes of this country could be
brought face to face with a sight of their own boys
from fourteen to eighteen planted in this morass that
boys of the poorer classes have as a matter of course
to struggle through, they would marvel that the poorer
classes have not long ago demanded that it be drained.
Working-class parents have not demanded this chiefly
because the boy from fourteen to eighteen has meant
so many scanty shillings in the family pocket. When
shillings are scarce one more or less seems vital. But,
economically as well as nationally speaking, such
rotting-down of the boys is grievously short-sighted.
By this scheme, I believe, the working classes would be
the first to benefit, and, after a few years, the last to
wish it given up. Their ultimate gain would be incalculable,
and, collectively speaking, their immediate
loss even would be small. One million five hundred
thousand boys training four months in the year means
a seeming withdrawal of one boy in three, or half a
million boys annually, from labour. But the number
of boys between fourteen and eighteen actually
employed before the war was only 1,264,000, so that
there would be available some unemployed towards
filling the places of the half million withdrawn. In the
withdrawal too, of so large a number of boys from the
labour market lies some chance of solving a problem
that will begin to loom as soon as Peace comes:
How to find places for the women whom the war has
accustomed to work and wages? By this withdrawal,
also, old and unemployed men would benefit; we
shall want all the help we can get to minimize the
unemployment that will sooner or later follow the
war. So far as the labour market is concerned, the
problem, in fact, would be mainly one of adjustment,
but boys could be paired for their four years of training,
one taking the other’s job—boy A. working it
eight months the first and third years and four months
the second and fourth year; <span class='it'>vice versâ</span> with boy B.
A nation which has achieved in these last few months
such miracles of organization is surely equal to a task
of adjustment no harder of accomplishment than that
which has long confronted every militarist country
in time of peace, and which may at any moment confront
this country, if it neglects adequate preparation
for home defence on some such lines.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Consider the life of the working man at present.
The State provides him as a boy with education up
to the age of fourteen; provides him as a man with
labour exchanges, insurance, and old-age pensions.
The one period, which in the more fortunate ranks of
Society is regarded as above all preparatory for life,
is the one period of which the State takes no account.
It is a fatal hole in the ballot. Why should not the
workers have the privilege for their sons that belongs
by mere good fortune to the wealthier classes—the
privilege of a training that will give them greater
health, greater knowledge and technical skill, better
habits, more self-respect, and the power as well as the
inclination to defend their country if need be?</p>
<p class='pindent'>After this war the national readjustments that take
place to meet the menace from without and the
menace from within must surely have relation to
fundamental necessities, and not merely be the top-dressing
and timorous expedients that accompany
the piping times of a long-unshaken peace.</p>
<p class='pindent'>In the expenditure of large sums to achieve its ends
the State need not look for its money back this year or
next, so long as there is a certainty of the money
back manifold ten and twenty years hence.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The expense of a national scheme for the training
and technical education of all boys from fourteen to
eighteen would have been looked on before the war as
an insuperable objection. But the truly wonderful
example of faith shown by the Russian Government
in cutting off their own colossal revenue from drink
at the outbreak of the war, and the immediate incalculable
advantage to the strength of the Russian nation
that accrued thereby, has knocked penny-wisdom off
its perch.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This is not the time or place, nor am I qualified to
examine the cost in detail. But, whatever that cost,
can there be any doubt that the increased physical
and industrial efficiency, coupled with the national
security guaranteed by such training, would bring
the outlay back tenfold within a generation? And can
there be any question that it would conserve wealth,
which adult training would but dissipate? When the
war is over there will be great numbers of men whose
lives have been hopelessly jolted, who have to find
new occupations—men qualified, and probably only
too willing, to take positions of technical instruction
and military training under such a scheme. And the
boys of the nation, already infected with desire to
stand for something in the national security, would
fall in with good spirit.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Apart from the question of expense, opposition would
come, no doubt, from the employers of boy labour,
and from the working-class parents of boys who are
contributing to the family purse.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Both these objections can surely be met in the
main by careful organization and dovetailing of employment.
Only half the boys would be training at
once; and for the winter months, of greatest stress
for the poorer classes, none would be training; boy-labour
is not highly-skilled labour, it is rarely of a
nature that cannot equally well be supplied by another
boy, and, failing that, by women, or men past the
prime of work. With good-will and co-operation it
should not surpass the wit either of employers or of
the officials of special Boy-Labour Exchanges to cope
with the dislocation. A boy’s earnings are not vast;
when his own keep has been paid there remain but few
shillings for the family exchequer. The value of these
few shillings is in many cases, however, enormous;
the loss might be made good by some system of insurance.
Nor is it inconceivable that camp work would
produce a small wage that could go to the assistance
of the boys’ families. Omelettes cannot be made
without breaking eggs; and, even if distress were
caused at the start, can it be seriously weighed against
the great ultimate benefit to the working classes,
and the overwhelming advantages of rejuvenation in
the blood and brain of a whole nation? The war
has shown what those who have had to do with
camp life for boys knew well before—the vast change
that can be made in the physique and bearing of
young fellows by a few months of fresh air and training.
If those months are repeated yearly for four
years, the training combined with civil instruction,
and followed by a short spell of full military service,
the country will have not only potential soldiers, but
real men and citizens, at the end.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This is interference with the liberty of the subject.
Yes; but a boy is only a boy. In the richer classes
he is sent to school till he is eighteen without any say
whatever in his fate. And as to interference with the
liberty of the parents: Are they not now completely
interfered with, in reference to their children up to the
age of fourteen; and is there any sane reason why that
interference should not be continued partially, for the
good of the boys, and of us all, up to the age of
eighteen?</p>
<p class='pindent'>The scheme is nothing but a form of militarism! Yes,
but facts must be faced. After the lesson of this war,
its appalling suddenness, its complete disregard of
the law of nations, after the hatred it has evoked and
the burning for revenge it will leave, are we prepared
to trust our country and all that it stands for, to
old-time methods and—luck? If not what form of
training can we have that will be less militarist than
this? To relapse into our unpreparedness is but to
court the chances of an attack, to shirk our share
perhaps of duty under a League for Peace; and to risk
being forced into rank militarism, in one of those
panics certain to come freely after such a war.</p>
<p class='pindent'>If I thought such a scheme of boy-training would
bolster up privilege, foster a dangerous docility, put
power into the hands of our Junkers, and generally
convert our country into a kind of Germany, I would
shun it like the devil. To keep boys of that age at it
all the time would be dangerous; to train them for
civil and military life four months in the year, with
one short final period of military service—harmless.
