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diff --git a/old/60057-0.txt b/old/60057-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b068c13..0000000 --- a/old/60057-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5668 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Uses of Diversity, by G. K. Chesterton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Uses of Diversity - A book of essays - -Author: G. K. Chesterton - -Release Date: August 4, 2019 [EBook #60057] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE USES OF DIVERSITY *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Christopher Wright and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - -THE USES OF DIVERSITY - - - - - BY THE SAME AUTHOR - - - CHARLES DICKENS - ALL THINGS CONSIDERED - TREMENDOUS TRIFLES - ALARMS AND DISCURSIONS - A MISCELLANY OF MEN - THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE - - - - - THE USES OF DIVERSITY - - A BOOK OF ESSAYS - - BY - G. K. CHESTERTON - - METHUEN & CO. LTD - 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. - LONDON - - -_First Published in 1920_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - ON SERIOUSNESS 1 - - LAMP-POSTS 7 - - THE SPIRITS 13 - - TENNYSON 18 - - THE DOMESTICITY OF DETECTIVES 24 - - GEORGE MEREDITH 30 - - THE IRISHMAN 34 - - IRELAND AND THE DOMESTIC DRAMA 39 - - THE JAPANESE 44 - - CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 49 - - THE LAWLESSNESS OF LAWYERS 54 - - OUR LATIN RELATIONS 61 - - ON PIGS AS PETS 66 - - THE ROMANCE OF ROSTAND 71 - - WISHES 75 - - THE FUTURISTS 80 - - THE EVOLUTION OF EMMA 85 - - THE PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 91 - - THE HUMOUR OF KING HEROD 96 - - THE SILVER GOBLETS 101 - - THE DUTY OF THE HISTORIAN 106 - - QUESTIONS OF DIVORCE 112 - - MORMONISM 121 - - PAGEANTS AND DRESS 126 - - ON STAGE COSTUME 132 - - THE YULE LOG AND THE DEMOCRAT 138 - - MORE THOUGHTS ON CHRISTMAS 144 - - DICKENS AGAIN 149 - - TAFFY 154 - - “EGO ET SHAVIUS MEUS” 159 - - THE PLAN FOR A NEW UNIVERSE 164 - - GEORGE WYNDHAM 171 - - FOUR STUPIDITIES 177 - - ON HISTORICAL NOVELS 182 - - ON MONSTERS 186 - - - - -THE USES OF DIVERSITY - - - - -THE USES OF DIVERSITY - - - - -On Seriousness ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -I do not like seriousness. I think it is irreligious. Or, if you prefer -the phrase, it is the fashion of all false religions. The man who takes -everything seriously is the man who makes an idol of everything: he -bows down to wood and stone until his limbs are as rooted as the roots -of the tree or his head as fallen as the stone sunken by the roadside. -It has often been discussed whether animals can laugh. The hyena is -said to laugh: but it is rather in the sense in which the M.P. is said -to utter “an ironical cheer.” At the best, the hyena utters an ironical -laugh. Broadly, it is true that all animals except Man are serious. And -I think it is further demonstrated by the fact that all human beings -who concern themselves in a concentrated way with animals are also -serious; serious in a sense far beyond that of human beings concerned -with anything else. Horses are serious; they have long, solemn faces. -But horsey men are also serious--jockeys or trainers or grooms: they -also have long, solemn faces. Dogs are serious: they have exactly -that combination of moderate conscientiousness with monstrous conceit -which is the make-up of most modern religions. But, however serious -dogs may be, they can hardly be more serious than dog-fanciers--or -dog-stealers. Dog-stealers, indeed, have to be particularly serious, -because they have to come back and say they have found the dog. The -faintest shade of irony, not to say levity, on their features, would -evidently be fatal to their plans. I will not carry the comparison -through all the kingdoms of natural history: but it is true of all who -fix their affection or intelligence on the lower animals. Cats are as -serious as the Sphinx, who must have been some kind of cat, to judge by -the attitude. But the rich old ladies who love cats are quite equally -serious, about cats and about themselves. So also the ancient Egyptians -worshipped cats, also crocodiles and beetles and all kinds of things; -but they were all serious and made their worshippers serious. Egyptian -art was intentionally harsh, clear, and conventional; but it could very -vividly represent men driving, hunting, fighting, feasting, praying. -Yet I think you will pass along many corridors of that coloured and -almost cruel art before you see a man laughing. Their gods did not -encourage them to laugh. I am told by housewives that beetles seldom -laugh. Cats do not laugh--except the Cheshire Cat (which is not found -in Egypt); and even he can only grin. And crocodiles do not laugh. They -weep. - -This comparison between the sacred animals of Egypt and the pet animals -of to-day is not so far-fetched as it may seem to some people. There is -a healthy and an unhealthy love of animals: and the nearest definition -of the difference is that the unhealthy love of animals is serious. I -am quite prepared to love a rhinoceros, with reasonable precautions: -he is, doubtless, a delightful father to the young rhinoceroses. But -I will not promise not to laugh at a rhinoceros. I will not worship -the beast with the little horn. I will not adore the Golden Calf; -still less will I adore the Fatted Calf. On the contrary, I will eat -him. There is some sort of joke about eating an animal, or even about -an animal eating you. Let us hope we shall perceive it at the proper -moment, if it ever occurs. But I will not worship an animal. That is, I -will not take an animal quite seriously: and I know why. - -Wherever there is Animal Worship there is Human Sacrifice. That is, -both symbolically and literally, a real truth of historical experience. -Suppose a thousand black slaves were sacrificed to the blackbeetle; -suppose a million maidens were flung into the Nile to feed the -crocodile; suppose the cat could eat men instead of mice--it could -still be no more than that sacrifice of humanity that so often makes -the horse more important than the groom, or the lap-dog more important -even than the lap. The only right view of the animal is the comic view. -Because the view is comic it is naturally affectionate. And because it -is affectionate, it is never respectful. - -I know no place where the true contrast has been more candidly, -clearly, and (for all I know) unconsciously expressed than in an -excellent little book of verse called _Bread and Circuses_ by Helen -Parry Eden, the daughter of Judge Parry, who has inherited both the -humour and the humanity in spite of which her father succeeded as a -modern magistrate. There are a great many other things that might be -praised in the book, but I should select for praise the sane love -of animals. There is, for instance, a little poem on a cat from the -country who has come to live in a flat in Battersea (everybody at some -time of their lives has lived or will live in a flat in Battersea, -except, perhaps, the “prisoner of the Vatican”), and the verses have -a tenderness, with a twist of the grotesque, which seems to me the -exactly appropriate tone about domestic pets: - - And now you’re here. Well, it may be - The sun _does_ rise in Battersea - Although to-day be dark; - Life is not shorn of loves and hates - While there are sparrows on the slates - And keepers in the Park. - And you yourself will come to learn - The ways of London; and in turn - Assume your Cockney cares - Like other folk that live in flats, - Chasing your purely abstract rats - Upon the concrete stairs. - -That is like Hood at his best; but it is, moreover, penetrated with a -profound and true appreciation of the fundamental idea that all love -of the cat must be founded on the _absurdity_ of the cat, and only -thus can a morbid idolatry be avoided. Perhaps those who appeared to -be witches were those old ladies who took their cats too seriously. -The cat in this book is called “Four-Paws,” which is as jolly as a -gargoyle. But the name of the cat must be something familiar and even -jeering, if it be only Tom or Tabby or Topsy: something that shows man -is not afraid of it. Otherwise the name of the cat will be Pasht. - -But when the same poet comes accidentally across an example of the -insane seriousness about animals that some modern “humanitarians” -exhibit, she turns against the animal-lover as naturally and -instinctively as she turns to the animal. A writer on a society paper -had mentioned some rich woman who had appeared on Cup Day “gowned” -in some way or other, and inserted the tearful parenthesis that “she -has just lost a dear dog in London.” The real animal-lover instantly -recognizes the wrong note, and dances on the dog’s grave with a -derision as unsympathetic as Swift: - - Dear are my friends, and yet my heart still light is, - Undimmed the eyes that see our set depart, - Snatched from the Season by appendicitis - Or something quite as smart. - - But when my Chin-Chin drew his latest breath - On Marie’s outspread apron, slow and wheezily, - I simply sniffed, I could not take _his_ death - So Pekineasily.... - - ... Grief courts these ovations, - And many press my sable-suèded hand, - Noting the blackest of Lucile’s creations - Inquire, and understand. - -It is that balance of instincts that is the essence of all satire: -however fantastic satire may be, it must always be potentially rational -and fundamentally moderate, for it must be ready to hit both to right -and to left at opposite extravagances. And the two extravagances which -exist on the edges of our harassed and secretive society to-day are -cruelty to animals and worship of animals. They both come from taking -animals too seriously: the cruel man must hate the animal; the crank -must worship the animal, and perhaps fear it. Neither knows how to love -it. - - - - -Lamp-Posts ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -In contemplating some common object of the modern street, such as an -omnibus or a lamp-post, it is sometimes well worth while to stop and -think about why such common objects are regarded as commonplace. It is -well worth while to try to grasp what is the significance of them--or -rather, the quality in modernity which makes them so often seem not so -much significant as insignificant. If you stop the omnibus while you -stop to think about it, you will be unpopular. Even if you try to grasp -the lamp-post in your effort to grasp its significance, you will almost -certainly be misunderstood. Nevertheless, the problem is a real one, -and not without bearing upon the most poignant politics and ethics of -to-day. It is certainly not the things themselves, the idea and upshot -of them, that are remote from poetry or even mysticism. The idea of a -crowd of human strangers turned into comrades for a journey is full of -the oldest pathos and piety of human life. That profound feeling of -mortal fraternity and frailty, which tells us we are indeed all in the -same boat, is not the less true if expressed in the formula that we are -all in the same bus. As for the idea of the lamp-post, the idea of the -fixed beacon of the branching thoroughfares, the terrestrial star of -the terrestrial traveller, it not only could be, but actually is, the -subject of countless songs. - -Nor is it even true that there is something so trivial or ugly about -the names of the things as to make them commonplace in all connexions. -The word “lamp” is especially beloved by the more decorative and -poetic writers; it is a symbol, and very frequently a title. It is -true that if Ruskin had called his eloquent work “The Seven Lamp-Posts -of Architecture” the effect, to a delicate ear, would not have been -quite the same. But even the word “post” is in no sense impossible in -poetry; it can be found with a fine military ring in phrases like “The -Last Post” or “Dying at his Post.” I remember, indeed, hearing, when -a small child, the line in Macaulay’s “Armada” about “with loose rein -and bloody spur rode inland many a post,” and being puzzled at the -picture of a pillar-box or a lamp-post displaying so much activity. But -certainly it is not the mere sound of the word that makes it unworkable -in the literature of wonder or beauty. “Omnibus” may seem at first -sight a more difficult thing to swallow--if I may be allowed a somewhat -gigantesque figure of speech. This, it may be said, is a Cockney and -ungainly modern word, as it is certainly a Cockney and ungainly modern -thing. But even this is not true. The word “omnibus” is a very noble -word with a very noble meaning and even tradition. It is derived -from an ancient and adamantine tongue which has rolled it with very -authoritative thunders: _quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus_. It -is a word really more human and universal than republic or democracy. -A man might very consistently build a temple for all the tribes of -men, a temple of the largest pattern and the loveliest design, and then -call it an omnibus. It is true that the dignity of this description -has really been somewhat diminished by the illogical habit of clipping -the word down to the last and least important part of it. But that -is only one of many modern examples in which real vulgarity is not -in democracy, but rather in the loss of democracy. It is about as -democratic to call an omnibus a bus as it would be to call a democrat a -rat. - -Another way of explaining the cloud of commonplace interpretation upon -modern things is to trace it to that spirit which often calls itself -science but which is more often mere repetition. It is proverbial that -a child, looking out of the nursery window, regards the lamp-post -as part of a fairy-tale of which the lamplighter is the fairy. That -lamp-post can be to a baby all that the moon could possibly be to a -lover or a poet. Now, it is perfectly true that there is nowadays a -spirit of cheap information which imagines that it shoots beyond this -shining point, when it merely tells us that there are nine hundred -lamp-posts in the town, all exactly alike. It is equally true that -there is a spirit of cheap science, which is equally cocksure of its -conclusiveness when it tells us that there are so many thousand moons -and suns, all much more alike than we might have been disposed to -fancy. And we can say of both these calculations that there is nothing -really commonplace except the mind of the calculator. The baby is much -more right about the flaming lamp than the statistician who counts the -posts in the street; and the lover is much more really right about -the moon than the astronomer. Here the part is certainly greater than -the whole, for it is much better to be tied to one wonderful thing -than to allow a mere catalogue of wonderful things to deprive you of -the capacity to wonder. It is doubtless true, to a definite extent, -that a certain sameness in the mechanical modern creations makes them -actually less attractive than the freer recurrences of nature; or, in -other words, that twenty lamp-posts really are much more like each -other than twenty trees. Nevertheless, even this character will not -cover the whole ground, for men do not cease to feel the mystery of -natural things even when they reproduce themselves almost completely, -as in the case of pitch darkness or a very heavy sleep. The mere fact -that we have seen a lamp-post very often, and that it generally looked -very much the same as before, would not of itself prevent us from -appreciating its elfin fire, any more than it prevents the child. - -Finally, there is a neglected side of this psychological problem which -is, I think, one aspect of the mystery of the morality of war. It is -not altogether an accident that, while the London lamp-post has always -been mild and undistinguished, the Paris lamp-post has been more -historic because it has been more horrible. It has been a yet more -revolutionary substitute for the guillotine--yet more revolutionary, -because it was the guillotine of the mob, as distinct even from the -guillotine of the Republic. They hanged aristocrats upon it, including -(unless my memory misleads me) that exceedingly unpleasant aristocrat -who promulgated the measure of war economy known as “Let them eat -grass.” Hence it happened that there has been in Paris a fanatical -and flamboyant political newspaper actually called _La Lanterne_, a -paper for extreme Jacobins. If there were a paper in London called the -_Lamp-Post_, I can only imagine it as a paper for children. As for my -other example, I do not know whether even the French Revolution could -manage to do anything with the omnibus; but the Jacobins were quite -capable of using it as a tumbril. - -In short, I suspect that Cockney things have become commonplace because -there has been so long lacking in them a certain savour of sacrifice -and peril, which there has been in the nursery tale, for all its -innocence, and which there has been in the Parisian street, for all its -iniquity. - -The new wonder that has changed the world before our eyes is that all -this crude and vulgar modern clockwork is most truly being used for a -heroic end. It is most emphatically being used for the slaying of a -dragon. It is being used, much more unquestionably than the lantern of -Paris, to make an end of a tyrant. It was a cant phrase in our cheaper -literature of late to say that the new time will make the romance of -war mechanical. Is it not more probable that it will make the mechanism -of war romantic? As I said at the beginning, the things themselves are -not repulsively prosaic; it was their associations that made them so; -and to-day their associations are as splendid as any that ever blazoned -a shield or embroidered a banner. Much of what made the violation of -Belgium so violent a challenge to every conscience lay unconsciously -in the fact that the country which had thus become tragic had often -been regarded as commonplace. The unpardonable sin was committed in a -place of lamp-posts and omnibuses. In similar places has been prepared -the just wrath and reparation; and a legend of it will surely linger -even in the omnibus that has carried heroes to the mouth of hell, and -even in the lamp-post whose lamp has been darkened against the dragon -of the sky. - - - - -The Spirits ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -The magazines continue to abound in articles about Spiritualism. Those -articles which expose and explode Spiritualism are certainly calculated -to make converts to that novel creed; but fortunately the balance -is redressed by the articles which defend and expound Spiritualism, -which will probably make any thoughtful convert hastily recant his -conversion. I believe myself that nothing but advantage can accrue to -Spiritualism from all criticisms founded on Materialism. I think there -is a mystical minimum in human history and experience, which is at once -too obscure to be explained and too obvious to be explained away. It -may be admitted that a miracle is rarer than a murder; but they are -made obscure by somewhat similar causes. Thus a medium will insist on -a dark room; and a murderer is said to have a slight preference for a -dark night. A medium is criticized for not submitting to a sufficient -number of scientific and impartial judges; and a murderer seldom -collects any considerable number of impartial witnesses to testify to -his performance. Many supernatural stories rest on the evidence of -rough unlettered men, like fishermen and peasants; and most criminal -trials depend on the detailed testimony of quite uneducated people. It -may be remarked that we never throw a doubt on the value of ignorant -evidence when it is a question of a judge hanging a man, but only when -it is a question of a saint healing him. Morbid and hysterical people -imagine all sorts of ghosts and demons that do not exist. Morbid and -hysterical people also imagine all sorts of crimes and conspiracies -that do not exist. A great many spiritual communications may be -auto-suggestions; and a great many apparent murders may be suicides. -But there is a limit to the probability of self-destruction; so there -is of self-deception. - -Now I think it well worth while to concentrate our common sense, not -on where these messages come from, or why they come, but simply on the -messages. Let us consider the thing itself about which there is no -doubt at all. Let us consider, not whether spirits can speak to us, or -how they speak, but simply what they say, or are supposed to say. If -spirits in heaven, or scoundrels on earth, or fiends somewhere else, -have brought us a new religion, let us look at the new religion on its -own merits. Well, this is the sort of thing the spirits are supposed to -write down, and very possibly do write down: - -“You make death an impenetrable fog, while it is a mere golden mist, -torn easily aside by the shafts of faith, and revealing life as not -only continuous but as not cut in two by a great change. I cannot -express myself as I wish.... It is more like leaving prison for freedom -and happiness. Not that your present life lacks joy; it is all joy, but -you have to fight with imperfections. Here, we have to struggle only -with lack of development. There is no evil--only different degrees of -spirit.” - -The interrogator, Mr. Basil King, who narrates his experiences in an -interesting article in _Nash’s Magazine_, proceeds to ask whether the -lack of development is due to the highly practical thing we call sin. -To this the spirit replies: “They come over with the evil, as it were, -cut out, and leaving blanks in their souls. These have by degrees to be -filled with good.” - -Now I will waive the point whether death is a mist or a fog or a front -door or a fire-escape or any other physical metaphor; being satisfied -with the fact that it is there, and not to be removed by metaphors. -But what amuses me about the spirit is that for him it is both there -and not there. Death is non-existent in one sentence, and of the most -startling importance six sentences afterwards. The spirit is positive -that our existence is _not_ cut in two by a great change, at the moment -of death. But the spirit is equally positive, a little lower down, that -the whole of our human evil is instantly and utterly cut out of us, -and all at the moment of death. If a man suddenly and supernaturally -loses about three-quarters of his ordinary character, might it not -be described as “a great change”? Why does so enormous a convulsion -happen at the exact moment of death, if death is non-existent and not -to be considered? The Spiritualist is here contradicting himself, not -only by making death very decidedly a great change, but by actually -making it a greater change than Dante or St. Francis thought it was. A -Christian who thinks the soul carries its sins to Purgatory makes life -much more “continuous” than this Spiritualist, who says that death, and -death alone, alters a man as by a blast of magic. The article bears -the modest title of “The Abolishing of Death”; and the spirit does say -that this is possible, except when he forgets and says the opposite. He -seldom contradicts himself more than twice in a paragraph. But since -he says clearly that death abolishes sin, and equally clearly that he -abolishes death, it becomes an interesting speculation what happens -next, and especially what happens to sin: a subject of interest to many -of us. - -Mr. Basil King asked the spirit, who had told him that animals are -human, whether it is wrong to destroy animal life. It may be remarked -that the questions Mr. King asks are always much more acute than the -answers he gets. The answer about the killing of animals is this: -“You can _never_ destroy life. Life is the absolute power which -overrules all else. There can be no cessation. It is impossible.” -And that is all; and for a man considering whether he shall or shall -not kill a tom-cat, it does not seem very helpful. Logically, if it -means anything, it would seem to mean that you may do anything to -the cat, for its nine lives are really an infinite series. In short, -you can kill it because you cannot kill it. But it is obvious that -if a man relies on this reason for killing his cat, it is an equally -good reason for killing his creditor. Creditors also are immortal -(a solemn thought); creditors also pass through a golden mist torn -easily aside by the shafts of faith, and have all the evil of their -souls (including, let us hope, their avarice) cut out of them with -the axe of death, without noticing anything in particular. In short, -Mr. Basil King, when he asks a reasonable question about a real moral -question, the relations of man and the animals, gets no reply except -a hotch-potch of words which might mean anarchy and may mean anything. -From beginning to end the spirit never answers any real question on -which the real religions of mankind have been obliged to legislate -and to teach. The only practical deduction would be that it is _no_ -disadvantage to have sinned in this life; as in the other case that -it is _no_ disgrace to kill either a creditor or a cat. If it means -anything, it means that; and if it is spirits and not spifflications, -the spirits mean that: and I do not desire their further acquaintance. - - - - -Tennyson - - -I have been glancing over two or three of the appreciations of Tennyson -appropriate to his centenary, and have been struck with a curious tone -of coldness towards him in almost all quarters. Now this is really a -very peculiar thing. For it is a case of coldness to quite brilliant -and unquestionable literary merit. Whether Tennyson was a great poet -I shall not discuss. I understand that one has to wait about eight -hundred years before discussing that; and my only complaint against -the printers of my articles is that they will not wait even for -much shorter periods. But that Tennyson was a poet is as solid and -certain as that Roberts is a billiard-player. That Tennyson was an -astonishingly good poet is as solid and certain as that Roberts is an -astonishingly good billiard-player. Even in these matters of art there -are some things analogous to matters of fact. It is no good disputing -about tastes--partly because some tastes are beyond dispute. If anyone -tells me that - - There is fallen a splendid tear - From the passion-flower at the gate; - -or that - - Tears from the depth of some divine despair - -is not fine poetry, I am quite prepared to treat him as I would one -who said that grass was not green or that I was not corpulent. And by -all common chances Tennyson ought to be preserved as a pleasure--a -sensuous pleasure if you like, but certainly a genuine one. There is -no more reason for dropping Tennyson than for dropping Virgil. We -do not mind Virgil’s view of Augustus, nor need we mind Tennyson’s -view of Queen Victoria. Beauty is unanswerable, in a poem as much as -in a woman. There were Victorian writers whose art is not perfectly -appreciable apart from their enthusiasm. Kingsley’s _Yeast_ is a fine -book, but not quite so fine a book as it seemed when one’s own social -passions were still yeasty. Browning and Coventry Patmore are justly -admired, but they are most admired where they are most agreed with. -But “St. Agnes’ Eve” is an unimpeachably beautiful poem, whether one -believes in St. Agnes or detests her. One would think that a man -who had thus left indubitably good verse would receive natural and -steady gratitude, like a man who left indubitably good wine to his -nephew, or indubitably good pictures to the National Portrait Gallery. -Nevertheless, as I have said, the tone of all the papers, modernist or -old-fashioned, has been mainly frigid. What is the meaning of this? - -I will ask permission to answer this question by abruptly and even -brutally changing the subject. My remarks must, first of all, seem -irrelevant even to effrontery; they shall prove their relevance later -on. In turning the pages of one of the papers containing such a light -and unsympathetic treatment of Tennyson, my eye catches the following -sentence: “By the light of modern science and thought, we are in -a position to see that each normal human being in some way repeats -historically the life of the human race.” This is a very typical -modern assertion; that is, it is an assertion for which there is not -and never has been a single spot or speck of proof. We know precious -little about what the life of the human race has been; and none of our -scientific conjectures about it bear the remotest resemblance to the -actual growth of a child. According to this theory, a baby begins by -chipping flints and rubbing sticks together to find fire. One so often -sees babies doing this. About the age of five the child, before the -delighted eyes of his parents, founds a village community. By the time -he is eleven it has become a small city state, the replica of ancient -Athens. Encouraged by this, the boy proceeds, and before he is fourteen -has founded the Roman Empire. But now his parents have a serious -set-back. Having watched him so far, not only with pleasure, but with -a very natural surprise, they must strengthen themselves to endure the -spectacle of decay. They have now to watch their child going through -the decline of the Western Empire and the Dark Ages. They see the -invasion of the Huns and that of the Norsemen chasing each other across -his expressive face. He seems a little happier after he has “repeated” -the Battle of Chalons and the unsuccessful Siege of Paris; and by the -time he comes to the twelfth century, his boyish face is as bright as -it was of old when he was “repeating” Pericles or Camillus. I have no -space to follow this remarkable demonstration of how history repeats -itself in the youth; how he grows dismal at twenty-three to represent -the end of Mediævalism, brightens because the Renaissance is coming, -darkens again with the disputes of the later Reformation, broadens -placidly through the thirties as the rational eighteenth century, till -at last, about forty-three, he gives a great yell and begins to burn -the house down, as a symbol of the French Revolution. Such (we shall -all agree) is the ordinary development of a boy. - -Now, seriously, does anyone believe a word of such bosh? Does anyone -think that a child will repeat the periods of human history? Does -anyone ever allow for a daughter in the Stone Age, or excuse a son -because he is in the fourth century B.C. Yet the writer who lays down -this splendid and staggering lie calmly says that “by the light of -modern science and thought we are in a position to _see_” that it is -true. “Seeing” is a strong word to use of our conviction that icebergs -are in the north, or that the earth goes round the sun. Yet anybody can -use it of any casual or crazy biological fancy seen in some newspaper -or suggested in some debating club. This is the rooted weakness of our -time. Science, which means exactitude, has become the mother of all -inexactitude. - -This is the failure of the epoch, and this explains the partial failure -of Tennyson. He was _par excellence_ the poet of popular science--that -is, of all such cloudy and ill-considered assertions as the above. He -was the perfectly educated man of classics and the half-educated man -of science. No one did more to encourage the colossal blunder that the -survival of the fittest means the survival of the best. One might as -well say that the survival of the fittest means the survival of the -fattest. Tennyson’s position has grown shaky because it rested not on -any clear dogmas old or new, but on two or three temporary, we might -say desperate, compromises of his own day. He grasped at Evolution, not -because it was definite, but because it was indefinite; not because -it was daring, but because it was safe. It gave him the hope that man -might one day be an angel, and England a free democracy; but it soothed -him with the assurance that neither of these alarming things would -happen just yet. Virgil used his verbal felicities to describe the -eternal idea of the Roman Imperium. Tennyson used his verbal felicities -for the accidental equilibrium of the British Constitution. “To spare -the humble and war down the proud,” is a permanent idea for the -policing of this planet. But that freedom should “slowly broaden down -from precedent to precedent” merely happens to be the policy of the -English upper class; it has no vital sanction; it might be much better -to broaden quickly. One can write great poetry about a truth or even -about a falsehood, but hardly about a legal fiction. The misanthropic -idea, as in Byron, is not a truth, but it is one of the immortal lies. -As long as humanity exists, humanity can be hated. Wherever one shall -gather by himself, Byron is in the midst of him. It is a common and -recurrent mood to regard man as a hopeless Yahoo. But it is not a -natural mood to regard man as a hopeful Yahoo, as the Evolutionists -did, as a creature changing before one’s eyes from bestial to -beautiful, a creature whose tail has just dropped off while he is -staring at a far-off divine event. This particular compromise between -contempt and hope was an accident of Tennyson’s time, and, like his -liberal conservatism, will probably never be found again. His weakness -was not being old-fashioned or new-fashioned, but being fashionable. -His feet were set on things transitory and untenable, compromises and -compacts of silence. Yet he was so perfect a poet that I fancy he will -still be able to stand, even upon such clouds. - - - - -The Domesticity of Detectives ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -I have just been entertaining myself with the last sensational story by -the author of _The Yellow Room_, which was probably the best detective -tale of our time, except Mr. Bentley’s admirable novel, _Trent’s Last -Case_. The name of the author of _The Yellow Room_ is Gaston Leroux; I -have sometimes wondered whether it is the alternative _nom de plume_ of -the writer called Maurice Leblanc who gives us the stories about Arsène -Lupin, the gentleman burglar. There would be something very symmetrical -in the inversion by which the red gentleman always writes about a -detective, and the white gentleman always writes about a criminal. But -I have no serious reason to suppose the red and white combination to be -anything but a coincidence; and the tales are of two rather different -types. Those of Gaston the Red are more strictly of the type of the -mystery story, in the sense of resolving a single and central mystery. -Those of Maurice the White are more properly adventure stories, in -the sense of resolving a rapid succession of immediate difficulties. -This is inherent in the position of the hero; the detective is always -outside the event, while the criminal is inside the event. Some would -express it by saying that the policeman is always outside the house -when the burglar is inside the house. But there is one very French -quality which both these French writers share, even when their writing -is very far from their best. It is a spirit of definition which is -itself not easy to define. To say it is scientific will only suggest -that it is slow. It is much truer to say it is military; that is, it -is something that has to be both scientific and swift. It can be seen -in much greater Frenchmen, as compared with men still greater who were -not Frenchmen. Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, for instance, both wrote -fairy-tales of science; Mr. Wells has much the larger mind and interest -in life; but he often lacks one power which Jules Verne possesses -supremely--the power of going to the point. Verne is very French in -his rigid relevancy; Wells is very English in his rich irrelevance. -He is there as English as Dickens, the best passages in whose stories -are the stoppages, and even stopgaps. In a truly French tale there are -no stoppages; every word, however dull, is deliberate, or directed -towards the end. The comparison could be carried further back among -the classics. The romance of Dumas may seem a mere riot of swords -and feathers; it is often spoken of as a mere revel in adventure and -variety; the madness of romance. But it is not a mere riot, but rather -a military revolution, and even a disciplined revolution; certainly, -a very French revolution. It is not a mere mad revel, but a very -gorgeous and elaborate banquet planned by a great cook; a very French -cook. Scott was a greater man than Dumas; and a greater novelist on -the note of the serious humours of humanity. But he was not so great -a story-teller, because he had less of something that can only be -called the strategy of the soldier. The Three Musketeers advance like -an army; with their three servants and their one ally, they march, -manoeuvre, deploy, wheeling into positions and almost making patterns. -They are always present wherever their author wants them; which is by -no means true of all the characters of all the novelists. Dumas, and -not Scott, ought to have written the life of Napoleon; Dumas was much -nearer to Napoleon, in the fact that there was most emphatically method -in his madness. Nobody ever called Scott mad; and certainly nobody -could ever call him methodical. He was as incapable of the conspiracy -which carried off General Monk in a box as Dumas was incapable of the -curse of Meg Merrilies or the benediction of Di Vernon. But there is -eternally present in the Frenchman something which may truly be called -presence of mind. There to be an artist is not to be absent-minded, -however harmless or happy the holidays of the mind may be. Art is to -have the intellect and all its instruments on the spot and ready to go -to the point; as when, but a little while ago, a great artist stood by -the banks of the Marne and saved the world with one gesture of living -logic--the sword-thrust of the Latin. - -But though the strategy of the French story is allied to the strategy -by which the French army has always affected the larger matters of -mankind, I doubt whether such a story ought to deal with such matters. -I mentioned at the beginning M. Gaston Leroux’s last mystery story -because I think I know why it is not anything like so good as his first -mystery story. The truth is that there are two types of sensational -romance between which our wilder sensationalists seem to waver; and I -think they are generally at their strongest in dealing with the first -type, and at their weakest in dealing with the second. For the sake -of a convenient symbol, I may call them respectively the romance of -the Yellow Room and the romance of the Yellow Peril. We might say that -the great detective story deals with small things; while the small -or silly detective story generally deals with great things. It deals -with diabolical diplomatists darting about between Vienna and Paris -and Petrograd; with vast cosmopolitan conspiracies ramifying through -all the cellars of Europe; or worse and most widespread of all, occult -and mystical secret societies from China or Tibet; the vast and vague -Oriental terrorism which I call for convenience here the Yellow Peril. -On the other hand, the good detective story is in its nature a good -domestic story. It is steeped in the sentiment that an Englishman’s -house is his castle; even if, like other castles, it is the scene of a -few quiet tortures or assassinations. In other words, it is concerned -with an enclosure, a plan or problem set within certain defined limits. -And that is where the French writer’s first story was a model for -all such writers; and where it ought to have been, but has not been -a model for himself. The point about the Yellow Room is that it was -a room; that is, it was a box, like the box in which Dumas kidnapped -General Monk. The writer dealt with the quadrate or square which Mrs. -Battle loved; the very plan of the problem looked like a problem in -the Fourth Book of Euclid. He posted four men on four sides of a space -and a murder was done in the middle of them; to all appearance, in -spite of them; in reality, by one of them. Now a sensational novelist -of the more cosmopolitan sort could, of course, have filled the story -with a swarm of Chinese magicians who had the power of walking through -brick walls, or of Indian mesmerists who could murder a man merely by -meditating about him on the peaks of the Himalayas; or merely by so -human and humdrum a trifle as a secret society of German spies which -had made a labyrinth of secret tunnels under all the private houses in -the world. These romantic possibilities are infinite; and because they -are infinite they are really unromantic. The real romance of detection -works inwards towards the household gods, even if they are household -devils. One of the best of the Sherlock Holmes stories turns entirely -on a trivial point of housekeeping: the provision of curry for the -domestic dinner. Curry is, I believe, connected with the East; and -could have been made the excuse for infinities of sham occultism and -Oriental torments. The author could have brought in a million yellow -cooks to poison a yellow condiment. But the author knew his business -much better; and did not let what is called infinity, and should rather -be called anarchy, invade the quiet seclusion of the British criminal’s -home. He did not let the logic of the Yellow Room be destroyed by the -philosophy of the Yellow Peril. That is why I lament the fact that the -ingenious French architect of the original Yellow Room seems to have -made an outward step in this direction; not, indeed, towards the plains -of Tibet, but towards the hardly less barbaric plains of Germany. His -last book, _Rouletabille Chez Krupp_, concerns the manufacture of a -torpedo big enough to smash a town; and an object of that size may be -a sensation, but will not long be a secret. It may be inevitable that -a French patriot should now write even his detective stories about the -war; but I do not think this method will ever make the French mystery -story what the war itself has been--a French masterpiece; _Gesta Dei -per Francos_. - - - - -George Meredith - - -The death of George Meredith was the real end of the Nineteenth -Century, not that empty date that came at the close of 1899. The last -bond was broken between us and the pride and peace of the Victorian -age. Our fathers were all dead. We were suddenly orphans: we all felt -strangely and sadly young. A cold, enormous dawn opened in front of us; -we had to go on to tasks which our fathers, fine as they were, did not -know, and our first sensation was that of cold and undefended youth. -Swinburne was the penultimate, Meredith the ultimate end. - -It is not a phrase to call him the last of the Victorians: he really is -the last. No doubt this final phrase has been used about each of the -great Victorians one after another from Matthew Arnold and Browning to -Swinburne and Meredith. No doubt the public has grown a little tired -of the positively last appearance of the Nineteenth Century. But the -end of George Meredith really was the end of that great epoch. No great -man now alive has its peculiar powers or its peculiar limits. Like all -great epochs, like all great things, it is not easy to define. We can -see it, touch it, smell it, eat it; but we cannot state it. It was a -time when faith was firm without being definite. It was a time when -we saw the necessity of reform without once seeing the possibility of -revolution. It was a sort of exquisite interlude in the intellectual -disputes: a beautiful, accidental truce in the eternal war of mankind. -Things could mix in a mellow atmosphere. Its great men were so -religious that they could do without a religion. They were so hopefully -and happily republican that they could do without a republic. They are -all dead and deified; and it is well with them. But we cannot get back -into that well-poised pantheism and liberalism. We cannot be content to -be merely broad: for us the dilemma sharpens and the ways divide. - -Of the men left alive there are many who can be admired beyond -expression; but none who can be admired in this way. The name of that -powerful writer, Mr. Thomas Hardy, was often mentioned in company with -that of Meredith; but the coupling of the two names is a philosophical -and chronological mistake. Mr. Hardy is wholly of our own generation, -which is a very unpleasant thing to be. He is shrill and not mellow. -He does not worship the unknown God: he knows the God (or thinks he -knows the God), and dislikes Him. He is not a pantheist: he is a -pandiabolist. The great agnostics of the Victorian age said there -was no purpose in Nature. Mr. Hardy is a mystic; he says there is an -evil purpose. All this is as far as possible from the plenitude and -rational optimism of Meredith. And when we have disposed of Mr. Hardy, -what other name is there that can even pretend to recall the heroic -Victorian age? The Roman curse lies upon Meredith like a blessing: -“Ultimus suorum moriatur”--he has died the last of his own. - -The greatness of George Meredith exhibits the same paradox or -difficulty as the greatness of Browning; the fact that simplicity -was the centre, while the utmost luxuriance and complexity was the -expression. He was as human as Shakespeare, and also as affected as -Shakespeare. It may generally be remarked (I do not know the cause of -it) that the men who have an odd or mad point of view express it in -plain or bald language. The men who have a genial and everyday point -of view express it in ornate and complicated language. Swinburne -and Thomas Hardy talk almost in words of one syllable; but the -philosophical upshot can be expressed in the most famous of all -words of one syllable--damn. Their words are common words; but their -view (thank God) is not a common view. They denounce in the style of -a spelling-book; while people like Meredith are unpopular through -the very richness of their popular sympathies. Men like Browning or -like Francis Thompson praise God in such a way sometimes that God -alone could possibly understand the praise. But they mean all men to -understand it: they wish every beast and fish and flying thing to take -part in the applauding chorus of the cosmos. On the other hand, those -who have bad news to tell are much more explicit, and the poets whose -object it is to depress the people take care that they do it. I will -not write any more about those poets, because I do not profess to be -impartial or even to be good-tempered on the subject. To my thinking, -the oppression of the people is a terrible sin; but the depression of -the people is a far worse one. - -But the glory of George Meredith is that he combined subtlety with -primal energy: he criticized life without losing his appetite for -it. In him alone, being a man of the world did not mean being a man -disgusted with the world. As a rule, there is no difference between -the critic and ascetic except that the ascetic sorrows with a hope and -the critic without a hope. But George Meredith loved straightness even -when he praised it crookedly: he adored innocence even when he analysed -it tortuously: he cared only for unconsciousness, even when he was -unduly conscious of it. He was never so good as he was about virgins -and schoolboys. In one curious poem, containing many fine lines, he -actually rebukes people for being quaint or eccentric, and rebukes them -quaintly and eccentrically. He says of Nature, the great earth-mother, -whom he worshipped: - - ... She by one sure sign can read, - Have they but held her laws and nature dear; - They mouth no sentence of inverted wit. - More prizes she her beasts than this high breed - Wry in the shape she wastes her milk to rear. - -That is the mark of the truly great man: that he sees the common man -afar off, and worships him. The great man tries to be ordinary, and -becomes extraordinary in the process. But the small man tries to be -mysterious, and becomes lucid in an awful sense--for we can all see -through him. - - - - -The Irishman - - -The other day I went to see the Irish plays, recently acted by real -Irishmen--peasants and poor folk--under the inspiration of Lady Gregory -and Mr. W. B. Yeats. Over and above the excellence of the acting and -the abstract merit of the plays (both of which were considerable), -there emerged the strange and ironic interest which has been the source -of so much fun and sin and sorrow--the interest of the Irishman in -England. Since we have sinned by creating the Stage Irishman, it is -fitting enough that we should all be rebuked by Irishmen on the stage. -We have all seen some obvious Englishman performing a Paddy. It was, -perhaps, a just punishment to see an obvious Paddy performing the comic -and contemptible part of an English gentleman. I have now seen both, -and I can lay my hand on my heart (though my knowledge of physiology is -shaky about its position) and declare that the Irish English gentleman -was an even more abject and crawling figure than the English Irish -servant. The Comic Irishman in the English plays was at least given -credit for a kind of chaotic courage. The Comic Englishman in the Irish -plays was represented not only as a fool, but as a nervous fool; a -fussy and spasmodic prig, who could not be loved either for strength -or weakness. But all this only illustrates the fundamental fact that -both the national views are wrong; both the versions are perversions. -The rollicking Irishman and the priggish Englishman are alike the -mere myths generated by a misunderstanding. It would be rather nearer -the truth if we spoke of the rollicking Englishman and the priggish -Irishman. But even that would be wrong too. - -Unless people are near in soul they had better not be near in -neighbourhood. The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to -love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people. -And there is a real human reason for this. You think of a remote man -merely as a man; that is, you think of him in the right way. Suppose -I say to you suddenly--“Oblige me by brooding on the soul of the man -who lives at 351 High Street, Islington.” Perhaps (now I come to think -of it) you _are_ the man who lives at 351 High Street, Islington. -In that case substitute some other unknown address and pursue the -intellectual sport. Now you will probably be broadly right about the -man in Islington whom you have never seen or heard of, because you will -begin at the right end--the human end. The man in Islington is at least -a man. The soul of the man in Islington is certainly a soul. He also -has been bewildered and broadened by youth; he also has been tortured -and intoxicated by love; he also is sublimely doubtful about death. -You can think about the soul of that nameless man who is a mere number -in Islington High Street. But you do not think about the soul of your -next-door neighbour. He is not a man; he is an environment. He is the -barking of a dog; he is the noise of a pianola; he is a dispute about -a party wall; he is drains that are worse than yours, or roses that are -better than yours. Now, all these are the wrong ends of a man; and a -man, like many other things in this world, such as a cat-o’-nine-tails, -has a large number of wrong ends, and only one right one. These -adjuncts are all tails, so to speak. A dog is a sort of curly tail to -a man; a substitute for that which man so tragically lost at an early -stage of evolution. And though I would rather myself go about trailing -a dog behind me than tugging a pianola or towing a rose-garden, yet -this is a matter of taste, and they are all alike appendages or things -dependent upon man. But besides his twenty tails, every man really -has a head, a centre of identity, a soul. And the head of a man is -even harder to find than the head of a Skye terrier, for man has nine -hundred and ninety-nine wrong ends instead of one. It is no question -of getting hold of the sow by the right ear; it is a question of -getting hold of the hedgehog by the right quill, of the bird by the -right feather, of the forest by the right leaf. If we have never known -the forest we shall know at least that it is a forest, a thing grown -grandly out of the earth; we shall realize the roots toiling in the -terrestrial darkness, the trunks reared in the sylvan twilight. - -But to find the forest is to find the fringe of the forest. To approach -it from without is to see its mere accidental outline ragged against -the sky. It is to come close enough to be superficial. The remote man, -therefore, may stand for manhood; for the glory of birth or the dignity -of death. But it is difficult to get Mr. Brown next door (with whom -you have quarrelled about the creepers) to stand for these things in -any satisfactorily symbolic attitude. You do not feel the glory of his -birth; you are more likely to hint heatedly at its ingloriousness. -You do not, on purple and silver evenings, dwell on the dignity and -quietude of his death; you think of it, if at all, rather as sudden. -And the same is true of historical separation and proximity. I look -forward to the same death as a Chinaman; barring one or two Chinese -tortures, perhaps. I look back to the same babyhood as an ancient -Phoenician; unless, indeed, it were one of that special Confirmation -class of Sunday-school babies who were passed through the fire to -Moloch. But these distant or antique terrors seem merely tied on to the -life: they are not part of its texture. Babylonian mothers (however -they yielded to etiquette) probably loved their children; and Chinamen -unquestionably reverenced their dead. It is far different when two -peoples are close enough to each other to mistake all the acts and -gestures of everyday life. It is far different when the Baptist baker -in Islington thinks of Irish infancy, passed amid Popish priests and -impossible fairies. It is far different when the tramp from Tipperary -thinks of Irish death, coming often in dying hamlets, in distant -colonies, in English prisons or on English gibbets. There childhood and -death have lost all their reconciling qualities; the very details of -them do not unite, but divide. Hence England and Ireland see the facts -of each other without guessing the meaning of the facts. For instance, -we may see the fact that an Irish housewife is careless. But we fancy -falsely that this is because she is scatter-brained; whereas it is, on -the contrary, because she is concentrated--on religion, or conspiracy, -or tea. You may call her inefficient, but you certainly must not call -her weak. In the same way, the Irish see the fact that the Englishman -is unsociable; they do not see the reason, which is that he is romantic. - -This seems to me the real value of such striking national sketches as -those by Lady Gregory and Mr. Synge, which I saw last week. Here is -a case where mere accidental realism, the thing written on the spot, -the “slice of life,” may, for once in a way, do some good. All the -signals, all the flags, all the declaratory externals of Ireland we are -almost certain to mistake. If the Irishman speaks to us, we are sure to -misunderstand him. But if we hear the Irishman talking to himself, it -may begin to dawn on us that he is a man. - - - - -Ireland and the Domestic Drama - - -In a sense so gigantic that it would have staggered the statesman who -once used the phrase, we have called in the new world to redress the -balance of the old. The new world has found new worlds to conquer; -it has new tasks not only drastic but delicate, not only political -but psychological. Among the things which America may yet help us to -achieve is one about which I feel strongly and even painfully--the -reconciliation, a thousand times thwarted but now a thousand times -more necessary, between the English and the Irish. The triangular -table of such a peace conference need not, and perhaps had better not, -be found in any public building. Rather it should be found in every -public house and even in every private house. The change should come -through something which is far nobler and more eternal than diplomacy -or politics; talk. It should come through the only real public opinion, -which is always uttered in private; the public opinion that is a mass -of private opinions. A famous Irishman said of the Irish that they were -too poetical to be poets, but that they were the greatest talkers since -the Greeks. My personal memory does not stretch back to the greatest -period of Greece; and perhaps the best talker I ever knew was an -Irishman, who is now living in America and (I will confidently affirm) -talking in America. It may be true that he is too poetical to be a -poet; anyhow, he is not too poetical to be the father of a poet. He is -Mr. J. B. Yeats, the father of Mr. W. B. Yeats; and he has lately been -persuaded to write and print some of the good things he has said all -his life--first in the form of a book of letters, and later of a book -of essays, _Essays Irish and American_, published by Mr. Fisher Unwin. -But my real satisfaction, in the social and political sense, is to know -not that he has written a little, but that he has spoken much; for out -of such seemingly lost and wasted words come the real international -understandings. - -There was a type of detachment during the late war, not to be confused -with what I can only call the view of the vulgar peacemonger. It was -not the patronizing pacifism of the gentleman who took a holiday in -the Alps and said he was “above the struggle”; as if there were any -Alp from which the soul can look down on Calvary. There is, indeed, -one mountain among them that might be very appropriate to so detached -an observer--the mountain named after Pilate, the man who washed his -hands. The isolation I mean is far removed from such impudence. The -defence of this detachment is that it is not really detached; it was -not indifference, but indignation. It was not without foundation; it -was only without proportion. Indeed, the real case against it was -that while its expression was largely cynical, its motive was largely -sentimental. Such was the irritation of Mr. Bernard Shaw; such was the -irritation of many Irishmen much more national than Mr. Bernard Shaw. -Their irritation can be analysed in a simple phrase; it annoyed them -that the men who were wrong should be right. It annoyed them that all -the snobs and sneaks of our corrupt parliamentarianism should free the -world by accident. In the quarrel with Prussia, they could not really -doubt--they did not really doubt--that England was right. But they did -doubt whether England had any right to be right. - -It is a view I think self-stultifying and even suicidal. For the -great work will be remembered and the meaner workers forgotten; and -it is madness to praise the Persians on the eve of Marathon because -one has quarrelled with some silly archon at Athens, whose very name -will be lost in a few years. But it is not a treasonable, far less -a treacherous view; and its anger is the same as the popular anger -it arouses. This is the Irish mood which common sense and common -sympathy must deal with; and this is the peculiar value of real Irish -intellectual detachment like that of Mr. Yeats. First of all, a man -like Mr. Yeats is so genuinely detached that he can be definite and -clear in his sympathy with the Allies. He would be capable of the -supreme impartiality of seeing that England could be right although she -had been wrong; and even that Ireland could be wrong although she had -been wronged. But all the time he would play with a perennial fount of -satire and insight on the fundamental spiritual facts that falsify the -English position in Ireland. He would make us feel that we were only -right in one thing because we were so wrong in many things. There are -many examples of this in his little book of essays; but the one I would -emphasize here especially is his very vital point about the domestic -nature of the whole sociology of Ireland. Here again he is all the -more impressive for being in a sense impartial, or even what some would -call indifferent. He is not what is called orthodox; he might well be -called sceptical. He has cultivated rather Continental æsthetics than -Catholic apologetics. It is solely by a serene insight into what his -French teachers would call the _vraie verité_ that he sees the way the -world ought to go; and pauses upon the phrase, “the return to the home.” - -Irish education, he declares, must always depend on the fact that the -child’s mind is full of “the drama of the home.” It marks his judicial -emancipation that he contrasts this domestic drama favourably with two -other types of teaching, one of which would be called conventional -and conservative, while the other would be called unconventional and -advanced. He criticizes the old English public-school boy; he also -criticizes (I grieve to state) the new American woman. The two things -called in England the “public school” and the “high school” are counted -almost contraries, merely because one is old and the other new. But -the critic sees them to be essentially the same; because in both cases -the school overshadows the home. Here is a profound practical instance -of the root realities of the Irish national claim. Here is a case in -which Home Rule literally means the rule of the home. It will never be -possible to establish the English fashion in Ireland, and I for one -should not pretend to be sorry if it were possible to spread the Irish -fashion to England. - -For the drama of the home is really very dramatic. It is one of those -facts that are confused and hidden by the modern fuss about social -machinery, which is the mere scene-shifting and stage-carpentering -of the domestic drama. The household is the lighted stage, on which -the actors appeal literally to the gods. It is in private life that -things happen. A human being is born at home; he generally dies at -home, and the social philosophy that can deal with nothing but his -coffin carried out of the house is merely a philosophy of boxes and -parcels, a philosophy of luggage and labels. Half our human effort is -now wasted on mere transit, transport, and exchange; the commonwealth -is a clearing-house of cases we never open and presents we never enjoy. -Rulers and reformers are a race of rather pedantic porters, always -carrying an unknown present to an unknown person, not unfrequently (I -fancy) the wrong present to the wrong person. Some of our strenuous -social organizers may be content to spend Christmas at Charing Cross -Station for the pride of controlling the traffic and the luggage. But I -confess I find it more exciting to be at the end of the journey where -the Christmas gifts can be seen. - - - - -The Japanese - - -Is it not time that we western people protested against being -perpetually browbeaten with the high morality of the Orient--especially -of Japan? I remember a curious occasion some years ago when certain -able journalists on a Socialist paper in Fleet Street suddenly burst -into a blazing excitement about King Asoka. Their relations with this -prince could not be called intimate; in point of fact, he died some -thousands of years ago somewhere in the middle of Asia. But it seemed -that in him we had lost our only reliable moral guide. Religion was a -failure, and human life, on the whole, a tragedy; but King Asoka was -all right. He was faultlessly just, infinitely merciful, the mirror of -the virtues, the prop of the poor. Outsiders were naturally interested -in the sources of this revelation. And after some discussion it was -discovered and mildly pointed out that this description of the King’s -virtues is only found on a few of the King’s own official inscriptions. -Old Asoka may have been a very nice man, but we have only his own word -for it that he was so nice as all that. And even in the benighted -West it might not be impossible to find monarchs who were very just -and mighty according to their own proclamations; and courts that -were quite exemplary in the _Court Circular_. It had never struck -these simple Asokites in Fleet Street that the pompous enunciation of -ideals probably meant no more in Bengal than in Birmingham, in the -ancient East than in the modern West. It is as if a Hindoo should -say that under the sublime French monarchy every King had to be a -good Christian; for he was called on coins and parchments “the most -Christian King.” It is as if an Arab said that honour was so high and -sensitive among English M.P.’s that they constantly called each other, -with a burst of admiration, “The Honourable Member for Tooting.” It -could hardly be more absurd if the Japanese declared that an English -Duke must have an elegant figure, for they had seen an allusion to “His -Grace.” And yet it is with just this comic solemnity that we are asked -to accept the moral pretensions of the East to-day, and especially the -moral pretensions of Japan. My eye has just fallen upon two newspaper -paragraphs, each of which exclaimed mournfully what a pity it was -that we had not the high conception of chivalric devotion which the -Japanese call “Bushido,” or some such name. As if we had no chivalrous -principles in Europe! And as if they had no unchivalrous practices -in the Far East! If we see no beauty in Excalibur, are we likely to -take more seriously the two swords of some outlandish Daimio? If we -are truly dumb after the death of Roland, are we likely to shout with -enthusiasm at the sight of a _hara-kiri_? - -Here is, perhaps, the queerest case of all. Many of these Orientalists -have lately been filled with horror at finding that Young Turks still -propose to be Turkish, and that advanced Japan is still unaccountably -Japanese. Dr. Parker damned Abdul Hamid. These modern humanitarians -cannot understand any people wishing to get rid of Abdul Hamid without -also wishing to become exactly like Dr. Parker. In the same way they -are horrified that the Japanese Government has very abruptly condemned -some criminals said to be conspiring against the sacred person of the -Mikado. It never seems to occur to them that you can take off a Turk’s -turban without taking off his head; and that, under a Brixton bowler, -the head would go on thinking the same thoughts. It never seems to -strike them that the man of the Far East still has a yellow skin, even -when you have also given him a yellow press. But the most astounding -version of the thing I found in the following paragraph, the opening -paragraph of an article on the Japanese condemnations in an influential -weekly paper: - -“Japan has followed Western ways in a great many respects, but it -is saddening to learn that she is adopting the most reprehensible -methods of Russia and Spain in dealing with men and women who have the -intelligence to be ahead of their time and have the courage to avow -their opinions.” - -This really strikes me as colossal. I quite agree that Japan has -imitated many Western things; I also think that Japan has mostly -imitated the worst Western things. That is the cause of my very -defective sympathy with Japan. If the Japanese had imitated Dante or -mediæval architecture, if they had imitated Michelangelo or Italian -painting, if they had imitated Rousseau and the French Revolution--then -I, as a European, should have felt at least flattered. But the -Japanese have only imitated the worst things of our worst period: -the inhuman commercialism of Birmingham; the inhuman militarism of -Berlin. I feel as if I had looked in a mirror and seen a monkey. Or, -if this metaphor be counted uncharitable, I feel just as some coarse -but kindly man might feel if a little brother began to imitate only -his vices. I say this to show how easily I embrace the idea that Japan -might borrow from us bad things as well as good; and then I turn with -astonishment--nay, consternation--to the paragraph I have quoted. -Japan (it seems) has borrowed from Russia and Spain the reprehensible -habit of executing people without adequate trial. Trial by jury, with -complete reports in the newspapers next day, was the common practice -all over the Far East until the dreadful example of Spain somehow crept -across two continents and destroyed it. Such a thing as autocratic -execution was unknown in the East. Such a notion as that of despotism -had never occurred to the Japanese. Up to that last lost moment when -they heard of Russia, County Councils had been buzzing in every town, -republics established in every island of the East. Before the European -came, polling-booths were at the end of every street and ballot-boxes -rattled over all Asia. But, alas! they heard of Spain. They heard that -in Spain the trials of rebels in arms had occasionally been conducted -in secret; and this was enough to destroy the long and famous tradition -of free democracy in the Far East. - -Now I do think that, compared with this amazing bosh, Gilbert’s -_Mikado_, with his punishment “lingering, with boiling oil in it,” -might be called a good, solid, sensible picture of Japan. Eastern -despotism has many advantages; and I do not doubt that many of its -decisions were not “lingering,” but as rough and rapid as they were -just. But to what mental state have people come if they cannot see that -Europe has been, upon the whole, the home of democracy, and Asia, upon -the whole, the home of despotism? Really, Japan is not so barren of -resource as this writer supposes. The Far East really has no need to -go to Russia for autocracy, or to Spain for torture. It has done very -artistic things in that way itself. And if Spain and Russia have indeed -terrorized and tortured, it is much more historically likely that they -got it from Asia than that Asia ever had the slightest need to borrow -it from them. - -The plain facts, of course, are perfectly simple. Japan has borrowed -our guns and telephones, but she has not borrowed our morality; and, -morally speaking, I really do not see why she should. Under all Japan’s -elaborate armour-plating she is still the same strange, heathen, -sinister, and heroic thing: she has still the two