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diff --git a/old/60164-h/60164-h.htm b/old/60164-h/60164-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index d347799..0000000 --- a/old/60164-h/60164-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6712 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" -"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> - <head> <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> -<title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fancies Versus Fads, by G. K. Chesterton. -</title> -<style type="text/css"> - p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:4%;} - -.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} - -.cb {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-weight:bold; -margin-top:1em;} - -.castr {text-align:center;text-indent:0%; -letter-spacing:1em;} - -.fint {text-align:center;text-indent:0%; -margin-top:2em;} - -.hang {text-indent:-2%;margin-left:4%;} - -.imgspc {margin-left:.5em;} - -.letra {font-size:250%;float:left;margin-top:-1%;} - @media print, handheld - { .letra - {font-size:250%;padding:0%;} - } - -.nind {text-indent:0%;} - -.r {text-align:right;margin-right: 5%;} - -.rt {text-align:right;} - -small {font-size: 70%;} - -big {font-size: 130%;} - - h1 {margin-top:5%;text-align:center;clear:both; -font-weight:normal;} - - h2 {margin-top:3em;margin-bottom:1em;text-align:center;clear:both; - font-size:100%;font-weight:normal;} - - hr {width:90%;margin:2em auto 2em auto;clear:both;color:black;} - - hr.full {width: 60%;margin:2% auto 2% auto;border-top:1px solid black; -padding:.1em;border-bottom:1px solid black;border-left:none;border-right:none;} - - table {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;} - - body{margin-left:4%;margin-right:6%;background:#ffffff;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} - -a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} - - link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} - -a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} - -a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} - -.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:100%;} - - img {border:none; vertical-align:middle;} - -div.poetry {text-align:center;} -div.poem {font-size:90%;margin:auto auto;text-indent:0%; -display: inline-block; text-align: left;} -.poem .stanza {margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom:1em;} -.poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - -.pagenum {font-style:normal;position:absolute; -left:95%;font-size:55%;text-align:right;color:gray; -background-color:#ffffff;font-variant:normal;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none;text-indent:0em;} -@media print, handheld -{.pagenum - {display: none;} - } - -</style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fancies versus Fads, by G. K. Chesterton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Fancies versus Fads - -Author: G. K. Chesterton - -Release Date: August 24, 2019 [EBook #60164] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FANCIES VERSUS FADS *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_i" id="page_i">{i}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii">{ii}</a></span> </p> - -<p class="c">FANCIES VERSUS FADS</p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr class="c"><td>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</td></tr> - -<tr><td> </td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Charles Dickens</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">All Things Considered</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Tremendous Trifles</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Alarms and Discursions</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">A Miscellany of Men</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">The Ballad of the White Horse</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">Wine, Water, and Song</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">The Flying Inn</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">A Shilling for My Thoughts</span><br /> -<span class="smcap">The Uses of Diversity</span><br /> -</td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii">{iii}</a></span> </p> - -<h1>FANCIES VERSUS<br /> -FADS</h1> - -<p class="c">BY<br /> -G. K. CHESTERTON<br /> -<br /><br /><br /> -METHUEN & CO. LTD.<br /> -36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br /> -LONDON<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iv" id="page_iv">{iv}</a></span><br /><br /><br /> - -<i>First Published in 1923</i><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_v" id="page_v">{v}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> HAVE strung these things together on a slight enough thread; but as -the things themselves are slight, it is possible that the thread (and -the metaphor) may manage to hang together. These notes range over very -variegated topics and in many cases were made at very different times. -They concern all sorts of things from lady barristers to cave-men, and -from psycho-analysis to free verse. Yet they have this amount of unity -in their wandering, that they all imply that it is only a more -traditional spirit that is truly able to wander. The wild theorists of -our time are quite unable to wander. When they talk of making new roads, -they are only making new ruts. Each of them is necessarily imprisoned in -his own curious cosmos; in other words, he is limited by the very -largeness of his own generalization. The explanations of the Marxian -must not go outside economics; and the student of Freud is forbidden to -forget sex. To see only the fanciful side of these serious sects may -seem a very frivolous pleasure; and I will not dispute that these are -very frivolous criticisms. I only submit that this frivolity is the last -lingering form of freedom.</p> - -<p>In short, the note of these notes, so to speak, is that it is only from -a normal standpoint that all the nonsense of the world takes on -something of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vi" id="page_vi">{vi}</a></span> the wild interest of wonderland. I mean it is only in the -mirror of a very moderate sense and sanity, which is all I have ever -claimed to possess, that even insanities can appear as images clear -enough to appeal to the imagination. After all, the ordinary orthodox -person is he to whom the heresies can appear as fantasies. After all, it -is we ordinary human and humdrum people who can enjoy eccentricity as a -sort of elfland; while the eccentrics are too serious even to know that -they are elves. When a man tells us that he disapproves of children -being told fairy-tales, it is we who can perceive that he is himself a -fairy. He himself has not the least idea of it. When he says he would -discourage children from playing with tin soldiers, because it is -militarism, it is we and not he who can enjoy in fancy the fantastic -possibilities of his idea. It is we who suddenly think of children -playing with little tin figures of philanthropists, rather round and -with tin top-hats; the little tin gods of our commercial religion. It is -we who develop his imaginative idea for him, by suggesting little leaden -dolls of Conscientious Objectors in fixed attitudes of refined -repugnance; or a whole regiment of tiny Quakers with little grey coats -and white flags. He would never have thought of any of these substitutes -for himself; his negation is purely negative. Or when an educational -philosopher tells us that the child should have complete equality with -the adult, he cannot really carry his idea any farther without our -assistance. It will be from us and not from him that the natural -suggestion will come; that the baby should take its turn and carry the -mother, the moment the mother is tired of carrying the baby. He will -not, when left to himself, call up the poetical<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vii" id="page_vii">{vii}</a></span> picture of the child -wheeling a double perambulator with the father and mother at each end. -He has no motive to look for lively logical developments; for him the -assimilation of parent and child is simply a platitude; and an -inevitable part of his own rather platitudinous philosophy. It is we and -not he who can behold the whole vista and vanishing perspective of his -own opinions; and work out what he really means. It is only those who -have ordinary views who have extraordinary visions.</p> - -<p>There is indeed nothing very extraordinary about these visions, except -the extraordinary people who have provoked some of them. They are only a -very sketchy sort of sketches of some of the strange things that may be -found in the modern world. But however inadequate be the example, it is -none the less true that this is the sound principle behind much better -examples; and that, in those great things as in these small ones, sanity -was the condition of satire. It is because Gulliver is a man of moderate -stature that he can stray into the land of the giants and the land of -the pygmies. It is Swift and not the professors of Laputa who sees the -real romance of getting sunbeams out of cucumbers. It would be less than -exact to call Swift a sunbeam in the house; but if he did not himself -get much sunshine out of cucumbers, at least he let daylight into -professors. It was not the mad Swift but the sane Swift who made that -story so wild. The truth is more self-evident in men who were more sane. -It is the good sense of Rabelais that makes him seem to grin like a -gargoyle; and it is in a sense because Dickens was a Philistine that he -saw the land so full of strange gods. These idle journalistic jottings -have nothing in common with such standards of real literature,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_viii" id="page_viii">{viii}</a></span> except -the principle involved; but the principle is the right one.</p> - -<p>But while these are frivolous essays, pretending only to touch on topics -and theories they cannot exhaustively examine, I have added some that -may not seem to fit so easily even into so slight a scheme. -Nevertheless, they are in some sense connected with it. I have opened -with an essay on rhyme, because it is a type of the sort of tradition -which the anti-traditionalists now attack; and I have ended with one -called “Milton and Merry England,” because I feel that many may -misunderstand my case against the new Puritans, if they have no notion -of how I should attempt to meet the more accepted case in favour of the -old Puritans. Both these articles appeared originally in the “London -Mercury,” and I desire to express my thanks to Mr. J. C. Squire for his -kind permission to reprint them. But, in the latter case, I had the -further feeling that I wished to express somewhere the historical -sentiment that underlies the whole; the conviction that there did and -does exist a more normal and national England, which we once inhabited -and to which we may yet return; and which is not a Utopia but a home. I -have therefore thought it worth while to write this line of introduction -to show that such a scrap-book is not entirely scrappy; and that even to -touch such things lightly we need something like a test. It is necessary -to have in hand a truth to judge modern philosophies rapidly; and it is -necessary to judge them very rapidly to judge them before they -disappear.</p> - -<p class="r"> -G. K. C.<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ix" id="page_ix">{ix}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td> </td><td><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_v">v</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_ROMANCE_OF_RHYME">The Romance of Rhyme</a> </td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_1">1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#HAMLET_AND_THE_PSYCHO-ANALYST">Hamlet and the Psycho-Analyst</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_20">20</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_MEANING_OF_MOCK_TURKEY">The Meaning of Mock Turkey</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_35">35</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#SHAKESPEARE_AND_THE_LEGAL_LADY">Shakespeare and the Legal Lady</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_46">46</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#ON_BEING_AN_OLD_BEAN">On Being an Old Bean</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_55">55</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_FEAR_OF_THE_FILM">The Fear of the Film</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_61">61</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#WINGS_AND_THE_HOUSEMAID">Wings and the Housemaid</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_68">68</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_SLAVERY_OF_FREE_VERSE">The Slavery of Free Verse</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_74">74</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#PROHIBITION_AND_THE_PRESS">Prohibition and the Press</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_80">80</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_MERCY_OF_MR_ARNOLD_BENNETT">The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_86">86</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#A_DEFENCE_OF_DRAMATIC_UNITIES">A Defence of Dramatic Unities</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_93">93</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_BOREDOM_OF_BUTTERFLIES">The Boredom of Butterflies</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_99">99</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_TERROR_OF_A_TOY">The Terror of a Toy</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_105">105</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#FALSE_THEORY_AND_THE_THEATRE">False Theory and the Theatre</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_111">111</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_SECRET_SOCIETY_OF_MANKIND">The Secret Society of Mankind</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_117">117</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_SENTIMENTALISM_OF_DIVORCE">The Sentimentalism of Divorce</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_124">124</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#STREET_CRIES_AND_STRETCHING_THE_LAW">Street Cries and Stretching the Law</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_130">130</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_x" id="page_x">{x}</a></span><a href="#THE_REVOLT_OF_THE_SPOILT_CHILD">The Revolt of the Spoilt Child</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_136">136</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_INNOCENCE_OF_THE_CRIMINAL">The Innocence of the Criminal</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_142">142</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_PRUDERY_OF_THE_FEMINISTS">The Prudery of the Feminists</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#HOW_MAD_LAWS_ARE_MADE">How Mad Laws are Made</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_155">155</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_PAGODA_OF_PROGRESS">The Pagoda of Progress</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_161">161</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_MYTH_OF_THE_MAYFLOWER">The Myth of the “Mayflower”</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_166">166</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#MUCH_TOO_MODERN_HISTORY">Much Too Modern History</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_173">173</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#THE_EVOLUTION_OF_SLAVES">The Evolution of Slaves</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_179">179</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#IS_DARWIN_DEAD">Is Darwin Dead?</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_186">186</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#TURNING_INSIDE_OUT">Turning Inside Out</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_193">193</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#STRIKES_AND_THE_SPIRIT_OF_WONDER">Strikes and the Spirit of Wonder</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_205">205</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#A_NOTE_ON_OLD_NONSENSE">A Note on Old Nonsense</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_212">212</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top" class="smcap"><a href="#MILTON_AND_MERRY_ENGLAND">Milton and Merry England</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_219">219</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span></p> - -<h1>FANCIES VERSUS FADS</h1> - -<h2><a name="THE_ROMANCE_OF_RHYME" id="THE_ROMANCE_OF_RHYME"></a>The Romance of Rhyme <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap"><span class="letra">T</span>he</span> poet in the comic opera, it will be remembered (I hope), claimed for -his æsthetic authority that “Hey diddle diddle will rank as an idyll, if -I pronounce it chaste.” In face of a satire which still survives the -fashion it satirized, it may require some moral courage seriously to -pronounce it chaste, or to suggest that the nursery rhyme in question -has really some of the qualities of an idyll. Of its chastity, in the -vulgar sense, there need be little dispute, despite the scandal of the -elopement of the dish with the spoon, which would seem as free from -grossness as the loves of the triangles. And though the incident of the -cow may have something of the moonstruck ecstasy of Endymion, that also -has a silvery coldness about it worthy of the wilder aspects of Diana. -The truth more seriously tenable is that this nursery rhyme is a -complete and compact model of the nursery short story. The cow jumping -over the moon fulfils to perfection the two essentials of such a story -for children. It makes an effect that is fantastic out of objects that -are familiar; and it makes a picture that is at once incredible and -unmistakable. But it is yet more tenable, and here more to the point,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span> -that this nursery rhyme is emphatically a rhyme. Both the lilt and the -jingle are just right for their purpose, and are worth whole libraries -of elaborate literary verse for children. And the best proof of its -vitality is that the satirist himself has unconsciously echoed the -jingle even in making the joke. The metre of that nineteenth-century -satire is the metre of the nursery rhyme. “Hey diddle diddle, the cat -and the fiddle” and “Hey diddle diddle will rank as an idyll” are -obviously both dancing to the same ancient tune; and that by no means -the tune the old cow died of, but the more exhilarating air to which she -jumped over the moon.