After the war—perhaps not at once, but within a
few years—there will almost certainly be serious civil
troubles, and any such scheme of boy training would
need to be inaugurated under the most solemn engagements
not to employ the youth of the nation in the
quelling of strikes, civil riot, or what-not. It would
be for Labour to fix those guarantees before they gave
adherence to the plan. Having secured themselves,
I believe they might look forward to nothing but
benefit, after the first rubs and jolts.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Consider, too, that except under some such scheme
there is practically no chance of putting into practice
another national dream—the resettlement of the land.
By attaching farm lands to those camps, town boys
could be instructed in the difficult work of modern
agriculture. Farm workers do not grow on thorn-trees,
or even spring full-fledged from the brains of
ardent reformers. They are made, not born, and made
in youth. It is time to begin making them, if indeed
it is not already too late. No adequate land scheme
will flourish without machinery on a large scale for
educating boys in modern farm work.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But there is another aspect of this matter worth
more than passing attention. If the war ends victoriously,
Great Britain will bulk very large, dangerously
large, in the eyes of the world. The German
cry is: “Great Britain is the tyrant; the Fleet of
England is the menace, threatening every country!”
No effort will be left untried to din that whisper into
every ear, to implant that suspicion in every mind.
To escape the world’s jealousy will not be possible.
And, if in addition to a dominant Fleet, and possibly
a dominant air service, we preserve militarism on the
present Continental lines, we shall excite—whatever
the peaceful nature of our conduct and intentions—the
most profound uneasiness and envy in quarters
where we most wish to be regarded with perfect equanimity.
On the one hand, then, we have the danger of
relapsing into a state of unpreparedness that may
provoke another war; on the other, the danger of
rousing too great fear and envy by an ostentatious
strength, and of increasing a burden of armament
already too heavy on our shoulders. Between these
dangers lies a path of safety in the training of our boys.
But there lies much more than that. There lies the
grander social future of our country—an incalculable
physical, moral and economic uplifting, a nation more
self-reliant and more eager, purged of that don’t-care
look, of the town blight which was settling on it fast—there
is no nation suffering from town life to anything
like the extent to which we suffer from it. Just now
the war has lifted that blight; but with peace it will
come down again, unless we fight it.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Is this lamely outlined plan a mere dream, or is it
a possible, nay, a probable, measure, in times big
with chances—in times such as we may never have
again, for tuning up our life, for equalizing fortune,
removing foul places, and essential weakness?</p>
<p class='pindent'>With the suggestion that it is worth thinking over,
at any rate, the writer leaves the answer to those less
fatuous than himself.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='276' id='Page_276'></span><h1>IV—HEALTH, HUMANITY AND PROCEDURE</h1></div>
<p class='pindent'>What were already glaring national ills before the
war will, afterwards, be ills demanding the most
immediate, sustained, and resolute attention.</p>
<p class='pindent'>There exists in America a vehicle called the “rubber-neck”
car, in which the tourist is taken and shown
the interesting features of the neighbourhood. Before
the political machine settles down again to work,
legislators, editors, business men, writers—we might
all with profit take a round trip and see again evils
that our country has never really faced in the past,
but will have to face, and grievously swollen at that,
in the future. At the back of all lack of effort is lack
of realization. Statistics of national problems may
foster an impersonal and scientific attitude, but they do
nothing to supply the feeling from which alone comes
driving force.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Take our slums! The powers vested in the State
or in local bodies for dealing with slum areas are
obviously either not sufficient or not sufficiently put
to use. Not, of course, that any quick or light-hearted
transformation can be expected; the roots of this evil
are too tortuously coiled in economies and natural
selfishness.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Still, just as realization of our country’s danger at
the hands of Germany has produced a marvellous
crop of effort and sacrifice, so realization of the equally
distressing menace to the country from within should
produce something similar, when patriotic attention
is once more free, and time and strength at liberty,
for fighting dangers at home.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The housing problem desperately needs attention;
but, though much can be done, good gamblers cut their
losses, and the adult generation of the slums has got
more or less to be cut, that greater effort may be
concentrated on the children.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The war has focussed attention on the need for
arresting infant mortality. Good! But there is little
use in saving babies if you are not going to feed them
decently when they are out of swaddling clothes.
A big step forward has been taken of late years towards
the feeding of necessitous children, both at school and
in crêches but many more steps need to be taken.
If this is not a State matter, then nothing is. To
neglect the nourishment of its children is at once the
paltriest economy, the least sagacious policy, and the
worst inhumanity of which a nation can be guilty.
The old-fashioned idea that children must go hungry
or be fed so as to grow up rickety because their parents
(being “rotters” already) must not be rotted further
is a doctrine devoid both of common sense and compassion.
A nation either has a will towards a future, or
it has none. If it has none, for what are we fighting
this most bloody war? What does our honour matter,
or our independence either? But the future of a
nation is its children. As they grow up, healthy, clean,
hopeful, efficient, so will our future be. As they grow
up—half-fed, dirty, don’t care, and ignorant—so will
Britain! If to look after the children makes worse
paupers of the parents, well—let it! Have some
courage. Do not be hypnotized by a word, and, grasping
the shadow, lose the substance. Give the children
blood in their little bodies, and hope in their little
brains. Any decent parent will be the better for that;
the indecent parent is a loss already, and must be
cut. Working-class mothers who neglect to feed their
children better than themselves are but exceptions,
nor will a sounder system of State-help seriously alter
the deepest instinct of human nature. The heroism
of British soldiers in the trenches is no greater than the
lifelong heroism of British mothers in the slums struggling
against want. This is a matter that should not
be left to the discretion of local bodies. Once the
principle has been admitted—and who can honestly
deny that it has?—the rest should be simply a question
of fact medically certified not here and there, but all
over the country. Either it is justice and wisdom to
feed the children, or it is not, and the scruples, however
philosophical, of gentlemen prepared to watch other
people’s children go hungry should not any longer
be indulged.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The estimated number of school children in England
and Wales being fed by the State in 1911-1912 was
230,000 out of a school population of 5,357,367. The
estimated number of this school population showing
signs of malnutrition is variously given at from 10 to
20 per cent. Taking it at 15 per cent., or 800,000
children, we have more than half a million school
children wanting meals and not getting them. This
is appalling. There is no other word for it. But when
the children <span class='it'>under</span> school age who need food and are
not getting it, are added to this number, the proportions
of this national folly and inhumanity stagger
the brain. It does not yet seem to be grasped that
these children, who are fighting not only against
insufficiency of proper food, but against bad air and
bad housing, grow up with so much per cent. knocked
off their national value. A stitch in time is supposed
to save nine. A pound spent on the age of growth
brings back many pounds from the age of stability. To
those few who ride the doctrine of Liberty to the death
of national health it may simply be said: So long as
you have no hope of repealing compulsory education,
you have no right to let children receive it in an unfit
condition. Education and decent nourishment are
inseparable; and decent nourishment is as necessary
in the years that come before as in the years of schooling.