deep Oriental habits, -prostration before despotism and ferocity of punishment. She still -thinks, in the Eastern style, that a king is infinitely sublime: the -brother of the sun and moon. She still thinks, in the Eastern style, -that a criminal is infinitely punishable; “something with boiling -oil in it.” Why on earth should Japan abandon the adoration of the -Mikado and the destruction of his enemies, merely because a scientific -apparatus has made the Mikado more victorious and the destruction of -his enemies more easy? - - - - -Christian Science - - -I have read recently, within a short period of each other, two -books that stand in an odd relation, and illustrate the two ways of -dealing with the same truth. The first was Mrs. Eddy’s _Science and -Health_, and the other a very interesting collection of medical and -ecclesiastical opinion called _Medicine and the Church_. It is edited -by Mr. Geoffrey Rhodes, and published by Kegan Paul. Of the first work, -the Christian Science Bible, my recollections are somewhat wild and -whirling. My most vivid impression is of one appalling passage to the -effect that the continued perusal of this book through the crisis of -an illness had always been followed by recovery. The idea of reading -any book “through the crisis of an illness” is rather alarming. But -I incline to agree that anyone who could read _Science and Health_ -through the crisis of an illness must be made of an adamant which -no malady could dissolve. Nevertheless, it is a mistake to oppose -Christian Science on the impossibility or even the improbability of -its cures. There is always this tendency for normal men to attack -abnormalities on the wrong ground; their arguments are as wrong as -their antagonism is right. Thus the only sensible argument against -Female Suffrage is that, with her social and domestic powers, woman -is as strong as man. But silly people will attack Female Suffrage on -the ground that she is weaker than man. Or, again, the only sensible -argument against Socialism is that every man ought to have private -property. But the wretched Anti-Socialists will give themselves away by -trying to maintain that only a few people ought to have property, and -even that only in the shape of monstrous American trusts. In the same -way, there is great danger that the modern world may give battle to -Mrs. Eddy upon the wrong _terrain_, and give her the opportunity (or, -rather, her more clear-headed lieutenants) of claiming some popular -success. There is such a thing as spiritual healing. No one has ever -doubted it except one dingy generation of materialists in chimney-pot -hats. If we seem to stand with the materialists, and Mrs. Eddy seems -to stand for the healing, she will have a chance of success. A man -whose toothache has left off will think with gratitude of the healer, -and with some indifference of the scientist explaining the difference -between functional and organic toothaches. I will grant what Mrs. Eddy -does to people’s bodies. It is what she does to their souls that I -object to. - -Mrs. Eddy summarizes the substance of her creed in the characteristic -sentence: “But in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of Hope -must be cast beyond the veil of matter into the Shekinah into which -Jesus has passed before us.” Now personally I should prefer to sow the -anchor of Hope in the furrows of primeval earth; or to fill the anchor -to the brim with the wine of human passion; or to urge the anchor of -hope to a gallop with the spurs of moral energy; or simply to pluck -the anchor, petal by petal, or spell it out letter by letter. But -whatever slightly entangled metaphor we take to express our meaning, -the essential difference between Mrs. Eddy’s creed and mine is that she -anchors in the air, while I put an anchor where the groping race of -men have generally put it, in the ground. And this very fact, that we -have always thought of hope under so rooted and realistic a figure, is -a good working example of how the popular religious sense of mankind -has always flowed in the opposite direction to Christian Science. It -has flowed from spirit to flesh, and not from flesh to spirit. Hope has -not been thought of as something light and fanciful, but as something -wrought in iron and fixed in rock. - -In short, the first and last blunder of Christian Science is that it is -a religion claiming to be purely spiritual. Now, being purely spiritual -is opposed to the very essence of religion. All religions, high and -low, true and false, have always had one enemy, which is the purely -spiritual. Faith-healing has existed from the beginning of the world; -but faith-healing without a material act or sacrament--never. It may -be the ancient priest, curing with holy water, or the modern doctor -curing with coloured water. In either case you cannot do without the -water. It may be the upper religion with its bread and wine, or the -under religion with its eye of newt and toe of frog: in both cases what -is essential is the right materials. Savages may invoke their demons -over the dying, but they do something else as well. To do them justice, -they dance round the dying, or yell, or do something with their bodies. -The Quakers (I mean the really admirable, old-fashioned Quakers) were -far more ritualistic than any Ritualists. The only difference between -a Ritualist curate and a Quaker was that the Quaker wore his queer -vestments all the time. The Peculiar People do without doctors; but -they do not do without oil. They are not so peculiar as all that. - -The book which Mr. Geoffrey Rhodes has edited is just what was wanted -for the fixing of these facts of flesh and spirit. When I was a boy, -people used to talk about something which they called the quarrel -between religion and science. It would be very tedious to recount the -quarrel now; the rough upshot of it was something like this: that -some traditions too old to be traced came in vague conflict with some -theories much too new to be tested. Many things three thousand years -old had forgotten their reason for existing; many things a few years -old had not yet discovered theirs. To this day this remains roughly -true of all the relations between science and religion. The truths of -religion are unprovable; the facts of science are unproved. - -It really looks just now as if a reconciliation would be made between -religion and science, a reconciliation well embodied in Mr. Rhodes’s -work. I will not any longer dispute the divine mission of Mrs. Eddy. I -think she was supernaturally sent on earth to reconcile all the parsons -and all the doctors in a healthy hatred of herself. Here _is_ the -reconciliation of science and religion; you will find it in _Medicine -and the Church_. In this interesting book all the clerics become as -medical as they can, and all the doctors become as clerical as they -can, with the one honourable object of keeping out the healer. The -chaplain sits on one side of the bed and the physician on the other, -while the healer hovers around, baffled and furious. And they do well; -for there really is a great link between them. It is the link of the -union of flesh and spirit, which the heresy of the healer blasphemes. -The priest may have taken his spirit with a little flesh, or the doctor -his flesh with a little spirit; but the union was essential to both. -With the religious there might be much prayer and a little oil; with -the scientific there might be much oil (castor oil) and precious little -prayer. But no religion disowned sacraments and no doctors disowned -sympathy. And they are right to combine together against the great and -horrible heresy--the horrible heresy that there can be such a thing as -a purely spiritual religion. - - - - -The Lawlessness of Lawyers - - -Judge Parry is one of the men who have done mountains of good merely by -being alive; while many judges act as if they were already dead, not -to say ... but Judge Parry might misunderstand a misuse of theological -imagery. He is somewhat anti-clerical; which seems a waste of talent -in a country where there is no clericalism. In his last book, _Law and -the Woman_, I find much with which I do not agree, yet nothing which is -not agreeable. Not only does he say everything with a disarming humour -and candour; but even in error he never loses sight of the large fact: -that sex relations do not depend on the exceptional action of law, but -on the normal action of creed and custom. Alone among such lawyers he -understands that the poor live on laughter as on a fairy-tale; and -can be more scientifically studied in the fictions of Jacobs than the -facts of Webb. I might pursue the view further than he on some points; -as when he would infer the mere enslavement of women from some stories -about the selling of wives. He is doubtless correct in detail; but the -rhyme he gives to prove his point may almost be said to disprove it. -He quotes a jolly ballad about a man who tried to sell his wife with a -halter round her neck and, failing to do so, tried to hang himself in -the halter rather than go on living with her. Obviously this is simply -the fable of the grey mare; and does not mean that the man ruled his -wife, but rather that she ruled him. I do not agree about divorce; but -I am not going to argue about it here, or about any such problem of the -sexes. This is partly because I should have to begin about the nature -of a vow, and it feels like talking to a judge about the nature of an -oath, and might almost be contempt of court. But it is more, I hope, -for the manlier reason that I do want to argue about something else. - -I think this delightful book might really mislead by a view of progress -which over-simplifies history: the view that “the thoughts of men are -widened by the process of the suns”--a monotonous process which cannot -even widen itself. He begins his story of the subjection of women from -the Bible story of Adam and Eve. He then proceeds at once to quote, -not the Bible, but John Milton, and says it is almost exactly in the -form “in which mediæval man was wont to explain to mediæval woman -the kind of thing she really was.” Now whatever Milton was, he was -not mediæval. He was, in his own opinion and in real though relative -truth, highly modern and rationalistic. And he would have regarded -his somewhat contemptuous view of woman as part of his emancipation -from mediævalism. Probably the very same attitude made him approve of -divorce; and makes the difference between woman’s place in his epic -and her place in Dante’s. On either side of that Gothic gateway of -the Middle Ages out of which he had emerged (as he would have said) -into the daylight, there had stood two symbolic statues of women, at -least of equal importance in the scheme. One represented the weak woman -by whom Satan had entered the world; the other the strong woman by -whom God had entered the world. Milton and his Puritans deliberately -battered and obliterated the image of the good woman and carefully -preserved the bad woman, to be a standing reproach to womanhood. But -they unquestionably thought their anti-feminist iconoclasm was a great -step in progress; and the fact illustrates what an uncommonly crooked -and even backward path the path called progress has really been. Nor -is it difficult to discover, even in the writer’s own account, whence -this anti-feminism iconoclasm drew its force; which was certainly not -merely from the Book of Genesis. Judge Parry says, perhaps disputably, -that the rude Saxons had more legal regard for women than the Romans. -But assuming for the sake of argument that the heathen Romans did give -a low status to woman, they clearly cannot have got it either from the -Hebrew Scriptures or the mediæval Church. If he will ask where they did -get it, he will probably also find where Milton got it. The truth is -that there was an element of intellectual brutality in the Renaissance -and revival of the pagan world. The very worship of power and reason -embodied itself in a preference for the sex that was supposed superior -in them. New tyrannies as well as new liberties were encouraged by the -New Learning; and Cervantes was laughing at the unreal adventurer who -fancied he was unchaining captives, at the very time when Hawkins, the -real adventurer, was first leading negroes in chains. - -Those chains may be linked up again presently in the chain of my own -argument: here I use the matter merely to show the danger of trusting -each ethical fashion as it comes. There is one matter on which I would -respectfully and seriously differ from Judge Parry; and that does -not concern laws about women, but rather law itself. In praising the -judgment in the Jackson Case, despite its technical irregularity, he -speaks of a fine example of our judge-made law, and says: “But that -is one of the sane and healthy attributes of our judicial system. -There comes a breaking-point where a great judge recognizes that the -precedents in the books are obsolete, and what has to be stated is the -justice of the case according to the now existing standard of human -righteousness.” Now it is surely as plain as a pikestaff that this -doctrine makes a small number of very wealthy old gentlemen in wigs -absolute despots over the whole commonwealth. The Emperor of China was -supposed to state the justice of the case. The Sultan of the Indies was -supposed to judge by the existing standard of human righteousness. If -the judges are not restrained by the law, what are they restrained by, -which every autocrat on earth has not claimed to be restrained by? - -Now there is certainly a case for personal and arbitrary government; -and as there are good sultans, so there are good judges. I should not -be afraid to appear before Judge Parry (if I may presume to imagine -myself innocent) though he were surrounded with janissaries in a secret -divan, or delivering dooms under an oak tree in a wild, prehistoric -forest. I should not mind his having the power to skin me or boil -me in oil; for I feel sure he would “recognize that these precedents -were obsolete” and not do it. But it is by no means true that the -confidence I should feel in Judge Parry would be extended to any judge -who talked about obsolete precedents and human righteousness. Quite -the contrary, if anything. I trust him because he often takes the side -of the under-dog. I should not trust a man who always took the side of -the opinion which happened to be top-dog. He understood, for instance, -the case for “Pro-Boers”; but in the mafficking time a dozen great -judges would have strained any law to make a case against Pro-Boers. -Feminism was the fashion and may have produced some acts of justice; -but Imperialism was also the fashion and might have produced any acts -of any injustice. There is, let us suppose, an old statute that certain -prisoners may be tortured for evidence; but the judges disregard it, -and Judge Parry is satisfied. But there are three very vital reasons -why he should not be satisfied. First, it encourages legislators to -be lazy and leave a bad statute they ought to repeal. Second, they -leave it so that it can be resharpened in some reaction or panic -against particular people, who _will_ be tortured. And third, and most -important of all, the same judge who has said that prisoners must not -be tortured for evidence may say some fine morning that prisoners may -be vivisected for scientific inquiry; and he may have the same reason -for saying the one as the other, the simple reason that such talk is -fashionable in his set. And the set is very small and very rich; we -are dealing strictly with fashion and not even, in any large sense, -with public opinion. The standards of that world are often special -and sometimes rather secretive. Judge Parry even quotes a “paradox” of -Lord Reading to the effect that persons like himself should administer -justice and not law. Law is narrow and national, and might possibly -lead a British Minister to look no further than the British Parliament -as an appropriate place for telling the truth. But justice, being -international and surveying the world from China to Peru, perceives -without difficulty the office of the one particular Parisian newspaper -which has the right to insist on an explanation. - -But the vital point is this. Judge Parry gives the instance of a -judgment in which Mansfield, overriding certain remote precedents and -quaint survivals, declared that there cannot be slaves in England. -I am sorry to mention such a detail, but the fact is that the same -judge made law is now declaring in the same way that there _can_ be -slaves in England. A magistrate has forbidden men to leave an employer, -though the contract had admittedly terminated. Practical courts are -overriding the obsolete and remote precedent of some man, far in the -mists of mediævalism, who is said to have made a free contract with a -wealthier fellow-creature. They are disregarding the quaint survivals -in our language, whereby the hand holding the tool is described as -“his” hand. Our more vivid modern speech calls the man himself a hand; -merely one of the many hands of his Briarean master. “There comes a -breaking-point”; and it is liberty that is broken. - -Whether the silent millions approve this judgment, or the other -judgments, liberal or servile, feminist or anti-feminist, which Judge -Parry quotes, I will not debate, but I leave the query to his very -fair consideration. For if those silent millions spoke, I fancy they -would surprise us in many matters, but most of all in the discovery of -how little they think of all of us, judges, lawyers, literary fellows, -and the rest. But I am very certain that Judge Parry would be found -among the few, among the very few, who amid all the insolence of our -inconsistencies have never lost that rare and even awful thing, the -respect of the poor. - - - - -Our Latin Relations - - -It is odd how often one may hear, in the middle of a very old and -genuine English town, the remark, that it looks like a foreign town. I -heard it only yesterday, standing on the ramparts of the noble hill of -Rye, which overlooks the flats like a Mount of St. Michael left inland. -Most people know that Rye contains a mediæval monument which might -almost be called a mediæval prophecy--a prophecy of modern things more -awful than anything mediæval. It is an ancient tower, which has not -only always been marked on maps with the name of Ypres, but has always -been actually pronounced by the name of Wipers. Nothing could mark -a thing as more continuously national than that Englishmen sundered -by vast centuries should actually make the same mistake and should -mispronounce the same word in the same way. - -There is in this small point a paradox we must understand, especially -just now, if we are to have a really patriotic foreign policy. It -is very unlucky that for some time our teaching of history has been -rather the unteaching of history, because it has been the unteaching of -tradition. Our histories told us we were Teuton; our legends told us we -were Roman--and, as usual, the legends were right. It is not only true -that England is nowhere more really English than where she is Roman--it -is even true that she is nowhere more really English than where she -is French. To take only the chance example, with which I began above, -you could find nothing more national, more typical, more traditional, -as a real piece of English history, than the very phrase “The Cinq -Ports.” And it is all the more English because the word “cinq” is -French and the word “port” is Latin. A Teutonist professor, full of -some folly about “folk-speech,” might insist on our calling them “The -Five Harbours,” or (for all I know) “The Five Holes.” But his version -would be less popular, and only more pedantic. The Latin was always the -popular element, which may not sound so odd if we happen to remember -that the very word “popular” is Latin. - -Thus our alliance with the French and the Italians is not something -to be supported for the sake of the last five years. It is something -to be solidified for the sake of more than a thousand. The fact has -been hidden by the historical accident that we have often been the -antagonists of the French in particular rivalries for particular -things. But we were always much nearer to the French when we were their -antagonists than to the Germans when we were their Allies. There was -much more resemblance between a knight like the Black Prince and a -knight like Bertrand du Guesclin than there ever was between a sailor -like Nelson and a soldier like Blücher. A town like Rye is full of -memories of fighting with the French, especially in the Middle Ages; -of raids to and fro across the narrow seas, in which the bells of -the coast-town churches were captured and recaptured; and there are -spirited stories about the Abbot of Battle, worthy to be turned into -ballads. But the very fact of these coast-town raids suggests that it -was coast against coast, and even seaman against seaman. But the whole -point of Prussian war was that it was an inland thing; the whole point -of English war that it was an island thing. The alliance with Prussia -was never either popular or natural; it was wholly aristocratic and -artificial. Compared with that, the mediæval war was as friendly as a -mediæval tournament. Nor was it peculiar to the case of France; it was -true of all we call Latin--all that remains of the Roman Empire. The -Latins, even when treated as foes in politics, were treated almost as -friends in popular tradition. The English sailors sang in their idle -moments “Farewell and adieu to you, fine Spanish ladies,” even when -they had devoted their working hours to singeing the beards of the fine -Spanish gentlemen. The children in the nurseries sang in imaginative -triumph “The King of Spain’s daughter came to visit me,” though their -Elizabethan parents might have been lighting the beacons and calling -out the train-bands to prevent the King of Spain’s son, the noble Don -John of Austria, from paying them such a visit. A thousand nursery -rhymes and nonsense tags testify to a vast popular tradition that -Southern Europe was the world to which we belonged. We belonged to a -system of which Rome was the sun, and of which the old Roman provinces -were planets. We were never meant to pursue a meteor out of empty -space, the comet of Teutonism. Our place was in an order and a watch -of stars, though one star might differ from another in glory. Our place -was with that red star of Gaul which might well bear the name of Mars; -or that morning and evening star which the Latins themselves named -Lucifer, last to fade and first to return in every twilight of history; -Italy, the light of the world. - -A Latin alliance is founded on our history, though not on our -historians. The French and English who fought each other round these -southern harbours were also ready to help each other, and often did -help each other. Not only did they frequently go crusading together -against the Turks, but they would have been ready at any moment to -go crusading against the Prussians. Chaucer was exceedingly English, -and therefore partly French; and he sends his ideal knight to fight -the heathen in Prussia. Froissart was highly French, and therefore -respectful to the English; and he says that the French and English -always do courtesy, but the Germans never. The truth is that all the -old English traditions, scholarly and legendary, chivalric and vulgar, -were at one in referring back to Roman culture, until we come to a new -crop of very crude pedants in the nineteenth century. - -Most of them were prigs, and many of them were snobs--for it was -largely a Court fashion, spread by Court poets and Court chaplains. It -was like a huge, hideous, gilded German monument; and, fortunately, -it has already fallen down. But I think it undesirable that the mere -discredited litter and lumber of it, left lying about, should for ever -prevent us from building anything else. - -Even after the ghastly enlightenment of the war there are people -who cannot clear their minds of the notion that the Prussian is the -Progressive. They think he is progressing now, because he is picking -up new things. Picking up new things is not the way to progress, any -more than picking up grass by the roots is the way to make it grow. -The northern barbarian always has picked up new things, especially -when they were other people’s things. It was still only picking up new -things, whether it was picking pockets or picking brains. And there was -always one other note about the new things--that they never lived to be -old. The barbarians followed the creed of Arius as they followed the -ensign of Attila. But nobody remembers Attila as everybody remembered -Alfred; and, though some modern people object to hearing the Athanasian -Creed, they have no opportunity of objecting to hearing the Arian -Creed. The enthusiasms of semi-savages do not last. - - - - -On Pigs as Pets - - -A dream of my pure and aspiring boyhood has been realized in the -following paragraph, which I quote exactly as it stands: - - A complaint by the Epping Rural District Council against a spinster - keeping a pig in her house has evoked the following reply: “I received - your letter, and felt very much cut up, as I am laying in the pig’s - room. I have not been able to stand up or get on my legs; when I can, - I will get him in his own room, that was built for him. As to getting - him off the premises, I shall do no such thing, as he is no nuisance - to anyone. We have had to be in the pig’s room now for three years. I - am not going to get rid of my pet. We must all live together. I will - move him as soon as God gives me strength to do so.” - -The Rev. T. C. Spurgin observed: “The lady will require a good deal of -strength to move her pet, which weighs forty stone.” - -It appears to me that the Rev. T. C. Spurgin ought, as a matter of -chivalry, to assist the lady to move the pig, if it is indeed too -heavy for her strength; no gentleman should permit a lady, who is -already very much cut up, to lift forty stone of still animated and -recalcitrant pork; he should himself escort the animal downstairs. It -is an unusual situation, I admit. In the normal life of humanity the -gentleman gives his arm to the lady, and not to the pig; and it is the -pig who is very much cut up. But the situation seems to be exceptional -in every way. It is all very well for the lady to say that the pig is -no nuisance to anyone: as it seems that she has established herself in -the pig’s private suite of apartments, the question rather is whether -she is a nuisance to the pig. But indeed I do not think that this poor -woman’s fad is an inch more fantastic than many such oddities indulged -in by rich and reputable people; and, as I say, I have from my boyhood -entertained the dream. I never could imagine why pigs should not be -kept as pets. To begin with, pigs are very beautiful animals. Those -who think otherwise are those who do not look at anything with their -own eyes, but only through other people’s eyeglasses. The actual lines -of a pig (I mean of a really fat pig) are among the loveliest and most -luxuriant in nature; the pig has the same great curves, swift and yet -heavy, which we see in rushing water or in rolling cloud. Compared to -him, the horse, for instance, is a bony, angular, and abrupt animal. -I remember that Mr. H. G. Wells, in arguing for the relativity of -things (a subject over which even the Greek philosophers went to sleep -until Christianity woke them up), pointed out that, while a horse is -commonly beautiful if seen in profile, he is excessively ugly if seen -from the top of a dogcart, having a long, lean neck, and a body like a -fiddle. Now, there is no point of view from which a really corpulent -pig is not full of sumptuous and satisfying curves. You can look down -on a pig from the top of the most unnaturally lofty dogcart; you can -(if not pressed for time) allow the pig to draw the dogcart; and I -suppose a dogcart has as much to do with pigs as it has with dogs. You -can examine the pig from the top of an omnibus, from the top of the -Monument, from a balloon, or an airship; and as long as he is visible -he will be beautiful. In short, he has that fuller, subtler, and more -universal kind of shapeliness which the unthinking (gazing at pigs -and distinguished journalists) mistake for a mere absence of shape. -For fatness itself is a valuable quality. While it creates admiration -in the onlookers, it creates modesty in the possessor. If there is -anything on which I differ from the monastic institutions of the past, -it is that they sometimes sought to achieve humility by means of -emaciation. It may be that the thin monks were holy, but I am sure it -was the fat monks who were humble. Falstaff said that to be fat is not -to be hated; but it certainly is to be laughed at, and that is a more -wholesome experience for the soul of man. - -I do not urge that it is effective upon the soul of a pig, who, indeed, -seems somewhat indifferent to public opinion on this point. Nor do I -mean that mere fatness is the only beauty of the pig. The beauty of the -best pigs lies in a certain sleepy perfection of contour which links -them especially to the smooth strength of our south English land in -which they live. There are two other things in which one can see this -perfect and piggish quality: one is in the silent and smooth swell of -the Sussex downs, so enormous and yet so innocent. The other is in the -sleek, strong limbs of those beech trees that grow so thick in their -valleys. These three holy symbols, the pig, the beech tree, and the -chalk down, stand for ever as expressing the one thing that England -as England has to say--that power is not inconsistent with kindness. -Tears of regret come into my eyes when I remember that three lions -or leopards, or whatever they are, sprawl in a fantastic, foreign -way across the arms of England. We ought to have three pigs passant, -gardant, or on gules. It breaks my heart to think that four commonplace -lions are couched around the base of the Nelson Column. There ought to -be four colossal Hampshire hogs to keep watch over so national a spot. -Perhaps some of our sculptors will attack the conception; perhaps the -lady’s pig, which weighs forty stone and seems to be something of a -domestic problem, might begin to earn its living as an artist’s model. - -Again, we do not know what fascinating variations might happen in the -pig if once the pig were a pet. The dog has been domesticated--that -is, destroyed. Nobody now in London can form the faintest idea of what -a dog would look like. You know a Dachshund in the street; you know -a St. Bernard in the street. But if you saw a Dog in the street you -would run from him screaming. For hundreds, if not thousands, of years -no one has looked at the horrible hairy original thing called Dog. -Why, then, should we be hopeless about the substantial and satisfying -thing called Pig? Types of Pig may also be differentiated; delicate -shades of Pig may also be produced. A monstrous pig as big as a pony -may perambulate the streets like a St. Bernard without attracting -attention. An elegant and unnaturally attenuated pig may have all the -appearance of a greyhound. There may be little, frisky, fighting pigs -like Irish or Scotch terriers; there may be little pathetic pigs like -King Charles spaniels. Artificial breeding might reproduce the awful -original pig, tusks and all, the terror of the forests--something -bigger, more mysterious, and more bloody than the bloodhound. Those -interested in hairdressing might amuse themselves by arranging the -bristles like those of a poodle. Those fascinated by the Celtic mystery -of the Western Highlands might see if they could train the bristles to -be a veil or curtain for the eye, like those of a Skye terrier; that -sensitive and invisible Celtic spirit. With elaborate training one -might have a sheep-pig instead of a sheep-dog, a lap-pig instead of a -lap-dog. - -What is it that makes you look so incredulous? Why do you still feel -slightly superior to the poor lady who would not be parted from her -pig? Why do you not at once take the hog to your heart? Reason suggests -his evident beauty. Evolution suggests his probable improvement. Is it, -perhaps, some instinct, some tradition ...? Well, apply that to women, -children, animals, and we will argue again. - - - - -The Romance of Rostand - - -Rostand, the romantic dramatist of France, and a very national poet, -died almost on the day of the great national triumph. He had lived, -to use his own imaginative heraldry, to see the golden eagles of Gaul -and Rome drive back the black eagles of Prussia and Austria. He was -too much of an earlier generation to take the precise part of Pequy or -Claudel in the process which banished the birds of barbaric night from -the land of the Eagles of the sun. But the part he had played in that -earlier time might well merit the use of a kindred metaphor, drawn from -his own fairyland of ornithology. He had a special claim to use as one -of his titles the noble mediæval name of Chantecler. He might well be -called the Gallic cock in that earlier twilight of vultures and bats. -The end of the nineteenth century was a time of pessimism for Europe, -and especially of pessimism for France; for pessimism was the shadow of -Prussianism. Rostand was really a cock that crowed before the coming of -sunrise. When it came it was red as blood; but the sun rose. - -But that mediæval nickname of the cock contains a still more -appropriate criticism. The word “clear” is always a clue to Rostand’s -country, and to Rostand’s work. He suffered in the decadent days, he -suffers to some extent still, from a strange blunder which supposes -that what is clear must be shallow. It is chiefly founded on false -figures of speech; and is akin to the mysteriously meaningless saying -that still waters run deep. It is repeated without the least reference -to the evident fact that the stillest of all waters do not run at all. -They lie about in puddles, which are none the less shallow because -they are covered with scum. Such were the North German philosophies -fashionable at the end of the nineteenth century; men believed in the -puddle’s profundity solely because of its opacity. When the decadent -critics sneered at Rostand’s popularity, they were simply sneering at -his lucidity. They were protesting against his power of conveying what -he meant in the most direct and telling fashion. They were complaining -bitterly because he did not think with a German accent, which is nearly -the same thing as an impediment in the speech. The wit with which -all his dialogues blazed was also a positive disadvantage in that -muddle-headed modern world, which even now will only begin to realize -gradually the greatness of France. Nothing has been so senselessly -underrated as wit, even when it seems to be the mere wit of words. It -is dismissed as merely verbal; but, in fact, it is more solemn writing -that is merely verbal, or rather merely verbose. A joke is always a -thought; it is grave and formal writing that can be quite literally -thoughtless. This applies to jokes when they are not only quite verbal -but quite vulgar. A good pun, or even a bad pun, is more intellectual -than mere polysyllables. The man, the presumably prehistoric man, who -invented the phrase, “When is a door not a door; when it’s ajar,” made -a serious and successful mental effort of selection and combination. -But a Prussian professor might begin on the same problem, “When is -a door not a door; when its doorishness is a becoming rather than a -being, and when the relativity of doorishness is co-ordinated with the -evolution of doors from windows and skylights, of which approximation -to new function, etc. etc.”