</p> - -<p>The whole history of the thing called rhyme can be found between those -two things: the simple pleasure of rhyming “diddle” to “fiddle,” and the -more sophisticated pleasure of rhyming “diddle” to “idyll.” Now the -fatal mistake about poetry, and more than half of the fatal mistake -about humanity, consists in forgetting that we should have the first -kind of pleasure as well as the second. It might be said that we should -have the first pleasure as the basis of the second; or yet more truly, -the first pleasure inside the second. The fatal metaphor of progress, -which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea -of growth, which means leaving things inside us. The heart of the tree -remains the same, however many rings are added to it; and a man cannot -leave his heart behind by running hard with his legs. In the core of all -culture are the things that may be said, in every sense, to be learned -by heart. In the innermost part of all poetry is the nursery rhyme, the -nonsense that is too happy even to care about being nonsensical. It may -lead on to the more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span> elaborate nonsense of the Gilbertian line, or even -the far less poetic nonsense of some of the Browningesque rhymes. But -the true enjoyment of poetry is always in having the simple pleasure as -well as the subtle pleasure. Indeed it is on this primary point that so -many of our artistic and other reforms seem to go wrong. What is the -matter with the modern world is that it is trying to get simplicity in -everything except the soul. Where the soul really has simplicity it can -be grateful for anything—even complexity. Many peasants have to be -vegetarians, and their ordinary life is really a simple life. But the -peasants do not despise a good dinner when they can get it; they wolf it -down with enthusiasm, because they have not only the simple life but the -simple spirit. And it is so with the modern modes of art which revert, -very rightly, to what is “primitive.” But their moral mistake is that -they try to combine the ruggedness that should belong to simplicity with -a superciliousness that should only belong to satiety. The last Futurist -draughtsmanship, for instance, evidently has the aim of drawing a tree -as it might be drawn by a child of ten. I think the new artists would -admit it; nor do I merely sneer at it. I am willing to admit, especially -for the sake of argument, that there is a truth of philosophy and -psychology in this attempt to attain the clarity even through the -crudity of childhood. In this sense I can see what a man is driving at -when he draws a tree merely as a stick with smaller sticks standing out -of it. He may be trying to trace in black and white or grey a primeval -and almost prenatal illumination; that it is very remarkable that a -stick should exist, and still more remarkable that a stick should stick -up or stick out. He may be similarly enchanted with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span> his own stick of -charcoal or grey chalk; he may be enraptured, as a child is, with the -mere fact that it makes a mark on the paper—a highly poetic fact in -itself. But the child does not despise the real tree for being different -from his drawing of the tree. He does not despise Uncle Humphrey because -that talented amateur can really draw a tree. He does not think less of -the real sticks because they are live sticks, and can grow and branch -and curve in a way uncommon in walking-sticks. Because he has a single -eye he can enjoy a double pleasure. This distinction, which seems -strangely neglected, may be traced again in the drama and most other -domains of art. Reformers insist that the audiences of simpler ages were -content with bare boards or rudimentary scenery if they could hear -Sophocles or Shakespeare talking a language of the gods. They were very -properly contented with plain boards. But they were not discontented -with pageants. The people who appreciated Antony’s oration as such would -have appreciated Aladdin’s palace as such. They did not think gilding -and spangles substitutes for poetry and philosophy, because they are -not. But they did think gilding and spangles great and admirable gifts -of God, because they are.</p> - -<p>But the application of this distinction here is to the case of rhyme in -poetry. And the application of it is that we should never be ashamed of -enjoying a thing as a rhyme as well as enjoying it as a poem. And I -think the modern poets who try to escape from the rhyming pleasure, in -pursuit of a freer poetical pleasure, are making the same fundamentally -fallacious attempt to combine simplicity with superiority. Such a poet -is like a child who could take no pleasure in a tree because it looked -like a tree,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span> or a playgoer who could take no pleasure in the Forest of -Arden because it looked like a forest. It is not impossible to find a -sort of prig who professes that he could listen to literature in any -scenery, but strongly objects to good scenery. And in poetical criticism -and creation there has also appeared the prig who insists that any new -poem must avoid the sort of melody that makes the beauty of any old -song. Poets must put away childish things, including the child’s -pleasure in the mere sing-song of irrational rhyme. It may be hinted -that when poets put away childish things they will put away poetry. But -it may be well to say a word in further justification of rhyme as well -as poetry, in the child as well as the poet. Now, the neglect of this -nursery instinct would be a blunder, even if it were merely an animal -instinct or an automatic instinct. If a rhyme were to a man merely what -a bark is to a dog, or a crow to a cock, it would be clear that such -natural things cannot be merely neglected. It is clear that a canine -epic, about Argus instead of Ulysses, would have a beat ultimately -consisting of barks. It is clear that a long poem like “Chantecler,” -written by a real cock, would be to the tune of Cock-a-doodle-doo. But -in truth the nursery rhyme has a nobler origin; if it be ancestral it is -not animal; its principle is a primary one, not only in the body but in -the soul.</p> - -<p>Milton prefaced “Paradise Lost” with a ponderous condemnation of rhyme. -And perhaps the finest and even the most familiar line in the whole of -“Paradise Lost” is really a glorification of rhyme. “Seasons return, but -not to me return,” is not only an echo that has all the ring of rhyme in -its form, but it happens to contain nearly all the philosophy of rhyme -in its spirit. The wonderful word “return<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span>” has, not only in its sound -but in its sense, a hint of the whole secret of song. It is not merely -that its very form is a fine example of a certain quality in English, -somewhat similar to that which Mrs. Meynell admirably analysed in one of -her last beautiful essays, in the case of words like “unforgiven.” It is -that it describes poetry itself, not only in a mechanical but a moral -sense. Song is not only a recurrence, it is a return. It does not -merely, like the child in the nursery, take pleasure in seeing the -wheels go round. It also wishes to go back as well as round; to go back -to the nursery where such pleasures are found. Or to vary the metaphor -slightly, it does not merely rejoice in the rotation of a wheel on the -road, as if it were a fixed wheel in the air. It is not only the wheel -but the wagon that is returning. That labouring caravan is always -travelling towards some camping-ground that it has lost and cannot find -again. No lover of poetry needs to be told that all poems are full of -that noise of returning wheels; and none more than the poems of Milton -himself. The whole truth is obvious, not merely in the poem, but even in -the two words of the title. All poems might be bound in one book under -the title of “Paradise Lost.” And the only object of writing “Paradise -Lost” is to turn it, if only by a magic and momentary illusion, into -“Paradise Regained.”</p> - -<p>It is in this deeper significance of return that we must seek for the -peculiar power in the recurrence we call rhyme. It would be easy enough -to reply to Milton’s strictures on rhyme in the spirit of a sensible if -superficial liberality by saying that it takes all sorts to make a -world, and especially the world of the poets. It is evident enough that -Milton might have been right to dispense with rhyme without being<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span> right -to despise it. It is obvious that the peculiar dignity of his religious -epic would have been weakened if it had been a rhymed epic, beginning:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of that forbidden tree whose mortal root.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">But it is equally obvious that Milton himself would not have tripped on -the light fantastic toe with quite so much charm and cheerfulness in the -lines:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But come thou Goddess fair and free<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In heaven yclept Euphrosyne<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">if the goddess had been yclept something else, as, for the sake of -argument, Syrinx. Milton in his more reasonable moods would have allowed -rhyme in theory a place in all poetry, as he allowed it in practice in -his own poetry. But he would certainly have said at this time, and -possibly at all times, that he allowed it an inferior place, or at least -a secondary place. But is its place secondary; and is it in any sense -inferior?</p> - -<p>The romance of rhyme does not consist merely in the pleasure of a -jingle, though this is a pleasure of which no man should be ashamed. -Certainly most men take pleasure in it, whether or not they are ashamed -of it. We see it in the older fashion of prolonging the chorus of a song -with syllables like “rumty tumty” or “tooral looral.” We see it in the -similar but later fashion of discussing whether a truth is objective or -subjective, or whether a reform is constructive or destructive, or -whether an argument is deductive or inductive: all bearing witness to a -very natural love for those nursery rhyme recur<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span>rences which make a sort -of song without words, or at least without any kind of intellectual -significance. But something much deeper is involved in the love of rhyme -as distinct from other poetic forms, something which is perhaps too deep -and subtle to be described. The nearest approximation to the truth I can -think of is something like this: that while all forms of genuine verse -recur, there is in rhyme a sense of return to exactly the same place. -All modes of song go forward and backward like the tides of the sea; but -in the great sea of Homeric or Virgilian hexameters, the sea that -carried the labouring ships of Ulysses and Æneas, the thunder of the -breakers is rhythmic, but the margin of the foam is necessarily -irregular and vague. In rhyme there is rather a sense of water poured -safely into one familiar well, or (to use a nobler metaphor) of ale -poured safely into one familiar flagon. The armies of Homer and Virgil -advance and retreat over a vast country, and suggest vast and very -profound sentiments about it, about whether it is their own country or -only a strange country. But when the old nameless ballad boldly rhymes -“the bonny ivy tree” to “my ain countree” the vision at once dwindles -and sharpens to a very vivid image of a single soldier passing under the -ivy that darkens his own door. Rhythm deals with similarity, but rhyme -with identity. Now in the one word identity are involved perhaps the -deepest and certainly the dearest human things. He who is home-sick does -not desire houses or even homes. He who is love-sick does not want to -see all the women with whom he might have fallen in love. Only he who is -sea-sick, perhaps, may be said to have a cosmopolitan craving for all -lands or any kind of land. And this is probably<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span> why sea-sickness, like -cosmopolitanism, has never yet been a high inspiration to song.</p> - -<p>Songs, especially the most poignant of them, generally refer to some -absolute, to some positive place or person for whom no similarity is a -substitute. In such a case all approximation is merely asymptotic. The -prodigal returns to his father’s house and not the house next door, -unless he is still an imperfectly sober prodigal. The lover desires his -lady and not her twin sister, except in old complications of romance. -And even the spiritualist is generally looking for a ghost and not -merely for ghosts. I think the intolerable torture of spiritualism must -be a doubt about identity. Anyhow, it will generally be found that where -this call for the identical has been uttered most ringingly and -unmistakably in literature, it has been uttered in rhyme. Another -purpose for which this pointed and definite form is very much fitted is -the expression of dogma, as distinct from doubt or even opinion. This is -why, with all allowance for a decline in the most classical effects of -the classical tongue, the rhymed Latin of the mediæval hymns does -express what it had to express in a very poignant poetical manner, as -compared with the reverent agnosticism so nobly uttered in the rolling -unrhymed metres of the ancients. For even if we regard the matter of the -mediæval verses as a dream, it was at least a vivid dream, a dream full -of faces, a dream of love and of lost things. And something of the same -spirit runs in a vaguer way through proverbs and phrases that are not -exactly religious, but rather in a rude sense philosophical, but which -all move with the burden of returning; things to be felt only in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span>familiar fragments ... <i>on revient toujours</i> ... it’s the old story ... -it’s love that makes the world go round; and all roads lead to Rome: we -might almost say that all roads lead to Rhyme.</p> - -<p>Milton’s revolt against rhyme must be read in the light of history. -Milton is the Renascence frozen into a Puritan form; the beginning of a -period which was in a sense classic, but was in a still more definite -sense aristocratic. There the Classicist was the artistic aristocrat -because the Calvinist was the spiritual aristocrat. The seventeenth -century was intensely individualistic; it had both in the noble and the -ignoble sense a respect for persons. It had no respect whatever for -popular traditions; and it was in the midst of its purely logical and -legal excitement that most of the popular traditions died. The -Parliament appeared and the people disappeared. The arts were put under -patrons, where they had once been under patron saints. The English -schools and colleges at once strengthened and narrowed the New Learning, -making it something rather peculiar to one country and one class. A few -men talked a great deal of good Latin, where all men had once talked a -little bad Latin. But they talked even the good Latin so that no -Latinist in the world could understand them. They confined all study of -the classics to that of the most classical period, and grossly -exaggerated the barbarity and barrenness of patristic Greek or mediæval -Latin. It is as if a man said that because the English translation of -the Bible is perhaps the best English in the world, therefore Addison -and Pater and Newman are not worth reading. We can imagine what men in -such a mood would have said of the rude rhymed hexameters of the monks; -and it is not unnatural that they should have felt a reaction against -rhyme<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span> itself. For the history of rhyme is the history of something -else, very vast and sometimes invisible, certainly somewhat indefinable, -against which they were in aristocratic rebellion.</p> - -<p>That thing is difficult to define in impartial modern terms. It might -well be called Romance, and that even in a more technical sense, since -it corresponds to the rise of the Romance languages as distinct from the -Roman language. It might more truly be called Religion, for historically -it was the gradual re-emergence of Europe through the Dark Ages, because -it still had one religion, though no longer one rule. It was, in short, -the creation of Christendom. It may be called Legend, for it is true -that the most overpowering presence in it is that of omni-present and -powerful popular Legend; so that things that may never have happened, -or, as some say, could never have happened, are nevertheless rooted in -our racial memory like things that have happened to ourselves. The whole -Arthurian Cycle, for instance, seems something more real than reality. -If the faces in that darkness of the Dark Ages, Lancelot and Arthur and -Merlin and Modred, are indeed faces in a dream, they are like faces in a -real dream: a dream in a bed and not a dream in a book. Subconsciously -at least, I should be much less surprised if Arthur was to come again -than I should be if the Superman were to come at all. Again, the thing -might be called Gossip: a noble name, having in it the name of God and -one of the most generous and genial of the relations of men. For I -suppose there has seldom been a time when such a mass of culture and -good traditions of craft and song have been handed down orally, by one -universal buzz of conversation, through centuries of ignorance down<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span> to -centuries of greater knowledge. Education must have been an eternal -<i>viva voce</i> examination; but the men passed their examination. At least -they went out in such rude sense masters of art as to create the Song of -Roland and the round Roman arches that carry the weight of so many -Gothic towers. Finally, of course, it can be called ignorance, -barbarism, black superstition, a reaction towards obscurantism and old -night; and such a view is eminently complete and satisfactory, only that -it leaves behind it a sort of weak wonder as to why the very youngest -poets do still go on writing poems about the sword of Arthur and the -horn of Roland.