No! In reality the principle is now rooted,
and, like other things, it’s all a question of money.
But a country with a capital of £16,000,000,000
and an income of £2,100,000,000 cannot really afford
to allow this state of affairs to continue—especially
after the gold-letting of this war. The state our
national finances will be in makes it all the more
imperative that we should have a well-nourished and
efficient population, or we shall never get out of the
slough.</p>
<p class='pindent'>During this war our heroism has jibbed at Liquor.
That jovial monster looms nearly as large as ever.
We shall have a National Debt after the war of three
or four thousand millions, perhaps more. And yet the
cheapest thing that could possibly be done, in the long
run, would be to increase it and buy up the Liquor
Trade; achieve that dream of Joseph Chamberlain,
“the total and absolute elimination of any idea of
private gain in the retail sale of liquor”; convert
drink into food to the tune of some eighty millions a
year; and vastly diminish the number of children
that require State nourishment, and the number of
underfed men and women. In 1911, £162,797,229
was the drink bill of the nation; of which it is estimated
that about £110,000,000 was spent by the
working class. The working classes are no more
inclined to liquor than the rest of the population,
but they have obviously less to spare for the indulgence
of their inclination. With proper control of the liquor
traffic they will perhaps spend half what they spend
now, extracting therefrom just as much enjoyment,
and most of the other half will go into the bodies of
themselves and their children in the form of food.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Before the war one-tenth of our people were getting
too little food; two-tenths more just balanced on a
knife-edge of bare sufficiency. And the great majority
of this third of our population were too closely or too
badly housed for health.</p>
<p class='pindent'>What is it going to be—<span class='it'>after</span>—unless our measures
in regard to food, to housing, and to drink, are heroic?
For heroic measures we shall need a keener sense of
justice, a larger humanity, than we have ever had.
Though the war may conceivably not diminish humane
feeling in those who fight, it blunts the sensibilities of
those who do not see its horrors at first-hand. Tales
of others’ sufferings have become the daily fodder
of the brain; narratives of death and misery the companions
of every hour. Alongside the brutalities and
agonies of the war, the injustice and cruelties of normal
civil live seem pale and tame. Man has only a certain
capacity for feeling; one expects callousness now
towards civil inhumanities. But must that callousness
last after peace has come? If so, we are in a bad way.</p>
<p class='pindent'>What is it that our modern State is reaching after?
Presumably health, and balance. And what are these
qualities built on, if not on Justice? At the back of
all social inhumanities will be found a lack of reasonable
freedom and opportunity for some people, and
the possession in other people of too much freedom
and opportunity. And for the swift redress of social
cruelties, the thorough attainment of social justice,
we have at present not only to contend with human
nature, but with an admitted deficiency in our legislative
machinery.</p>
<p class='pindent'>When the chief obstacle to laws is not the callousness
of public opinion, but a mere block on the lines of
procedure, some drastic change is due, a new departure
wanted. Before the war many measures of reform
hung in the wind year after year, not because there was
no public feeling behind them, not even because there
were the usual political cleavages concerning them,
but simply because time could not be found in which
to pass them. Of such were: Measures for the feeding
and education of children; the control of drink;
rural housing; improvement of slum areas; furtherance
of the minimum wage; reform of the Poor Law;
of the Divorce Law; of the disability that attends
the needy in their access to civil justice; of the imprisonment
of poor persons for debt; of the procedure
in regard to pauper lunatics; of the prison system;
of provision for the blind; measures for the better
treatment of animals. All these and others hung in
the wind; are they to go on hanging those when the
war is over? Wanted before, they will be wanted still
more badly then, because the general conditions of
life will for some years, perhaps many years, be harder;
and economic pressure fosters rough and unjust
treatment.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Is it too early for a united effort, to think out, in
readiness for peace, a scheme of parliamentary procedure
which shall afford time for the serious and
uninterrupted consideration of non-party measures,
and the furtherance of needed reforms?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Party no longer exists, but they who think it has
gone for good dwell in a fools’ paradise. As sure as
fate it will spring up again, because it is rooted in
temperamental difference. But must it come back
with all its old cat-and-dog propensities, and waste
of national time? It will, unless some method be
devised that will remove some of party’s unhandsome
opportunities and save it from itself. Politicians
alone know the difficulties, many and great, in the way
of a better procedure. Surely, while faction is in
abeyance, Parliament will set its wits to overcoming
those difficulties, so that when the war ends we may not
witness again the tedious and distressful blocking of
so many needed measures that prevailed aforetime.
Party was made for the Country, not the Country for
Party; and what was tolerated with Job-like patience
before this vast upheaval is not by any means likely
to be tolerated after. Needs will be more insistent;
the sense of reality much greater; the aspiration
towards National Health a live thing, because it will
be so desperately necessary.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Reform of parliamentary procedure is obviously
the prime precedent for national reform. Shall not
then the question be even now given all the attention
that can be spared to it? What better moment—when
men of all parties are filled with the one great
thought—Our Country!</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='283' id='Page_283'></span><h1>V—A LAST WORD</h1></div>
<p class='pindent'>One more word before these vapourings cease.
The national task in this war is still mighty enough to
absorb all action, but not quite all thought, for it is
no spasmodic effort, meaning nothing to the future.