--and the Prussian professor might go on -like that for ever, and never come to the end because he would never -come to the point. A pun or a riddle can never be in that sense a -fraud. Real wisdom may be better than real wit, but there is much more -sham wisdom than there is sham wit. - -This is the immediate point about Rostand, who had very real wit, -but wit of a very poetic and sometimes epic order. It is very -characteristic of him, and very puzzling to his critics, that he was -witty even in repudiating wit. In the scene of _Cyrano de Bergerac_, -in which the hero pleads in his friend’s name against the preciosity -of the heroine, he quite naturally uses the phrase touching the -evaporation of truth in artificial terminology, “Et que le fin du -fin ne soit la fin des fins.” That involves a pun and also involves -a point; and it is a subject on which it would be quite easy to be -earnest and pointless. A philosopher need never come to an end in -talking about ends; precisely because he is not required to amuse -anybody, he is not really required to mean anything. Every page, -every paragraph, almost every line of Rostand’s plays bristles with -these points, which are both verbal and vital. If any critic thinks -it was easy to produce them by the hundred, there is an exceedingly -easy test; let him try to produce one. In attempting to joke in this -fashion, he will probably find himself thinking for the first time. -For that matter, merely to make one of the better puns of _Punch_ or -_Hood’s Annual_ would be enough to stump most of the sceptics who have -been taught in the Teutonic schools to think a thing creative because -it is chaotic, and vast because it is vague. A modern “thinker” will -find it easier to make up a hundred problems than to make up one -riddle. For in the case of the riddle he has to make up the answer. - -The drama of Rostand was full of answers, if they seem to the -superficial merely to be ringing repartees. In the ballade of the duel -the hero says that the sword-thrust shall come at the end of the envoi, -but something like it seems to come continually at the end of the line. -But these retorts are really much more than superficial, because they -have the ring of dogma, of affirmation and certainty, and therefore of -triumph. The wit is heroic wit; and his sub-title was strictly correct -when he called _Cyrano_ a heroic comedy. It was written in a literary -period which was far too pessimistic to rise even to heroic Tragedy. -It will grow in value in a more virile time, when the air has been -cleared by a great crusade. Rostand’s poetry will certainly remain. -It may not remain among the very greatest poetry, for the very reason -that he fulfilled the office rather of the trumpet than the lyre. But -he himself may well have shared the spirited taste of his own hero, and -have preferred that something even more noble than the laurel should -remain as a feather in his cap. - - - - -Wishes - - -Most of us, I suppose, have amused ourselves with the old and flippant -fancy of what poets or orators would feel like if their wild wishes -came true. The poet would be not a little surprised if the (somewhat -inadequate) wings of a dove suddenly sprouted from his shoulder-blades. -And I suspect that even the baby who cries for the moon would be rather -frightened if it fell out of the sky, crushing forests and cities like -a colossal snowball, shutting out the stars and darkening the earth -it had illuminated. Shelley was magnificently moved when he wished to -be a cloud driven before the wild West Wind: but even Shelley would -have been not a little disconcerted if he had found himself turning -head-over-heels in mid-air the instant he had written the line. He -would even be somewhat relieved, I fancy, to fall upon the thorns of -life and bleed a little more. When Keats, the human nightingale, lay -listening to the feathered one, he expressed a strong desire for a long -drink of red wine. In this I believe him to have accurately analysed -his own sentiments. But when he proceeds to explain that he is strongly -inclined at that moment to wish himself dead, I entertain strong doubts -as to whether he is equally exact, and am by no means certain that he -would really like “to cease upon the midnight” even “with no pain.” -Such sceptical fantasies, I say, have occurred to most of us; they do -not spoil fine poetry for those who really like it; they only salt -it with humour and human fellowship. Things seriously beautiful are, -perhaps, the only things that we can jest about with complete spiritual -safety. One cannot insult the poem except by being afraid of the parody. - -But I think there is another and more curious cause for this common -human fancy of a wild wish which is disappointed by being fulfilled. -The idea is very common, of course, in popular tradition: in the tale -of King Midas; in the tale of the Black Pudding; in the tale of the -Goloshes of Fortune. My own personal feeling about it, I think, is that -a world in which all one’s wishes were fulfilled would, quite apart -from disappointments, be an unpleasant world to live in. The world -would be too like a dream, and the dream too like a nightmare. The Ego -would be too big for the Cosmos; it would be a bore to be so important -as that. I believe a great part of such poetic pleasure as I have -comes from a certain disdainful indifference in actual things. Demeter -withered up the cornfields: I like the cornfields because they grow in -spite of me. At least, I can lay my hand on my heart and say that no -cornfield ever grew with my assistance. Ajax defied the lightning; but -I like the lightning because it defies me. I enjoy stars and the sun -or trees and the sea, because they exist in spite of me; and I believe -the sentiment to be at the root of all that real kind of romance -which makes life not a delusion of the night, but an adventure of the -morning. It is, indeed, in the clash of circumstances that men are -most alive. When we break a lance with an opponent the whole romance is -in the fact that the lance does break. It breaks because it is real: it -does not vanish like an elfin spear. And even when there is an element -of the marvellous or impossible in true poetry, there is always also -this element of resistance, of actuality and shock. The most really -poetical impossibility is an irresistible force colliding with an -immovable post. When that happens it will be the end of the world. - -It is true, of course, that marvels, even marvels of transformation, -illustrate the noblest histories and traditions. But we should notice -a rather curious difference which the instinct of popular legend has -in almost all cases kept. The wonder-working done by good people, -saints and friends of man, is almost always represented in the form -of restoring things or people to their proper shapes. St. Nicholas, -the Patron Saint of Children, finds a boiling pot in which two -children have been reduced to a sort of Irish stew. He restores them -miraculously to life; because they ought to be children and ought not -to be Irish stew. But he does not turn them into angels; and I can -remember no case in hagiology of such an official promotion. If a woman -were blind, the good wonder-workers would give her back her eyes; if -a man were halt, they would give him back his leg. But they did not, -I think, say to the man: “You are so good that you really ought to be -a woman”; or to the woman: “You are so bothered it is time you had -a holiday as a man.” I do not say there are no exceptions; but this -is the general tone of the tales about good magic. But, on the other -hand, the popular tales about bad magic are specially full of the idea -that evil alters and destroys the personality. The black witch turns a -child into a cat or a dog; the bad magician keeps the Prince captive -in the form of a parrot, or the Princess in the form of a hind; in -the gardens of the evil spirits human beings are frozen into statues -or tied to the earth as trees. In all such instinctive literature the -denial of identity is the very signature of Satan. In that sense it is -true that the true God is the God of things as they are--or, at least, -as they were meant to be. And I think that something of this healthy -fear of losing self through the supernatural is behind the widespread -sentiment of the Three Wishes; the sentiment which says, in the words -of Thackeray: - - Fairy roses, fairy rings - Turn out sometimes troublesome things. - -Now the transition may seem queer; but this power of seeing that a tree -is _there_, in spite of you and me, that it holds of God and its own -treeishness, is of great importance just now in practical politics. We -are in sharp collision with a large number of things, some of which are -real facts and all of which are real faiths. We must see these things -objectively, as we do a tree; and understand that they exist whether -we like them or not. We must not try and turn them into something -different by the mere exercise of our own minds, as if we were witches. -I happen to think, for instance, that it is silly of Orangemen to think -they would be persecuted under Home Rule. But I think it is sillier to -think that the Orangemen do not think so. It is sillier not to see -that a man can fire off a gun for a prejudice as well as he can for -an ideal. I disagree with the Orangemen; I don’t disagree with the -Nationalists; but I deny neither. I sympathize with the Labour revolt; -I don’t sympathize with the Feminist revolt; but I deny neither. -Then, again, both these latter tendencies have succeeded in colliding -violently with another reality, the priests of the ancient popular -creed of Ireland. They achieved that catastrophe, not because they did -not believe the creed, but because they could not even believe that it -was believed. - -Now you can, if you choose, pass your life in a wizard dream, in which -all your enemies are turned into something else. You can insist that a -priest is only a parrot, or a Suffragette always a wandering hind: but -if you do, you will sooner or later get into your head what is meant by -an immovable post. - - - - -The Futurists - - -There are still people talking about Futurism, though I should have -thought it was now a thing of the past, exploded by its own silly -gunpowder train of progressive theory. If a man only believed the world -was round because his grandmother said it was flat, another man had -only to say it was spiral in order to be a more advanced idiot than -either of them. But, after all, the world is one shape and not another -(I don’t care which myself, but certainly one), and will be when we -all die, and would have been if no worm or weed had ever lived. And it -amuses me to notice that the very Agnostics who still quote Galileo’s -phrase about the earth, “And yet it moves!” are the very people who -talk as if truth could be different from age to age--as if the whole -world was a different shape when you or I were in a different frame of -mind. Progressives of this kind _cannot_ say “And yet it moves” save -in the sense that their own foot can roll it about like a football, or -that their own finger can stop it as Joshua’s stopped the moon. They -may control Nature like witches; but they cannot appeal to Nature like -Galileo. They have no abiding objective fact to which to appeal. On -the mere progressive theory there is no more immortality about the -astronomy of Galileo than the medicine of Galen. - -But one or two interesting ideas can be found in Futurist speculations, -essays, lectures, books, etc.--indeed, the Futurists can be interesting -everywhere but in their pictures. And this is the difficulty of all -such movements--the lack of the final fulfilment. I will not put it -offensively, as by saying that they write a beautiful prospectus, -but there are no funds. I do not mean it like that. I will put it -poetically by saying that there are beautiful leaves and flowers, -but there is no fruit. There are leaves of learning enough to fill a -library; there are flowers of rhetoric enough to last a session. They -are all about a picture: and there is no picture. Thus Mr. Nevinson, -the eminent English Futurist, has explained that pictorial art should -be as independent of natural facts as music is: it should not imitate, -but utter. Of music, of course, the remark is true, and fairly -familiar. Certainly three notes on a piano can bring tears to the eyes -by reminding us of a dead friend: though certainly the first noise -is not the noise he made when whistling to his dog, nor the second -the noise he made when kicking his boots off, nor the third the noise -he made when blowing his nose. Perhaps the three notes are noises he -could never have made: perhaps he was unmusical, like many magnificent -people--I am unmusical myself. Perhaps, I say, he was unmusical: yet -music can express him. This is an interesting fact; but it is only one -fact, and the examination of a few others would have shown Mr. Nevinson -the shallowness of his artistic philosophy. - -But Mr. Nevinson and the Futurists, having never seen a fact before in -their lives, clutch hold of this one and rush after the car of progress -like poor baby-laden charwomen after a motor-bus. Their deduction is -this: As his favourite song recalls the friend, though it contains none -of his grunts, snorts, or sneezes, so his portrait would better recall -his appearance if it contained no trace of his eyes, nose, mouth, -hair (if any), masculine sex, anthropoid or erect posture, or any -other oddity by which his friends were in the habit of distinguishing -him from a lamp-post or a large whale, or from the works of Creation -in general. Mr. Nevinson says that the most pungent and passionate -emotions (such, presumably, as we have about friendship and even about -love) can be conveyed by planes, mathematical proportions, arbitrary or -abstract colours, arrangements of line, and all the things we most of -us instinctively associate with carpets, if not with oilcloth. “It is -possible,” he says. It is. It is not a contradiction in terms. But if I -say, “It is possible by arranging a tomato, ten pearl buttons, a copy -of the second and last number of a Tariff Reform weekly, one wooden -leg, three odd boots, and a bag with a hole in it, to induce your worst -enemy to burst into tears and give you a million pounds in conscience -money,” then, if you are a Monist and a fool, you will answer that it -could not happen. But if you are an Agnostic and a Christian, you will -answer that you tried it on with your worst creditor, and it didn’t -work with him. Nor would the planes, angles, abstract colours work with -him. They don’t work with you; they don’t work with me; they don’t work -with anybody. And the reason simply is that these philosophers, like -so many modern philosophers, do not possess the patience to see what -they are taking for granted. Have you ever seen a fellow fail at the -high jump because he had not gone far enough back for his run? That is -Modern Thought. It is so confident of where it is going to that it does -not know where it comes from. - -The quite simple fallacy is this. The only thing we know about the -things we call the Arts is that when they are good they all stir the -soul in a somewhat similar way. Their roots in savagery or civilization -are so different and so dark, their relations to utility or practical -life are so prodigiously contrasted, the mere time or space they occupy -is so unequal in every case, the psychological explanations of their -very existence are so inconsistent and anarchic, that we simply do not -know whether in one single point we can argue from one art to another. -We do not know enough about it, and there is an end of the matter. For -instance, many have compared classic poetry with classic architecture; -and anyone who has ever felt the virginity and dignity of either will -know what such a comparison means. Milton spoke of “building” a line -of poetry; and nobody seems able to talk about sonnets without talking -about marble. But in technical fact the analogy is only a fancy, -after all. Treat it for one moment as Mr. Nevinson treats the analogy -between music and painting, and it is pure, preposterous nonsense--like -Futurism. - -Who will deny that height, or the appearance of height, is one of the -effects of architecture? Who has not read or said or felt that some -wall seemed too enormous for any mortals to have made, that some domes -seemed to occupy heaven, or that some spire seemed to strike him out -of the sky? But who, on the other hand, ever said that his sonnet was -printed higher up on the page than somebody else’s sonnet? Who ever -either praised or disliked a piece of verse according to its vertical -longitude? Who ever said, “My sonnet occupied five volumes of the -_Times_, but you _should_ see it pasted all in one piece”? Who ever -said, “I have written the tallest triolet on earth”? - -Mr. Nevinson will bring a tear to my eye by exhibiting a pattern -and calling it a picture on the same day when he induces me to read -two hundred leading articles in the _Times_ simply by calling them -a tower. They have many of the qualities of a tower: they are long; -they are symmetrical; they are all built out of the same old bricks; -they sometimes stand upright, like the Tower of Giotto; they more -often lean very much, like the Tower of Pisa; they most frequently -fall down altogether, and fall on the wrong people, like the Tower -of Siloam. One could pursue such abstract fancies for ever, but the -simple fact remains--and it is a fact of the senses. The thing is not -a tower, because it does not tower. And the Futurist picture is not a -picture, because it does not depict. Why one art can do without shapes, -and another without words, and another without movement, and another -without massiveness, and why each of these is necessary to one or other -of them separately--all this we shall know when we know what art means. -And I cannot say that the Futurists have helped us much in finding out. - - - - -The Evolution of Emma - - -Among the many good critical tributes to the genius of Jane Austen, to -the fine distinction of her humour, the sympathetic intimacy of her -satire, the easy exactitude of her unpretentious style, which have -appeared in celebration of her centenary, there is one criticism that -is naturally recurrent: the remark that she was quite untouched by the -towering politics of her time. This is intrinsically true; nevertheless -it may easily be used to imply the reverse of the truth. It is true -that Jane Austen did not attempt to teach any history or politics; -but it is not true that we cannot learn any history or politics from -Jane Austen. Any work so piercingly intelligent of its own kind, and -especially any work of so wise and humane a kind, is sure to tell us -much more than shallower studies covering a larger surface. I will -not say much of the mere formality of some of the conventions and -conversational forms; for in such things it is not only not certain -that change is important, but it is not even certain that it is final. -The view that a thing is old-fashioned is itself a fashion; and may -soon be an old fashion. We have seen this in many recurrences of female -dress; but it has a deeper basis in human nature. The truth is that -a phrase can be falsified by use without being false in fact; it can -seem stale without being really stilted. Those who see a word as -merely worn out, fail to look forward as well as back. I know of two -poems by two Irish poets of two different centuries, essentially on -the same theme; the lover declaring that his love will outlast the -mere popularity of the beauty. One is by Mr. Yeats and begins: “Though -you are in your shining days.” The other is by Tom Moore and begins: -“Believe me, if all those endearing young charms.” The latter language -strikes us as ridiculously florid and over-ripe; but Moore was far from -being ridiculous. Believe me (as he would say), it was no poetaster who -wrote those hackneyed words about the silent harp and the heart that -breaks for liberty. And if English were read some day by strangers as -a classic language, I am not sure that “endearing” would not endure -as a better word than “shining”; or even that (after some repetition -and reaction) it might not seem as strained to say “shining” as to say -“shiny.” Yet Mr. Yeats also is a great poet, as I called him last week; -only the printer or somebody altered it to a “good” one--a mysteriously -moderate emendation. Similarly, when one of Jane Austen’s heroines -wants to say that the hero is a good fellow, she expresses confidence -in what she calls “his worth.” This goads her younger modern readers -to madness; yet in truth the term is far more philosophic and eternal -than the terms they would use themselves. They would probably say he -was “nice,” and Jane Austen would indeed be avenged. For the best of -her heroes, Henry Tilney, himself foresaw and fulminated against the -unmeaning ubiquity of that word, a prophet of the pure reason of his -age, seeing in a vision of the future the fall of the human mind. - -Negatively, of course, the historic lesson from Jane Austen is -enormous. She is perhaps most typical of her time in being supremely -irreligious. Her very virtues glitter with the cold sunlight of the -great secular epoch between mediæval and modern mysticism. In that -small masterpiece, _Northanger Abbey_, her unconsciousness of history -is itself a piece of history. For Catherine Morland was right, as -young and romantic people often are. A real crime _had_ been committed -in Northanger Abbey. It is implied in the very name of Northanger -Abbey. It was the crucial crime of the sixteenth century, when all -the institutions of the poor were savagely seized to be the private -possessions of the rich. It is strange that the name remains; it is -stranger still that it remains unrealized. We should think it odd to -go to tea at a man’s house and find it was still called a church. We -should be surprised if a gentleman’s shooting box at Claybury were -referred to as Claybury Cathedral. But the irony of the eighteenth -century is that Catherine was healthily interested in crimes and yet -never found the real crime; and that she never really thought of it as -an abbey, even when she thought of it most as an antiquity. - -But there is a positive as well as a negative way in which her -greatness, like Shakespeare’s, illuminates history and politics, -because it illuminates everything. She understood every intricacy of -the upper middle class and the minor gentry, which were to make so much -of the mental life of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is -said that she ignored the poor and disregarded their opinions. She did, -but not more than all our Governments and all our Acts of Parliaments -have done. And at least she did consistently ignore them; she ignored -where she was ignorant. Well it would have been for the world if others -had ignored the working-class until they understood it as well as she -did the middle class. She was not a student of sociology; she did -not study the poor. But she did study the students--or at least the -social types which were to become the students of the poor. She knew -her own class, and knew it without illusions; and there is much light -on later problems to be found in her delicate delineation of vanities -and snobberies and patronage. She had to do with the human heart; -and it is that which cometh out of the heart that defileth a nation, -philanthropy, efficiency, organization, social reform. And if the -weaker brethren still wonder why we should find in Baby Week or Welfare -Work a dangerous spirit, from which its best adherents find it hard -to free themselves, if they doubt how such a danger can be reconciled -with the personal delicacy and idealism of many of the women who work -such things, if they think that fine words or even fine feelings will -guarantee a respect for the personality of the poor, I really do not -know that they could do better than sit down, I trust not for the first -time, to the reading of _Emma_. - -For all this that has happened since might well be called the Evolution -of Emma. That unique and formidable institution, the English Lady, has, -indeed, become much more of a public institution; that is, she has made -the same mistakes on a much larger scale. The softer fastidiousness -and finer pride of the more gracious eighteenth-century heroine may -seem to make her a shadow by comparison. It seems cruel to say that -the breaking off of Harriet’s humbler engagement foreshadows the -indiscriminate development of Divorce for the Poor. It seems horrible -to say that Emma’s small matchmaking has in it the seed of the -pestilence of Eugenics. But it is true. With a gentleness and justice -and sympathy with good intentions, which clear her from the charge -of common cynicism, the great novelist does find the spring of her -heroine’s errors, and of many of ours. That spring is a philanthropy, -and even a generosity, secretly founded on gentility. Emma Woodhouse -was a wit, she was a good woman, she was an individual with a right -to her own opinion; but it was because she was a lady that she acted -as she did, and thought she had a right to act as she did. She is the -type in fiction of a whole race of English ladies, in fact, for whom -refinement is religion. Her claim to oversee and order the social -things about her consisted in being refined; she would not have -admitted that being rich had anything to do with it; but as a fact it -had everything to do with it. If she had been very much richer, if she -had had one of the great modern fortunes, if she had had the wider -modern opportunities (for the rich) she would have thought it her duty -to act on the wider modern scale; she would have had public spirit and -political grasp. She would have dealt with a thousand Robert Martins -and a thousand Harriet Smiths, and made the same muddle about all of -them. That is what we mean about things like Baby Week--and if there -had been a baby in the story, Miss Woodhouse would certainly have seen -all its educational needs with a brilliant clearness. And we do not -mean that the work is done entirely by Mrs. Pardiggle; we mean that -much of it is done by Miss Woodhouse. But it is done because she _is_ -Miss Woodhouse and not Martha Muggins or Jemina Jones; because the Lady -Bountiful is a lady first, and will bestow every bounty but freedom. - -It is noted that there are few traces of the French Revolution in Miss -Austen’s novels; but, indeed, there have been few traces of it in Miss -Austen’s country. The peculiarity which has produced the situation I -describe is really this: that the new sentiment of humanitarianism -has come, when the old sentiment of aristocracy has not gone. Social -superiors have not really lost any old privileges; they have gained -new privileges, including that of being superior in philosophy and -philanthropy as well as in riches and refinement. No revolution has -shaken their secret security or menaced them with the awful peril of -becoming no more than men. Therefore their social reform is but their -social refinement grown restless. And in this old teacup comedy can be -found, far more clearly appreciated than in more ambitious books about -problems and politics, the psychology of this mere restlessness in the -rich, when it first stirred upon its cushions. Jane Austen described a -narrow class, but so truthfully that she has much to teach about its -after adventures, when it remained narrow as a class and broadened only -as a sect. - - - - -The Pseudo-Scientific Books ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -There is a certain kind of modern book which must, if possible, be -destroyed. It ought to be blown to pieces with the dynamite of some -great satirist like Swift or Dickens. As it is, it must be patiently -hacked into pieces even by some plodding person like myself. I will -do it, as George Washington said, with my little hatchet; though it -might take a long time to do it properly. The kind of book I mean is -the pseudo-scientific book. And by this I do not mean that the man -who writes it is a conscious quack or that he knows nothing; I mean -that he proves nothing; he simply gives you all his cocksure, and -yet shaky, modern opinions and calls it science. Books are coming -out with so-called scientific conclusions--books in which there is -actually no scientific argument at all. They simply affirm all the -notions that happen to be fashionable in loose “intellectual” clubs, -and call them the conclusions of research. But I am no more awed by -the flying fashions among prigs than I am by the flying fashions among -snobs. Snobs say they have the right kind of hat; prigs say they have -the right kind of head. But in both cases I should like some evidence -beyond their own habit of staring at themselves in the glass. Suppose -I were to write about the current fashions in dress something like -this: “Our ignorant and superstitious ancestors had straight hat-brims; -but the advance of reason and equality has taught us to have curly -hat-brims; in early times shirt-fronts are triangular, but science has -shown that they ought to be round; barbaric peoples had loose trousers, -but enlightened and humane peoples have tight trousers,” and so on, and -so on. You would naturally rebel at this simple style of argument. You -would say--“But, hang it all, give us some facts. Prove that the new -fashions are more enlightened. Prove that men think better in the new -hats. Prove that men run faster in the new trousers.” - -I have just read a book which has been widely recommended, which is -introduced to the public by Dr. Saleeby, and which is, I understand, -written by a Swiss scientist of great distinction. It is called _Sexual -Ethics_, by Professor Forel. I began to read the book, therefore, with -respect. I finished reading it with stupefaction. The Swiss Professor -is obviously an honest man, though too Puritanical to my taste, and I -am told that he does really know an enormous lot about insects. But as -for the conception of proving a case, as for any notion that a “new” -opinion needs proof, and that it is not enough, when you knock down -great institutions, to say that you don’t like them--it is clear that -no such conceptions have ever crossed his mind. Science says that man -has no conscience. Science says that man and woman must have the same -political powers. Science says that sterile unions are morally free and -without rule. Science says that it is wrong to drink fermented liquor. -And all this with a splendid indifference to the two facts--first, -that “Science” does not say these things at all, for numbers of great -scientists say exactly the opposite; and second, that if Science did -say these things, a person reading a book of rationalistic ethics might -be permitted to ask why. Professor Forel may have mountains of evidence -which he has no space to exhibit. We will give him the benefit of that -doubt, and pass on to points where any thinking man is capable of -judging him. - -Where this sort of scientific writer is seen in all his glory is in his -first abstract arguments about the nature of morality. He is immense; -he is at once simple and monstrous, like a whale. He always has one -dim principle or prejudice: to prove that there is nothing separate -or sacred about the moral sense. Professor Forel holds this prejudice -with all possible decorum and propriety. He always trots out three -arguments to prove it; like three old broken-kneed elephants. Professor -Forel duly trots them out. They are supposed to show that there is no -such thing positively existing as the conscience; and they might just -as easily be used to show that there are no such things as wings or -whiskers, or toes or teeth, or boots or books, or Swiss Professors. - -The first argument is that man has no conscience because some men are -quite mad, and therefore not particularly conscientious. The second -argument is that man has no conscience because some men are more -conscientious than others. And the third is that man has no conscience -because conscientious men in different countries and quite different -circumstances often do very different things. Professor Forel applies -these arguments eloquently to the question of human consciences; and -I really cannot see why I should not apply them to the question of -human noses. Man has no nose because now and then a man has no nose--I -believe that Sir William Davenant, the poet, had none. Man has no nose -because some noses are longer than others or can smell better than -others. Man has no nose because not only are noses of different shapes, -but (oh, piercing sword of scepticism!) some men use their noses and -find the smell of incense nice, while some use their noses and find it -nasty. Science therefore declares that man is normally noseless; and -will take this for granted for the next four or five hundred pages, and -will treat all the alleged noses of history as the quaint legends of a -credulous age. - -I do not mention these views because they are original, but exactly -because they are not. They are only dangerous in Professor Forel’s -book because they can be found in a thousand books of our epoch. This -writer solemnly asserts that Kant’s idea of an ultimate conscience -is a fable because Mohammedans think it wrong to drink wine, while -English officers think it right. Really he might just as well say -that the instinct of self-preservation is a fable because some people -avoid brandy in order to live long, and some people drink brandy in -order to save their lives. Does Professor Forel believe that Kant, or -anybody else, thought that our consciences gave us direct commands -about the details of diet or social etiquette? Did Kant maintain that, -when we had reached a certain stage of dinner, a supernatural voice -whispered in our ear “Asparagus”; or that the marriage between almonds -and raisins was a marriage that was made in heaven? Surely it is -plain enough that all these social duties are deduced from primary -moral duties--and may be deduced wrong. Conscience does not suggest -“asparagus,” but it does suggest