</p> - -<p>All this was but the beginning of a process which has two great points -of interest. The first is the way in which the mediæval movement did -rebuild the old Roman civilization; the other was the way in which it -did not. A strange interest attaches to the things which had never -existed in the pagan culture and did appear in the Christian culture. I -think it is true of most of them that they had a quality that can very -approximately be described as popular, or perhaps as vulgar, as indeed -we still talk of the languages which at that time liberated themselves -from Latin as the vulgar tongues. And to many Classicists these things -would appear to be vulgar in a more vulgar sense. They were vulgar in -the sense of being vivid almost to excess, of making a very direct and -unsophisticated appeal to the emotions. The first law of heraldry was to -wear the heart upon the sleeve. Such mediævalism was the reverse of mere -mysticism, in the sense of mere mystery; it might more truly be -described as sensationalism. One of these things, for instance, was a -hot and even an impatient love of colour. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span> learned to paint before it -could draw, and could afford the twopence coloured long before it could -manage the penny plain. It culminated at last, of course, in the energy -and gaiety of the Gothic; but even the richness of Gothic rested on a -certain psychological simplicity. We can contrast it with the classic by -noting its popular passion for telling a story in stone. We may admit -that a Doric portico is a poem, but no one would describe it as an -anecdote. The time was to come when much of the imagery of the -cathedrals was to be lost; but it would have mattered the less that it -was defaced by its enemies if it had not been already neglected by its -friends. It would have mattered less if the whole tide of taste among -the rich had not turned against the old popular masterpieces. The -Puritans defaced them, but the Cavaliers did not truly defend them. The -Cavaliers were also aristocrats of the new classical culture, and used -the word Gothic in the sense of barbaric. For the benefit of the -Teutonists we may note in parenthesis that, if this phrase meant that -Gothic was despised, it also meant that the Goths were despised. But -when the Cavaliers came back, after the Puritan interregnum, they -restored not in the style of Pugin but in the style of Wren. The very -thing we call the Restoration, which was the restoration of King -Charles, was also the restoration of St. Paul’s. And it was a very -modern restoration.</p> - -<p>So far we might say that simple people do not like simple things. This -is certainly true if we compare the classic with these highly coloured -things of mediævalism, or all the vivid visions which first began to -glow in the night of the Dark Ages. Now one of these things was the -romantic expedient called<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span> rhyme. And even in this, if we compare the -two, we shall see something of the same paradox by which the simple like -complexities and the complex like simplicities. The ignorant liked rich -carvings and melodious and often ingenious rhymes. The learned liked -bare walls and blank verse. But in the case of rhyme it is peculiarly -difficult to define the double and yet very definite truth. It is -difficult to define the sense in which rhyme is artificial and the sense -in which it is simple. In truth it is simple because it is artificial. -It is an artifice of the kind enjoyed by children and other poetic -people; it is a toy. As a technical accomplishment it stands at the same -distance from the popular experience as the old popular sports. Like -swimming, like dancing, like drawing the bow, anybody can do it, but -nobody can do it without taking the trouble to do it; and only a few can -do it very well. In a hundred ways it was akin to that simple and even -humble energy that made all the lost glory of the guilds. Thus their -rhyme was useful as well as ornamental. It was not merely a melody but -also a mnemonic; just as their towers were not merely trophies but -beacons and belfries. In another aspect rhyme is akin to rhetoric, but -of a very positive and emphatic sort: the coincidence of sound giving -the effect of saying, “It is certainly so.” Shakespeare realized this -when he rounded off a fierce or romantic scene with a rhymed couplet. I -know that some critics do not like this, but I think there is a moment -when a drama ought to become a melodrama. Then there is a much older -effect of rhyme that can only be called mystical, which may seem the -very opposite of the utilitarian, and almost equally remote from the -rhetorical. Yet it shares with the former the tough texture of something -not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span> easily forgotten, and with the latter the touch of authority which -is the aim of all oratory. The thing I mean may be found in the fact -that so many of the old proverbial prophecies, from Merlin to Mother -Shipton, were handed down in rhyme. It can be found in the very name of -Thomas the Rhymer.</p> - -<p>But the simplest way of putting this popular quality is in a single -word: it is a song. Rhyme corresponds to a melody so simple that it goes -straight like an arrow to the heart. It corresponds to a chorus so -familiar and obvious that all men can join in it. I am not disturbed by -the suggestion that such an arrow of song, when it hits the heart, may -entirely miss the head. I am not concerned to deny that the chorus may -sometimes be a drunken chorus, in which men have lost their heads to -find their tongues. I am not defending but defining; I am trying to find -words for a large but elusive distinction between certain things that -are certainly poetry and certain other things which are also song. Of -course it is only an accident that Horace opens his greatest series of -odes by saying that he detests the profane populace and wishes to drive -them from his temple of poetry. But it is the sort of accident that is -almost an allegory. There is even a sense in which it has a practical -side. When all is said, <i>could</i> a whole crowd of men sing the “Descende -Cœlo,” that noble ode, as a crowd can certainly sing the “Dies Irae,” or -for that matter “Down among the Dead Men”? Did Horace himself sing the -Horatian odes in the sense in which Shakespeare could sing, or could -hardly help singing, the Shakespearean songs? I do not know, having no -kind of scholarship on these points. But I do not feel that it could -have been at all the same thing; and my only purpose is to attempt<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span> a -rude description of that thing. Rhyme is consonant to the particular -kind of song that can be a popular song, whether pathetic or passionate -or comic; and Milton is entitled to his true distinction; nobody is -likely to sing “Paradise Lost” as if it were a song of that kind. I have -tried to suggest my sympathy with rhyme, in terms true enough to be -accepted by the other side as expressing their antipathy for it. I have -admitted that rhyme is a toy and even a trick, of the sort that delights -children. I have admitted that every rhyme is a nursery rhyme. What I -will never admit is that anyone who is too big for the nursery is big -enough for the Kingdom of God, though the God were only Apollo.</p> - -<p>A good critic should be like God in the great saying of a Scottish -mystic. George Macdonald said that God was easy to please and hard to -satisfy. That paradox is the poise of all good artistic appreciation. -Without the first part of the paradox appreciation perishes, because it -loses the power to appreciate. Good criticism, I repeat, combines the -subtle pleasure in a thing being done well with the simple pleasure in -it being done at all. It combines the pleasure of the scientific -engineer in seeing how the wheels work together to a logical end with -the pleasure of the baby in seeing the wheels go round. It combines the -pleasure of the artistic draughtsman in the fact that his lines of -charcoal, light and apparently loose, fall exactly right and in a -perfect relation with the pleasure of the child in the fact that the -charcoal makes marks of any kind on the paper. And in the same fashion -it combines the critic’s pleasure in a poem with the child’s pleasure in -a rhyme. The historical point about this kind of poetry, the rhymed -romantic kind, is that it rose out of the Dark<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span> Ages with the whole of -this huge popular power behind it, the human love of a song, a riddle, a -proverb, a pun or a nursery rhyme; the sing-song of innumerable -children’s games, the chorus of a thousand campfires and a thousand -taverns. When poetry loses its link with all these people who are easily -pleased it loses all its power of giving pleasure. When a poet looks -down on a rhyme it is, I will not say as if he looked down on a daisy -(which might seem possible to the more literal-minded), but rather as if -he looked down on a lark because he had been up in a balloon. It is -cutting away the very roots of poetry; it is revolting against nature -because it is natural, against sunshine because it is bright, or -mountains because they are high, or moonrise because it is mysterious. -The freezing process began after the Reformation with a fastidious -search for finer yet freer forms; to-day it has ended in formlessness.</p> - -<p>But the joke of it is that even when it is formless it is still -fastidious. The new anarchic artists are not ready to accept everything. -They are not ready to accept anything except anarchy. Unless it observes -the very latest conventions of unconventionality, they would rule out -anything classic as coldly as any classic ever ruled out anything -romantic. But the classic was a form; and there was even a time when it -was a new form. The men who invented Sapphics did invent a new metre; -the introduction of Elizabethan blank verse was a real revolution in -literary form. But <i>vers libre</i>, or nine-tenths of it, is not a new -metre any more than sleeping in a ditch is a new school of architecture. -It is no more a revolution in literary form than eating meat raw is an -innovation in cookery. It is not even original, because it is not -creative; the artist<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span> does not invent anything, but only abolishes -something. But the only point about it that is to my present purpose is -expressed in the word “pride.” It is not merely proud in the sense of -being exultant, but proud in the sense of being disdainful. Such outlaws -are more exclusive than aristocrats; and their anarchical arrogance goes -far beyond the pride of Milton and the aristocrats of the New Learning. -And this final refinement has completed the work which the saner -aristocrats began, the work now most evident in the world: the -separation of art from the people. I need not insist on the sensational -and self-evident character of that separation. I need not recommend the -modern poet to attempt to sing his <i>vers libres</i> in a public house. I -need not even urge the young Imagist to read out a number of his -disconnected Images to a public meeting. The thing is not only admitted -but admired. The old artist remained proud in spite of his unpopularity; -the new artist is proud because of his unpopularity; perhaps it is his -chief ground for pride.</p> - -<p>Dwelling as I do in the Dark Ages, or at latest among the mediæval -fairy-tales, I am yet moved to remember something I once read in a -modern fairy-tale. As it happens, I have already used the name of George -Macdonald; and in the best of his books there is a description of how a -young miner in the mountains could always drive away the subterranean -goblins if he could remember and repeat any kind of rhyme. The impromptu -rhymes were often doggerel, as was the dog-Latin of many monkish -hexameters or the burden of many rude Border ballads. But I have a -notion that they drove away the devils, blue devils of pessimism and -black devils<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span> of pride. Anyhow Madame Montessori, who has apparently -been deploring the educational effects of fairy-tales, would probably -see in me a pitiable example of such early perversion, for that image -which was one of my first impressions seems likely enough to be one of -my last; and when the noise of many new and original musical -instruments, with strange shapes and still stranger noises, has passed -away like a procession, I shall hear in the succeeding silence only a -rustle and scramble among the rocks and a boy singing on the mountain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="HAMLET_AND_THE_PSYCHO-ANALYST" id="HAMLET_AND_THE_PSYCHO-ANALYST"></a>Hamlet and the Psycho-Analyst <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HIS morning, for a long stretch of hours before breakfast, and even as -it were merging into breakfast, and almost overlapping breakfast, I was -engaged in scientific researches in the great new department of -psycho-analysis. Every journalist knows by this time that -psycho-analysis largely depends on the study of dreams. But in order to -study our dreams it is necessary to dream; and in order to dream it is -necessary to sleep. So, while others threw away the golden hours in -lighter and less learned occupations, while ignorant and superstitious -peasants were already digging in their ignorant and superstitious -kitchen-gardens, to produce their ignorant and superstitious beans and -potatoes, while priests were performing their pious mummeries and poets -composing lyrics on listening to the skylark—I myself was pioneering -hundreds of years ahead of this benighted century; ruthlessly and -progressively probing into all the various horrible nightmares, from -which a happier future will take its oracles and its commandments. I -will not describe my dreams in detail; I am not quite so ruthless a -psychologist as all that. And indeed it strikes me as possible that the -new psychologist will be rather a bore at breakfast. My dream was -something about wandering in some sort of cata<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span>combs under the Albert -Hall, and it involved eating jumbles (a brown flexible cake now almost -gone from us, like so many glories of England) and also arguing with a -Theosophist. I cannot fit this in very well with Freud and his theory of -suppressed impulses. For I swear I never in my life suppressed the -impulse to eat a jumble or to argue with a Theosophist. And as for -wandering about in the Albert Hall, nobody could ever have had an -impulse to do that.</p> - -<p>When I came down to breakfast I looked at the morning paper; not (as you -humorously suggest) at the evening paper. I had not pursued my -scientific studies quite so earnestly as that. I looked at the morning -paper, as I say, and found it contained a good deal about -Psycho-Analysis, indeed it explained almost everything about -Psycho-Analysis except what it was. This was naturally a thing which -newspapers would present in a rather fragmentary fashion; and I fitted -the fragments together as best I could. Apparently the dreams were -merely symbols; and apparently symbols of something very savage and -horrible which remained a secret. This seems to me a highly unscientific -use of the word symbol. A symbol is not a disguise but rather a display; -the best expression of something that cannot otherwise be expressed. -Eating a jumble may mean that I wished to bite off my father’s nose (the -mother-complex being strong on me); but it does not seem to show much -symbolic talent. The Albert Hall may imply the murder of an uncle; but -it hardly makes itself very clear. And we do not seem to be getting much -nearer the truth by dreaming, if we hide things by night more completely -than we repress them by day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span> Anyhow, the murdered uncle reminds me of -Hamlet, of whom more anon; at the moment I am merely remarking that my -newspaper was a little vague; and I was all the more relieved to open my -“London Mercury” and find an article on the subject by so able and -suggestive a writer as Mr. J. D. Beresford.</p> - -<p>Mr. J. D. Beresford practically asked himself whether he should become a -psycho-analyst or continue to be a novelist. It will readily be -understood that he did not put it precisely in these words; he would -probably put psycho-analysis higher, and very possibly his own fiction -lower; for men of genius are often innocent enough of their own genuine -originality. That is a form of the unconscious mind with which none of -us will quarrel. But I have no desire to watch a man of genius tying -himself in knots, and perhaps dying in agony, in the attempt to be -conscious of his own unconsciousness. I have seen too many unfortunate -sceptics thus committing suicide by self-contradiction. Haeckel and his -Determinists, in my youth, bullied us all about the urgent necessity of -choosing a philosophy which would prove the impossibility of choosing -anything. No doubt the new psychology will somehow enable us to know -what we are doing, about all that we do without knowing it. These things -come and go, and pass through their phases in order, from the time when -they are as experimental as Freudism to the time when they are as -exploded as Darwinism. But I never can understand men allowing things so -visibly fugitive to hide things that are visibly permanent, like morals -and religion and (what is in question here) the art of letters. <i>Ars -longa, scientia brevis.