To carry the spirit of to-day into a long to-morrow,
making of our patriotism not a mere torrent soon spent
and leaving an arid plain, but a life-giving, even-flowing
river—for that one must not lose the sense
of continuity; one must think ahead. More! One
must resolve—resolve that this new unity shall stand
not only the strain of war, but the greater strain of the
coming Peace. After—will come the test. Having
guaranteed our country for the moment from destructive
powers without, shall we at once redeliver it to
the destructive powers within—go back to strife over
Ireland, the Suffrage, the Welsh Church, and the
Second Chamber? Or, preserving our new-found
unity, settle generously and in a large spirit those distressful
matters, and pass on to the real work—to
a wider and freer view of Empire, to the right training
of the nation, the right feeding of the nation, to securing
for each man, woman, and child a solid foundation
of health and hope; to the restoration of the land and
of our food supply; to clearance of mutual suspicions,
and the stablishing of a new trustfulness between
Labour and Capital; to the banishment of inhumanity;
the freeing of the eyes of Justice; and interment of
the privileges of class?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Shall we go back to rolling in the troughs of a dirty
sea or set new sail and steer out with a true faith in our
destiny as the Ship of Freedom and Justice?</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<div class='poetry-container' style=''>
<div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' -->
<div class='stanza-outer'>
<p class='line0'>“When the devil was sick, the devil a saint would be,</p>
<p class='line0'> But when the devil got well, the devil a saint was he!”</p>
</div>
</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend -->
</div>
<p class='noindent'>Is that to be our case? Let us not underrate the
danger. At this moment and until the war is over, we
are full of patriotism and good-will. We <span class='it'>have</span> to be.
There’s the trouble. Once Peace comes, and the unifying
force of our common peril is over, what then?
Is the old raw party spirit to ramp among us again?
If a man would discover what danger there is of a
return to every kind of disunity, let him take a
definite national question and see how much of his
private interest or conviction he is prepared to abate
for the sake of the public good. Mighty little! Are
we to dissolve again into those “rascally Radicals”
and those “infernal Tories”; into “grinders of the
poor” and “discontented devils”; into “brutal
men” and “hysterical females” with all the other
warring tribes of the Armageddon of Peace? Are we
to lose utterly the inspiring vision of our Country,
in the squabbles of domestic life? Some of that
intense vision must go, alas! But surely not all. And
yet all <span class='it'>will</span> go unless we keep in mind the thought that
this war is not an end, but the means to an end, which
none of us will see, but all of us can further in time
of peace as well as in time of war—an end for whose
attainment the blood and treasure now spilled is but
as a preliminary.</p>
<p class='pindent'>It will be heart-breaking if from this stupendous
cataclysm no lasting good to the world and to Britain
can be brought forth. Its horror, even now, few
realize who are not at the front. One who was many
months on ambulance duty in the French lines wrote
these words:</p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='pindent'>“They talk of the war! Let them come close in!
Let them see lying around emaciated heads with no
bodies within a couple of hundred yards; let them see
the bloody confusion of heads and entrails and limbs
which is showered around when a trench is mined;
let them see the heads with ears and noses bitten off
as if by mad dogs; let them see the men driven
insane by the sights and sounds of the battlefield,
who turn and rend their comrades and have to be shot
down by them; let them come where hundreds of
wounded men are lying on contested ground screaming
the whole night through (and not one in a million has
ever heard a man scream!) and then talk of the war!”</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>If from this horror, fought through and endured,
as we believe, for the future of our Land and the future
of mankind, there is to come no blessing, no advance
to freedom and health and justice. . . . What then?
Nothing will be easier than to take up again the peace
life of Britain as it was, and worse than it was, because
coarsened by the passions of war, and embittered by
the strain of a greater economic stress. Nothing will
be easier than to give rein to the instincts of greed,
pugnacity, and rancour, now hard held in by sentiment
and the common peril; to step back and walk blindly
in a country where all is faction; where class shuns
class, and men and women are bitterly opposed;
where the youth of the nation is all the time running
to seed; where children go hungry and millions
throughout the land are miserably housed and fed;
where the access to justice is often still beyond the
reach of the poor; where helplessness is not yet a
guarantee against ill-usage. Once the war effort is
over, nothing will be easier than—from a resolved
and united nation—to become a crowd pressing this
way and that, without view and without vision, seeking
purse and place, or, at the best, fulfilment of small
factious policies.</p>
<p class='pindent'>No one can tell yet what will be the world-sequel
of this war—whether it will bring a long peace or other
wars; the enlargement of democracy or the hardening
of autocratic rule; the United States of Europe or a
congery of distrustful Powers working for another
“Day.” Only one thing we know, that in our charge
will be our own national life, to make or to mar; to
prepare against whatever fortune the outer world
shall brew, to prepare against the subtle march of
inward dissolution. Our future does not lie on the knees
of the gods; it lies in our own hands, and hearts,
and brains, and the use that we shall make of them.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Swift is the descent to hell, and no wings fly so fast
thither as the wings of material success. Shall we go
that way? Or shall we, having fixed our eyes on a
goal far beyond the finish of this war, quietly, resolutely
in our conduct to the outer world and in our national
life, begin at once transmuting into deeds those words:
Freedom, Health, Justice for All?</p>
<p class='pindent'>As a man thinks and dreams, so does he act. It is
time to think and dream a little of the future, while
the spirit of unity is on us, the vision of our Country
with us; so that, when we see again the face of Peace,
we may continue to act in unity, having in our hearts
the good of our Land, and in our eyes the vision of
her, growing ever to truer greatness and beauty.</p>
<div><span class='pageno' title='289' id='Page_289'></span><h1>THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED</h1></div>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='hang'>(Read at a Conference on the National Life of the
Allied Countries, Stratford-on-Avon, August, 1916.)</p>
</div>
<p class='pindent'>I suppose there are Britons who have never seen the
sea; thousands, perhaps—unfortunate. But is there a
Briton who has not in some sort the feeling that he is
a member of a great ship’s crew? Is there one who
never rejoices that his Land sails in space, unboarded,
untouched by other lands? It must be strange to be
native of a country where, strolling forth, one may pass
into the fields or woods of another race. In all that we
are, have been, and shall be, the sea comes first—the
sea, sighing up quiet beaches, thundering off headlands,
the sea blue and smiling under our white cliffs, or lashing
the long sands, the sea out beyond foreshore and green
fields, or rolling in on wind-blown rocks and wastes.
The sea with its smile, and its frown, and its restless
music; the grim, loyal, protecting sea—our mother and
our comrade, our mysterious friend!</p>
<p class='pindent'>The ancients dreamed of “the islands of the blessed”;
we of these green and misty isles almost, I think, believe
that we inhabit them.</p>
<p class='pindent'>A strange and abiding sense is love of Country!