amiability, and it is thought by some -to be an amiable act to accept asparagus when it is offered to you. -Conscience does not respect fish and sherry; but it does respect any -innocent ritual that will make men feel alike. Conscience does not tell -you not to drink your hock after your port. But it does tell you not to -commit suicide; and your mere naturalistic reason tells you that the -first act may easily approximate to the second. - -Christians encourage wine as something which will benefit men. -Teetotallers discourage wine as something that will destroy men. Their -conscientious conclusions are different, but their consciences are -just the same. Teetotallers say that wine is bad because they think -it moral to say what they think. Christians will not say that wine is -bad because they think it immoral to say what they don’t think. And a -triangle is a three-sided figure. And a dog is a four-legged animal. -And Queen Anne is dead. We have, indeed, come back to alphabetical -truths. But Professor Forel has not yet even come to them. He goes on -laboriously repeating that there cannot be a fixed moral sense, because -some people drink wine and some people don’t. I cannot imagine how it -was that he forgot to mention that France and England cannot have the -same moral sense, because Frenchmen drive cabs on the right side of the -road and Englishmen on the left. - - - - -The Humour of King Herod - - -If I say that I have just been very much amused with a Nativity -play of the fourteenth century it is still possible that I may be -misunderstood. What is more important, some thousand years of very -heroic history will be misunderstood too. It was one of the Coventry -cycle of mediæval plays, loosely called the Coventry Mysteries, similar -to the Chester Mysteries and the Towneley Mysteries. - -And I was not amused at the blasphemy of something badly done, but at -a buffoonery uncommonly well done. But, as I said at the time, the -educated seem to be very ignorant of this fine mediæval fun. When I -mentioned the Coventry Mystery many ladies and gentlemen thought it was -a murder in the police news. At the best, they supposed it to be the -title of a detective story. Even upon a hint of history they could only -recall the story of Godiva; which might be called rather a revelation -than a mystery. - -Now I always read police news and I sometimes write detective stories; -nor am I at all ashamed of doing either. But I think the popular art of -the past was perhaps a little more cheerful than that of the present. -And in seeing this Bethlehem drama I felt that good news might perhaps -be as dramatic as bad news; and that it was possibly as thrilling to -hear that a child is born as to hear that a man is murdered. - -Doubtless there are some sentimental people who like these old plays -merely because they are old. My own sentiment could be more truly -stated by saying that I like them because they are new. They are new in -the imaginative sense, making us feel as if the first star were leading -us to the first child. - -But they are also new in the historical sense, to most people, owing to -that break in our history which makes the Elizabethans seem not merely -to have discovered the new world but invented the old one. Nobody could -see this mediæval play without realizing that the Elizabethan was -rather the end than the beginning of a tradition; the crown and not the -cradle of the drama. - -Many things that modern critics call peculiarly Elizabethan are in -fact peculiarly mediæval. For instance, that the same stage could be -the place where meet the extremes of tragedy and comedy, or rather -farce. That daring mixture is always made a point of contrast between -the Shakespearean play and the Greek play or the French classical -play. But it is a point of similarity, or rather identity, between the -Shakespearean play and the miracle play. - -Nothing could be more bitterly tragic than the scene in this Nativity -drama, in which the mothers sing a lullaby to the children they think -they have brought into safety the moment before the soldiers of Herod -rush in and butcher them screaming on the stage. Nothing could be more -broadly farcical than the scene in which King Herod himself pretends -that he has manufactured the thunderstorm. - -In one sense, indeed, the old religious play was far bolder in its -burlesque than the more modern play. Shakespeare did not express the -unrest of King Claudius by making him fall over his own cloak. He did -not convey his disdain for tyranny by letting Macbeth appear with his -crown on one side. This was partly no doubt an improvement in dramatic -art; but it was partly also, I think, a weakening of democratic satire. - -Shakespeare’s clowns are philosophers, geniuses, demigods; but -Shakespeare’s clowns are clowns. Shakespeare’s kings may be usurpers, -murderers, monsters; but Shakespeare’s kings are kings. But in this -old devotional drama the king is the clown. He is treated not so much -with disdain as with derision; not so much with a bitter smile as with -a broad grin. A cat may not only look at a king but laugh at a king; -like the mythical Cheshire cat, an ancient cat as terrible as a tiger -and grinning like a gargoyle. But that Cheshire cat has presumably -vanished with the Chester Mysteries, the counterpart of these Coventry -Mysteries; it has vanished with the age and art of gargoyles. - -In other words, that popular simplicity that could see wrongful power -as something pantomimically absurd, a thing for practical jokes, has -since been sophisticated by a process none the less sad because it -is slow and subtle. It begins in the Elizabethans in an innocent and -indefinable form. It is merely the sense that, though Macbeth may get -his crown crookedly, he must not actually wear it crooked. It is the -sense that, though Claudius may fall from his throne, he must not -actually fall over his footstool. - -It ended in the nineteenth century in many refined and ingenuous forms; -in a tendency to find all fun in the ignorant or criminal classes; -in dialect or the dropping of aitches. It was a sort of satirical -slumming. There was a new shade in the comparison of the coster with -the cat; a coster could look at a king and might conceivably laugh at a -king; but most contemporary art and literature was occupied in laughing -at the coster. - -Even in the long lifetime of a good comic paper like _Punch_ we can -trace the change from jokes against the palace to jokes against the -public-house. The difference is perhaps more delicate; it is rather -that the refined classes are a subject for refined comedy; and only the -common people a subject for common farce. It is correct to call this -refinement modern; yet it is not quite correct to call it contemporary. -All through the Victorian time the joke was pointed more against the -poor and less against the powerful; but the revolution which ended the -long Victorian peace has shaken this Victorian patronage. The great -war which has brought so many ancient realities to the surface has -re-enacted before our eyes the Miracle Play of Coventry. - -We have seen a real King Herod claiming the thunders of the throne -of God, and answered by the thunder not merely of human wrath but of -primitive human laughter. He has done murder by proclamations, and he -has been answered by caricatures. He has made a massacre of children, -and been made a figure of fun in a Christmas pantomime for the -pleasure of other children. Precisely because his crime is tragic, his -punishment is comic; the old popular paradox has returned. - - - - -The Silver Goblets - - -It was reported that at the sumptuous performance of _Henry VIII_ -at His Majesty’s Theatre, the urns and goblets of the banquet were -specially wrought in real and solid silver and in the style of the -sixteenth century. This bombastic literalism is at least very much the -fashion in our modern theatricals. Mr. Vincent Crummles considered it a -splendid piece of thoroughness on the part of an actor that he should -black himself all over to perform Othello. But Mr. Crummles’s ideal -falls far short of the theoretic thoroughness of the late Sir Herbert -Tree; who would consider blacking oneself all over as comparatively a -mere sham, compromise, and veneer. Sir Herbert Tree would, I suppose, -send for a real negro to act Othello; and perhaps for a real Jew to -act Shylock--though that, in the present condition of the English -stage, might possibly be easier. The strict principle of the silver -goblets might be a little more arduous and unpleasant if applied, -let us say, to _The Arabian Nights_, if the manager of His Majesty’s -Theatre presented _Aladdin_, and had to produce not one real negro but -a hundred real negroes, carrying a hundred baskets of gigantic and -genuine jewels. In the presence of this proposal even Sir Herbert might -fall back on a simpler philosophy of the drama. For the principle -in itself admits of no limit. If once it be allowed that what looks -like silver behind the footlights is better also for really being -silver, there seems no reason why the wildest developments should not -ensue. The priests in _Henry VIII_ might be specially ordained in the -green-room before they come on. Nay, if it comes to that, the head of -Buckingham might really be cut off; as in the glad old days lamented by -Swinburne, before the coming of an emasculate mysticism removed real -death from the arena. We might re-establish the goriness as well as the -gorgeousness of the amphitheatre. If real wine-cups, why not real wine? -If real wine, why not real blood? - -Nor is this an illegitimate or irrelevant deduction. This and a hundred -other fantasies might follow if once we admit the first principle that -we need to realize on the stage not merely the beauty of silver, but -the value of silver. Shakespeare’s famous phrase that art should hold -the mirror up to nature is always taken as wholly realistic; but it is -really idealistic and symbolic--at least, compared with the realism -of His Majesty’s. Art is a mirror not because it is the same as the -object, but because it is different. A mirror selects as much as art -selects; it gives the light of flames, but not their heat; the colour -of flowers, but not their fragrance; the faces of women, but not their -voices; the proportions of stockbrokers, but not their solidity. A -mirror is a vision of things, not a working model of them. And the -silver seen in a mirror is not for sale. - -But the results of the thing in practice are worse than its wildest -results in theory. This Arabian extravagance in the furniture and -decoration of a play has one very practical disadvantage--that it -narrows the number of experiments, confines them to a small and wealthy -class, and makes those which are made exceptional, erratic, and -unrepresentative of any general dramatic activity. One or two insanely -expensive works prove nothing about the general state of art in a -country. To take the parallel of a performance somewhat less dignified, -perhaps, than Sir Herbert Tree’s, there has lately been in America an -exhibition not unanalogous to a conflict in the arena, and one for -which a real negro actually was procured by the management. The negro -happened to beat the white man, and both before and after this event -people went about wildly talking of “the White Man’s champion” and “the -representative of the Black Race.” All black men were supposed to have -triumphed over all white men in a sort of mysterious Armageddon because -one specialist met another specialist and tapped his claret or punched -him in the bread-basket. - -Now the fact is, of course, that these two prize-fighters were so -specially picked and trained--the business of producing such men is so -elaborate, artificial, and expensive--that the result proves nothing -whatever about the general condition of white men or black. If you go -in for heroes or monsters it is obvious that they may be born anywhere. -If you took the two tallest men on earth, one might be born in Corea -and the other in Camberwell, but this would not make Camberwell a land -of giants inheriting the blood of Anak. If you took the two thinnest -men in the world, one might be a Parisian and the other a Red Indian. -And if you take the two most scientifically developed pugilists, it is -not surprising that one of them should happen to be white and the other -black. Experiments of so special and profuse a kind have the character -of monstrosities, like black tulips or blue roses. It is absurd to make -them representative of races and causes that they do not represent. -You might as well say that the Bearded Lady at a fair represents the -masculine advance of modern woman; or that all Europe was shaking under -the banded armies of Asia, because of the co-operation of the Siamese -Twins. - -So the plutocratic tendency of such performances as _Henry VIII_ is to -prevent rather than to embody any movement of historical or theatrical -imagination. If the standard of expenditure is set so high by custom, -the number of competitors must necessarily be small, and will probably -be of a restricted and unsatisfactory type. Instead of English history -and English literature being as cheap as silver paper, they will be as -dear as silver plate. The national culture, instead of being spread out -everywhere like gold leaf, will be hardened into a few costly lumps -of gold--and kept in very few pockets. The modern world is full of -things that are theoretically open and popular, but practically private -and even corrupt. In theory any tinker can be chosen to speak for his -fellow-citizens among the English Commons. In practice he may have to -spend a thousand pounds on getting elected--a sum which many tinkers do -not happen to have to spare. In theory it ought to be possible for any -moderately successful actor with a sincere and interesting conception -of Wolsey to put that conception on the stage. In practice it looks -as if he would have to ask himself, not whether he was as clever as -Wolsey, but whether he was as rich. He has to reflect, not whether he -can enter into Wolsey’s soul, but whether he can pay Wolsey’s servants, -purchase Wolsey’s plate, and own Wolsey’s palaces. - -Now people with Wolsey’s money and people with Wolsey’s mind are -both rare; and even with him the mind came before the money. The -chance of their being combined a second time is manifestly small and -decreasing. The result will obviously be that thousands and millions -may be spent on a theatrical misfit, and inappropriate and unconvincing -impersonation; and all the time there may be a man outside who could -have put on a red dressing-gown and made us feel in the presence of -the most terrible of the Tudor statesmen. The modern method is to sell -Shakespeare for thirty pieces of silver. - - - - -The Duty of the Historian - - -We most of us suffer much from having learnt all our lessons in history -from those little abridged history-books in use in most public and -private schools. These lessons are insufficient--especially when -you don’t learn them. The latter was indeed my own case; and the -little history I know I have picked up since by rambling about in -authentic books and countrysides. But the bald summaries of the small -history-books still master and, in many cases, mislead us. The root of -the difficulty is this: that there are two quite distinct purposes of -history--the superior purpose, which is its use for children, and the -secondary or inferior purpose, which is its use for historians. The -highest and noblest thing that history can be is a good story. Then it -appeals to the heroic heart of all generations, the eternal infancy of -mankind. Such a story as that of William Tell could literally be told -of any epoch; no barbarian implements could be too rude, no scientific -instruments could be too elaborate for the pride and terror of the -tale. It might be told of the first flint-headed arrow or the last -model machine-gun; the point of it is the same: it is as eternal as -tyranny and fatherhood. Now, wherever there is this function of the -fine story in history we tell it to children only because it is a fine -story. David and the cup of water, Regulus and the _atque sciebat_, -Jeanne d’Arc kissing the cross of spear-wood, or Nelson shot with all -his stars--these stir in every child the ancient heart of his race; -and that is all that they need do. Changes of costume and local colour -are nothing: it did not matter that in the illustrated Bibles of our -youth David was dressed rather like Regulus, in a Roman cuirass and -sandals, any more than it mattered that in the illuminated Bibles of -the Middle Ages he was dressed rather like Jeanne d’Arc, in a hood or -a visored helmet. It will not matter to future ages if the pictures -represent Jeanne d’Arc cremated in an asbestos stove or Nelson dying -in a top-hat. For the childish and eternal use of history, the history -will still be heroic. - -But the historians have quite a different business. It is their affair, -not merely to remember that humanity has been wise and great, but to -understand the special ways in which it has been weak and foolish. -Historians have to explain the horrible mystery of how fashions were -ever fashionable. They have to analyse that statuesque instinct of the -South that moulds the Roman cuirass to the muscles of the human torso, -or that element of symbolic extravagance in the later Middle Ages which -let loose a menagerie upon breast and casque and shield. They have to -explain, as best they can, how anyone ever came to have a top-hat, how -anyone ever endured an asbestos stove. - -Now the mere tales of the heroes are a part of religious education; -they are meant to teach us that we have souls. But the inquiries of the -historians into the eccentricities of every epoch are merely a part of -political education; they are meant to teach us to avoid certain perils -or solve certain problems in the complexity of practical affairs. It -is the first duty of a boy to admire the glory of Trafalgar. It is the -first duty of a grown man to question its utility. It is one question -whether it was a good thing as an episode in the struggle between Pitt -and the French Revolution. It is quite another matter that it was -certainly a good thing in that immortal struggle between the son of -man and all the unclean spirits of sloth and cowardice and despair. -For the wisdom of man alters with every age; his prudence has to fit -perpetually shifting shapes of inconvenience or dilemma. But his folly -is immortal: a fire stolen from heaven. - -Now, the little histories that we learnt as children were partly meant -simply as inspiring stories. They largely consisted of tales like -Alfred and the cakes or Eleanor and the poisoned wound. They ought to -have entirely consisted of them. Little children ought to learn nothing -but legends; they are the beginnings of all sound morals and manners. -I would not be severe on the point: I would not exclude a story solely -because it was true. But the essential on which I should insist would -be, not that the tale must be true, but that the tale must be fine. - -The attempts in the little school-histories to introduce older and -subtler elements, to talk of the atmosphere of Puritanism or the -evolution of our Constitution, is quite irrelevant and vain. It is -impossible to convey to a barely breeched imp who does not yet know -his own community, the exquisite divergence between it and some other -community. What is the good of talking about the Constitution carefully -balanced on three estates to a creature only quite recently balanced on -two legs? What is the sense of explaining the Puritan shade of morality -to a creature who is still learning with difficulty that there is any -morality at all? We may put on one side the possibility that some of us -may think the Puritan atmosphere an unpleasant one or the Constitution -a trifle rickety on its three legs. The general truth remains that we -should teach, to the young, men’s enduring truths, and let the learned -amuse themselves with their passing errors. - -It is often said nowadays that in great crises and moral revolutions we -need one strong man to decide; but it seems to me that that is exactly -when we do not need him. We do not need a great man for a revolution, -for a true revolution is a time when all men are great. Where despotism -really is successful is in very small matters. Every one must have -noticed how essential a despot is to arranging the things in which -every one is doubtful, because every one is indifferent: the boats in -a water picnic or the seats at a dinner-party. Here the man who knows -his own mind is really wanted, for no one else ever thinks his own mind -worth knowing. No one knows where to go to precisely, because no one -cares where he goes. It is for trivialities that the great tyrant is -meant. - -But when the depths are stirred in a society, and all men’s souls grow -taller in a transfiguring anger or desire, then I am by no means -so certain that the great man has been a benefit even when he has -appeared. I am sure that Cromwell and Napoleon managed the mere pikes -and bayonets, boots and knapsacks better than most other people could -have managed them. But I am by no means sure that Napoleon gave a -better turn to the whole French Revolution. I am by no means so sure -that Cromwell has really improved the religion of England. - -As it is in politics with the specially potent man, so it is in history -with the specially learned. We do not need the learned man to teach -us the important things. We all know the important things, though we -all violate and neglect them. Gigantic industry, abysmal knowledge, -are needed for the discovery of the tiny things--the things that seem -hardly worth the trouble. Generally speaking, the ordinary man should -be content with the terrible secret that men are men--which is another -way of saying that they are brothers. He had better think of Cæsar as -a man and not as a Roman, for he will probably think of a Roman as a -statue and not as a man. He had better think of Coeur-de-Lion as a man -and not as a Crusader, or he will think of him as a stage Crusader. For -every man knows the inmost core of every other man. It is the trappings -and externals erected for an age and a fashion that are forgotten and -unknown. It is all the curtains that are curtained, all the masks -that are masked, all the disguises that are now disguised in dust and -featureless decay. But though we cannot reach the outside of history, -we all start from the inside. Some day, if I ransack whole libraries, I -may know the outermost aspects of King Stephen, and almost see him in -his habit as he lived; but the inmost I know already. The symbols are -mouldered and the manner of the oath forgotten; the secret society may -even be dissolved; but we all know the secret. - - - - -Questions of Divorce - - -I have just picked up a little book that is not only brightly and -suggestively written, but is somewhat unique, in this sense--that it -enunciates the modern and advanced view of Woman in such language as a -sane person can stand. It is written by Miss Florence Farr, is called -_Modern Woman: her Intentions_, and is published by Mr. Frank Palmer. -This style of book I confess to commonly finding foolish and vain. The -New Woman’s monologue wearies, not because it is unwomanly, but because -it is inhuman. It exhibits the most exhausting of combinations: the -union of fanaticism of speech with frigidity of soul--the things that -made Robespierre seem a monster. The worst example I remember was once -trumpeted in a Review: a lady doctor, who has ever afterwards haunted -me as a sort of nightmare of spiritual imbecility. I forget her exact -words, but they were to the effect that sex and motherhood should be -treated neither with ribaldry nor reverence: “It is too serious a -subject for ribaldry, and I myself cannot understand reverence towards -anything that is physical.” There, in a few words, is the whole twisted -and tortured priggishness which poisons the present age. The person -who cannot laugh at sex ought to be kicked; and the person who cannot -reverence pain ought to be killed. Until that lady doctor gets a little -ribaldry and a little reverence into her soul, she has no right to have -any opinion at all about the affairs of humanity. I remember there was -another lady, trumpeted in the same Review, a French lady who broke off -her engagement with the excellent gentleman to whom she was attached on -the ground that affection interrupted the flow of her thoughts. It was -a thin sort of flow in any case, to judge by the samples; and no doubt -it was easily interrupted. - -The author of _Modern Woman_ is bitten a little by the mad dog of -modernity, the habit of dwelling disproportionally on the abnormal -and the diseased; but she writes rationally and humorously, like a -human being; she sees that there are two sides to the case; and she -even puts in a fruitful suggestion that, with its subconsciousness and -its virtues of the vegetable, the new psychology may turn up on the -side of the old womanhood. One may say indeed that in such a book as -this our amateur philosophizing of to-day is seen at its fairest; and -even at its fairest it exhibits certain qualities of bewilderment and -disproportion which are somewhat curious to note. - -I think the oddest thing about the advanced people is that, while they -are always talking of things as problems, they have hardly any notion -of what a real problem is. A real problem only occurs when there are -admittedly disadvantages in all courses that can be pursued. If it is -discovered just before a fashionable wedding that the Bishop is locked -up in the coal-cellar, that is not a problem. It is obvious to anyone -but an extreme anti-clerical or practical joker that the Bishop must -be let out of the coal-cellar. But suppose the Bishop has been locked -up in the wine-cellar, and from the obscure noises, sounds as of song -and dance, etc., it is guessed that he has indiscreetly tested the -vintages round him; then, indeed, we may properly say that there has -arisen a _problem_; for, upon the one hand, it is awkward to keep -the wedding waiting, while, upon the other, any hasty opening of the -door might mean an episcopal rush and scenes of the most unforeseen -description. - -An incident like this (which must constantly happen in our gay -and varied social life) is a true problem because there are in it -incompatible advantages. Now if woman is simply the domestic slave that -many of these writers represent, if man has bound her by brute force, -if he has simply knocked her down and sat on her--then there is no -problem about the matter. She has been locked in the kitchen, like the -Bishop in the coal-cellar; and they both of them ought to be let out. -If there is any problem of sex, it must be because the case is not so -simple as that; because there is something to be said for the man as -well as for the woman; and because there are evils in unlocking the -kitchen door, in addition to the obvious good of it. Now, I will take -two instances from Miss Farr’s own book of problems that are really -problems, and which she entirely misses because she will not admit that -they are problematical. - -The writer asks the substantial question squarely enough: “Is -indissoluble marriage good for mankind?” and she answers it squarely -enough: “For the great mass of mankind, yes.” To those like myself, -who move in the old-world dream of Democracy, that admission ends the -whole question. There may be exceptional people who would be happier -without Civil Government; sensitive souls who really feel unwell when -they see a policeman. But we have surely the right to impose the State -on everybody if it suits nearly everybody; and if so, we have the right -to impose the Family on everybody if it suits nearly everybody. But the -queer and cogent point is this; that Miss Farr does not see the real -difficulty about allowing exceptions--the real difficulty that has made -most legislators reluctant to allow them. I do not say there should be -no exceptions, but I do say that the author has not seen the painful -problem of permitting any. - -The difficulty is simply this: that if it comes to claiming exceptional -treatment, the very people who will claim it will be those who least -deserve it. The people who are quite convinced they are superior -are the very inferior people; the men who really think themselves -extraordinary are the most ordinary rotters on earth. If you say, -“Nobody must steal the Crown of England,” then probably it will not -be stolen. After that, probably the next best thing would be to say, -“Anybody may steal the Crown of England,” for then the Crown might find -its way to some honest and modest fellow. But if you say, “Those who -feel themselves to have Wild and Wondrous Souls, and they only, may -steal the Crown of England,” then you may be sure there will be a rush -for it of all the rag, tag, and bobtail of the universe, all the quack -doctors, all the sham artists, all the demireps and drunken egotists, -all the nationless adventurers and criminal monomaniacs of the world. - -So, if you say that marriage is for common people, but divorce for free -and noble spirits, all the weak and selfish people will dash for the -divorce; while the few free and noble spirits you wish to help will -very probably (because they are free and noble) go on wrestling with -the marriage. For it is one of the marks of real dignity of character -not to wish to separate oneself from the honour and tragedy of the -whole tribe. All men are ordinary men; the extraordinary men are those -who know it. - -The weakness of the proposition that marriage is good for the common -herd, but can be advantageously violated by special “experimenters” and -pioneers, is that it takes no account of the problem of the disease -of pride. It is easy enough to say that weaker souls had better -be guarded, but that we must give freedom to Georges Sand or make -exceptions for George Eliot. The practical puzzle is this: that it is -precisely the weakest sort of lady novelist who thinks she is Georges -Sand; it is precisely the silliest woman who is sure she is George -Eliot. It is the small soul that is sure it is an exception; the large -soul is only too proud to be the rule. To advertise for exceptional -people is to collect all the sulks and sick fancies and futile -ambitions of the earth. The good artist is he who can be understood; it -is the bad artist who is always “misunderstood.” In short, the great -man is a man; it is always the tenth-rate man who is the Superman. - -Miss Farr disposes of the difficult question of vows and bonds in love -by leaving out altogether the one extraordinary fact of experience -on which the whole matter turns. She again solves the problem by -assuming that it is not a problem. Concerning oaths of fidelity, etc., -she writes: “We cannot trust ourselves to make a real love-knot unless -money or custom forces us to 'bear and forbear.’ There is always the -lurking fear that we shall not be able to keep faith unless we swear -upon the Book. This is, of course, not true of young lovers. Every -first love is born free of tradition; indeed, not only is first love -innocent and valiant, but it sweeps aside all the wise laws it has been -taught, and burns away experience in its own light. The revelation is -so extraordinary, so unlike anything told by the poets, so absorbing, -that it is impossible to believe that the feeling can die out.” - -Now this is exactly as if some old naturalist settled the bat’s place -in nature by saying boldly, “Bats do not fly.” It is as if he solved -the problem of whales by bluntly declaring that whales live on land. -There is a problem of vows, as of bats and whales. What Miss Farr -says about it is quite lucid and explanatory; it simply happens to be -flatly untrue. It is not the fact that young lovers have no desire to -swear on the Book. They are always at it. It is not the fact that every -young love is born free of traditions about binding and promising, -about bonds and signatures and seals. On the contrary, lovers wallow -in the wildest pedantry and precision about these matters. They do -the craziest things to make their love legal and irrevocable. They -tattoo each other with promises; they cut into rocks and oaks with -their names and vows; they bury ridiculous things in ridiculous places -to be a witness against them; they bind each other with rings, and -inscribe each other in Bibles; if they are raving lunatics (which is -not untenable), they are mad solely on this idea of binding and on -nothing else. It is quite true that the tradition of their fathers and -mothers is in favour of fidelity; but it is emphatically not true that -the lovers merely follow it; they invent it anew. It is quite true -that the lovers feel their love eternal, and independent of oaths; -but it is emphatically not true that they do not desire to take the -oaths. They have a ravening thirst to take as many oaths as possible. -Now this is the paradox; this is the whole problem. It is not true, as -Miss Farr would have it, that young people feel free of vows, being -confident of constancy; while old people invent vows, having lost that -confidence. That would be much too simple; if that were so there would -be no problem at all. The startling but quite solid fact is that young -people are especially fierce in making fetters and final ties at the -very moment when they think them unnecessary. The time when they want -the vow is exactly the time when they do not need it. That is worth -thinking about. - -Nearly all the fundamental facts of mankind are to be found in its -fables. And there is a singularly sane truth in all the old stories of -the monsters--such as centaurs, mermaids, sphinxes, and the rest. It -will be noted that in each of these the humanity, though imperfect in -its extent, is perfect in its quality. The mermaid is half a lady and -half a fish; but there is nothing fishy about the lady. A centaur is -half a gentleman and half a horse. But there is nothing horsey about -the gentleman. The centaur is a manly sort of man--up to a certain -point. The mermaid is a womanly woman--so far as she goes. The human -parts of these monsters are handsome, like heroes, or lovely, like -nymphs; their bestial appendages do not affect the full perfection of -their humanity--what there is of it. There is nothing humanly wrong -with the centaur, except that he rides a horse without a head. There -is nothing humanly wrong with the mermaid; Hood put a good comic -motto to his picture of a mermaid: “All’s well that ends well.” It -is, perhaps, quite true; it all depends which end. Those old wild -images included a crucial truth. Man is a monster. And he is all the -more a monster because one part of him is perfect. It is not true, -as the evolutionists say, that man moves perpetually up a slope from -imperfection to perfection, changing ceaselessly, so as to be suitable. -The immortal part of a man and the deadly part are jarringly distinct, -and have always been. And the best proof of this is in such a case as -we have considered--the case of the oaths of love. - -A man’s soul is as full of voices as a forest; there are ten thousand -tongues there like all the tongues of the trees: fancies, follies, -memories, madnesses, mysterious fears, and more mysterious hopes. All -the settlement and sane government of life consists in coming to the -conclusion that some of those voices have authority and others not. -You may have an impulse to fight your enemy or an impulse to run away -from him; a reason to serve your country or a reason to betray it; a -good idea for making sweets or a better idea for poisoning them. The -only test I know by which to judge one argument or inspiration from -another is ultimately this: that all the noble necessities of man talk -the language of eternity. When man is doing the three or four things -that he was sent on this earth to do, then he speaks like one who shall -live for ever. A man dying for his country does not talk as if local -preferences could change. Leonidas does not say, “In my present mood, -I prefer Sparta to Persia.” William Tell does not remark, “The Swiss -civilization, so far as I can yet see, is superior to the Austrian.” -When men are making commonwealths, they talk in terms of the absolute, -and so they do when they are making (however unconsciously) those -smaller commonwealths which are called families. There are in life -certain immortal moments, moments that have authority. Lovers are right -to tattoo each other’s skins and cut each other’s names about the -world; they do belong to each other, in a more awful sense than they -know. - - - - -Mormonism - - -There is inevitably something comic (comic in the broad and vulgar -style which all men ought to appreciate in its place) about the panic -aroused by the presence of the Mormons and their supposed polygamous -campaign in this country. It calls up the absurd image of an enormous -omnibus, packed inside with captive English ladies, with an Elder on -the box, controlling his horses with the same patriarchal gravity as -his wives, and another Elder as conductor calling out “Higher up,” -with an exalted and allegorical intonation. And there is something -highly fantastic to the ordinary healthy mind in the idea of any -precaution being proposed; in the idea of locking the Duchess in the -boudoir and the governess in the nursery, lest they should make a -dash for Utah, and become the ninety-third Mrs. Abraham Nye, or the -hundredth Mrs. Hiram Boke. But these frankly vulgar jokes, like most -vulgar jokes, cover a popular prejudice which is but the bristly hide -of a living principle. Elder Ward, recently speaking at Nottingham, -strongly protested against these rumours, and asserted absolutely -that polygamy had never been practised with the consent of the Mormon -Church since 1890. I think it only just that this disclaimer should be -circulated; but though it is most probably sincere, I do not find it -very soothing. The year 1890 is not very long ago, and a society that -could have practised so recently a custom so alien to Christendom must -surely have a moral attitude which might be repellent to us in many -other respects. Moreover, the phrase about the consent of the Church -(if correctly reported) has a little the air of an official repudiating -responsibility for unofficial excesses. It sounds almost as if Mr. -Abraham Nye might, on his own account, come into church with a hundred -and fourteen wives, but people were supposed not to notice them. It -might amount to little more than this, that the chief Elder may allow -the hundred and fourteen wives to walk down the street like a girls’ -school, but he is not officially expected to take off his hat to each -of them in turn. Seriously speaking, however, I have little doubt that -Elder Ward speaks the substantial truth, and that polygamy is dying, or -has died, among the Mormons. My reason for thinking this is simple: it -is that polygamy always tends to die out. Even in the East I believe -that, counting heads, it is by this time the exception rather than the -rule. Like slavery, it is always being started, because of its obvious -conveniences. It has only one small inconvenience, which is that it is -intolerable. - -Our real error in such a case is that we do not know or care about -the creed itself, from which a people’s customs, good or bad, will -necessarily flow. We talk much about “respecting” this or that person’s -religion; but the way to respect a religion is to treat it as a -religion: to ask what are its tenets and what are their consequences. -But modern tolerance is deafer than intolerance. The old religious -authorities, at least, defined a heresy before they condemned it, and -read a book before they burned it. But we are always saying to a Mormon -or a Moslem--“Never mind about your religion, come to my arms.” To -which he naturally replies--“But I do mind about my religion, and I -advise you to mind your eye.” - -About half the history now taught in schools and colleges is made -windy and barren by this narrow notion of leaving out the theological -theories. The wars and Parliaments of the Puritans made absolutely -no sense if we leave out the fact that Calvinism appeared to them to -be the absolute metaphysical truth, unanswerable, unreplaceable, and -the only thing worth having in the world. The Crusades and dynastic -quarrels of the Norman and Angevin Kings make absolutely no sense -if we leave out the fact that these men (with all their vices) -were enthusiastic for the doctrine, discipline, and endowment of -Catholicism. Yet I have read a history of the Puritans by a modern -Nonconformist in which the name of Calvin was not even mentioned, -which is like writing a history of the Jews without mentioning either -Abraham or Moses. And I have never read any popular or educational -history of England that gave the slightest hint of the motives in the -human mind that covered England with abbeys and Palestine with banners. -Historians seem to have completely forgotten the two facts--first, -that men act from ideas; and second, that it might, therefore, be as -well to discover which ideas. The mediævals did not believe primarily -in “chivalry,” but in Catholicism, as producing chivalry among other -things. The Puritans did not believe primarily in “righteousness,” -but in Calvinism, as producing righteousness among other things. It -was the creed that held the coarse or cunning men of the world at both -epochs. William the Conqueror was in some ways a cynical and brutal -soldier, but he did attach importance to the fact that the Church -upheld his enterprise; that Harold had sworn falsely on the bones of -saints, and that the banner above his own lances had been blessed by -the Pope. Cromwell was in some ways a cynical and brutal soldier; but -he did attach importance to the fact that he had gained assurance from -on high in the Calvinistic scheme; that the Bible seemed to support -him--in short, the most important moment in his own life, for him, was -not when Charles I lost his head, but when Oliver Cromwell did not lose -his soul. If you leave these things out of the story, you are leaving -out the story itself. If William Rufus was only a red-haired man who -liked hunting, why did he force Anselm’s head under a mitre, instead -of forcing his head under a headsman’s axe? If John Bunyan only cared -for “righteousness,” why was he in terror of being damned, when he knew -he was rationally righteous? We shall never make anything of moral -and religious movements in history until we begin to look at their -theory as well as their practice. For their practice (as in the case -of the Mormons) is often so unfamiliar and frantic that it is quite -unintelligible without their theory. - -I have not the space, even if I had the knowledge, to describe the -fundamental theories of Mormonism about the universe. But they are -extraordinarily interesting; and a proper understanding of them would -certainly enable us to see daylight through the more perplexing or -menacing customs of this community; and therefore to judge how far -polygamy was in their scheme a permanent and self-renewing principle -or (as is quite probable) a personal and unscrupulous accident. The -basic Mormon belief is one that comes out of the morning of the earth, -from the most primitive and even infantile attitude. Their chief dogma -is that God is material, not that He was materialized once, as all -Christians believe; nor that He is materialized specially, as all -Catholics believe; but that He was materially embodied from all time; -that He has a local habitation as well as a name. Under the influence -of this barbaric but violently vivid conception, these people crossed -a great desert with their guns and oxen, patiently, persistently, and -courageously, as if they were following a vast and visible giant who -was striding across the plains. In other words, this strange sect, by -soaking itself solely in the Hebrew Scriptures, had really managed -to reproduce the atmosphere of those Scriptures as they are felt by -Hebrews rather than by Christians. A number of dull, earnest, ignorant, -black-coated men with chimney-pot hats, chin beards or mutton-chop -whiskers, managed to reproduce in their own souls the richness and the -peril of an ancient Oriental experience. If we think from this end we -may possibly guess how it was that they added polygamy. - - - - -Pageants and Dress ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -The only objection to the excellent series of Pageants that has adorned -England of late is that they are made too expensive. The mass of the -common people cannot afford to see the Pageant; so they are obliged -to put up with the inferior function of acting in it. I myself got in -with the rabble in this way. It was to the Church Pageant; and I was -much impressed with certain illuminations which such an experience -makes possible. A Pageant exhibits all the fun of a Fancy Dress Ball, -with this great difference: that its motive is reverent instead of -irreverent. In the one case a man dresses up as his great-grandfather -in order to make game of his great-grandfather; in the other case, in -order to do him honour. What the great-grandfather himself would think -of either of them we fortunately have not to conjecture. The alteration -is important and satisfactory. All natural men regard their ancestors -as dignified because they are dead; it was a great pity and folly that -we had fallen into the habit of regarding the Middle Ages as a mere -second-hand shop for comic costumes. Mediæval costume and heraldry had -been meant as the very manifestation of courage and publicity and a -decent pride. Colours were worn that they might be conspicuous across -a battle-field; an animal was rampant on a helmet that he might stand -up evident against the sky. The mediæval time has been talked of too -much as if it were full of twilight and secrecies. It was a time of -avowal and of what many modern people call vulgarity. A man’s dress was -that of his family or his trade or his religion; and these are exactly -the three things which we now think it bad taste to discuss. Imagine a -modern man being dressed in green and orange because he was a Robinson. -Or imagine him dressed in blue and gold because he was an auctioneer. -Or imagine him dressed in purple and silver because he was an agnostic. -He is now dressed only in the ridiculous disguise of a gentleman; -which tells one nothing at all, not even whether he is one. If ever he -dresses up as a cavalier or a monk it is only as a joke--very often -as a disreputable and craven joke, a joke in a mask. That vivid and -heraldic costume which was meant to show everybody who a man was is now -chiefly worn by people at Covent Garden masquerades who wish to conceal -who they are. The clerk dresses up as a monk in order to be absurd. If -the monk dressed up as a clerk in order to be absurd I could understand -it; though the escapade might disturb his monastic superiors. A man in -a sensible gown and hood might possibly put on a top-hat and a pair of -trousers in order to cover himself with derision, in some extravagance -of mystical humility. But that a man who calmly shows himself to the -startled sky every morning in a top-hat and trousers should think it -comic to put on a simple and dignified robe and hood is a situation -which almost splits the brain. Things like the Church Pageant may do -something towards snubbing this silly and derisive view of the past. -Hitherto the young stockbroker, when he wanted to make a fool of -himself, dressed up as Cardinal Wolsey. It may now begin to dawn on him -that he ought rather to make a wise man of himself before attempting -the impersonation. - -Nevertheless, the truth which the Pageant has to tell the British -public is rather more special and curious than one might at first -assume. It is easy enough to say in the rough that modern dress -is dingy, and that the dress of our fathers was more bright and -picturesque. But that is not really the point. At Fulham Palace one can -compare the huge crowd of people acting in the Pageant with the huge -crowd of people looking at it. There is a startling difference, but -it is not a mere difference between gaiety and gloom. There is many a -respectable young woman in the audience who has on her own hat more -colours than the whole Pageant put together. There are belts of brown -and black in the Pageant itself: the Puritans round the scaffold of -Laud, or the black-robed doctors of the eighteenth century. There are -patches of purple and yellow in the audience: the more select young -ladies and the less select young gentlemen. It is not that our age has -no appetite for the gay or the gaudy--it is a very hedonistic age. It -is not that past ages--even the rich symbolic Middle Ages--did not feel -any sense of safety in what is sombre or restrained. A friar in a brown -coat is much more severe than an 'Arry in a brown bowler. Why is it -that he is also much more pleasant? - -I think the whole difference is in this: that the first man is brown -with a reason and the second without a reason. If a hundred monks -wore one brown habit it was because they felt that their toil and -brotherhood were well expressed in being clad in the coarse, dark -colour of the earth. I do not say that they said so, or even clearly -thought so; but their artistic instinct went straight when they chose -the mud-colour for laborious brethren or the flame-colour for the -first princes of the Church. But when 'Arry puts on a brown bowler he -does not either with his consciousness or his subconsciousness (that -rich soil) feel that he is crowning his brows with the brown earth, -clasping round his temples a strange crown of clay. He does not wear -a dust-coloured hat as a form of strewing dust upon his head. He -wears a dust-coloured hat because the nobility and gentry who are his -models discourage him from wearing a crimson hat or a golden hat or a -peacock-green hat. He is not thinking of the brownness of brown. It -is not to him a symbol of the roots, of realism, or of autochthonous -humility; on the contrary, he thinks it looks rather “classy.” - -The modern trouble is not that the people do not see splendid colours -or striking effects. The trouble is that they see too much of them -and see them divorced from all reason. It is a misfortune of modern -language that the word “insignificant” is vaguely associated with the -words “small” or “slight.” But a thing is insignificant when we do -not know what it signifies. An African elephant lying dead in Ludgate -Circus would be insignificant. That is, one could not recognize it -as the sign or message of anything. One could not regard it as an -allegory or a love-token. One could not even call it a hint. In the -same way the solar system is insignificant. Unless you have some -special religious theory of what it means, it is merely big and silly, -like the elephant in Ludgate Circus. And similarly, modern life, with -its vastness, its energy, its elaboration, its wealth, is, in the -exact sense, insignificant. Nobody knows what we mean; we do not know -ourselves. Nobody could explain intelligently why a coat is black, -why a waistcoat is white, why asparagus is eaten with the fingers, or -why Hammersmith omnibuses are painted red. The mediævals had a much -stronger idea of crowding all possible significance into things. If -they had consented to waste red paint on a large and ugly Hammersmith -omnibus it would have been in order to suggest that there was some sort -of gory magnanimity about Hammersmith. A heraldic lion is no more like -a real lion than a chimney-pot hat is like a chimney-pot. But the lion -was meant to be a lion. And the chimney-pot hat was not meant to be -like a chimney-pot or like anything else. The resemblance only struck -certain philosophers (probably gutter-boys) afterwards. The top-hat -was not intended as a high uncastellated tower; it was not intended -at all. This is the real baseness of modernity. This is, for example, -the only real vulgarity of advertisements. It is not that the colours -on the posters are bad. It is that they are much too good for the -meaningless work which they serve. When at last people see--as at the -Pageant--crosses and dragons, leopards and lilies, there is scarcely -one of the things that they now see as a symbol which they have not -already seen as a trade-mark. If the great “Assumption of the Virgin” -were painted in front of them they might remember Blank’s Blue. If the -Emperor of China were buried before them, the yellow robes might remind -them of Dash’s Mustard. We have not the task of preaching colour and -gaiety to a people that has never had it, to Puritans who have neither -seen nor appreciated it. We have a harder task. We have to teach those -to appreciate it who have always seen it. - - - - -On Stage Costume ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -While watching the other evening a very well-managed reproduction of -_A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, I had the sudden conviction that the play -would be much better if it were acted in modern costume, or, at any -rate, in English costume. We all remember hearing in our boyhood about -the absurd conventionality of Garrick and Mrs. Siddons, when he acted -Macbeth in a tie-wig and a tail-coat, and she acted Lady Macbeth in a -crinoline as big and stiff as a cartwheel. This has always been talked -of as a piece of comic ignorance or impudent modernity; as if Rosalind -appeared in rational dress with a bicycle; as if Portia appeared with -a horsehair wig and side-whiskers. But I am not so sure that the great -men and women who founded the English stage in the eighteenth century -were quite such fools as they looked; especially as they looked to the -romantic historians and eager archæologists of the nineteenth century. -I have a queer suspicion that Garrick and Siddons knew nearly as much -about dressing as they did about acting. - -One distinction can at least be called obvious. Garrick did not care -much for the historical costume of Macbeth; but he cared as much as -Shakespeare did. He did not know much about that prehistoric and -partly mythical Celtic chief; but he knew more than Shakespeare; -and he could not conceivably have cared less. Now the Victorian age -was honestly interested in the dark and epic origins of Europe; was -honestly interested in Picts and Scots, in Celts and Saxons; in -the blind drift of the races and the blind drive of the religions. -Ossian and the Arthurian revival had interested people in distant -dark-headed men who probably never existed. Freeman, Carlyle, and the -other Teutonists had interested them in distant fair-headed men who -almost certainly never existed. Pusey and Pugin and the first High -Churchmen had interested them in shaven-headed men, dark or fair, -men who did undoubtedly exist, but whose real merits and defects -would have startled their modern admirers very considerably. Under -these circumstances it is not strange that our age should have felt -a curiosity about the solid but mysterious Macbeth of the Dark Ages. -But all this does not alter the ultimate fact: that the only Macbeth -that mankind will ever care about is the Macbeth of Shakespeare, -and not the Macbeth of history. When England was romantic it was -interested in Macbeth’s kilt and claymore. In the same way, if -England becomes a Republic, it will be specially interested in the -Republicans in _Julius Cæsar_. If England becomes Roman Catholic, it -will be specially interested in the theory of chastity in _Measure -for Measure_. But being interested in these things will never be the -same as being interested in Shakespeare. And for a man interested in -Shakespeare, a man merely concerned about what Shakespeare meant, a -Macbeth in powdered hair and knee-breeches is perfectly satisfactory. -For Macbeth, as Shakespeare shows him, is much more like a man in -knee-breeches than a man in a kilt. His subtle hesitations and his -suicidal impenitence belong to the bottomless speculations of a -highly civilized society. The “Out, out, brief candle” is far more -appropriate to the last wax taper after a ball of powder and patches -than to the smoky but sustained fires in iron baskets which probably -flared and smouldered over the swift crimes of the eleventh century. -The real Macbeth probably killed Duncan with the nearest weapon, and -then confessed it to the nearest priest. Certainly, he may never have -had any such doubts about the normal satisfaction of being alive. -However regrettably negligent of the importance of Duncan’s life, he -had, I fancy, few philosophical troubles about the importance of his -own. The men of the Dark Ages were all optimists, as all children and -all animals are. The madness of Shakespeare’s Macbeth goes along with -candles and silk stockings. That madness only appears in the age of -reason. - -So far, then, from Garrick’s anachronism being despised, I should like -to see it imitated. Shakespeare got the tale of Theseus from Athens, -as he got the tale of Macbeth from Scotland; and having reluctantly -seen the names of those two countries in the record, I am convinced -that he never gave them another thought. Macbeth is not a Scotchman; he -is a man. But Theseus is not only not an Athenian; he is actually and -unmistakably an Englishman. He is the Super-Squire; the best version -of the English country gentleman; better than Wardle in _Pickwick_. -The Duke of Athens is a duke (that is, a dook), but not of Athens. That -free city is thousands of miles away. - -If Theseus came on the stage in gaiters or a shooting-jacket, if -Bottom the Weaver wore a smock-frock, if Hermia and Helena were -dressed as two modern English schoolgirls, we should not be departing -from Shakespeare, but rather returning to him. The cold, classical -draperies (of which he probably never dreamed, but with which we drape -Ægisthus or Hippolyta) are not only a nuisance, but a falsehood. They -misrepresent the whole meaning of the play. For the meaning of the -play is that the little things of life as well as the great things -stray on the borderland of the unknown. That as a man may fall among -devils for a morbid crime, or fall among angels for a small piece of -piety or pity, so also he may fall among fairies through an amiable -flirtation or a fanciful jealousy. The fact that a back door opens into -elfland is all the more reason for keeping the foreground familiar, and -even prosaic. For even the fairies are very neighbourly and firelight -fairies; therefore the human beings ought to be very human in order -to effect the fantastic contrast. And in Shakespeare they are very -human. Hermia the vixen and Helena the maypole are obviously only two -excitable and quite modern girls. Hippolyta has never been an Amazon; -she may perhaps have once been a Suffragette. Theseus is a gentleman, a -thing entirely different from a Greek oligarch. That golden good-nature -which employs culture itself to excuse the clumsiness of the uncultured -is a thing quite peculiar to those lazier Christian countries where -the Christian gentleman has been evolved: - - For nothing in this world can be amiss - When simpleness and duty tender it. - -Or, again, in that noble scrap of sceptical magnanimity which was -unaccountably cut out in the last performance: - - The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse if - imagination amend them. - -These are obviously the easy and reconciling comments of some kindly -but cultivated squire, who will not pretend to his guests that the -play is good, but who will not let the actors see that he thinks it -bad. But this is certainly not the way in which an Athenian Tory like -Aristophanes would have talked about a bad play. - -But as the play is dressed and acted at present, the whole idea is -inverted. We do not seem to creep out of a human house into a natural -wood and there find the superhuman and supernatural. The mortals, in -their tunics and togas, seem more distant from us than the fairies -in their hoods and peaked caps. It is an anticlimax to meet the -English elves when we have already encountered the Greek gods. The -same mistake, oddly enough, was made in the only modern play worth -mentioning in the same street with _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, _Peter -Pan_. Sir James Barrie ought to have left out the fairy dog who puts -the children to bed. If children had such dogs as that they would never -wish to go to fairyland. - -This fault or falsity in _Peter Pan_ is, of course, repeated in the -strange and ungainly incident of the father being chained up in the -dog’s kennel. Here, indeed, it is much worse: for the manlike dog was -pretty and touching: the doglike man was ignominious and repulsive. But -the fallacy is the same; it is the fallacy that weakens the otherwise -triumphant poetry and wit of Sir James Barrie’s play; and weakens -all our treatment of fairy plays at present. Fairyland is a place of -positive realities, plain laws, and a decisive story. The actors of _A -Midsummer Night’s Dream_ seemed to think that the play was meant to -be chaotic. The clowns thought they must be always clowning. But in -reality it is the solemnity--nay, the conscientiousness--of the yokels -that is akin to the mystery of the landscape and the tale. - - - - -The Yule Log and the Democrat - - -A blasting sneer has stricken me from time to time, to the effect -that I believe in the Fireside Woman. For that matter, in the present -season, I believe very much in the Fireside Man. But the very word -selected for this withering insinuation shows the shallowness of the -philosophy which prompts it. Surely there could not be a more stunted -stupidity than the suggestion that a thing must be mild and monotonous -because it has to do with fire. Why should the woman be tame because -she is nearest to the wildest thing in the world? It is much more -absurd to say it is prosaic to live by the fireside, than to say it -is prosaic to live upon the edge of a precipice. It is tenable that -some people would be prosaic anywhere; but it is not the fault of the -precipice. It would sound paradoxical even in a fairy-tale to say that -a princess was always yawning with ennui because she was introduced to -a golden griffin or a crimson dragon; and in the round of daily fact, -fire is about the nearest thing to a dragon that we know. Those who -cannot get a fairy-tale out of the fire will not get it out of anything -else. It may be affirmed, with fair certainty, that the people who talk -most scornfully about the Fireside Woman do not get it at all, and do -not wish her to get it at all. Herein lies all the absurdity of the -alternatives to domesticity paraded by our progressive friends. - -I am not speaking, of course, of work that must be done, especially -in abnormal times; I am speaking of the psychology of tedium and of -the romance of life. It is apparently demanded that the fire should be -concealed in the entrails of an engine; that it should work through a -labyrinth of bolts and bars; that it should litter around it numberless -dreary offices, and leave behind it a train of indirect and mechanical -servants, each further than the last from the least faint vibration -of the original energy. Then, if in some outlying shed a woman has to -stand counting tickets, or tying up parcels from morning till night, -that woman is supposed to be free. She has Burst the Fetters. She is -Living Her Own Life. But there is supposed to be nothing but dullness -for the woman who is face to face with that elemental fury which drives -and fashions the whole. There is nothing poetical (as compared with the -tickets and labels) in the woman who repeats the primordial adventure -of Prometheus. And there is nothing artistic (as compared with the -shed) about the terrestrial light which turns the greyest room to gold; -which reclothes the woman’s raggedest children round the hearth with -the colours of a company of Fra Angelico, so that the mere reflections -of the flame can conquer the solid hues of drab and dust, and all her -household is clothed with scarlet. - -The fire is in this, perhaps, the finest and simplest symbol of a -truth persistently misunderstood. These elementary things, the land, -the roof, the family, may seem mean and miserable; and in a cynical -civilization very probably will seem mean and miserable. But the -things themselves are not mean or miserable; and any reformer who -says they are is not only taking hold of the stick by the wrong end, -he is cutting off the branch by which he is hanging. The stamp of -social failure is not that men have these simple things, but, rather, -that they do not have them; or even when they do, do not know that -they have them. If the Fireside Woman is dull, it is because she -never looks at the fire. It is because she is not, in the wise and -philosophical sense, enough of a fire-worshipper. And she lacks this -faculty because the whole drift of the modern world discourages that -creative concentration, that intensive cultivation of the fancy, which -filled the lives of our fathers with crowds of little household gods, -and which created all the lesser and lighter sanctities that surround -Christmas. - -Amid the wild and wandering adventures of the fireside are some which -made possible the very scientific progress which is prone to carp at -it. The engine, of which I spoke recently, was (we have all been told) -suggested because James Watt looked at the kettle. I will not conceal a -suspicion that our society might have evolved better if he had looked -at the fire. I mean, of course, if he had not only looked at it, but -seen it, which is not always the same thing. If he had seen what there -is to be seen, he might possibly have done many things. He might, for -instance, have revived the Trade Guilds of Glasgow, which failed to -grasp his discovery; he might have taught them to take hold of the -new energy and turn it towards democracy, instead of going off and -handing over his invention to the Capitalists. For the defect which -betrayed all Watt’s school and generation, full as it was of a virile -and thrifty Radicalism, was precisely that it did not draw from these -primal sources of piety and poetry. It was not sufficiently religious, -and, therefore, not sufficiently domestic; and the rich rode it down -at last. For the hearth is the only possible altar of insurrection, -as even the pagans knew; from that fire alone are taken the flaming -brands which can really lay waste the wicked cities. The truth can -be told well enough by saying that James Watt would not really have -comprehended the word Christmas; and would have been much annoyed -if told to consider the Yule log instead of the kettle. He was the -Fireside Man; but he was not domestic enough to be dangerous. For it -is the domestic man and not the wild man, just as it is the domestic -dog and not the wild dog, who really fights with thieves and dies at -his post. There has not been a genuine popular war in England since the -war of Wat Tyler, and the origin of that, it will be remembered, was -strictly domestic. It was so domestic that it would not happen at all -in the modern world: Wat Tyler would simply be automatically shot into -prison for resisting a rational and necessary scientific inspection. It -was the growth of an unhuman and unhomelike philosophy that made all -the difference between the Wat of the fourteenth century and the Watt -of the nineteenth. And the spirit of real democracy will not re-emerge -until it rises from the fireside and comes forth in the red reality of -fire; the giant of Christmas brandishing the Yule log for a club. - -But there is another feature in the flaming hearth which illustrates -its natural kinship with Christmas. It is a _place_, as Christmas is a -time; and these vivid limitations are vital to man as a mystic. It is -not merely that the idea of everything being in its right place makes -all the difference between a fire in a house and a house on fire. It -is that the fireplace is a frame; and it is the frame that creates the -picture. By being tied to a special spot the sacred dragon becomes -more powerful and, in the high imaginative sense, more free. This is -that link between hearths and altars which the heathen felt, and of -which I have already spoken. If the household be the heart of politics, -the fire is the heart of the household; and the vital organ is spread -equally everywhere only in the very low organisms. The universe of the -mere universalist is one of the very low organisms. The theosophic -generalizations about Nirvana and the All may be compared to the -American fashion of abolishing the fireplace altogether and heating -the whole house artificially to the same temperature--a depressing -habit. I can imagine that a system of hot-water pipes might satisfy a -Pantheist; the notion suggests a rather dreary parody of Pan and his -pipes. I can imagine that a Buddhist might want his whole house warmed -like the palm-house at Kew; but, I think, a limited and localized fire -will always be as much associated with Christians as it has always been -associated with Christmas. - -Shakespeare, himself like a large and liberal fire round which winter -tales are told, has hit the mark in this matter exactly, as it concerns -the poet or maker of fictive things. Shakespeare does not say that the -poet loses himself in the All, that he dissipates concrete things into -a cloudy twilight, that he turns this home of ours into a vista or any -vaguer thing. He says the exact opposite. It is “a local habitation -and a name” that the poet gives to what would otherwise be nothing. -This seeming narrowness which men complain of in the altar and the -hearth is as broad as Shakespeare and the whole human imagination, -and should command the respect even of those who think the cult of -Christmas really is