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span></p> - -<p>Anyhow, as has been said, psycho-analysis depends in practice upon the -interpretation of dreams. I do not know whether making masses of people, -chiefly children, confess their dreams, would lead to a great output of -literature; though it would certainly lead, if I know anything of human -nature, to a glorious output of lies. There is something touching in the -inhuman innocence of the psychologist, who is already talking of the -scientific exactitude of results reached by the one particular sort of -evidence that cannot conceivably be checked or tested in any way -whatever. But, as Mr. Beresford truly says, the general notion of -finding signs in dreams is as old as the world; but even the special -theory of it is older than many seem to suppose. Indeed, it is not only -old, but obvious; and was never discovered, because it was always -noticed. Long before the present fashion I myself (who, heaven knows, am -no psychologist) remember saying that as there is truth in all popular -traditions, there is truth in the popular saying that dreams go by the -rule of contraries. That is, that a man does often think at night about -the very things he does not think by day. But the popular saying had in -it a certain virtue never found in the anti-popular sciences of our day. -Popular superstition has one enormous element of sanity; it is never -serious. We talk of ages like the mediæval as the ages of faith; but it -would be quite as true a tribute to call them the ages of doubt; of a -healthy doubt, and even a healthy derision. There was always something -more or less consciously grotesque about an old ghost story. There was -fun mixed with the fear; and the yokels knew too much about turnips not -occasionally to think of turnip-ghosts. There is no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span> fun about -psycho-analysis. One yokel would say, “Ar, they do say dreams go by -contraries.” And then the others would say “Ar,” and they would all -laugh in a deep internal fashion. But when Mr. J. D. Beresford says that -Freud’s theory is among scientific theories the most attractive for -novelists, “it was a theory of sex, the all but universal theme of the -novel,” it is clear that our audience is slower and more solemn than the -yokels. For nobody laughs at all. People seem to have lost the power of -reacting to the humorous stimulus. When one milkmaid dreamed of a -funeral, the other milkmaid said, “That means a wedding,” and then they -would both giggle. But when Mr. J. D. Beresford says that the theory -“adumbrated the suggestion of a freer morality, by dwelling upon the -physical and spiritual necessity for the liberation of impulse,” the -point seems somehow to be missed. Not a single giggle is heard in the -deep and disappointing silence. It seems truly strange that when a -modern and brilliant artist actually provides jokes far more truly -humorous than the rude jests of the yokels and the milkmaids, the finer -effort should meet with the feebler response. It is but an example of -the unnatural solemnity, like an artificial vacuum, in which all these -modern experiments are conducted. But no doubt if Freud had enjoyed the -opportunity of explaining his ideas in an ancient ale-house, they would -have met with more spontaneous applause.</p> - -<p>I hope I do not seem unsympathetic with Mr. Beresford; for I not only -admire his talent, but I am at this moment acting in strict obedience to -his theories. I am—I say it proudly—acting as a disciple of Freud, who -apparently forbids me to conceal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span> any impulse, presumably including the -impulse to laugh. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Beresford; but my first -duty, of course, is to my own psychological inside. And goodness knows -what damage might not be done to the most delicate workings of my own -mental apparatus (as Mr. Arnold Bennett called it) if I were to subject -it to the sudden and violent strain of not smiling at the scientific -theory which is attractive because it is sexual, or of forcing my -features into a frightful composure when I hear of the spiritual -necessity for the liberation of impulse. I am not quite sure how far the -liberation of impulse is to be carried out in practice by its exponents -in theory; I do not know whether it is better to liberate the impulse to -throw somebody else out of an express train in order to have the -carriage to oneself all the way; or what may be the penalties for -repressing the native instinct to shoot Mr. Lloyd George. But obviously -the greater includes the less; and it would be very illogical if we were -allowed to chuck out our fellow-traveller but not to chaff him; or if I -were permitted to shoot at Mr. George but not to smile at Mr. Beresford. -And though I am not so serious as he is, I assure him that in this I am -quite as sincere as he is. In that sense I do seriously regret his -seriousness; I do seriously think such seriousness a very serious evil. -For some healthy human impulses are really the better for the relief by -words and gestures, and one of them is the universal human sense that -there is something comic about the relations of the sexes. The impulse -to laugh at the mention of morality as “free” or of sex science as -“attractive” is one of the impulses which is already gratified by most -people who have never heard of psycho-analysis<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span> and is only mortified by -people like the psycho-analysts.</p> - -<p>Mr. Beresford must therefore excuse me if, with a sincere desire to -follow his serious argument seriously, I note at the beginning a certain -normal element of comedy of which critics of his school seem to be -rather unconscious. When he asks whether this theory of the nemesis of -suppression can serve the purposes of great literary work, it would seem -natural at first to test it by the example of the greatest literary -works. And, judged by this scientific test, it must be admitted that our -literary classics would appear to fail. Lady Macbeth does not suffer as -a sleep-walker because she has resisted the impulse to murder Duncan, -but rather (by some curious trick of thought) because she has yielded to -it. Hamlet’s uncle is in a morbid frame of mind, not, as one would -naturally expect, because he had thwarted his own development by leaving -his own brother alive and in possession; but actually because he has -triumphantly liberated himself from the morbid impulse to pour poison in -his brother’s ear. On the theory of psycho-analysis, as expounded, a man -ought to be haunted by the ghosts of all the men he has not murdered. -Even if they were limited to those he has felt a vague fancy for -murdering, they might make a respectable crowd to follow at his heels. -Yet Shakespeare certainly seems to represent Macbeth as haunted by -Banquo, whom he removed at one blow from the light of the sun and from -his own subconsciousness. Hell ought to mean the regret for lost -opportunities for crime; the insupportable thought of houses still -standing unburned or unburgled, or of wealthy uncles still walking about -alive with their projecting watch-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span>chains. Yet Dante certainly seemed to -represent it as concerned exclusively with things done and done with, -and not as merely the morbidly congested imagination of a thief who had -not thieved and a murderer who had not murdered. In short, it is only -too apparent that the poets and sages of the past knew very little of -psycho-analysis, and whether or no Mr. Beresford can achieve great -literary effects with it, they managed to achieve their literary effects -without it. This is but a preliminary point, and I shall touch the more -serious problem in a few minutes, if the fashion has not changed before -then. For the moment I only take the test of literary experience, and of -how independent of such theories have been the real masterpieces of man. -Men are still excited over the poetic parts of poets like Shakespeare -and Dante; if they go to sleep it is over the scientific parts. It is -over some system of the spheres which Dante thought the very latest -astronomy, or some argument about the humours of the body which -Shakespeare thought the very latest physiology. I appeal to Mr. -Beresford’s indestructible sense of humanity and his still undestroyed -sense of humour. What would have become of the work of Dickens if it had -been rewritten to illustrate the thesis of Darwin? What even of the work -of Mr. Kipling if modified to meet the theories of Mr. Kidd? Believe me, -the proportions are as I have said. Art is long, but science is -fleeting; and Mr. Beresford’s subconsciousness, though stout and brave, -is in danger of being not so much a muffled drum as a drum which -somebody silences for ever; by knocking a hole in it, only to find -nothing inside. But there is one incidental moral in the matter that -seems to me topical and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span> rather arresting. It concerns the idea of -punishment. The psycho-analysts continue to buzz in a mysterious manner -round the problem of Hamlet. They are especially interested in the -things of which Hamlet was unconscious, not to mention the things of -which Shakespeare was unconscious. It is in vain for old-fashioned -rationalists like myself to point out that this is like dissecting the -brain of Puck or revealing the real private life of Punch and Judy. The -discussion no longer revolves round whether Hamlet is mad, but whether -everybody is mad, especially the experts investigating the madness. And -the curious thing about this process is that even when the critics are -really subtle enough to see subtle things, they are never simple enough -to see self-evident things. A really fine critic is reported as arguing -that in Hamlet the consciousness willed one thing and the -subconsciousness another. Apparently the conscious Hamlet had -unreservedly embraced and even welcomed the obligation of vengeance, but -the shock (we are told) had rendered the whole subject painful, and -started a strange and secret aversion to the scheme. It did not seem to -occur to the writers that there might possibly be something slightly -painful, at the best, in cutting the throat of your own uncle and the -husband of your own mother. There might certainly be an aversion from -the act; but I do not quite see why it should be an unconscious -aversion. It seems just possible that a man might be quite conscious of -not liking such a job. Where he differed from the modern morality was -that he believed in the possibility of disliking it and yet doing it.</p> - -<p>But to follow the argument of these critics, one<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span> would think that -murdering the head of one’s family was a sort of family festivity or -family joke; a gay and innocent indulgence into which the young prince -would naturally have thrown himself with thoughtless exuberance, were it -not for the dark and secretive thoughts that had given him an -unaccountable distaste for it. Suppose it were borne in upon one of -these modern middle-class critics, of my own rank and routine of life -(possibly through his confidence in the messages at a Spiritualist -séance) that it was his business to go home to Brompton or Surbiton and -stick the carving-knife into Uncle William, who had poisoned somebody -and was beyond the reach of the law. It is possible that the critic’s -first thought would be that it was a happy way of spending a -half-holiday; and that only in the critic’s subconsciousness the -suspicion would stir that there was something unhappy about the whole -business. But it seems also possible that the regret might not be -confined to his subconsciousness, but might swim almost to the surface -of his consciousness. In plain words, this sort of criticism has lost -the last rags of common sense. Hamlet requires no such subconscious -explanation, for he explains himself, and was perhaps rather too fond of -doing so. He was a man to whom duty had come in a very dreadful and -repulsive form, and to a man not fitted for that form of duty. There was -a conflict, but he was conscious of it from beginning to end. He was not -an unconscious person; but a far too conscious one.</p> - -<p>Strangely enough, this theory of subconscious repulsion in the dramatic -character is itself an example of subconscious repulsion in the modern -critic. It is the critic who has a sort of subliminal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span> prejudice which -makes him avoid something, that seems very simple to others. The thing -which he secretly and obscurely avoids, from the start, is the very -simple fact of the morality in which Shakespeare did believe, as -distinct from all the crude psychology in which he almost certainly did -not believe. Shakespeare certainly did believe in the struggle between -duty and inclination. The critic instinctively avoids the admission that -Hamlet’s was a struggle between duty and inclination; and tries to -substitute a struggle between consciousness and subconsciousness. He -gives Hamlet a complex to avoid giving him a conscience. But he is -actually forced to talk as if it was a man’s natural inclination to kill -an uncle, because he does not want to admit that it might be his duty to -kill him. He is really driven to talking as if some dark and secretive -monomania alone prevented us all from killing our uncles. He is driven -to this because he will not even take seriously the simple and, if you -will, primitive morality upon which the tragedy is built. For that -morality involves three moral propositions, from which the whole of the -morbid modern subconsciousness does really recoil as from an ugly jar of -pain. These principles are: first, that it may be our main business to -do the right thing, even when we detest doing it; second, that the right -thing may involve punishing some person, especially some powerful -person; third, that the just process of punishment may take the form of -fighting and killing. The modern critic is prejudiced against the first -principle and calls it asceticism; he is prejudiced against the second -principle and calls it vindictiveness; he is prejudiced against the -third and generally calls it militarism. That it actually<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span> might be the -duty of a young man to risk his own life, much against his own -inclination, by drawing a sword and killing a tyrant, that is an idea -instinctively avoided by this particular mood of modern times. That is -why tyrants have such a good time in modern times. And in order to avoid -this plain and obvious meaning, of war as a duty and peace as a -temptation, the critic has to turn the whole play upside down, and seek -its meaning in modern notions so remote as to be in this connexion -meaningless. He has to make William Shakespeare of Stratford one of the -pupils of Professor Freud. He has to make him a champion of -psycho-analysis, which is like making him a champion of vaccination. He -has to fit Hamlet’s soul somehow into the classifications of Freud and -Jung; which is just as if he had to fit Hamlet’s father into the -classifications of Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He has -to interpret the whole thing by a new morality that Shakespeare had -never heard of, because he has an intense internal dislike of the old -morality that Shakespeare could not help hearing of. And that morality, -which some of us believe to be based on a much more realistic -psychology, is that punishment as punishment is a perfectly healthy -process, not merely because it is reform, but also because it is -expiation. What the modern world means by proposing to substitute pity -for punishment is really very simple. It is that the modern world dare -not punish those who are punishable, but only those who are pitiable. It -would never touch anyone so important as King Claudius—or Kaiser -William.</p> - -<p>Now this truth is highly topical just now. The point about Hamlet was -that he wavered, very excus<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span>ably, in something that had to be done; and -this is the point quite apart from whether we ourselves would have done -it. That was pointed out long ago by Browning in “The Statue and the -Bust.” He argued that even if the motive for acting was bad, the motive -for not acting was worse. And an action or inaction is judged by its -real motive, not by whether somebody else might have done the same thing -from a better motive. Whether or no the tyrannicide of Hamlet was a -duty, it was accepted as a duty and it was shirked as a duty. And that -is precisely true of a tyrannicide like that for which everybody -clamoured at the conclusion of the Great War. It may have been right or -wrong to punish the Kaiser; it was certainly even more right to punish -the German generals and admirals for their atrocities. But even if it -was wrong, it was not abandoned because it was wrong. It was abandoned -because it was troublesome. It was abandoned for all those motives of -weakness and mutability of mood which we associate with the name of -Hamlet. It might be glory or ignominy to shed the blood of imperial -enemies, but it is certainly ignominy to shout for what you dare not -shed; “to fall a-cursing like a common drab, a scullion.” Granted that -we had no better motives than we had then or have now, it would -certainly have been more dignified if we had fatted all the region-kites -with this slave’s offal. The motive is the only moral test. A saint -might provide us with a higher motive for forgiving the War-Lords who -butchered Fryatt and Edith Cavell. But we have not forgiven the -War-Lords. We have simply forgotten the War. We have not pardoned like -Christ; we have only procrastinated like Hamlet. Our highest motive has -been laziness; our commonest<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span> motive has been money. In this respect -indeed I must apologize to the charming and chivalrous Prince of Denmark -for comparing him, even on a single point, with the princes of finance -and the professional politicians of our time. At least Hamlet did not -spare Claudius solely because he hoped to get money out of him for the -salaries of the Players, or meant to do a deal with him about wine -supplied to Elsinore or debts contracted at Wittenburg. Still less was -Hamlet acting entirely in the interests of Shylock, an inhabitant of the -distant city of Venice. Doubtless Hamlet was sent to England in order -that he might develop further these higher motives for peace and pardon. -“’Twill not be noticed in him there; there the men are as mad as he.”