Though reason may revolt, and life here be hard, ugly,
thankless, though one may even say, “I care no more
for my own countrymen than for those of other lands; I
am a citizen of the world!” No use! A stealing love
has us fast bound; a web of who knows what memories
of misty fields, and scents of clover and turned earth;
of summer evenings, when sounds are far and clear;
of long streets half-lighted, and town sights, not
beautiful but homely; of the skies we were born
beneath, and the roads we have trodden all our lives.
What memories, too, of names and tales, small visions
all upside down perhaps, yet true and warm to us
because we listened and saw when we were no
older than foals at their dams’ heels. It is not our
actual Country, but its halo, that we love—the halo
each one of us has made for it. There are evenings
under the moon, dewy mornings, late afternoons, when
over field and wood, over moor or park or town,
unearthliness hovers; so, over our native land hovers
a glamour that burns brighter when we are absent, and
flames up in glory above her when we see her driven or
hard pressed. No man yet knows the depths of our
love for these islands of the blessed. May no man ever
know it!</p>
<p class='pindent'>And to each of us there will be some ingle-nook where
the spirit of our country most inhabits, where the fire
of hearth and home glows best, and draws us with its
warmth from wanderings bodily or spiritual. To know
that in these isles no native-born but has a quiet
shrine, be it lovely, or devoid of earthly beauty, where
he or she in fancy worships the whole land, gives reality
to the word Patriotism.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This love of country is so deep and sacred that we
cannot utter it; let us not forget that it is as deep and
sacred to the natives of other lands!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Looking back into the dark of history, how quaint is
our origin—offspring of invading robbers, wave after
wave, for some two thousand years before the Norman
Conquest! If these be not in truth the blessed
islands that the ancients dreamed of, they seem to
have been sufficiently attractive. Who our Neolithic
forerunners were, whence they came, or whether they
were here before our isles cut loose from the mainland
and set out on an endless voyage, we shall never, I
suppose, know. A strain of their blood, more than we
think perhaps, must still be alive within us; the rest
of it is freebooting fluid—Celts and Romans, Anglo-Saxons,
Danes, Normans, all robbers; blent at last—and
in Ireland not yet quite blent—to the observance
of honour among thieves.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Ever since the sea brought us here—all but the
Neolithic few—in the long-ships of the past, what a
slow, ceaseless fusing has gone to the making of the
modern Briton—that most singular among men! I
hold the theory—how far scientifically tenable I know
not—that the continued vitality of a race depends on
two main conditions: the presence of many strains of
blood not too violently differing one from the other, and
the absence of too much sun. I hold that nations may
become too inbred; or may have the sap dried out of
them by heat. In Britain we cannot yet have reached
the point of perfect fusion—are not in danger for a
long time of becoming too inbred. Nor can the sun be
called a desperate peril. We are “game,” as they
say, for centuries yet; unless——! For our besetting
danger is another.</p>
<p class='pindent'>How many of us realize that far beyond all other
nations we are town dwellers, subject to town blight?
That is a new, an insidious, malady, whose virulence
we have hardly yet appreciated or had time to study.
Can it be arrested by homœopathy—or must sweeping
allopathic remedies be applied? Will town blight be
cured by better town conditions, and our gradual
adaptation—or by going back to the land? By both.
But, if not by both within the next half-century, then—I
fear—by neither. Town blight has had as yet but
two full generations to lay its grip on us. We have
time for its defeat if we have courage and sense. But
it is an enemy more deadly than the Germans; not so
easy to see and to fight against!</p>
<p class='pindent'>When children first discover gooseberries or other
kindly fruits of the earth, they eat too quickly and
too much. We were the first people to discover the
means to “happiness” known as modern industrialism.
With huge appetite we set upon it, and are caught by
surfeit. I have heard this view of our case seriously
countered—the Cockney and the northern townsman
are thought to be our most vital types. Verily they
have a pretty courage; but to such as are light-hearted
on this matter I would say: “Go, in summer,
to some seaside place where humble townsfolk have
come to make holiday, as healthy and little pallid as
they ever are, and—watch. Then wing off to some
remote fishing village, or countryside where such
peasants as are left are not too badly off, and—watch.
Then summon your candour, and tell in which of your
two fields of observation you have seen more vigour
of limb, beauty of face, or at all events more freedom
from petty distortions and a look of dwindling.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>I cannot explain exactly what I mean by town
blight. It is not mere pallor or weakliness, but rather
a loss of balance—a tendency to jut here and be
squashed in there; an over-narrowness of head; an
over-development of this feature at the expense of
that; with a look of living too fast, of giving out more
than is taken in. The modifications of the Briton
through town life are countless, and all the time subtly
going on. I do not deny that there is much good, too,
in the transformation—the quickening of a temperament
by no means quick; a widening of sympathies in
a character not too sympathetic; the deepening of
humaneness and the love of justice in a nature with an
old Adam in it of brutality. A frank humanitarian
and humanist, like myself, dwells cheerfully on that, for
it does seem, while other changes in human life are
always arguable—such as the increase of efficiency
purchased by loss of breadth and kindliness; economic
gain by loss of health and balance; greater will-power
by loss of understanding and tolerance—that the
increase of humane instinct, with which is bound up the
love of justice, is alone sheer gain. Some, I know,
think it bought at the expense of what is called
“virility.” To those I recommend a steady glimpse at
the modern British sailor. Of late years I have been
reading accounts of Arctic and Antarctic exploration.