all imagination. Even those who can only regard -the great story of Bethlehem as a fairy-tale told by the fire will -yet agree that such narrowness is the first artistic necessity even -of a good fairy-tale. But there are others who think, at least, that -their thought strikes deeper and pierces to a more subtle truth in the -mind. There are others for whom all our fairy-tales, and even all our -appetite for fairy-tales, draw their fire from one central fairy-tale, -as all forgeries draw their significance from a signature. They believe -that this fable is a fact, and that the other fables cannot really -be appreciated even as fables until we know it is a fact. For them, -personality is a step beyond universality; one might almost call it an -escape from universality. And what they follow is as much something -more than Pantheism as a flame is something more than a temperature. -For them, God is not bound down and limited by being merely everything; -He is also at liberty to be something. And for them Christmas will -always deal with a reality exactly as Shakespeare’s poetry deals with -an unreality; it will give, not to airy nothing, but to the enormous -and overwhelming everything, a local habitation and a Name. - - - - -More Thoughts on Christmas - - -Most sensible people say that adults cannot be expected to appreciate -Christmas as much as children appreciate it. At least, Mr. G. S. Street -said so, who is the most sensible man now writing in the English -language. But I am not sure that even sensible people are always right; -and this has been my principal reason for deciding to be silly--a -decision that is now irrevocable. It may be only because I am silly, -but I rather think that, relatively to the rest of the year, I enjoy -Christmas more than I did when I was a child. Of course, children do -enjoy Christmas--they enjoy almost everything except actually being -smacked: from which truth the custom no doubt arose. But the real point -is not whether a schoolboy would enjoy Christmas. The point is that -he would also enjoy No Christmas. Now I say most emphatically that I -should denounce, detest, abominate, and abjure the insolent institution -of No Christmas. The child is glad to find a new ball, let us say, -which Uncle William (dressed as St. Nicholas in everything except the -halo) has put in his stocking. But if he had no new ball, he would make -a hundred new balls out of the snow. And for them he would be indebted -not to Christmas, but to winter. I suppose snowballing is being put -down by the police, like every other Christian custom. No more will -a prosperous and serious City man have a large silver star splashed -suddenly on his waistcoat, veritably investing him with the Order of -the Star of Bethlehem. For it is the star of innocence and novelty, -and should remind him that a child can still be born. But indeed, in -one sense, we may truly say the children enjoy no seasons, because -they enjoy all. I myself am of the physical type that greatly prefers -cold weather to hot; and I could more easily believe that Eden was -at the North Pole than anywhere in the Tropics. It is hard to define -the effect of weather: I can only say that all the rest of the year -I am untidy, but in summer I feel untidy. Yet although (according to -the modern biologists) my hereditary human body must have been of the -same essential type in my boyhood as in my present decrepitude, I -can distinctly remember hailing the idea of freedom and even energy -on days that were quite horribly hot. It was the excellent custom at -my school to give the boys a half-holiday when it seemed too hot for -working. And I can well remember the gigantic joy with which I left off -reading Virgil and began to run round and round a field. My tastes in -this matter have changed. Nay, they have been reversed. If I now found -myself (by some process I cannot easily conjecture) on a burning summer -day running round and round a field, I hope I shall not appear pedantic -if I say I should prefer to be reading Virgil. - -And thus it is really possible, from one point of view, for elderly -gentlemen to frolic at Christmas more than children can. They may -really come to find Christmas more entertaining, as they have come -to find Virgil more entertaining. And, in spite of all the talk about -the coldness of classicism, the poet who wrote about the man who in -his own country home fears neither King nor crowd was not by any -means incapable of understanding Mr. Wardle. And it is exactly those -sentiments, and similar ones, that the adult does appreciate better -than the child. The adult, for instance, appreciates domesticity -better than the child. And one of the pillars and first principles of -domesticity, as Mr. Belloc has rightly pointed out, is the institution -of private property. The Christmas pudding represents the mature -mystery of property; and the proof of it is in the eating. - -I have always held that Peter Pan was wrong. He was a charming boy, -and sincere in his adventurousness; but though he was brave like a -boy, he was also a coward--like a boy. He admitted it would be a great -adventure to die; but it did not seem to occur to him that it would -be a great adventure to live. If he had consented to march with the -fraternity of his fellow-creatures, he would have found that there -were solid experiences and important revelations even in growing up. -They are realities which could not possibly have been made real to him -without wrecking the real good in his own juvenile point of view. But -that is exactly why he ought to have done as he was told. That is the -only argument for parental authority. In dealing with childhood, we -have a right to command it--because we should kill the childhood if we -convinced it. - -Now the mistake of Peter Pan is the mistake of the new theory of life. -I might call it Peter Pantheism. It is the notion that there is _no_ -advantage in striking root. Yet, if you talk intelligently to the -nearest tree, the tree will tell you that you are an unobservant ass. -There is an advantage in root; and the name of it is fruit. It is not -true that the nomad is even freer than the peasant. The Bedouin may -rush past on his camel, leaving a whirl of dust; but dust is not free -because it flies. Neither is the nomad free because he flies. You -cannot grow cabbages on a camel, any more than in a condemned cell. -Moreover, I believe camels commonly walk in a comparatively leisurely -manner. Anyhow, most merely nomadic creatures do, for it is a great -nuisance to “carry one’s house with one.” Gipsies do it; so do snails; -but neither of them travel very fast. I inhabit one of the smallest -houses that can be conceived by the cultivated classes; but I frankly -confess I should be sorry to carry it with me whenever I went out for a -walk. It is true that some motorists almost live in their motor-cars. -But it gratifies me to state that these motorists generally die in -their motor-cars too. They perish, I am pleased to say, in a startling -and horrible manner, as a judgment on them for trying to outstrip -creatures higher than themselves--such as the gipsy and the snail. But, -broadly speaking, a house is a thing that stands still. And a thing -that stands still is a thing that strikes root. One of the things that -strike root is Christmas: and another is middle-age. The other great -pillar of private life besides property is marriage; but I will not -deal with it here. Suppose a man has neither wife nor child: suppose he -has only a good servant, or only a small garden, or only a small house, -or only a small dog. He will still find he has struck unintentional -root. He realizes there is something in his own garden that was not -even in the Garden of Eden; and therefore is not (I kiss my hand to -the Socialists) in Kew Gardens or in Kensington Gardens. He realizes, -what Peter Pan could not be made to realize, that a plain human house -of one’s own, standing in one’s own backyard, is really quite as -romantic as a rather cloudy house at the top of a tree or a highly -conspiratorial house underneath the roots of it. But this is because -he has explored his own house, which Peter Pan and such discontented -children seldom do. All the same, the children ought to think of the -Never-Never Land--the world that is outside. But we ought to think of -the Ever-Ever Land--the world which is inside, and the world which will -last. And that is why, wicked as we are, we know most about Christmas. - - - - -Dickens Again - - -I am sorry that the comic costume festival which was organized for -Christmas by one of the chief Dickensian societies has unavoidably -fallen through. It is not for me to reproach those traitors who found -it impossible to turn up: for I was one of those traitors myself. -Whatever character it was that I was expected to appear in--Jingle, I -suppose, or possibly Uriah Heep--was, under a final press of business, -refused by me. These Dickensian enthusiasts were going to have a -Christmas party at Rochester, where they would brew punch and drink -punch, and drive coaches and fall off coaches, and do all the proper -Pickwickian things. How many of them were ready to make a hole in the -ice, to be wheeled about in a wheelbarrow, or to wait all night outside -a ladies’ school, the official documents have not informed me. But -I would gladly take a moderate part. I could not brew punch for the -Pickwick Club; but I could drink it. I could not drive the coach for -the Pickwick Club--or, indeed, for any club except the Suicide Club; -but I could fall off the coach amid repeated applause and enthusiastic -encores. I should be only too proud if it could be said of me, as of -Sam’s hyperbolical old gentleman who was tipped into the hyperbolical -canal, that “'is 'at was found, but I can’t be certain 'is 'ead was in -it.” It seems to me like a euthanasia: more beautiful than the passing -of Arthur. - -But though the failure of this particular festivity was merely -accidental (like my own unfortunate fall off the coach), it is not -without its parallel in the present position of Dickensians and -Christmas. For the truth is that we simply cannot recreate the Pickwick -Club--unless we have a moral basis as sturdy as that of Dickens, and -even a religious basis as sturdy as that of Christmas. Men at such a -time turn their backs to the solemn thing they are celebrating, as -the horses turn their backs to the coach. But they are pulling the -coach. And the best of it is this: that so long as the Christmas feast -had some kind of assumed and admitted meaning, it was praised, and -praised sympathetically, by the great men whom we should call most -unsympathetic with it. That Shakespeare and Dickens and Walter Scott -should write of it seems quite natural. They were people who would be -as welcome at Christmas as Santa Claus. But I do not think many people -have ever wished they could ask Milton to eat the Christmas pudding. -Nevertheless, it is quite certain that his Christmas ode is not only -one of the richest but one of the most human of his masterpieces. -I do not think that anyone specially wanting a rollicking article -on Christmas would desire, by mere instinct, the literary style of -Addison. Yet it is quite certain that the somewhat difficult task of -really liking Addison is rendered easier by his account of the Coverley -Christmas than by anything else he wrote. I even go so far as to -doubt whether one of the little Cratchits (who stuffed their spoons in -their mouths lest they should scream for goose) would have removed the -spoon to say, “Oh, that Tennyson were here!” Yet certainly Tennyson’s -spirits do seem to revive in a more or less real way at the ringing -of the Christmas bells in the most melancholy part of _In Memoriam_. -These great men were not trying to be merry: some of them, indeed, were -trying to be miserable. But the day itself was too strong for them; the -time was more than their temperaments; the tradition was alive. The -festival was roaring in the streets, so that prigs and even prophets -(who are sometimes worse still) were honestly carried off their feet. - -The difficulty with Dickens is not any failure in Dickens, nor even -in the popularity of Dickens. On the contrary, he has recaptured his -creative reputation and fascination far more than any of the other -great Victorians. Macaulay, who was really great in his way, is -rejected; Cobbett, who was much greater, is forgotten. Dickens is not -merely alive: he is risen from the dead. But the difficulty is in the -failing under his feet, as it were, of that firm historic platform on -which he had performed his Christmas pantomimes: a platform of which -he was quite as unconscious as we, most of us, are of the floor we -walk about on. The fact is that the fun of Christmas is founded on the -seriousness of Christmas; and to pull away the latter support even from -under a Christmas clown is to let him down through a trap-door. And -even clowns do not like the trap-doors that they do not expect. Thus -it is unfortunately true that so glorious a thing as a Pickwick party -tends to lose the splendid quality of a mere Mummery, and become that -much more dull and conventional thing, a Covent Garden Ball. We are not -ourselves living in the proper spirit of Pickwick. We are pretending to -be old Dickens characters, when we ought to be new Dickens characters -in reality. - -The conditions are further complicated by the fact that while reading -Dickens may make a man Dickensian, studying Dickens makes him quite -the reverse. One might as well expect the aged custodian of a museum -of sculpture to look (and dress) like the Apollo Belvedere, as expect -the Pickwickian qualities in those literary critics who are attracted -by the Dickens fiction as the materials for a biography or the subject -of a controversy; as a mass of detail; as a record and a riddle. Those -who study such things are a most valuable class of the community, and -they do good service to Dickens in their own way. But their type and -temperament are not, in the nature of things, likely to be full of -the festive magic of their master. Take, for example, these endless -discussions about the proper ending of _Edwin Drood_. I thought -Mr. William Archer’s contributions to the query some time ago were -particularly able and interesting; but I could not, with my hand on my -heart, call Mr. William Archer a festive gentleman, or one supremely -fitted to follow Mr. Swiveller as Perpetual Grand of the Glorious -Apollos. Or again, I see that Sir William Robertson Nicoll has been -writing on the same Drood mystery; and I know that his knowledge of -Victorian literature is both vast and exact. But I hardly think that a -Puritan Scot with a sharp individualistic philosophy would be the right -person to fall off the coach. Sir William Nicoll, if I remember right, -once forcibly described his individualist philosophy as “firing out the -fools.” And certainly the spirit of Dickens could be best described -as the delight in firing them in. It is exactly because Christmas is -not only a feast of children, but in some sense a feast of fools, that -Dickens is in touch with its mystery. - - - - -Taffy - - -I do not understand Welshmen. When we say we do not understand -such-and-such a person, we usually mean that he has been making himself -a nuisance. He has been bothering us in some way; and the puzzle of his -motives and further intentions has become a practical one. I do not -mean anything of the kind here: I mean barely what I say. The distant -Trojans never injured me. Taffy never came to my house or stole any -part of the provisions. On the contrary, historically speaking, I went -to Taffy’s house and took away a good deal of what belonged to him. I -do not think that Taffy is a thief; I do not even know enough about him -to be sure of the preliminary statement that he is a Welshman. I mean, -quite simply and ingenuously, that I know nothing about Wales--not even -(for certain) that there is such a place. I went, indeed, a few weeks -ago to a curious place full of rocks; and the people there _said_ it -was Wales. But, then, other people said that these people were very -sly, and that you could not believe anything they said. But, then, -as I did not believe the second people who did not believe the first -people, it all came back to the same comfortable condition as before, -which is one of blank and disinterested nescience. It is a condition I -am in with regard to a large number of things in this world. I keep my -faith for the things of another world. About this world I am a complete -agnostic. - -But in this particular case of ignorance I rather fancy that I am -not alone. I think that the great majority of Englishmen have no -real notion of the Welsh type or spirit, whatever it is. They have -conceptions of the Scot and the Irishman, false conceptions, but always -containing some lines of a true tradition. The Englishman does, so -to speak, understand the Scotchman even when he misunderstands him. -The Englishman does know what the Irish are, even while he demands -indignantly of heaven why they are. The stingy Puritan in plaid -trousers is a very crude and unjust version of that queer blend that -makes the Scot--the combination of a certain coarseness of fibre with -great intellectual keenness for abstract and even mystical things. -Still, it is a version; the prose and poetry of the Scot remain in -the caricature. The picture of Paddy at Donnybrook leaves out all the -subtlety and self-tormenting irony that are mixed up with the pugnacity -of the Irish. Still, the Irish are pugnacious; the Englishman has got -the leading feature right. He knows that, for all his economics, the -Scotchman often has a bee in his bonnet, and he knows that the Irishman -generally has a wasp in his--a thing that will sting itself or anyone -else merely for fun or glory. - -In these cases, the caricature, though stiff, highly coloured, -antiquated, and largely false, tells the remains of several truths. But -who on earth has ever seen a caricature of a Welshman? In _Punch_ and -such papers we never see anything but pictures of a Welshwoman--as -if there were no males in that peculiar country with the rocks. Even -the woman is only marked as Welsh by wearing an extraordinary costume, -rather like that of Cinderella’s supernatural godmother. Without the -artist suggesting any costume at all, one would recognize the very -silly portraits of Irishmen with long upper lips, in the style of apes. -Without any plaid trousers to assist the mind, one could spot the stiff -beards and rocky cheek-bones of the Scotchmen of Charles Keene. But -if you took away the Welshwoman’s extraordinary hat, there would be -nothing whatever to show that she was a Welshwoman. We have not in our -minds a Welsh type to make fun of. It is interesting to remember that -apparently Shakespeare had. - -This state of entire non-understanding (as distinct from -misunderstanding) of the Welsh seems to me just now to be not only -unique, but important and rather serious. For, unless I am very much -mistaken, Wales is going to play some peculiar, and perhaps dominant, -part in the developments of our extraordinary time. If the Welsh begin -to influence us without our having yet even begun to imagine them, -we shall have the whole Irish business over again; the gradual or -imperfect understanding of a thing in the process of wrestling with it -in the dark. The indications of such a movement in Wales (wherever it -is), the suggestion of the growing influence of Welshmen (whoever they -may be), is something that comes to us rather by widely distributed -happenings and hints than in any theatrical example. Some, however, -would call Mr. Lloyd George a theatrical example; he has been called -even more extraordinary things. And in that degree the thing is true. -Mr. Lloyd George is very much more genuine and sincere and formidable -in his capacity as leader of the little Welsh nation than he is in -any of the other capacities in which he is foolishly praised and -ridiculously reviled. But to anyone who really has an eye for history -in action, the smallest strike secretary in a Welsh railway or colliery -bulks much bigger in the present picture than Mr. Lloyd George. And it -has been in Wales that many of the most dramatic and effective labour -revolts have happened: above all it was in Wales that they presented -peculiar features of their own, bad or good, which marked them out -from the whole temper and habit of England in recent times. The modern -theory of animals was challenged in the episode of the ponies in -the mines. The modern theory of Jews was challenged in the violent -Anti-Semite riots of the last few weeks. Things fierce and unfamiliar, -things lost since the Middle Ages, are coming upon us out of the West. - -As the curious incident of the quarrels between Welshmen and Jews -has been mentioned, I will take the opportunity here of correcting -a curious mistake that clings to the minds of numbers of my -correspondents. There is in particular a gloomy gentleman in America -who keeps on asking me how my Anti-Semite prejudice is getting on, and -generally displaying a curiosity about how many Hebrew teeth I have -pulled out this week, and how often a Pogrom is held in front of my -house. He appears to base it all on some statement of mine that Jews -were tyrants and traitors. Upon this basis his indignation is eloquent, -lengthy and (in my opinion) just. The only weakness affecting this -superstructure is the curious detail that I never did say that Jews -were tyrants and traitors. I said that a particular kind of Jew tended -to be a tyrant and another particular kind of Jew tended to be a -traitor. I say it again. Patent facts of this kind are permitted in -the criticism of every other nation on the planet: it is not counted -illiberal to say that a certain kind of Frenchman tends to be sensual. -It is as plain as a pikestaff that the Parisian tradition of life and -letters has a marked element of sensuality. It is also as plain as a -pikestaff that those who are creditors will always have a temptation -to be tyrants, and that those who are cosmopolitans will always have -a temptation to be spies. This has nothing to do with alleging that -the majority of any people falls into its typical temptations. In this -respect I should imagine that Jews varied in their moral proportions -as much as the rest of mankind. Rehoboam was a tyrant; Jehoshaphat was -not. In what is perhaps the most celebrated collection of Jews in human -history, the proportion of traitors was one in twelve. But I cannot see -why the tyrants should not be called tyrants and the traitors traitors; -why Rehoboam should not cause a rebellion or Judas become an object of -dislike, merely because they happen to be members of a race persecuted -for other reasons and on other occasions. Those are my views on Jews. -They are more reasonable than those of the people that wreck their -shops; and much more reasonable than those of the people who justify -them on all occasions. - - - - -“Ego et Shavius Meus” - - -Accident has cut me off this week from many current publications; and -left me much to my own devices. It is therefore my immutable purpose to -write an article about myself, under the thin pretence of noticing a -book about Mr. Bernard Shaw. - -This is all the more fun because it is exactly what Mr. Bernard Shaw -would do himself; nor should I blame him. I like Mr. Shaw’s type of -Egoism; because, if he talks big, it is at least about big things; -things bound to be bigger than himself. - -I revolt, not against the loud egoist, but the gentle egoist; who -talks tenderly of trifles; who says, “A sunbeam gilds the amber of my -cigarette-holder; I find I cannot live without a cigarette-holder.” -I resist this arrogance simply because it is more arrogant. For even -so complete a fool cannot really suppose we are interested in his -cigarette-holder; and therefore must suppose that we are interested -in him. But I defend a dogmatic egoist precisely because he deals in -dogmas. - -The Apostles’ Creed is not regarded as a pose of foppish vanity; yet -the word “I” comes before even the word “God.” The believer comes -first; but he is soon dwarfed by his beliefs, swallowed in the -creative whirlwind and the trumpets of the resurrection. And if a man -says he believes in the Superman or the Socialist State, I think him -equally modest; only not so sensible. - -Mr. Herbert Skimpole’s book, _Bernard Shaw: the Man and His Work_, -contains many suggestive and valuable things to which I cannot do -justice, including allusions to myself mostly only too flattering, -and in one case both amusing and mystifying. The passage suggests -that all the active figures in my idle fictions are made as fat as I -am; though I cannot recall that any of them are fat at all; except -a semi-supernatural monster in a nightmare called _The Man Who Was -Thursday_. - -Let there be no alarm, however, that I shall talk about such -nightmares, or any of my own tales; like Shaw, I am egoistic about -things that matter. Mr. Skimpole says that while Shaw and I agree -that the world should be adapted to the man, “Chesterton includes our -present institutions among the parts of a man’s soul which cannot be -altered.” Now there is here a potential mistake, which I will not -apologize for taking more seriously than any fancy about the figures in -my very amateurish romances. - -I need not say I do not mind being called fat; for deprived of that -jest, I should be almost a serious writer. I do not even mind being -supposed to mind being called fat. But being supposed to be contented, -and contented with the present institutions of modern society, is a -mortal slander I will not take from any man. - -Whatever are the institutions I defend, they are not primarily those of -the present. They have been attempted in the past; and I hope they may -be achieved in the future; but they are not present, but conspicuous by -their absence. Mr. Skimpole truly says that I defend domesticity and -piety and patriotism, but these are not the typical institutions of -to-day. - -The typical institutions of to-day are a Divorce Court cutting up -families with the speed of a sausage machine; a Science which preaches -the destiny without the divinity of Calvinism; and a Finance that -crosses all frontiers with the same enlightened indifference that is -shown by cholera. - -These are the institutions of the instant, and even Mr. Skimpole has -realized them as those of the immediate future. In a somewhat innocent -passage he says that “it is of no use for Shaw to point out” to me -the hope of a cosmopolitan future; “that Internationalism, social -class-feeling, and Imperialism all point the same way he refuses to -see.” - -It is indeed useless for Shaw to point out to me that I should follow -the lead of these things; since I happen to detest Imperialism, -disbelieve in Internationalism and distrust “social class-feeling,” -so far as I know what it means. I am well aware that an Imperial -Chancellor in Berlin, an international money-lender in Johannesburg, -and an anarchist spy in Petrograd, are “all pointing the same way”; and -that is why I feel pretty safe in going the other. - -I warmly apologize to Mr. Skimpole for writing a personal explanation -instead of a review of his book, which contains many things well worth -writing and reviewing; notably the shrewd remark about Shaw’s style; -in which what is a paradox in spirit is seldom an epigram in form. -It takes our breath away rather by taking itself for granted than -by defining itself like a defiance. But I fancy Mr. Skimpole will -sympathize with me if I am primarily concerned with his convictions, as -he is with mine, and as we both are with Shaw’s. - -And he has gone to the vital point in emphasizing this matter of the -things permanent in man. When I say that religion and marriage and -local loyalty are permanent in humanity, I mean that they recur when -humanity is most human; and only comparatively decline when society is -comparatively inhuman. - -They have declined in the modern world. They may return through the -war; but anyhow, where we have the small farm and the free man and the -fighting spirit, there we shall have the salute to the soil and the -roof and to the altar. - -To take a more casual case: I believe that when men are happy, they -sing; not only at the piano but at the plough, or at least in the -intervals of ploughing; at their work and in their walks abroad. I am -well aware that modern men do not sing in the street very much. I am -well aware that cosmopolitan money-lenders never sing, but die with all -their music in them. I know that the Song of the Happy Meat-Contractor -is not one of “our present institutions.” - -I know that one can seldom come at dawn upon some solitary London -banker carolling more sweetly than the lark; and even his clerks do not -often sing in chorus over their ledgers. But I still think it is more -human to sing than not to sing; and that, being more human, it is more -permanent in humanity. - -Some righteous revolution will teach the bankers and contractors that -little birds who can sing and won’t sing must be made to sing--or at -any rate made to squeal. In the interlude, the instinct of song takes -refuge in the lesser thing called poetry, or even prose; and to-morrow -the fever of personal sincerity may have passed; and I shall return, -with a lowly air, to literature. - - - - -The Plan for a New Universe - - -There is one theory of the Origin of Species which I have never seen -suggested. Probably this is because I have never read the numberless -and voluminous works in which it has been suggested. For I have read -much madder things, and nothing mad is likely to have been missed by -the modern mind. But since it shocked the respectability of agnostics -to suggest that all creatures had been made different by God, why did -nobody suggest that they had been made different by Man? Why not trace -the vast variety of animals as we can really trace the vast variety -of dogs? The dog is already almost a world in himself, with all the -appearance of distinct orders and types. A St. Bernard approaches the -size and surpasses the legendary virtues of a lion; while there is -a sort of Pekinese which a man might almost tread on as a somewhat -unpleasing insect. Yet all this world of evolution has presumably -had Man for its god. Suppose our sphere in space has itself been the -Island of Dr. Moreau. Suppose Man had some prehistoric civilization -so colossal and complete that all beasts were beasts of burden, or -all animals were domestic animals; that all rabbits were pet rabbits -or all fleas performing fleas. Suppose the tame bird came first, and -what we know as the wild bird afterwards. Mr. Bernard Shaw, in one of -his early anti-domestic diatribes, compared a woman in the home to a -parrot in the cage, saying that mere custom made us think the connexion -natural. The answer, it has always seemed to me, is strangely obvious. -It is surely plain that the housewife is not the bird in the cage, but -the bird in the nest. But if, in that age of wild sceptics, anyone had -wished to outdo Mr. Shaw in paradox, he could have done it brilliantly -by this hypothesis that the colours of a parrot were actually produced -in a cage; and that an exiled bird only built himself a rude den of -sticks and mud as an outlaw does when driven from his home. Suppose, -in short, that Man has not only been a dog-fancier, but a wolf-fancier -and a hyena-fancier. Suppose he really fancied a rhinoceros. Suppose -some prehistoric squire kept a stud of giraffes; or his money-lender -got a peerage on the plea that he had improved the breed of crocodiles. -Then we have only to suppose this universal Zoo broken up like the -Roman Empire; and all we see is its neglect and riot. The tiger is a -stray cat; a specially large and handsome cat who took the prize (and -the prize-giver) and escaped to the jungle. A whale was some sort of -hornless cow sent into the sea like a Newfoundland dog, who suddenly -refused to come back again. This thesis accounts for the comparative -rapidity of the differentiation, over which the geologists fight with -the biologists. It accounts rationalistically for those evidences of -a creative purpose which are so distressing to a refined mind. It -accounts for the camel, who seems always to have been in captivity; -and accounting for a camel is something. Above all, it accounts for -that very vivid impression of something in various species at once -outrageous and exact. Jefferies found in the farcical outlines of fish -or bird the notion that they must have been produced without design. -To me this sounds like saying that the caricatures of Max Beerbohm -must have been produced without design. I could as easily believe, so -far as this mere æsthetic impression goes, that the face on a gargoyle -was merely moulded by the pouring rain. Artistically, the sun-fish or -the hornbill do not look in the least like accidents; but it might be -maintained that they look like fashions. There are some tropical birds -and fruits that really have the cut and colours of novelties in a shop -window. We might fancy that an elephant was designed in the same taste -as Babylonian architecture; or the leopard and the tiger to match the -tapestries of the East. There is probably somewhere a bird as sinister -and terrifying as a top-hat; and in some luxuriant jungle a plant as -preposterous as a pair of trousers. The monsters may be only antiquated -fashion-plates. For this is one of the numberless neglected fallacies -in the clotted folly of Eugenics. Even if we could in the abstract -breed humanity well, there would be a flutter of modes and crazes about -what was considered well-bred. The dog is bred with design; but surely -not always with discretion. The dachshund appears to have been pulled -out on the rack of some demoniac vivisectionist; and somebody seems to -have cut off the bull-dog’s nose, most emphatically to spite his face. -On the analogy of the things we do breed, the Eugenist may be expected -to produce a brood of hunchbacks or a pure race of Albinos. - -It is, I hope, unnecessary to remark that I do not believe in this -theory; but there have been people who might well have believed in it. -There were people who could believe in Swinburne’s sentiment, “Glory -to Man in the highest; for Man is the master of things”; and it would -surely have completed this consciousness in the poet if he could have -thought that the birds of Putney Heath, where he walked, or the fishes -in the sea, where he was so fond of swimming, were doing tricks taught -to them as to performing dogs. Suppose that such a fancy had fitted in -with one of the humanitarian religions of that time, how far would it -have satisfied what was often called the religious sentiment? It would -not have satisfied any religious sentiment, not even Swinburne’s. He -would have cared as little as Shelley to claim the birds when he could -not claim the sky. He certainly would have been much annoyed with the -notion of loving the fishes, if he were not allowed to go on loving -the sea. And though he poisoned paganism with pessimism, a thing not -only more false but more frivolous, though he tried to love the sea as -a wanton or admire the sky as a tyrant, though this morbidity weakened -his love of Nature not only as compared with Virgil or Dante, but -as compared with Wordsworth or Whitman, yet he was like every poet -elemental, and what he loved were the elementary things. And this is an -essential of any poetry and any religion. It must appeal to the origins -and deal with the first things, however much or little it may say about -them. It must be at home in the homeless void, before the first star -was made. The one thing every man knows about the unknowable is that -it is the Indispensable. - -Now, if any reader thinks that the scientific heresy I sketched above -is too irrational for moderns to have held, I have the pleasure of -informing him that moderns are now about to announce, or have already -announced, a new heresy somewhat analogous but much less rationalistic -and much less rational. There is a new religion; that is a new fault -being found with the old religion. There is a new plan for a new -universe, which may be expected to last for many a long month to come. -It is the view that seems to have satisfied Mr. Wells, or, at any rate, -Mr. Britling. It is the view which has been more than once suggested -by Mr. Shaw, and is repeated in the skeleton of certain lectures he -is delivering. It is much more supernatural and even superstitious -than my imaginary thesis; for instead of giving to man more of the -powers of God, it arbitrarily imagines a God and then limits him with -the impotence of man. He is not limited, as in the theologies, by his -own reason or justice or desire for the freedom of man. He is limited -by unreason and injustice and the impossibility of freedom even for -himself. But I do not make this note upon the new development with any -intention of discussing it thoroughly in its theological aspect; though -there is one aspect of that aspect which may respectfully be called -amusing. When I was a boy, Christianity was blamed by the freethinkers -for its anthropomorphic demigod, substituted by savages for the Unknown -God who made all things. Now Christianity is blamed for the flat -contrary; because its God is unknown and not anthropomorphic enough. -Thirty years ago we only needed the First Person of the Trinity; and -thirty years later we have discovered that we only need the Second. -This sort of fashion-plate philosophy will no doubt go on as usual. In -a few decades we may be told that our fathers were profoundly right -when they believed in the Archangel Gabriel, but made an inexplicable -mistake when they believed in the Archangel Raphael. We shall learn -that the Seraphim are an exploded superstition, but the Cherubim a -most valuable and novel discovery. And as my note is not concerned -with the theological, neither is it directly concerned with the purely -logical side of it. Here again, it seems obvious that all the doubts -which legitimately attach to the idea of a progressive humanity are -absolutely fatal to the idea of a progressive divinity. A man may be -progressing towards God; but what is a God progressing towards? And -how does he know which of two developments in consciousness is the -better (_e.g._, an imaginative compassion or an imaginative cruelty) -if there be no aboriginal standard in his own nature? I am here only -concerned to note the failure of this fancy where it is parallel to the -failure of the fancy I mentioned first. And it is the weakness which -would instantly be discovered in both of them, not only by every poet -but by every child. It is that unless the sky is beautiful, nothing -is beautiful. Unless the background of all things is good, it is no -substitute to make the foreground better: it may be right to do so for -other reasons, but not for the reason that is the root of religion. -Materialism says the universe is mindless; and faith says it is ruled -by the highest mind. Neither will be satisfied with the new progressive -creed, which declares hopefully that the universe is half-witted. - - - - -George Wyndham ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -I believe more and more that there are no trivialities but only truths -neglected; but the things I myself neglect accumulate in mountains. -I have made a note of one of them found in turning over the recent -files of the _Nation_. Elsewhere was a reminder about a book I had -long admired and enjoyed, but which had been crowded out of my mind by -less pleasant things; the book of recollections about George Wyndham, -recently written by Mr. Charles Gatty and published by Mr. Murray.