</p> - -<p>It is therefore very natural that men should be trying to dissolve the -moral problem of Hamlet into the unmoral elements of consciousness and -unconsciousness. The sort of duty that Hamlet shirked is exactly the -sort of duty that we are all shirking; that of dethroning injustice and -vindicating truth. Many are now in a mood to deny that it is a duty -because it is a danger. This applies, of course, not only to -international but internal and especially industrial matters. Capitalism -was allowed to grow into a towering tyranny in England because the -English were always putting off their popular revolution, just as the -Prince of Denmark put off his palace revolution. They lectured the -French about their love of bloody revolutions, exactly as they are now -lecturing the French about their love of bloody wars. But the patience -which suffered England to be turned into a plutocracy was not the -patience of the saints; it was that patience which paralysed the noble -prince of the tragedy; <i>accidia</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span> and the great refusal. In any case, -the vital point is that by refusing to punish the powerful we soon lost -the very idea of punishment; and turned our police into a mere -persecution of the poor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_MEANING_OF_MOCK_TURKEY" id="THE_MEANING_OF_MOCK_TURKEY"></a>The Meaning of Mock Turkey <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>AVING lately taken part in a pageant of Nursery Rhymes, in the -character of Old King Cole, I meditated not so much on the glorious past -of the great kingdom of Colchester, as on the more doubtful future of -Nursery Rhymes. The Modern Movements cannot produce a nursery rhyme; it -is one of the many such things they cannot even be conceived as doing. -But if they cannot create the nursery rhyme, will they destroy it? The -new poets have already abolished rhyme; and presumably the new -educationalists will soon abolish nurseries. Or if they do not destroy, -will they reform; which is worse? Nursery rhymes are a positive network -of notions and allusions of which the enlightened disapprove. To take -only my own allotted rhyme as an example, some might think the very -mention of a king a piece of reactionary royalism, inconsistent with -that democratic self-determination we all enjoy under some five -Controllers and a committee of the Cabinet. Perhaps in the amended -version he will be called President Cole. Probably he will be confused -with Mr. G. D. H. Cole, the first President of the Guild Socialistic -Republic. With the greatest admiration for Mr. Cole, I cannot quite -picture him as so festive a figure; and I incline to think that the -same<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span> influences will probably eliminate the festivity. It is said that -America, having already abolished the bowl, is now attempting to abolish -the pipe. After that it might very reasonably go on to abolish the -fiddlers; for music can be far more maddening than wine. Tolstoy, the -only consistent prophet of the Simple Life, did really go on to denounce -music as a mere drug. Anyhow, it is quite intolerable that the innocent -minds of children should be poisoned with the idea of anybody calling -for his pipe and his bowl. There will have to be some other version, -such as: “He called for his milk and he called for his lozenge,” or -whatever form of bodily pleasure is still permitted to mankind. This -particular verse will evidently have to be altered a great deal; it is -founded on so antiquated a philosophy, that I fear even the alteration -will not be easy or complete. I am not sure, for instance, that there is -not a memory of animism and spiritism in the very word “soul,” used in -calling the monarch a merry old soul. It would seem that some other -simple phrase, such as “a merry old organism,” might be used with -advantage. Indeed it would have more advantages than one; for if the -reader will say the amended line in a flowing and lyrical manner, he -cannot but observe that the experiment has burst the fetters of formal -metre, and achieved one of these larger and lovelier melodies that we -associate with <i>vers libre</i>.</p> - -<p>It is needless to note the numberless other examples of nursery rhymes -to which the same criticism applies. Some of the other cases are even -more shocking to the true scientific spirit. For instance, in the -typically old-world rhyme of “Girls<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span> and boys come out to play,” there -appear the truly appalling words: “Leave your supper and leave your -sleep.” As the great medical reformer of our day observed, in a striking -and immortal phrase, “All Eugenists are agreed upon the importance of -sleep.” The case of supper may be more complex and controversial. If the -supper were a really hygienic and wholesome supper, it might not be so -difficult to leave it. But it is obvious that the whole vision which the -rhyme calls up is utterly imcompatible with a wise educational -supervision. It is a wild vision of children playing in the streets by -moonlight, for all the world as if they were fairies. Moonlight, like -music, is credited with a power of upsetting the reason; and it is at -least obvious that the indulgence is both unseasonable and unreasonable. -No scientific reformer desires hasty and destructive action; for his -reform is founded on that evolution which has produced the anthropoid -from the amoeba, a process which none have ever stigmatized as hasty. -But when the eugenist recalls the reckless and romantic love affairs -encouraged by such moonlight, he will have to consider seriously the -problem of abolishing the moon.</p> - -<p>But indeed I have much more sympathy with the simplicity of the baby who -cries for the moon than with the sort of simplicity that dismisses the -moon as all moonshine. And in truth I think that these two antagonistic -types of simplicity are perhaps the pivotal terms of the present -transition. It is a new thing called the Simple Life against an older -thing which may be called the Simple Soul; possibly exemplified, so far -as nursery rhymes are concerned, by the incident of Simple Simon. I -prefer the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span> Simple Simon, who, though ignorant of the economic -theory of exchange, had at least a positive and poetic enthusiasm for -pies. I think him far wiser than the new Simple Simon, who simplifies -his existence by means of a perverse and pedantic antipathy to pies. It -is unnecessary to add that this philosophy of pies is applicable with -peculiar force to mince-pies; and thus to the whole of the Christmas -tradition which descended from the first carols to the imaginative world -of Dickens. The morality of that tradition is much too simple and -obvious to be understood to-day. Awful as it may seem to many modern -people, it means no less than that Simple Simon should have his pies, -even in the absence of his pennies.</p> - -<p>But the philosophy of the two Simple Simons is plain enough. The former -is an expansion of simplicity towards complexity; Simon, conscious that -he cannot himself make pies, approaches them with an ardour not unmixed -with awe. But the latter is a reaction of complexity towards simplicity; -in other words, the other Simon refuses pies for various reasons, often -including the fact that he has eaten too many of them. Most of the -Simple Life as we see it to-day is, of course, a thing having this -character of the surfeit or satiety of Simon, when he has become less -simple and certainly less greedy. This reaction may take two diverse -forms; it may send Simon searching for more and more expensive and -extravagant confectionery, or it may reduce him to nibbling at some new -kind of nut biscuit. For it may be noted, in passing, that it probably -will not reduce him to eating dry bread. The Simple Life never accepts -anything that is simple<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span> in the sense of self-evident and familiar. The -thing must be uncommonly simple; it must not be simply common. Its -philosophy must be something higher than the ordinary breakfast table, -and something drier than dry bread. The usual process, as I have -observed it in vegetarian and other summaries, seems in one sense indeed -to be simple enough. The pie-man produces what looks like the same sort -of pie, or is supposed to look like it; only it has thinner crust -outside and nothing at all inside. Then instead of asking Simple Simon -for a penny he asks him for a pound, or possibly a guinea or a -five-pound note. And what is strangest of all, the customer is often so -singularly Simple a Simon that he pays for it. For that is perhaps the -final and most marked difference between Simon of the Simple Spirit and -Simon of the Simple Life. It is the fact that the ardent and -appreciative Simon was not in possession of a penny. The more refined -and exalted Simon is generally in possession of far too many pennies. He -is often very rich and needs to be; for the drier and thinner and -emptier are the pies, the more he is charged for them. But this alone -will reveal another side of the same paradox; and if it be possible to -spend a lot of money on the Simple Life, it is also possible to make a -great deal of money out of it. There are several self-advertisers doing -very well out of the new self-denial. But wealth is always at one end of -it or the other; and that is the great difference between the two -Simons. Perhaps it is the difference between Simon Peter and Simon -Magus.</p> - -<p>I have before me a little pamphlet in which the most precise directions -are given for a Mock Turkey,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span> for a vegetarian mince-pie, and for a -cautious and hygienic Christmas pudding. I have never quite understood -why it should be a part of the Simple Life to have anything so deceptive -and almost conspiratorial as an imitation turkey. The coarse and comic -alderman may be expected, in his festive ribaldry, to mock a turtle; but -surely a lean and earnest humanitarian ought not to mock a turkey. Nor -do I understand the theory of the imitation in its relation to the -ideal. Surely one who thinks meat-eating mere cannibalism ought not to -arrange vegetables so as to look like an animal. It is as if a converted -cannibal in the Sandwich Islands were to arrange joints of meat in the -shape of a missionary. The missionaries would surely regard the -proceedings of their convert with something less than approval, and -perhaps with something akin to alarm. But the consistency of these -concessions I will leave on one side, because I am not here concerned -with the concessions but with the creed itself. And I am concerned with -the creed not merely as affecting its practice in diet or cookery but -its general theory. For the compilers of the little book before me are -great on philosophy and ethics. There are whole pages about brotherhood -and fellowship and happiness and healing. In short, as the writer -observes, we have “also some Mental Helps, as set forth in the flood of -Psychology Literature to-day—but raised to a higher plane.” It may be a -little risky to set a thing forth in a flood, or a little difficult to -raise a flood to a higher plane; but there is behind these rather vague -expressions a very real modern intelligence and point of view, common to -considerable numbers of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span> cultivated people, and well worthy of some -further study.</p> - -<p>Under the title of “How to Think” there are twenty-four rules of which -the first few are: “Empty Your Mind,” “Think of the Best Things,” -“Appreciate,” “Analyse,” “Prepare Physically,” “Prepare Mentally,” and -so on. I have met some earnest students of this school, who had -apparently entered on this course, but at the time of our meeting had -only graduated so far as the fulfilment of the first rule. It was more -obvious, on the whole, that they had succeeded in the preliminary -process of emptying the mind than that they had as yet thought of the -best things, or analysed or appreciated anything in particular. But -there were others, I willingly admit, who had really thought of certain -things in a genuinely thoughtful fashion, though whether they were -really the best things might involve a difference of opinion between us. -Still, so far as they are concerned, it is a school of thought, and -therefore worth thinking about. Having been able to this extent to -appreciate, I will now attempt to analyse. I have attempted to discover -in my own mind where the difference between us really lies, apart from -all these superficial jests and journalistic points; to ask myself why -it is exactly that their ideal vegetarian differs so much from my ideal -Christian. And the result of the concentrated contemplation of their -ideal is, I confess, a somewhat impatient forward plunge in the progress -of my initiation. I am strongly disposed to “Prepare Physically” for a -conflict with the ideal vegetarian, with the holy hope of hitting him on -the nose. In one of Mr. P. G. Wodehouse’s stories the vegetarian rebukes -his enemy for threatening to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span> skin him, by reminding him that man should -only think beautiful thoughts; to which the enemy gives the unanswerable -answer: “Skinning you is a beautiful thought.” In the same way I am -quite prepared to think of the best things; but I think hitting the -ideal vegetarian on the nose would be one of the best things in the -world. This may be an extreme example; but it involves a much more -serious principle. What such philosophers often forget is that among the -best things in the world are the very things which their placid -universalism forbids; and that there is nothing better or more beautiful -than a noble hatred. I do not profess to feel it for them; but they -themselves do not seem to feel it for anything.</p> - -<p>But as my new idealistic instructor tells me to analyse, I will attempt -to analyse. In the ordinary way it would perhaps be enough to say that I -do not like his ideals, and that I prefer my own, as I should say I did -not like the taste of nut cutlet so much as the taste of veal cutlet. -But just as it is possible to resolve the food into formulæ about -proteids, so it is partly possible to resolve the religious preference -into formulæ about principles. The most we can hope to do is to find out -which of these principles are the first principles. And in this -connexion I should like to speak a little more seriously, and even a -little more respectfully, of the formula about emptying the mind. I do -not deny that it is sometimes a good thing to empty the mind of the mere -accumulation of secondary and tertiary impressions. If what is meant is -something which a friend of mine once called “a mental spring clean,” -then I can see what it means. But the most drastic<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span> spring clean in a -house does not generally wash away the house. It does not tear down the -roof like a cobweb, or pluck up the walls like weeds. And the true -formula is not so much to empty the mind as to discover that we cannot -empty the mind, by emptying it as much as we can. In other words, we -always come back to certain fundamentals which are convictions, because -we can hardly even conceive their contraries. But it is the paradox of -human language that though these truths are, in a manner past all -parallel, hard and clear, yet any attempt to talk about them always has -the appearance of being hazy and elusive.