There is no better study for those who doubt whether
men can be brave and hard and at the same time
chivalrous and gentle. One returns from mental travel
with those heroes convinced that true humanity and
gentleness and justice actually depend on bravery and
stoicism. Picked men, you say! Well, go to the
British Fleet, or the British Army—in a word, to the
British male population of robust age—and you will
come back, I believe, with the same general conviction—that
where the truest bravery is there also is
humaneness—that these qualities grow naturally twined
together. All evidence from the war proves that the
Briton is as hard a fighter, and far better behaved, than
he ever was. Better behaviour under war conditions
means nothing but increase in each individual fighter,
of just and humane instinct, and that sense of personal
responsibility which is the other main advantage
coming to us from town life. In towns a man finds his
level, acquires the corporate sense, sees himself as part
of the civic whole, learns that his own ills are shared
by too many, to bear thinking of save with a touch
of humour and contempt. The British sailor whose
shattered arm was being dressed in the battle of Jutland
well summed up what I mean: “To hell with my
arm, doctor; I want to get up there again and <span class='it'>give
the boys a hand</span>!” That would seem very much the
spirit of the modern town-bred British.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Now, is there anything which in some sort differentiates
this Britain of ours from other lands?</p>
<p class='pindent'>A country is such a huge conglomeration of types and
qualities; such a seething mass of energies! It seems
sometimes as impossible to thread one’s way to the
heart of that maze as to fix the pattern of a thousand
gnats dancing in a sunlit lane! One turns eyes here,
there, follows this movement and that, thinks one has
the clue, falls back gaping. Is there any essence which
sets the British soul apart, as an oak is set apart from
beech or lime tree? Can there, indeed, be any single
essence in a land where Iberian and Celt, Saxon and
Norseman, still quarrel in the blood? I think there is,
and will hazard an attempt to throw on the screen some
faint shadow of the elusive thing.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Take certain salient British characteristics: Our
peculiar national under-emphasis and stolidity; our
want of imagination; that desire to have things both
ways—which is generally called our “hypocrisy”;
our turn of ironic humour; our bulldog grip; our lack
of <span class='it'>joie de vivre</span>; our snobbishness—dying, but dying
very hard; our perpetual desire for the moral in action
or art; our regard for “good form”; our slow dumb
idealism, hand in hand with our profound distrust of
ideas; our propensity for grumbling under prosperity,
and our cheeriness under hardship; our passion
for games, and our creed of “playing the game”;
our love of individual liberty—even our perversity
and crankiness. . . . Take them all, and consider
whether there is not some fundamental underlying
instinct.</p>
<p class='pindent'>I believe that the mainspring of the British soul,
concealed by a layer of mental laziness from superficial
scrutiny, is nothing but an inveterate instinct
for competition. The Briton is the most competitive
creature on the face of the earth—save possibly the
American of British descent. True—we would, as they
phrase it on the turf, make a race with a donkey, for
our climate has certainly sluggarded the circulation of
our blood. None the less, we have a perpetual secret
itch for competition, so bone deep that most of us do
not even know of it. All through our lives we are
playing a match. When the Briton is not secretly
pitting himself against somebody or something, he can
hardly be said to be alive. I do not think, speaking
racially, that he cares so much for what he gets by
the game as for the game itself and victory in it. He
sets little store by the perfection of his handiwork so
long as it beats the handiwork of others; or—and this
is the saving grace—so long as in the accomplishment
he has defeated the slackness or cowardice in his own
nature—won the match within himself.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Let us turn them over one by one, those salient British
characteristics:</p>
<p class='pindent'>Stolidity! Under-emphasis! It is surely nothing
but contempt of fuss; and what is fuss but allowing
too much importance to the task or person you are up
against? The instinct of competition forbids that in
the Briton; he is so competitive that he does not deign
to let people see that he is stretching himself.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Want of imagination! That is partly the mental
laziness, no doubt, engendered by our thick climate;
but much of it, I think, is only the subconscious refusal
by our competitive natures to see too quickly and
clearly what we have before us, lest we be discouraged.
A great help—to have muddled through most of the
battle before you are aware of the size and length
of it!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Our rather grim turn of humour! Is it not generally
a jest at the expense of a fate which thought it could
set us down?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Our hypocrisy! One would not admit a physical
defeat, but clench the teeth and have at it again; then,
how admit moral defeat? Impossible! Face must
be saved—instinctively again, unconsciously—for the
last thing we plead guilty to is our “hypocrisy.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>The bulldog grip—speaks for itself.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Our lack of <span class='it'>joie de vivre</span>! We are playing a match—we
have no chance or time to relax, to lie on our backs
and let the sunlight warm our faces. We have not
time to give ourselves up to life; there is so much to
beat—we are playing a match.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Our veneration for rank of every kind! Snobbishness!
This is surely nothing but our recognition of the
value of attainment; acknowledgment of victories
won, if not in the present, in the past; tacit confession
that we, too, want to win such victories.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Our craving for a moral! Well, what is a moral, if
not the triumph of what we call “good” over what we
call “evil”? We crave that triumph—not only in
action, but also, I fear, in art. Art must not merely
excite within us impersonal emotion; it must be useful
to us in our match with life—a pity!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Our worship of “good form” is partly dread of that
ridicule which would be a proof of our having fallen
short, and partly recognition by a people who have long
lived an exceptionally stable social life, that this competitive
instinct of ours, unchecked by rules, becomes a
nuisance to ourselves and others. In the same way,
“playing the game” is but the necessary check on our
passion for a match.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Our inveterate dumb idealism is of course a primary
constituent element in the fighting nature; and our
distrust of ideas a natural lazy dread of being pushed
on too fast by that idealism.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Our grumbling habits, when there is little or nothing
to grumble at, show, I think, that in slackness and
prosperity we are really out of our element; while our
ironic cheerfulness under hardship—the cry “Are we
down-hearted? No-o!” proves that times of stress
suit our competitive temperament.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Our love of individual liberty! A man, the joy of
whose life is winning an event over himself or others,
naturally desires the utmost latitude for these perpetual
contests. And so the Briton becomes “a crank” more
often than members of any other race.</p>
<p class='pindent'>One should never drive theory too far, but I seriously
believe that the foundation of the Briton’s soul is this
dumb and utter refusal to admit that he ever can be
beaten, either by himself or any other. He is concerned
to win, rather than to understand or to enjoy.
I do not know whether this is admirable, but I am
pretty sure that it is true. And behind and beyond all
the better reasons for pursuing this war to a victorious
end, there is always the inarticulate, intense, instinctive
feeling, that we must win the match, since to fail would
mean not only defeat by the Germans, but the defeat
within us of our will and of our own nature.</p>
<p class='pindent'>If I am right as to this essence of the British soul,
what does it signify to the world of our friends and
enemies? It means, of course, a rock on which our
friends may build—it assures the fulfilment of all
pledges, and endurance till the day of victory; but
it carries with it a certain element of danger. Vice
treads on the heels of Virtue in the competitive soul.
How far may our nature become a peril, not only to
ourselves, but to our Allies and the whole world?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Underneath all our resolution not to fall short of such
measure of victory as shall free the invaded lands, and
prove to all that the over-riding of a little harmless
neutral country has not paid; underneath this absolute
resolve, which of us does not long for a <span class='it'>real</span> peace, an
end of a world that is like a powder magazine which
malevolent or foolish hands can fire at any moment?