[1] -Even now I cannot do justice to the book; but I know Mr. Gatty will -approve of my saying a word to correct an injustice to the subject of -the book. - -[Footnote 1: _George Wyndham: Recognita_, by C. T. Gatty. Murray. 7s. -6d. net.] - -Some time ago the _Nation_ dismissed Mr. Gatty’s volume, not with -disrespect, but with a certain distance and indifference evidently -founded on a very mistaken idea. It implied that Wyndham was after all -an intellectual aristocrat, whose culture was that of a clique, and who -did not test it enough in popular and practical politics. The point is -interesting; chiefly because it is the precise reverse of the truth. -If anything could narrow a man like Wyndham, it was being political -like the _Nation_; what broadened him to a universal brotherhood was -getting far from politics--like the nation. His private life was much -larger than his public life; though that in turn was larger than most -public lives in the parliamentary decline. Being a politician, he -had to be a parliamentarian; and being a parliamentarian, he had to -be an oligarch. In so far as he did hold the aristocratic theory, it -was exactly that aristocratic theory that forced him into political -practice. He knew well enough, I think, that the English parliament -is an aristocracy. He took the high ground of the responsibility of -privilege; but he was far too sincere to deny that it was privilege. He -said to a friend of mine, who thus lamented his laborious parliamentary -botherations, “You see, I was born paid.” It was the aristocracy the -_Nation_ reproves that necessitated the parliamentarism the _Nation_ -desires or demands. Personally, I should not desire either; and I -think the real Wyndham was in a larger world outside both. It was -precisely where he was most domestic that he was most democratic. He -was a poet among poets exactly as he might have been a pedestrian -among pedestrians or, as he would have preferred to put it, a tramp -among tramps. The sympathy with tramps might be taken literally; for I -remember him defending the gipsies, when a more modern spirit wanted -them taught the meaning of progress by being moved on by the police. -He may have been right to work in cabinets and committees; but it was -there, if anywhere, that he was in a clique. He may have been right -not to follow his tastes, but it was his tastes that were popular and -what many cliques would call vulgar. He may have been right not to be -one of the idle rich, but he might have been even more superior to the -limits of the rich, if he had been idler. - -The beauty of Mr. Gatty’s book is that it is a brilliant scrap-book, -the very variegated nature of which expresses this almost vagabond -liberality. Even when it merely notes down such things as single lines -of Shakespeare over which Wyndham lingered, or reproduces corners of -carving or painting which arrested his eye, the method seems to me to -work rightly; it seems somehow natural to talk of every other subject -besides the subject himself; as he was always ready to talk of every -other subject. And this aspect, by itself, accentuates the feeling -that his holidays were his most useful days. In this mood one may well -wish that he had never been near what he himself called the cesspool -of politics; and one might well accept the _Nation’s_ suggestion of -his aloofness from its own favourite parliamentary business with a -somewhat dry assent. Wyndham certainly had little to do with the -internal constructive legislation praised in progressive papers. He can -claim none of the glory of the great social reforms of the period just -before the War. He is not responsible for the permission to drag away -a poor man’s child as a raving maniac, if his teacher thinks he is a -little too stupid to learn, or his teacher is a little too stupid to -teach him. He has not the honour of having abolished the Habeas Corpus -Act, in order to allow amateur criminologists to keep a tramp in prison -until they have invented a science of criminology. He did not establish -the Labour Exchanges, and probably did not want to establish them, -any more than the Labour Exchanges vividly described in _Uncle Tom’s -Cabin_. It was not he who created by statute a servant class, of men -made to spend their own wages on doctors they might never want, instead -of on tools or tram-tickets they urgently wanted. He was largely -detached from all this; and when reading a real record like Mr. Gatty’s -one is moved to wish that he had been even more detached from it. -Considering the liberty of his philosophical friendships, one respects -but regrets the loyalty of his political friendships; and is sorry that -common sense must be sacrificed to practical politics. - -But when a book like Mr. Gatty’s has moved a reviewer to this mood of -mere regret for a poet wasted in politics, there returns upon him after -all one answer which is itself unanswerable. Judged by one ultimate -test, he was after all right to remain in politics; even in the last -putrefaction of parliamentary politics. At the price of nobody knows -what pain and patience and contempt and concessions, he alone among -modern politicians did leave not merely a name but a thing, that will -remain after him as a scientific engine or a geographical discovery -remains. He achieved a work which has changed the whole destiny of -Western Europe; the resurrection of Ireland. There he established -the free peasant; a work organically different from all the modern -reforms that are merely imposed, whether right or wrong, whether -servile or socialist. It is the difference between planting a tree and -building a tower; once planted, the tree lives by its own life. He -and his admirers, myself among the number, might well be content to -contemplate such a work without afterthoughts; if there were not laid -upon us like a load of memories, and almost like a living chain, the -love of England. - -For England, alas! has made to-day the worst possible compromise -between aristocracy and democracy. It has kept the aristocracy and lost -the aristocrats. The country is still as much ruled by squires, but -not so much by country gentlemen; and the reform of the House of Lords -seems to mean eliminating gentlemen and carefully preserving noblemen. -It is as if there were a complaint of martial law; and it were met by -keeping the whole machinery of militarism, but giving the arbitrary -power to spies instead of soldiers. Or it is as if reactionaries -erected a despotism, and then called themselves reformers because they -did not care what dirty fellow was despot. But remote as Wyndham was -from the sham gentry of the twentieth century, it would also be an -error merely to merge him with the genuine gentry of the eighteenth. -It would be to mark the type so as to miss the man. What distinguished -him, as an individual, from good and bad squires, was something far -older than squirarchy; the true sense of the squire expectant, eager -to spring into the saddle of knighthood. His courage was far less -static than that of a country gentleman. It was the thing in which a -philologist might recognize that “courage” really means rushing; or -from which a professor will probably some day prove that courage really -means running away. He had that spiritual ambition which is itself the -ascending flame of humility; and which has been wanting to the English -since the squire grew greater than the knight. He seemed to await an -adventure that never quite came to him on earth; and his life and death -were swift, as if he were struck by lightning as with an accolade, or -had won spurs that were wings upon the wind. - - - - -Four Stupidities ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -I have just seen a newspaper paragraph which, whether it refers to a -fact or merely a suggestion, seems to me to go down pretty well into -that depth of mindlessness which calls itself the modern mind. It is -said that influence is being brought to bear on the American Government -to induce them to break a bottle of water instead of a bottle of -champagne when they christen a battleship. Now it is not easy to deal -adequately with the rich stupidity of that. It is about five follies -thick, stupidity obscuring stupidity until one reader can hardly -see more than one of the jokes at a time. There is something almost -fascinating in the idea of trying to disentangle them. - -First Stupidity. Note the notion that there is something so -intrinsically and supernaturally evil about an intoxicant that the -pure temperance man will not touch it even when it cannot intoxicate -anybody. It is as if a man were to insist on having a teetotal -boot-polish or a teetotal printing-ink. A cup of tea, or even of hot -milk, becomes diabolic if you have boiled the kettle with methylated -spirit. Eau-de-Cologne is a blackguard indulgence, though you use it -only to scent your handkerchief. A liquor containing alcohol (such as -ginger-beer) is simply and superstitiously an accursed thing, which -is not only not to be touched with the lips, but not to be touched -with the hands. After this case, the more intemperate “Temperance” -people cannot pretend any longer that their proposal is merely a social -reform; it is obviously and literally a mystical taboo. I do not see -what right such people have to mock at the savage’s fear of a fetish, -still less at the peasant’s respect for the relic of a saint. There -might surely be such a thing as holy water, if it be so certain that -there is such a thing as unholy water. - -Second Stupidity. The extraordinary confusion by which it becomes not -only wicked to possess wine (though you never drink it), but becomes -wicked even to destroy it. This goes, I think, much further than this -queer materialist madness has yet gone. If a champagne bottle is -smashed to smithereens over the prow of a ship, I should have thought -the most logical teetotaller would merely have been glad that there -was one champagne bottle less in the world. As he would probably not -be a person with any special sympathy with the old ceremonials of -revelry, that is the only possible way in which I can imagine the -thing affecting him. We in England used to think we could trace a -slight streak of fanaticism in good Mrs. Carrie Nation, who used to go -about breaking other people’s wine and spirit bottles with her little -hatchet. But now it would appear that Mrs. Carrie Nation was a wobbler, -one weakly compromising with the fiend of fermented drink, perhaps -nobbled by the Liquor Trade--or, worse still, verging on the loathly -state of a moderate drinker. She ought to have been summoned before a -tribunal of these New Teetotallers and condemned for ever having gone -near enough to a bottle to touch it, even with a hatchet; condemned for -having so much as hung about the hellish tavern, where the very fumes -of its fiery poisons might have mounted to her head. The principle is -an interesting one, and might be extended to many cases. Thus, when the -common hangman burned a book of treason or heresy, he may be supposed -to have been infected by the intellectual errors it contained. Thus -when a censor blacks out a paragraph in a newspaper, he may be held -to have sinned even in looking to see where the paragraph was. This, -apparently, is the new barbaric fancy: that certain vegetable drinks -are so demonic that we not only are wrong when we drink them, but are -wrong when we do our best to render them undrinkable. - -Third Stupidity. The curious deadness of the mind in such men is -illustrated at the next stage; that of clinging convulsively to a mere -form; and not only not knowing, but not so much as wondering--first, -whether the idea is worth preserving; and, secondly, whether they are -preserving it. The mark of this dead and broken traditionalism is -always two-fold. It can be seen in these two facts: that men alter a -thing as if it had no sense in it; and yet they never have the sense to -abolish what is for them a senseless thing. I can see much dignity in -absolute austerity and the refusal of symbol; I can see some dignity -even in dingy utilitarianism and the refusal of art. I could respect -the perfect plainness of an early Quaker like Penn when he would not -take his hat off in the palace, because it was an idle form. I do -not despise him because he came afterwards (I believe) to see that -keeping your hat on is just as much of a form as taking it off; and -took off his hat like other people. But if Penn had strictly confined -himself, say, to taking off his hatband with laborious care, every -time he entered the Royal presence, I should say that he had lost both -his Quakerism and his sociability. He would have lost the independence -that refuses recognition to the world, and he would not have gained -the disputable substitute of good manners. Similarly, I could respect -(though I could not envy) the flinty old Manchester manufacturers -who regarded all expenditure on arms, especially on drums, flags, or -trumpets, as so much babyish waste of money. But I should not even -have respected them if they had proposed that the British Army should -fly the White Flag in every battle because it was cheaper than a -coloured one. Why have a flag at all, if it comes to that? Or, again, -I can understand the unconverted Scrooge with his bowl of gruel; and I -like the converted Scrooge with his bowl of punch. But if Scrooge had -insisted every Christmas on having a punch-bowl with no punch in it, I -should not understand at all. - -Fourth Stupidity. Besides this general deadness, there is a strange -special deadness to the human sentiment behind that special sort -of ceremony. Don’t express the sentiment if you think it a silly -sentiment; but don’t so express it as to prove that you haven’t got -it. That sentiment is the ancient sentiment of sacrifice. The thing -sacrificed may be anything: wine, as on the battleship; gold, as when -the Doge threw his ring into the sea; an ox or a sheep, as among the -ancient pagans; and very occasionally, when tribes savage or civilized -are seized with Satanist panic, a man. But it must be something -_valuable_, or the particular thrill, wholesome or unwholesome, is -not obtained. It was generally the best sheep or the best ox; and -in the rare cases of human sacrifice, generally somebody like the -King’s daughter. Like all human appetites, it is both good and evil; -it has many roots, a gesture of generosity, an appeal to the unknown, -a guarantee against arrogance, a dim idea of not taking all one’s -advantage from fortune: but they all depend on the _value_, and these -men evidently understand none of them, when they fill the bottle with -water. - - - - -On Historical Novels ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -It is very easy, of course, to smile at such schoolboy fiction as the -novels of Mr. Henty, in which the same very English and modern young -gentleman from Rugby or Harrow turns up again and again as a Young -Greek, a Young Carthaginian, a Young Scandinavian, a Young Gaul, a -Young Visigoth, a Young Ancient Briton, and almost everything short -of a Young Negro. But Mr. Henty had the merits of his industry and -fecundity; and one of them was that he did take a boy’s imagination -into many and varied parts of human history, however conventional the -figure he followed through them might be. The English boy will not find -out as much about the soul of Carthage from the _Young Carthaginian_ as -a lover of letters may from _Salammbô_; but at least he will know that -Carthage was conquered--and that is (for various reasons) a good thing -for English people to know. And since the Henty period our historical -novels have fallen with terrible sameness into two or three grooves. We -might almost say that a man is not allowed to write an historical novel -except about four different historical periods, about six different -historical characters; and even about them he is not allowed to take -any view except that taken by the other romances on the same subject. -Now, considering the countless millions of marvellous, amusing, unique, -and picturesque things that have thronged on top of each other through -all our wonderful three thousand years of European history, this state -of affairs is as Byzantine and benighted as if no landscape painter -ever painted anything but a larch tree, or as if none of our sculptors -could model anything except the left leg. - -You may write a novel about the time of Henry of Navarre--in fact, it -might almost be said that you must write a novel about the time of -Henry of Navarre. If you go in for writing historical novels at all, -somebody--the publisher or the office-boy--makes you do this. In this -novel, Huguenots must be gallant gentlemen, with a touch of bluffness; -Catholics must also be gallant gentlemen, with a touch of slyness. All -important political questions must be settled by duels fought with long -rapiers at wayside inns. You must stick to one side of the quarrel; -but even in that you must not bring any of the charges that a person -of the period might really have brought. For instance, the Court must -be perpetually engaged in plotting to stab the bluff Huguenot: but you -must not insist that the Huguenot was a Puritan, and his objection -to the Court would largely be that it was a Renaissance Court. You -must not, however delicately, bring in that presence of florid pagan -sensuality and princely indecorum which we feel in Brantome or the -Tales of the Queen of Navarre. The Latins must stick to assassination. -There must be no people to speak of in Paris, though it was the people -of Paris who, for good or evil, changed the whole course of the -history. Men like Sully may be introduced; but their talents must be -entirely occupied in serving the Prince in his personal love-affairs -and in his duels in inns. Above all, slap in the very middle of the -Wars of Religion, nobody must seem to have any clear idea of what his -own religion is about. You may also write a novel about the time of -Richelieu. But it must be governed by the same principles. Richelieu -must be a sinister yet magnanimous enemy of the hero. He must try to -kill the hero, and unaccountably fail. At this stage of the writing of -historical novels, it is important to be an imitator of Dumas. There -are critics who maintain that Dumas was largely written by imitators -of Dumas. This is an exaggeration; but, at the worst, they were good -imitators. There are chapters in the triple tale of the Musketeers -of which I can only say that, if anyone but he wrote them, he could -hire hearts and heads as well as hands. But my warning to the young -writer of entirely useless historical novels is this: He must not go -outside France, or treat that country otherwise than as an insulated -elfland. He must not carry off General Monk in a box. Think what a -frightful mistake would have been made--from the English Puritan point -of view--if d’Artagnan had carried off General Cromwell by mistake! -All this happened in the time of Mazarin and not Richelieu, but the -principle will be found reliable. The principle is that neither -Richelieu nor anybody else should show the faintest interest in the -future of France. - -You may write a novel about the French Revolution. You may do it -on your head, as the jolly habitual criminals say. The essential -principles of this sort of novel are: (1) That the populace of Paris -from 1790 to 1794 never had any meals, nor even sat down in a café. -They stood about in the street all night and all day, sufficiently -sustained by the sight of Blood, especially Blue Blood. (2) All power -during the Terror was in the hands of the public executioner and of -Robespierre; and these persons were subject to abrupt changes of mind, -and frequently redeemed their habit of killing people for no apparent -reason by letting them off at the last moment, for no apparent reason -either. (3) Aristocrats are of two kinds--the very wicked and the -entirely blameless; and both are invariably good-looking. Both also -appear rather to prefer being guillotined. (4) Such things as the -invasion of France, the idea of a Republic, the influence of Rousseau, -the nearness of national bankruptcy, the work of Carnot with the -armies, the policy of Pitt, the policy of Austria, the ineradicable -habit of protecting one’s property against foreigners, and the presence -of persons carrying guns at the Battle of Valmy--all these things had -nothing to do with the French Revolution, and should be omitted. - -Now, considering the number of picturesque struggles there have been in -the world, it seems to me that these subjects might be given a rest. -There has been next to nothing written, for instance, about the other -Wars of Religion, those that accompanied the construction of Catholic -Europe, rather than its breaking up. There was the Iconoclast invasion -of Italy, which ends with the entrance of Charlemagne. There has been -next to nothing written about riots other than the Parisian; the many -riots of Edinburgh, especially of those few days when it was almost as -dangerous to be a doctor as to be a mad dog. Another advantage would -be that, coming fresh to his historical problem, the writer might even -read a little history. - - - - -On Monsters ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - -I once saw in the newspapers this paragraph, of which I made a note: - - “LEPRECHAUN” CAUGHT - - Great excitement has been caused in Mullingar, in the west of Ireland, - by the report that the supposed “Leprechaun,” which several children - stated they had seen at Killough, near Delvin, during the past two - months, was captured. Two policemen found a creature of dwarfish - proportions in a wood near the town, and brought the little man to - Mullingar Workhouse, where he is now an inmate. He eats greedily, but - all attempts to interview him have failed, his only reply being a - peculiar sound between a growl and a squeal. The inmates regard him - with interest mixed with awe. - -This seems like the beginning of an important era of research; it -seems as if the world of experiments had at last touched the world -of reality. It is as if one read: “Great excitement has been caused -in Rotten Row, in the west of London, by the fact that the centaur, -previously seen by several colonels and young ladies, has at last been -stopped in his lawless gallop.” Or it is as if one saw in a newspaper: -“Slight perturbation has been caused at the west end of Margate by the -capture of a mermaid,” or “A daring fowler, climbing the crags of the -Black Mountains for a nest of eagles, found, somewhat unexpectedly, -that it was a nest of angels.” It is wonderful to have the calm -admission in cold print of such links between the human world and other -worlds. It is interesting to know that they took the Leprechaun to a -workhouse. It settles, and settles with a very sound instinct, the -claim of humanity in such sublime curiosities. If a centaur were really -found in Rotten Row, would they take him to a workhouse or to a stable? -If a mermaid were really fished up at Margate, would they take her to a -workhouse or to an aquarium? If people caught an angel unawares, would -they put the angel in a workhouse? Or in an aviary? - -The idea of the Missing Link was not at all new with Darwin; it was -not invented merely by those vague but imaginative minor poets to whom -we owe most of our ideas about evolution. Men had always played about -with the idea of a possible link between human and bestial life; and -the very existence--or, if you will, the very non-existence--of the -centaur or the mermaid proves it. All the mythologies had dreamed -of a half-human monster. The only objection to the centaur and the -mermaid was that they could not be found. In every other respect their -merits were of the most solid sort. So it is with the Darwinian ideal -of a link between man and the brutes. There is no objection to it -except that there is no evidence for it. The only objection to the -Missing Link is that he is apparently fabulous, like the centaur and -the mermaid, and all the other images under which man has imagined a -bridge between himself and brutality. In short, the only objection to -the Missing Link is that he is missing. - -But there is also another very elementary difference. The Greeks -and the Mediævals invented monstrosities. But they treated them as -monstrosities--that is, they treated them as exceptions. They did not -deduce any law from such lawless things as the centaur or the merman, -the griffin or the hippogriff. But modern people did try to make a law -out of the Missing Link. They made him a lawgiver, though they were -hunting for him like a criminal. They built on the foundation of him -before he was found. They made this unknown monster, the mixture of -the man and ape, the founder of society and the accepted father of -mankind. The ancients had a fancy that there was a mongrel of horse and -man, a mongrel of fish and man. But they did not make it the father -of anything; they did not ask the mad mongrel to breed. The ancients -did not draw up a system of ethics based upon the centaur, showing how -man in a civilized society must take care of his hands, but must not -wholly forget his hooves. They never reminded woman that, although -she had the golden hair of a goddess, she had the tail of a fish. But -the moderns did talk to man as if he were the Missing Link; they did -remind him that he must allow for apish imbecility and bestial tricks. -The moderns did tell the woman that she was half a brute, for all her -beauty; you can find the thing said again and again in Schopenhauer -and other prophets of the modern spirit. That is the real difference -between the two monsters. The Missing Link is still missing and so is -the merman. On the top of all this we have the Leprechaun, apparently -an actual monster at present in the charge of the police. It is -unnecessary to say that numbers of learned people have proved again and -again that it could not exist. It is equally unnecessary to say that -numbers of unlearned people--children, mothers of children, workers, -common people who grow corn or catch fish--had seen them existing. -Almost every other simple type of our working population had seen a -Leprechaun. A fisherman had seen a Leprechaun. A farmer had seen a -Leprechaun. Even a postman had probably seen one. But there was one -simple son of the people whose path had never before been crossed by -the prodigy. Never until then had a policeman seen a Leprechaun. It was -only a question of whether the monster should take the policeman away -with him into Elfland (where such a policeman as he would certainly -have been fettered by the fatal love of the fairy queen), or whether -the policeman should take away the monster to the police-station. -The forces of this earth prevailed; the constable captured the elf, -instead of the elf capturing the constable. The officer took him to -the workhouse, and opened a new epoch in the study of tradition and -folk-lore. - -What will the modern world do if it finds (as very likely it will) -that the wildest fables have had a basis in fact; that there are -creatures of the border land, that there are oddities on the fringe -of fixed laws, that there are things so unnatural as easily to be -called preternatural? I do not know what the modern world will do about -these things; I only know what I hope. I hope the modern world will -be as sane about these things as the mediæval world was about them. -Because I believe that an ogre can have two heads, that is no reason -why I should lose the only head that I have. Because the mediæval man -thought that some man had the head of a dog, that was no reason why he -himself should have the head of a donkey. The mediæval man was never -essentially weak or stupid about any of his beliefs, however unfounded -they were. He did not lack judgment; he only lacked the opportunities -of judgment. He had superstitions; but he was not superstitious about -them. He was wrong about Africa; but then, to do him justice, he did -not care whether he was right. He had got that particular thing which -some modern people call “the love of truth,” but which is really -simply the power of taking one’s own mistakes seriously. He thought -that ordinary men were a serious matter; as they are. He thought that -extraordinary men were a fantastic fairy-tale; and he thought (very -rightly) that the fairy-tale was all the more fantastic if it was true. -He did not let dog-faced men affect his conception of mankind; he -regarded them as a joke, the best as a practical joke. But in our time, -I am sorry to say, we have seen some signs of the possibility that such -aberrations or monstrosities as spiritual science may discover will -be taken as real tests of, or keys to, the human lot. For instance, -the psychological phenomenon called “dual personality” is certainly a -thing so extraordinary that any old-fashioned rationalist or agnostic -would simply have called it a miracle and disbelieved it. But nowadays -those who do believe it will not treat it as a miracle--that is, as -an exception. They try to make deductions from it, theories about -identity and metempsychosis and psychical evolution, and God knows -what. If it is true that one particular body has two souls, it is a -joke, as if it had two noses. It must not be permitted to upset the -actualities of our human happiness. If some one says, “Jones blew -his nose,” and Jones is of so peculiar a formation that one may with -logical propriety ask, “Which nose?” that is no reason why the ordinary -formula should lose its ordinary human utility. This is, I think, one -of the most real dangers that lie in front of the civilization that has -just discovered the Leprechaun. We are going to find all the gods and -fairies all over again, all the spiritual hybrids and all the jests -of eternity. But we are not going to find them, as the pagans found -them, in our youth, in an atmosphere in which gods can be jested with -or giants slapped on the back. We are going to find them, in the old -age of our society, in a mood dangerously morbid, in a spirit only too -ready to take the exception instead of the rule. 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