</p> - -<p>Now this antagonism, when thus analysed, seems to me to arise from one -ultimate thing at the back of the minds of these men; that they believe -in taking the body seriously. The body is a sort of pagan god, though -the pagans are more often stoics than epicureans. To begin with, it is -itself a beginning. The body, if not the creator of the soul in heaven, -is regarded as the practical producer of it on earth. In this their -materialism is the very foundation of their asceticism. They wish us to -consume clean fruit and clear water that our minds may be clear or our -lives clean. The body is a sort of magical factory where these things go -in as vegetables and come out as virtues. Thus digestion has the first -sign of a deity; that of being an origin. It has the next sign of a -deity; that if it is satisfied other things do not matter, or at any -rate other things follow in their place. And so, they would say, the -services of the body should be serious and not grotesque; and its -smallest hints should be taken as terrible warnings. Art has a place in -it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span> because the body must be draped like an altar; and science is -paraded in it because the service must be in Latin or Greek or something -hieratic tongue. I quite understand these things surrounding a god or an -altar; but I do not happen to worship at that altar or to believe in -that god. I do not think the body ought to be taken seriously; I think -it is far safer and saner when it is taken comically and even coarsely. -And I think that when the body is given a holiday, as it is in a great -feast, I think it should be set free not merely for wisdom but for -folly, not merely to dance but to turn head over heels. In short, when -it is really allowed to exaggerate its own pleasures, it ought also to -exaggerate its own absurdity. The body has its own rank, and its own -rights, and its own place under government; but the body is not the King -but rather the Court Jester. And the human and historical importance of -the old jests and buffooneries of Christmas, however vulgar or stale or -trivial they appear, is that in them the popular instinct always -resisted this pagan solemnity about sensual things. A man was meant to -feel rather a goose when he was eating goose; and to realize that he is -such stuff as stuffing is made of. That is why anyone who has in these -things the touch of the comic will also have the taste for the -conservative; he will be unwilling to alter what that popular instinct -has made in its own absurd image. He will be doubtful about a Christmas -pudding moulded in the shape of the Pyramid or the Parthenon, or -anything that is not as round and ridiculous as the world. And when Mr. -Pickwick, as round and ridiculous as any Christmas pudding or any world -worth living in, stood straddling and smiling under the mistletoe, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span> -disinfected that vegetable of its ancient and almost vegetarian sadness -and heathenism, of the blood of Baldur and the human sacrifice of the -Druids.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="SHAKESPEARE_AND_THE_LEGAL_LADY" id="SHAKESPEARE_AND_THE_LEGAL_LADY"></a>Shakespeare and the Legal Lady <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> WONDER how long liberated woman will endure the invidious ban which -excludes her from being a hangman. Or rather, to speak with more -exactitude, a hangwoman. The very fact that there seems something -vaguely unfamiliar and awkward about the word, is but a proof of the -ages of sex oppression that have accustomed us to this sex privilege. -The ambition would not perhaps have been understood by the prudish and -sentimental heroines of Fanny Burney and Jane Austen. But it is now -agreed that the farther we go beyond these faded proprieties the better; -and I really do not see how we could go farther. There are always -torturers of course; who will probably return under some scientific -name. Obscurantists may use the old argument, that woman has never risen -to the first rank in this or other arts; that Jack Ketch was not Jemima -Ketch, and that the headsman was called Samson and not Delilah. And they -will be overwhelmed with the old retort: that until we have hundreds of -healthy women happily engaged in this healthful occupation, it will be -impossible to judge whether they can rise above the average or no. -Tearful sentimentalists may feel something unpleasing, something faintly -repugnant, about the new feminine trade. But, as the indignant -police<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span>woman said the other day, when a magistrate excluded some of her -sex and service from revolting revelations, “crime is a disease,” and -must be studied scientifically, however hideous it may be. Death also is -a disease; and frequently a fatal one. Experiments must be made in it; -and it must be inflicted in any form, however hideous, in a cool and -scientific manner.</p> - -<p>It is not true, of course, that crime is a disease. It is criminology -that is a disease. But the suggestion about the painful duties of a -policewoman leads naturally to my deduction about the painful duties of -a hangwoman. And I make it in the faint hope of waking up some of the -feminists, that they may at least be moved to wonder what they are -doing, and to attempt to find out. What they are not doing is obvious -enough. They are not asking themselves two perfectly plain questions; -first, whether they want anybody to be a hangman; and second, whether -they want everybody to be a hangman. They simply assume, with panting -impetuosity, that we want everybody to be everything, criminologists, -constables, barristers, executioners, torturers. It never seems to occur -to them that some of us doubt the beauty and blessedness of these -things, and are rather glad to limit them like other necessary evils. -And this applies especially to the doubtful though defensible case of -the advocate.</p> - -<p>There is one phrase perpetually repeated and now practically -stereotyped, which to my mind concentrates and sums up all the very -worst qualities in the very worst journalism; all its paralysis of -thought, all its monotony of chatter, all its sham culture and shoddy -picturesqueness, all its perpetual<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span> readiness to cover any vulgarity of -the present with any sentimentalism about the past. There is one phrase -that does measure to how low an ebb the mind of my unfortunate -profession can sink. It is the habit of perpetually calling any of the -new lady barristers “Portia.”</p> - -<p>First of all, of course, it is quite clear that the journalist does not -know who Portia was. If he has ever heard of the story of the “Merchant -of Venice,” he has managed to miss the only point of the story. Suppose -a man had been so instructed in the story of “As You Like It” that he -remained under the impression that Rosalind really was a boy, and was -the brother of Celia. We should say that the plot of the comedy had -reached his mind in a rather confused form. Suppose a man had seen a -whole performance of the play of “Twelfth Night” without discovering the -fact that the page called Cesario was really a girl called Viola. We -should say that he had succeeded in seeing the play without exactly -seeing the point. But there is exactly the same blind stupidity in -calling a barrister Portia; or even in calling Portia a barrister. It -misses in exactly the same sense the whole meaning of the scene. Portia -is no more a barrister than Rosalind is a boy. She is no more the -learned jurist whom Shylock congratulates than Viola is the adventurous -page whom Olivia loves. The whole point of her position is that she is a -heroic and magnanimous fraud. She has not taken up the legal profession, -or any profession; she has not sought that public duty, or any public -duty. Her action, from first to last, is wholly and entirely private. -Her motives are not professional but private. Her ideal is not public -but private. She acts as much on personal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span> grounds in the Trial Scene as -she does in the Casket Scene. She acts in order to save a friend, and -especially a friend of the husband whom she loves. Anything less like -the attitude of an advocate, for good or evil, could not be conceived. -She seeks individually to save an individual; and in order to do so is -ready to <i>break</i> all the existing laws of the profession and the public -tribunal; to assume lawlessly powers she has not got, to intrude where -she would never be legally admitted, to pretend to be somebody else, to -dress up as a man; to do what is actually a crime against the law. This -is not what is now called the attitude of a public woman; it is -certainly not the attitude of a lady lawyer, any more than of any other -kind of lawyer. But it is emphatically the attitude of a private woman; -that much more ancient and much more powerful thing.</p> - -<p>Suppose that Portia had really become an advocate, merely by advocating -the cause of Antonio against Shylock. The first thing that follows is -that, as like as not, she would be briefed in the next case to advocate -the cause of Shylock against Antonio. She would, in the ordinary way of -business, have to help Shylock to punish with ruin the private -extravagances of Gratiano. She would have to assist Shylock to distrain -on poor Launcelot Gobbo and sell up all his miserable sticks. She might -well be employed by him to ruin the happiness of Lorenzo and Jessica, by -urging some obsolete parental power or some technical flaw in the -marriage service. Shylock evidently had a great admiration for her -forensic talents; and indeed that sort of lucid and detached admission -of the talents of a successful opponent is a very Jewish -characteristic.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span> There seems no reason why he should not have employed -her regularly, whenever he wanted some one to recover ruthless interest, -to ruin needy households, to drive towards theft or suicide the souls of -desperate men. But there seems every reason to doubt whether the Portia -whom Shakespeare describes for us is likely to have taken on the job.</p> - -<p>Anyhow, that is the job; and I am not here arguing that it is not a -necessary job; or that it is always an indefensible job. Many honourable -men have made an arguable case for the advocate who has to support -Shylock, and men much worse than Shylock. But that is the job; and to -cover up its ugly realities with a loose literary quotation that really -refers to the exact opposite, is one of those crawling and cowardly -evasions and verbal fictions which make all this sort of servile -journalism so useless for every worthy or working purpose. If we wish to -consider whether a lady should be a barrister, we should consider sanely -and clearly what a barrister is and what a lady is; and then come to our -conclusion according to what we consider worthy or worthless in the -traditions of the two things. But the spirit of advertisement, which -tries to associate soap with sunlight or grapenuts with grapes, calls to -its rescue an old romance of Venice and tries to cover up a practical -problem in the robes of a romantic heroine of the stage. This is the -sort of confusion that really leads to corruption. In one sense it would -matter very little that the legal profession was formally open to women, -for it is only a very exceptional sort of woman who would see herself as -a vision of beauty in the character of Mr. Sergeant Buzfuz. And most<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span> -girls are more likely to be stage-struck, and want to be the real Portia -on the stage, rather than law-struck and want to be the very reverse of -Portia in a law court. For that matter, it would make relatively little -difference if formal permission were given to a woman to be a hangman or -a torturer. Very few women would have a taste for it; and very few men -would have a taste for the women who had a taste for it. But -advertisement, by its use of the vulgar picturesque, can hide the -realities of this professional problem, as it can hide the realities of -tinned meats and patent medicines. It can conceal the fact that the -hangman exists to hang, and that the torturer exists to torture. -Similarly it can conceal the fact that the Buzfuz barrister exists to -bully. It can hide from the innocent female aspirants outside even the -perils and potential abuses that would be admitted by the honest male -advocate inside. And that is part of a very much larger problem, which -extends beyond this particular profession to a great many other -professions; and not least to the lowest and most lucrative of all -modern professions; that of professional politics.</p> - -<p>I wonder how many people are still duped by the story of the extension -of the franchise. I wonder how many Radicals have been a little -mystified, in remarking how many Tories and reactionaries have helped in -the extension of the franchise. The truth is that calling in crowds of -new voters will very often be to the interest, not only of Tories, but -of really tyrannical Tories. It will often be in the interest of the -guilty to appeal to the innocent; if they are innocent in the matter of -other people’s conduct as well as of their own. The tyrant calls<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span> in -those he has not wronged, to defend him against those he has wronged. He -is not afraid of the new and ignorant masses who know too little; he is -afraid of the older and nearer nucleus of those who know too much. And -there is nothing that would please the professional politician more than -to flood the constituencies with innocent negroes or remote Chinamen, -who might possibly admire him more, because they knew him less. I should -not wonder if the Party System had been saved three or four times at the -point of extinction, by the introduction of new voters who had never had -time to discover why it deserved to be extinguished. The last of these -rescues by an inrush of dupes was the enfranchisement of women.</p> - -<p>What is true of the political is equally true of the professional -ambition. Much of the mere imitation of masculine tricks and trades is -indeed trivial enough; it is a mere masquerade. The greatest of Roman -satirists noted that in his day the more fast of the fashionable ladies -liked to fight as gladiators in the amphitheatre. In that one statement -he pinned and killed, like moths on a cork, a host of women prophets and -women pioneers and large-minded liberators of their sex in modern -England and America. But besides these more showy she-gladiators there -are also multitudes of worthy and sincere women who take the new (or -rather old) professions seriously. The only disadvantage is that in many -of those professions they can only continue to be serious by ceasing to -be sincere. But the simplicity with which they first set out is an -enormous support to old and complex and corrupt institutions. No modest -person setting out to learn an elaborate science can be expected to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span> -start with the assumption that it is not worth learning. The young lady -will naturally begin to learn Law as gravely as she begins to learn -Greek. It is not in that mood that she will conceive independent doubts -about the ultimate relations of Law and Justice. Just as the -Suffragettes are already complaining that the realism of industrial -revolution interferes with their new hobby of voting, so the lady -lawyers are quite likely to complain that the realism of legal reformers -interferes with their new hobby of legalism. We are suffering in every -department from the same cross-purposes that can be seen in the case of -any vulgar patent medicine. In Law and Medicine, we have the thing -advertised in the public press instead of analysed by the public -authority. What we want is not the journalistic Portia but the -theatrical Portia; who is also the real Portia. We do not want the woman -who will enter the law court with the solemn sense of a lasting -vocation. We want a Portia; a woman who will enter it as lightly, and -leave it as gladly as she did.</p> - -<p>The same thing is true of a fact nobler than any fiction; the story, so -often quoted, of the woman who won back mediæval France. Joan of Arc was -a soldier; but she was not a normal soldier. If she had been, she would -have been vowed, not to the war for France, but to any war with -Flanders, Spain or the Italian cities to which her feudal lord might -lead her. If she were a modern conscript, she would be bound to obey -orders not always coming from St. Michael. But the point is here that -merely making all women soldiers, under either system, could do nothing -at all except whitewash and ratify feudalism or conscription. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span> both -feudalism and conscription are much more magnanimous things than our -modern system of police and prisons.</p> - -<p>In fact there are few sillier implications than that in the phrase that -what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. A cook who really -rules a kitchen on that principle would wait patiently for milk from the -bull, because he got it from the cow. It is neither a perceptible fact -nor a first principle that the sexes must not specialize; and if one sex -must specialize in adopting dubious occupations, we ought to be very -glad that the other sex specializes in abstaining from them. That is how -the balance of criticism in the commonwealth is maintained; as by a sort -of government and opposition. In this, as in other things, the new -regime is that everybody shall join the government. The government of -the moment will be monstrously strengthened; for everybody will be a -tyrant and everybody will be a slave. The detached criticism of official -fashions will disappear; and none was ever so detached as the deadly -criticism that came from women. When all women wear uniforms, all women -will wear gags; for a gag is part of every uniform in the world.