The difficulties that lie between us and such a peace
are very great; far be it from me to minimize them,
or blink the seeming impasse of the situation ahead.
When the end draws near, in every warring land the
great dumb mass-of-the-people’s only thought will be:
“For God’s sake, have done with it, and let us get
back to life!” But, jutting out of this mass, in each
country, and especially in our own, there will be, on the
one hand, idealists and dreamers, a little band, seeing a
vision too visionary, telling of it to the wind; on the
other, a far larger, louder band of men of affairs,
judging of matters with the immediate eye, for immediate
profit, or, as they will rather phrase it, for
permanent profit, under the waving flags of patriotism;
of men talking of a lasting peace and genuinely wishing
for it—so long as it does not mean foregoing anything,
so long as they may let go no advantage so dearly
bought. Already the cry on both sides is for a commercial
war starting from the final battle. All that is
stupendously natural! But in this medley of demand,
how will statesmen steer? Will they, who have to
remake the world, have a large vision, and see that, vital
before all else, is the seizing of a chance—that has
never come before and may never come again—to
establish and set going a Court of Nations, backed this
time by real force? Will they grasp the wisdom implicit
in the feeling of the great dumb multitudes: “For
God’s sake have done with it, and let us <span class='it'>live</span>!”</p>
<p class='pindent'>We have not yet got to the moment on which the
whole future will hang. When we do, I fancy that this
competitive soul of ours may want too much to have
things both ways. Whatever the terms of the peace
that comes, that peace will not last without a League
of Nations to guarantee it; and such a League we
cannot have unless impartiality be its backbone;
unless we mean that it shall judge justly, and
enforce judgment without fear or favour; unless we
are willing to accept its judgments in all matters,
and not merely when it suits us. A man does not
guarantee the health of his body just by holding his
neighbour down; and the true path to security and
a great future lies in the efforts we make to improve
ourselves, rather than in those we make to injure others.
The freedom and fair opportunity which are vital to a
lasting peace need not bar us from national preparedness,
from intelligent effort to save ourselves and our
Allies from unfair commercial competition, need not
prevent us from assuring our safety and improving our
corporate life. But they do mean that we must keep
free of a militarist and tyrannical spirit. How far will
our competitive British soul, when peace comes, be
proof against that virus? Are we, in the winning of
military victory, going quietly to accept moral defeat,
letting our ideals turn turtle and float with their keels
to the stars? I wonder.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This League for Peace we talk of—that even statesmen
talk of—will not be born of violent minds, but
out of level and long-headedness, and the desire to
benefit not only our own country, but the world.
It is an undertaking fraught with the most poignant
difficulty. If you imagine it fledged from birth, with
wings full grown—if you imagine a world disarmed,
immediately responsive to law—it is but an Utopian
dream. The world will assuredly remain armed;
at a single stride one cannot step from hell to heaven.
But armedness need not prevent the nations from
establishing procedure for the delay of warlike action—a
tribunal to which all disputes must be referred;
need not prevent them from pledging themselves to
forcible support of its decisions, from declaring commerce
<span class='it'>sacro-sanct</span> between members of the League, and
punishing by blockade and ostracism any nation that
betrays its membership, or flouts a decision, so that the
sanctity of a nation’s commerce may in future depend
on that nation’s loyalty to other nations; nor need it
prevent States from taking the manufacture of war
material out of private hands. Only on the proved
efficacy of such measures as these will the disarmament
of nations follow, slowly, surely, equally; for
man will then be acting, as he loves to act, not by rote
and theory, but on the evidence of facts.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Is all this a wild-cat notion, or a mere natural growth
out of what went before the war, and out of the terrific
tragedy of the war itself—a plan tentative and experimental,
that may gradually force its way to confidence,
till the Court of Nations reaches the unquestioned
authority and permanence of each individual nation’s
courts of justice?</p>
<p class='pindent'>We of the Allied countries must surely long for such
a plan; nor, I think can any neutral nation which
has watched and trembled at this war be other than well-disposed
towards it; and, whatever their rulers and
journalists may desire, the <span class='it'>peoples</span> of the Central Empires
will not wish to be left out. Yet when the time
comes for peace discussions one sees only too well the
deadlock. The Allied nations, if victorious, will not
want a round table <span class='it'>séance</span> with their enemies and a
cosy settlement. The Central Empires will not wish
to accept forced membership of a League for Peace
founded by their enemies, in which—however mistakenly—they
believe they will always be outvoted.
This vicious deadlock, however, is less real, I think,
than it seems. There are new forces at work; and if
a League for Peace can make even a lame and partial
start, it may by these new forces soon be fortified.
After this war, deep-planted in the heart of every
people, whether fighting or looking on, will be the
loathing of national aggressiveness! Such a feeling has
never existed before because men have never before
been so stirred, so injured, and so frightened. We
soon forget, of course, all save that of which we are
constantly reminded; but the aftermath of this war
will be full of startling revelations of the ruin it has
caused; the world will reek with reminder that so-called
national aspirations cannot with impunity be aggressively
pursued; that so-called defensive wars cannot
be light-heartedly incepted. During the march of a
war, however terrible, the fascination of strife colours
and subdues its horror; its heroisms hypnotize, its
rancours drug all reason, blur all vision. But in the
cold thinned blood of a maimed future, how different it
will all seem, how terrifically disproportionate!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Love of country has never before had such calls
made on it; men have never so suffered for their
patriotism. That, too, must bring a sweeping reaction,
which will gradually force the hands of reluctant
Governments into adhesion to any scheme which
promises relief from a repetition of such agonies. And
so, in spite of all the difficulties, I believe some sort of
League for Peace will come, imperfect and experimental
at first, but which, once founded, will wax and grow
strong, in the real—not merely pious—horror of war
which will follow this fearful carnival. Let it but hold
together for a few years, survive one or two serious
trials, and I think no sane nation will ever desire its
dissolution.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Such a scheme will not come down to us from
Heaven. From our own brains and wills it must
spring; from our sense of—shall we say—the inconvenience
of wars like this. If the killing and disablement
of some ten million men, the waste of some ten
to twenty thousand million pounds, persuades us to
nothing but the leaving of the world exactly as it was,
as liable to these irruptions of death and misery—then,
better say with the Spanish poet, “Of all the misfortunes
of man, the greatest is to have been born.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Even before the guns cease roaring, shall not our
nine Allied peoples agree informally among themselves
upon the structure of a League for Peace, and secure
the sympathetic understanding of America, and the
other neutral countries, on whose wisdom and good-will
so much depends?</p>
<p class='pindent'>I, for one, would wish my Country foremost in
pursuing this great chance—wish that she might place
all her power in the favouring scale; I would wish to
see her as ready to submit to the decisions of an International
Tribunal, as each one of us is ready as a
matter of course to submit to the decisions of our
judges.</p>
<p class='pindent'>We in this green Britain of ours, still free of the
invader’s foot, can measure the value of freedom now,
looking across to lands waiting for deliverance. No
country of Europe but has suffered, during long centuries,
outrage and trampling, siege and slaughter, that
we have been spared—saved by our sea. It is not
irony that calls these the islands of the blessed.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But Fortune is a jealous goddess; and offerings are
due to her who has given us an inviolate soil. I seem
to see Fortune standing apart, watching—wondering.