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="ON_BEING_AN_OLD_BEAN" id="ON_BEING_AN_OLD_BEAN"></a>On Being an Old Bean <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span> WAS looking at some press cuttings that had pursued me down to a -remote cottage beside a river of Norfolk; and as it happened, those that -caught my eye were mostly not from the vulgar monopolist press, but from -all sorts of quieter and even more studious publications. But what -struck me as curious about the collection as a whole was the selection, -among half a hundred things that were hardly worth saying, of the things -that were considered worth repeating. There seemed to be a most -disproportionate importance attached to a trivial phrase I had used -about the alleged indecorum of a gentleman calling his father an old -bean. I had been asked to join in a discussion in the “Morning Post,” -touching the alleged disrespect of youth towards age, and I had done so; -chiefly because I have a respect for the “Morning Post” for its courage -about political corruption and cosmopolitan conspiracies, in spite of -deep disagreement on other very vital things. And I said what I should -have thought was so true as to be trite. I said that it makes life -narrower and not broader to lose the special note of piety or respect -for the past still living; and that to call an old man an old bean is -merely to lose all intelligent sense of the significance of an old man. -Since then, to my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span> great entertainment, I seem to have figured in -various papers as a sort of ferocious heavy father, come out on my own -account to curse the numerous young sprigs who have called me an old -bean. But this is an error. I should be the last to deny that I am -heavy, but I am not fatherly; nor am I ferocious, at any rate I am not -ferocious about this. Individually I regard the question with a -detachment verging on indifference. I cannot imagine anybody except an -aged and very lean vegetarian positively dancing with joy at being -called an old bean; and I am not a very lean vegetarian. But still less -can I imagine anyone regarding the accusation with horror or resentment; -the sins and crimes blackening the career of a bean must be -comparatively few; its character must be simple and free from -complexity, and its manner of life innocent. A philosophic rationalist -wrote to me the other day to say that my grubbing in the grossest -superstitions of the past reminded him of “an old sow pig rooting in the -refuse of the kitchen heap,” and expressed a hope that I should be -dragged from this occupation and made to resume “the cap and bells of -yore.” That is something like a vigorous and vivid comparison; though my -Feminist friends may be distressed at my being compared to a sow as well -as a pig; and though I am not quite clear myself about how the animal -would get on when he had resumed the cap and bells of yore. But it would -certainly be a pity, when it was possible to find this image in the -kitchen heap, to be content with one from the kitchen garden. It would -indeed be a lost opportunity to work yourself up to the furious pitch of -calling your enemy a beast, and then only call him a bean.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span></p> - -<p>From the extracts I saw, it would seem that certain ladies were -especially lively in their protest against my antiquated prejudices; and -rioted in quite a bean-feast of old beans. The form the argument -generally takes is to ask why parents and children should not be -friends, or as they often put it (I deeply regret to say) pals. Neither -term seems to me to convey a sufficiently distinctive meaning; and I -take it that the best term for what they really mean is that they should -be comrades. Now comradeship is a very real and splendid thing; but this -is simply the cant of comradeship. A boy does not take his mother with -him when he goes bird-nesting; and his affection for his mother is of -another kind unconnected with the idea of her climbing a tree. Three men -do not generally take an aged and beloved aunt with them as part of -their luggage on a walking tour; and if they did, it would not be so -much disrespectful to age as unjust to youth. For this confusion between -two valuable but varied things, like most of such modern confusions, is -quite as liable to obscurantist as to mutinous abuse; and is as easy to -turn into tyranny as into licence. If a boy’s aunts are his comrades, -why should he need any comrades except his aunts? If his father and -mother are perfect and consummate pals, why should he fool away his time -with more ignorant, immature and insufficient pals? As in a good many -other modern things, the end of the old parental dignity would be the -beginning of a new parental tyranny. I would rather the boy loved his -father as his father than feared him as a Frankenstein giant of a -superior and supercilious friend, armed in that unequal friendship with -all the weapons of psychology and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span> psycho-analysis. If he loves him as a -father he loves him as an older man; and if we are to abolish all -differences of tone towards those older than ourselves, we must -presumably do the same to those younger than ourselves. All healthy -people, for instance, feel an instinctive and almost impersonal -affection for a baby. Is a baby a comrade? Is he to climb the tree and -go on the walking tour; or are we on his account to abolish all trees -and tours? Are the grandfather aged ninety, the son aged thirty, and the -grandson aged three, all to set out together on their travels, with the -same knapsacks and knickerbockers? I have read somewhere that in one of -the Ten or Twelve or Two Hundred Types of Filial Piety reverenced by the -Chinese, one was an elderly sage and statesman, who dressed up as a -child of four and danced before his yet more elderly parents, to delight -them with the romantic illusion that they were still quite young. This -in itself could not but attract remark; but this in itself I am prepared -to defend. It was an exceptional and even extraordinary festivity, like -the reversals of the Saturnalia; and I wish we could have seen some -vigorous old gentleman like Lord Halsbury or the Archbishop of -Canterbury performing a similar act of piety. But in the Utopia of -comradeship now commended to us, old and young are expected normally to -think alike, feel alike and talk alike; and may therefore normally and -permanently be supposed to dress alike. Whether the parents dress as -children or the children as parents, it is clear that they must all -dress as pals, whatever be the ceremonial dress of that rank. I imagine -it as something in tweeds, with rather a loud check.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span></p> - -<p>As I considered these things I looked across the kitchen garden of the -cottage, and the association of peas and beans brought the fancy back to -the foolish figure of speech with which the discussion began. There is a -proverb, which is like most of our popular sayings, a country proverb, -about things that are as like as two peas. There is something -significant in the fact that this is as near as the rural imagination -could get to a mere mechanical monotony. For as a matter of fact it is -highly improbable that any two peas are exactly alike. A survey of the -whole world of peas, with all their forms and uses, would probably -reveal every sort of significance between the sweet peas of sentiment -and the dried peas of asceticism. Modern machinery has gone far beyond -such rude rural attempts at dullness. Things are not as like as two peas -in the sense that they are as like as two pins. But the flippant phrase -under discussion does really imply that they are as like as two beans. -It is really part of the low and levelling philosophy that assimilates -all things too much to each other. It does not mean that we see any -fanciful significance in the use of the term, as in a country proverb. -It is not that we see an old gentleman with fine curling white hair and -say to him poetically, “Permit me, venerable cauliflower, to inquire -after your health.” It is not that we address an old farmer with a deep -and rich complexion, saying, “I trust, most admirable of beetroots, that -you are as well as you look.” When we say, “How are you, old bean,” the -error is not so much that we say something rude, but that we say nothing -because we mean nothing.</p> - -<p>As I happened to meet at that moment a girl belonging to the family of -the cottage, I showed her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span> the cutting, and asked her opinion upon the -great progressive problem of calling your father an old bean. At which -she laughed derisively, and merely said, “As if anybody would!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="THE_FEAR_OF_THE_FILM" id="THE_FEAR_OF_THE_FILM"></a>The Fear of the Film <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">L</span>ONG lists are being given of particular cases in which children have -suffered in spirits or health from alleged horrors of the kinema. One -child is said to have had a fit after seeing a film; another to have -been sleepless with some fixed idea taken from a film; another to have -killed his father with a carving-knife through having seen a knife used -in a film. This may possibly have occurred; though if it did, anybody of -common sense would prefer to have details about that particular child, -rather than about that particular picture. But what is supposed to be -the practical moral of it, in any case? Is it that the young should -never see a story with a knife in it? Are they to be brought up in -complete ignorance of “The Merchant of Venice” because Shylock -flourishes a knife for a highly disagreeable purpose? Are they never to -hear of Macbeth, lest it should slowly dawn upon their trembling -intelligence that it is a dagger that they see before them? It would be -more practical to propose that a child should never see a real -carving-knife, and still more practical that he should never see a real -father. All that may come; the era of preventive and prophetic science -has only begun. We must not be impatient. But when we come to the cases<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span> -of morbid panic after some particular exhibition, there is yet more -reason to clear the mind of cant. It is perfectly true that a child will -have the horrors after seeing some particular detail. It is quite -equally true that nobody can possibly predict what that detail will be. -It certainly need not be anything so obvious as a murder or even a -knife. I should have thought anybody who knew anything about children, -or for that matter anybody who had been a child, would know that these -nightmares are quite incalculable. The hint of horror may come by any -chance in any connexion. If the kinema exhibited nothing but views of -country vicarages or vegetarian restaurants, the ugly fancy is as likely -to be stimulated by these things as by anything else. It is like seeing -a face in the carpet; it makes no difference that it is the carpet at -the vicarage.</p> - -<p>I will give two examples from my own most personal circle; I could give -hundreds from hearsay. I know a child who screamed steadily for hours if -he had been taken past the Albert Memorial. This was not a precocious -precision or excellence in his taste in architecture. Nor was it a -premature protest against all that gimcrack German culture which nearly -entangled us in the downfall of the barbaric tyranny. It was the fear of -something which he himself described with lurid simplicity as The Cow -with the India-rubber Tongue. It sounds rather a good title for a creepy -short story. At the base of the Albert Memorial (I may explain for those -who have never enjoyed that monument) are four groups of statuary -representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. America especially is -very overwhelming; borne<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span> onward on a snorting bison who plunges forward -in a fury of western progress, and is surrounded with Red Indians, -Mexicans, and all sorts of pioneers, O pioneers, armed to the teeth. The -child passed this transatlantic tornado with complete coolness and -indifference. Europe however is seated on a bull so mild as to look like -a cow; the tip of its tongue is showing and happened to be discoloured -by weather; suggesting, I suppose, a living thing coming out of the dead -marble. Now nobody could possibly foretell that a weather-stain would -occur in that particular place, and fill that particular child with that -particular fancy. Nobody is likely to propose meeting it by forbidding -graven images, like the Moslems and the Jews. Nobody has said (as yet) -that it is bad morals to make a picture of a cow. Nobody has even -pleaded that it is bad manners for a cow to put its tongue out. These -things are utterly beyond calculation; they are also beyond counting, -for they occur all over the place, not only to morbid children but to -any children. I knew this particular child very well, being a rather -older child myself at the time. He certainly was not congenitally timid -or feeble-minded; for he risked going to prison to expose the Marconi -Scandal and died fighting in the Great War.</p> - -<p>Here is another example out of scores. A little girl, now a very normal -and cheerful young lady, had an insomnia of insane terror entirely -arising from the lyric of “Little Bo-Peep.” After an inquisition like -that of the confessor or the psycho-analyst, it was found that the word -“bleating” had some obscure connexion in her mind with the word -“bleeding.” There was thus perhaps an<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span> added horror in the phrase -“heard”; in hearing rather than seeing the flowing of blood. Nobody -could possibly provide against that sort of mistake. Nobody could -prevent the little girl from hearing about sheep, any more than the -little boy from hearing about cows. We might abolish all nursery rhymes; -and as they are happy and popular and used with universal success, it is -very likely that we shall. But the whole point of the mistake about that -phrase is that it might have been a mistake about any phrase. We cannot -foresee all the fancies that might arise, not only out of what we say, -but of what we do not say. We cannot avoid promising a child a caramel -lest he should think we say cannibal, or conceal the very word “hill” -lest it should sound like “hell.”</p> - -<p>All the catalogues and calculations offered us by the party of caution -in this controversy are therefore quite worthless. It is perfectly true -that examples can be given of a child being frightened of this, that or -the other. But we can never be certain of his being frightened of the -same thing twice. It is not on the negative side, by making lists of -vetoes, that the danger can be avoided; it can never indeed be entirely -avoided. We can only fortify the child on the positive side by giving -him health and humour and a trust in God; not omitting (what will much -mystify the moderns) an intelligent appreciation of the idea of -authority, which is only the other side of confidence, and which alone -can suddenly and summarily cast out such devils. But we may be sure that -most modern people will not look at it in this way. They will think it -more scientific to attempt<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span> to calculate the incalculable. So soon as -they have realized that it is not so simple as it looks, they will try -to map it out, however complicated it may be. When they discover that -the terrible detail need not be a knife, but might just as well be a -fork, they will only say there is a fork complex as well as a knife -complex. And that increasing complexity of complexes is the net in which -liberty will be taken.</p> - -<p>Instead of seeing in the odd cases of the cow’s tongue or the bleating -sheep the peril of their past generalizations, they will see them only -as starting points for new generalizations. They will get yet another -theory out of it. And they will begin acting on the theory long before -they have done thinking about it. They will start out with some new and -crude conception that sculpture has made children scream or that nursery -rhymes have made children sleepless; and the thing will be a clause in a -programme of reform before it has begun to be a conclusion in a serious -study of psychology. That is the practical problem about modern liberty -which the critics will not see; of which eugenics is one example and all -this amateur child-psychology is another. So long as an old morality was -in black and white like a chess-board, even a man who wanted more of it -made white was certain that no more of it would be made black. Now he is -never certain what vices may not be released, but neither is he certain -what virtues may be forbidden. Even if he did not think it wrong to run -away with a married woman, he knew that his neighbours only thought it -wrong because the woman was married. They did not think it wrong to run -away with a red-haired woman, or a left-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span>handed woman, or a woman -subject to headaches. But when we let loose a thousand eugenical -speculations, all adopted before they are verified and acted on even -before they are adopted, he is just as likely as not to find himself -separated from the woman for those or any other reasons. Similarly there -was something to be said for restrictions, even rather puritanical and -provincial restrictions, upon what children should read or see, so long -as they fenced in certain fixed departments like sex or sensational -tortures. But when we begin to speculate on whether other sensations may -not stimulate as dangerously as sex, those other sensations may be as -closely controlled as sex. When, let us say, we hear that the eye and -brain are weakened by the rapid turning of wheels as well as by the most -revolting torturing of men, we have come into a world in which -cart-wheels and steam-engines may become as obscene as racks and -thumbscrews. In short, so long as we <i>combine</i> ceaseless and often -reckless scientific speculation with rapid and often random social -reform, the result must inevitably be not anarchy but ever-increasing -tyranny. There must be a ceaseless and almost mechanical multiplication -of things forbidden. The resolution to cure all the ills that flesh is -heir to, combined with the guesswork about all possible ills that flesh -and nerve and brain-cell may be heir to—these two things conducted -simultaneously must inevitably spread a sort of panic of prohibition. -Scientific imagination and social reform between them will quite -logically and almost legitimately have made us slaves. This seems to me -a very clear, a very fair and a very simple point of public criticism; -and I am much mystified about<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span> why so many publicists cannot even see -what it is, but take refuge in