“What have they made—what are they going to
make of their Land?” I seem to see Fortune thinking:
“If I grant them success once more, these
islanders, are they great enough to survive it? Under
my smile the empires of the past one by one went
down—Assyria, Egypt, Persia, Rome, others of long,
long ago. Will this empire live, or will it too rot
away, and sink?”</p>
<p class='pindent'>Those empires of the past fell through prosperity,
through inordinate pride, through luxury and slavery
hand in hand. May Fortune hold up a mirror to us,
that we see ourselves as we are! Freedom and
Humanity are not mere words; nor is a people’s greatness
measured in acres or in pounds, in the number of
its ships on the sea, or of the rifles it can muster. A
people’s greatness is in the breadth and quality of its
soul, in its fortitude, alertness, justice, gentleness,
within itself and to the world without; and in its faith
that man has his fate in his own hands.</p>
<p class='pindent'>As the individual, so the State; the aggregate of
individual virtue decides and shapes the lot of nations.
May there be no slaves among us and none who fatten
upon slavery; no brutes among us and none who cower
under brutality! Let us not hold ourselves as the
elect in a blind patriotism, but have some vision of the
world beyond our shores, of its hopes and dreads and
natural ambitions. A narrow national spirit never
served mankind!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Let the sea be our inspiration and our reminder!
For, if it is our fortification, the sea is also our link
with all the world, and the greatest force of untamed
Nature. It seems to me that they who live dependent
on the sea should never be puffed up. Its changing
moods and salt winds, its wildness, beauty, desolation,
the sudden fates that lurk within it, that leap and
clutch and draw away from us our best; the great
spaces of it beneath sun and stars—these are constant,
and to our souls should surely carry breadth, sweep out
of us the littleness of Imperial complacency. The sea
is never chained, and the eyes of sailors have in them
a look that any man might covet—a steady fronting
of something inscrutable, shifting, dangerous. They
know the little worth of human strength, the need of
unity; they know that when a man slackens his
watch, Fate leaps upon him.</p>
<p class='pindent'>The ship of each nation sails a sea of incalculable
currents and uncharted channels. Sailing that sea,
may we have the eyes of sailors, lest our Fate leap
upon us!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Who would not desire, rushing through the thick
dark of the future, to stand on the cliffs of vision—two
hundred years, say, hence—and view this world?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Will there then be this League for War, this cauldron
where, beneath the thin crust, a boiling lava bubbles,
and at any minute may break through and leap up, as
now, jet high? Will there still be reek and desolation,
and man at the mercy of the machines he has made;
still be narrow national policies and rancours, and such
mutual fear, that no country dare be generous? Or
will there be over the whole world something of the
glamour that each one of us now sees hovering above
his own country; and men and women—all—feel they
are natives of one land? Who dare say?</p>
<p class='pindent'>When the guns cease fire and all is still, from the
woods and fields and seas, from the skeleton towns of
ravaged countries, the wistful dead will rise, and with
their eyes accuse us. In that hour we shall have for
answer only this: We fought for a better Future for
Mankind!</p>
<p class='pindent'>Did we? Do we? That is the great question. Is
our gaze really fixed on the far horizon? Or do we
only dream it; and have the slain no comfort in their
untimely darkness; the maimed, the ruined, the
bereaved, no shred of consolation? Is it all to be for
nothing but the salving of national prides? And shall
the Ironic Spirit fill the whole world with his laughter?</p>
<p class='pindent'>Or shall the nations take the first step in that grand
march of real deliverance which will make the whole
earth—at last—the islands of the blessed?</p>
<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;font-size:0.9em;'>THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS, LTD., LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.</p>
<hr class='pbk'/>
<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' -->
<p class='line'><span class='ul'><span class='it'><span style='font-size:larger'>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</span></span></span></p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'><span class='it'>Issued by William Heinemann.</span></p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'>THE ISLAND PHARISEES.</p>
<p class='line'>THE MAN OF PROPERTY.</p>
<p class='line'>THE COUNTRY HOUSE.</p>
<p class='line'>FRATERNITY.</p>
<p class='line'>THE PATRICIAN.</p>
<p class='line'>THE DARK FLOWER.</p>
<p class='line'>THE FREELANDS.</p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<hr class='tbk100'/>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'>A MOTLEY.</p>
<p class='line'>THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY.</p>
<p class='line'>THE LITTLE MAN AND OTHER SATIRES.</p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<hr class='tbk101'/>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'>MOODS, SONGS, AND DOGGERELS.</p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<hr class='tbk102'/>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'>MEMORIES.</p>
<p class='line'> <span class='it'>Illustrated by</span> <span class='sc'>Maud Earl</span>.</p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<hr class='tbk103'/>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'><span class='it'>Issued by other Publishers.</span></p>
<p class='line'> </p>
<p class='line'>VILLA RUBEIN AND OTHER STORIES.</p>
<p class='line'>PLAYS: 3 vols.</p>
<p class='line'>A COMMENTARY.</p>
</div> <!-- end rend -->
<hr class='tbk104'/>
<p class='line' style='font-size:1.1em;'><span class='bold'>Transcriber’s Notes:</span></p>
<div class='blockquote'>
<p class='noindent'>The list of other works by the author has been moved from the front of the book to the end. Spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. A few obvious typesetting and punctuation errors have been corrected without note.</p>
</div>
<p class='noindent'>[The end of <span class='it'>A Sheaf</span> by John Galsworthy]</p>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57778 ***</div>
</body>
<!-- created with fpgen.py 4.56d on 2018-08-24 00:56:25 GMT -->
</html>
|