charges of anarchism, which firstly are -not true, and secondly have nothing to do with it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="WINGS_AND_THE_HOUSEMAID" id="WINGS_AND_THE_HOUSEMAID"></a>Wings and the Housemaid <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>MONG the numberless fictitious things that I have fortunately never -written, there was a little story about a logical maiden lady engaging -apartments in which she was not allowed to keep a cat or dog, who, -nevertheless, stipulated for permission to keep a bird, and who -eventually walked round to her new lodgings accompanied by an ostrich. -There was a moral to the fable, connected with that exaggeration of -small concessions, in which, for instance, the Germans indulged about -espionage, or the Jews about interest. But this faded fancy returned to -my mind in another fashion when a very humane lady suggested the other -day that every domestic servant, including the butler, I presume, should -be described as “a home-bird.” Unless the lady is mis-reported, which is -likely enough, she wanted servants called home-birds because they keep -the home-fires burning, which, as many will be ready to point out, is -hardly the particular form in which the domesticity of the nest commonly -expresses itself. But I am not at all disposed to deride the lady’s real -meaning, still less her real motives, which referred to a real movement -of social conscience and sentiment, however wrongly expressed. She was -troubled about the implied insolence of calling servants servants and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span> -apparently even of talking about “maids” or “the cook.” Therefore she -evolved the ornithological substitute; about which, of course, it would -be easy to evolve a whole aviary of allegorical parodies. It would be -easy to ask whether a private secretary is to be called a secretary -bird, or, perhaps, the telephone girl a humming-bird. But it will be -enough to say generally of the proposal, in its present verbal form, -that one has only to submit it to any living and human housemaid in -order to find that particular home-bird developing rapidly into a -mockingbird. Nevertheless, as I have said, we should not merely dismiss -any social doubts thus suggested, or any impulse towards a warmer -respect for work generally grossly undervalued. Too many people, of the -more snobbish social strata, have treated their servants as home-birds; -as owls, for instance, who can be up all night, or as vultures, who can -eat the refuse fit for the dustbin. I would not throw cold water on any -indignation on this score; but I note it as typical of the time that the -indignation should fail on the side of intelligence. For it is the mark -of our time, above almost everything else, that it goes by associations -and not by arguments; that is why it has a hundred arts and no -philosophy.</p> - -<p>Thus, for instance, the lady in question lumps together a number of -terms that have no logical connexion at all. There is at least a meaning -in objecting to one person calling another a servant. As I shall suggest -in a moment, there is not much sense in changing the name when you do -not change the thing; and there is a great deal of nonsense in denying -the status of the servant at the moment when you are making it more -servile. Still, anybody can see how the term might be held to hurt<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span> -human dignity; but the other terms mentioned cannot hurt human dignity -at all. I cannot conceive why it should insult a cook to call her a -cook, any more than it insults a cashier to call him a cashier; to say -nothing of the fact that dealing with cookery is far nobler than dealing -with cash. And the third title certainly tells entirely the other way. -The word “maid” is not only a noble old English word, with no note of -social distinction; for a mediæval king might have praised his daughter -as “a good maid.” It is a word loaded with magnificent memories, in -history, literature, and religion. Joan the Maid suggests a little more -than Joan the maid-servant. As it says in Mr. Belloc’s stirring little -poem:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">By God who made the Master Maids,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I know not whence she came;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the sword she bore to save the soul<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Went up like an altar flame.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">It is needless here to trace the idea back to its splendid sources; or -to explain how the word maid has been the highest earthly title, not -only on earth but in heaven. “Mother and maiden was never none but she.” -Here at least modern humanitarian criticism has gone curiously astray, -even for its own purposes; any servant may well be satisfied with the -dignity of being called the maid, just as any workman may be rightly -honoured by the accident which calls him the man. For in a modern -industrial dispute, as reported in the papers, I always feel there is a -final verdict and sentence in the very statement of the case of Masters -<i>versus</i> Men.</p> - -<p>The true objection lies much farther back. It begins with the simple -fact that the home-bird is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span> not in her own home. When that particular -sparrow stokes the fire, as above described, it is not her own fireside; -when we happen to meet a canary carrying a coalscuttle, the canary is -not generally a coal-owner. In short, wherever we find pelicans, -penguins, or flamingoes keeping the home-fires burning, they may all be -earnestly wishing that they could fly away to their homes. Now a -moderate amount of this temporary and vicarious domesticity is a natural -enough accident in social relations, so long as it does not obscure and -obstruct more individual and direct domesticity. In short, there is no -particular harm in the maid being a housemaid in someone else’s house, -if she normally has a chance of being a housewife in her own. As I shall -suggest in a moment, this is what was really implied in certain older -institutions to which the wisest are now looking back. But in any case -it is odd that the home-bird should thus plume itself at this moment; -for the trend of the time is certainly not towards any domesticity, -direct or indirect. The birds have long been netted or caged, by cold, -fear and hunger, into larger and more terrorist systems. The happy -home-birds are keeping the factory fires burning. The only legal and -industrial tendency seems to be to shut up more and more of the women, -those strange wild fowl, in those colossal cages of iron. Nor is the -change one of mere æsthetic atmosphere; we know now that it is one of -economic fact and may soon be one of legal definition. In a word, it is -queer that we should suddenly grow sensitive about calling people -servants when we are in the act of making them slaves. Indeed, in many -concrete cases we may already be said to be making them convicts. The -true moral<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span> meaning of much that is called the improvement of prisons is -not that we are turning prisoners into a better sort of people, but -rather that we are treating a better sort of people as prisoners. The -broad arrow is broadened in so liberal a fashion as to cover those who -would once have been counted respectable; and there is a sense in which -the broad arrow, becoming broader, is bound to become blunter. The -prison becomes utilitarian as well as disciplinary, as the factory -becomes disciplinary as well as utilitarian. The two become simply and -substantially the same; for they have to treat the same sort of -impecunious people in the same sort of impersonal way. People may differ -about the definition of that common condition or status. Some may -eagerly salute persons involved as home-birds. Others may prefer to -describe them as jail-birds.</p> - -<p>For the rest, if anybody wants to strike the central stream of moderate -sanity in the servant problem, I recommend him first to read with a -close attention or preferably to sing in a loud voice, the song called -“Sally in Our Alley.” In that great and gloriously English lyric, the -poet does not disguise the accidental discomforts of the great system of -apprenticeship which was part of the glory of the Guilds. He even -exhibits his Christian prejudices by comparing his master to a Turk. He -actually entertains, as every reflective social reformer must, the -hypothetical alternative of the Servile State, and considers the -relative advantages of a slave that rows a galley. But the point is that -what makes him refuse and endure is hope, the sure and certain hope of a -glorious emancipation; not the hopeless hope of a chance in a scramble, -with a general recommenda<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span>tion to get on or get out, but a charter of -knowledge and honour, that “when his seven long years are past,” a door -shall open to him, which our age has shut on the great multitude of -mankind.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_SLAVERY_OF_FREE_VERSE" id="THE_SLAVERY_OF_FREE_VERSE"></a>The Slavery of Free Verse <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE truth most needed to-day is that the end is never the right end. The -beginning is the right end at which to begin. The modern man has to read -everything backwards; as when he reads journalism first and history -afterwards—if at all. He is like a blind man exploring an elephant, and -condemned to begin at the very tip of its tail. But he is still more -unlucky; for when he has a first principle, it is generally the very -last principle that he ought to have. He starts, as it were, with one -infallible dogma about the elephant; that its tail is its trunk. He -works the wrong way round on principle; and tries to fit all the -practical facts to his principle. Because the elephant has no eyes in -its tail-end, he calls it a blind elephant; and expatiates on its -ignorance, superstition, and need of compulsory education. Because it -has no tusks at its tail-end, he says that tusks are a fantastic -flourish attributed to a fabulous creature, an ivory chimera that must -have come through the ivory gate. Because it does not as a rule pick up -things with its tail, he dismisses the magical story that it can pick up -things with its trunk. He probably says it is plainly a piece of -anthropomorphism to suppose that an elephant can pack its trunk. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span> -result is that he becomes as pallid and worried as a pessimist; the -world to him is not only an elephant, but a white elephant. He does not -know what to do with it, and cannot be persuaded of the perfectly simple -explanation; which is that he has not made the smallest real attempt to -make head or tail of the animal. He will not begin at the right end; -because he happens to have come first on the wrong end.</p> - -<p>But in nothing do I feel this modern trick, of trusting to a fag-end -rather than a first principle, more than in the modern treatment of -poetry. With this or that particular metrical form, or unmetrical form, -or unmetrical formlessness, I might be content or not, as it achieved -some particular effect or not. But the whole general tendency, regarded -as an emancipation, seems to me more or less of an enslavement. It seems -founded on one subconscious idea; that talk is freer than verse; and -that verse, therefore, should claim the freedom of talk. But talk, -especially in our time, is not free at all. It is tripped up by -trivialities, tamed by conventions, loaded with dead words, thwarted by -a thousand meaningless things. It does not liberate the soul so much, -when a man can say, “You always look so nice,” as when he can say, “But -your eternal summer shall not fade.” The first is an awkward and -constrained sentence ending with the weakest word ever used, or rather -misused, by man. The second is like the gesture of a giant or the -sweeping flight of an archangel; it has the very rush of liberty. I do -not despise the man who says the first, because he <i>means</i> the second; -and what he means is more important than what he says. I have always -done my best<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span> to emphasize the inner dignity of these daily things, in -spite of their dull externals; but I do not think it an improvement that -the inner spirit itself should grow more external and more dull. It is -thought right to discourage numbers of prosaic people trying to be -poetical; but I think it much more of a bore to watch numbers of -poetical people trying to be prosaic. In short, it is another case of -tail-foremost philosophy; instead of watering the laurel hedge of the -cockney villa, we bribe the cockney to brick in the plant of Apollo.</p> - -<p>I have always had the fancy that if a man were really free, he would -talk in rhythm and even in rhyme. His most hurried post-card would be a -sonnet; and his most hasty wires like harp-strings. He would breathe a -song into the telephone; a song which would be a lyric or an epic, -according to the time involved in awaiting the call; or in his -inevitable altercation with the telephone girl, the duel would be also a -duet. He would express his preference among the dishes at dinner in -short impromptu poems, combining the more mystical gratitude of grace -with a certain epigrammatic terseness, more convenient for domestic good -feeling. If Mr. Yeats can say, in exquisite verse, the exact number of -bean-rows he would like on his plantation, why not the number of beans -he would like on his plate? If he can issue a rhymed request to procure -the honey-bee, why not to pass the honey? Misunderstandings might arise -at first with the richer and more fantastic poets; and Francis Thompson -might have asked several times for “the gold skins of undelirious wine” -before anybody understood that he wanted the grapes. Nevertheless, I -will maintain that his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span> magnificent phrase would be a far more real -expression of God’s most glorious gift of the vine, than if he had -simply said in a peremptory manner “grapes”; especially if the culture -of compulsory education had carefully taught him to pronounce it as if -it were “gripes.” And if a man could ask for a potato in the form of a -poem, the poem would not be merely a more romantic but a much more -realistic rendering of a potato. For a potato is a poem; it is even an -ascending scale of poems; beginning at the root, in subterranean -grotesques in the Gothic manner, with humps like the deformities of a -goblin and eyes like a beast of Revelation, and rising up through the -green shades of the earth to a crown that has the shape of stars and the -hue of heaven.</p> - -<p>But the truth behind all this is that expressed in that very ancient -mystical notion, the music of the spheres. It is the idea that, at the -back of everything, existence begins with a harmony and not a chaos; -and, therefore, when we really spread our wings and find a wider -freedom, we find it in something more continuous and recurrent, and not -in something more fragmentary and crude. Freedom is fullness, especially -fullness of life; and a full vessel is more rounded and complete than an -empty one, and not less so. To vary Browning’s phrase, we find in prose -the broken arcs, in poetry the perfect round. Prose is not the freedom -of poetry; rather prose is the fragments of poetry. Prose, at least in -the prosaic sense, is poetry interrupted, held up and cut off from its -course; the chariot of Phœbus stopped by a block in the Strand. But when -it begins to move again at all, I think we shall find certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span> -old-fashioned things move with it, such as repetition and even measure, -rhythm and even rhyme. We shall discover with horror that the wheels of -the chariot go round and round; and even that the horses of the chariot -have the usual number of feet.</p> - -<p>Anyhow, the right way to encourage the cortège is not to put the cart -before the horse. It is not to make poetry more poetical by ignoring -what distinguishes it from prose. There may be many new ways of making -the chariot move again; but I confess that most of the modern theorists -seem to me to be lecturing on a new theory of its mechanics, while it is -standing still. If a wizard before my very eyes works a miracle with a -rope, a boy and a mango plant, I am only theoretically interested in the -question of a sceptic, who asks why it should not be done with a garden -hose, a maiden aunt and a monkey-tree. Why not, indeed, if he can do it? -If a saint performs a miracle to-morrow, by turning a stone into a fish, -I shall be the less concerned at being asked, in the abstract, why a man -should not also turn a camp-stool into a cockatoo; but let him do it, -and not merely explain how it can be done. It is certain that words such -as “birds” and “bare,” which are as plain as “fish” or “stone,” can be -combined in such a miracle as “Bare ruined quires where late the sweet -birds sang.” So far as I can follow my own feelings, the metre and fall -of the feet, even the rhyme and place in the sonnet, have a great deal -to do with producing such an effect. I do not say there is no other way -of producing such an effect. I only ask, not without longing, where else -in this wide and weary time is it pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span>duced? I know I cannot produce it; -and I do not in fact feel it when I hear <i>vers libres</i>. I know not where -is that Promethean heat; and, even to express my ignorance, I am glad to -find better words than my own.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="PROHIBITION_AND_THE_PRESS" id="PROHIBITION_AND_THE_PRESS"></a>Prohibition and the Press <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>N organ of the Nonconformist Conscience, while commenting very kindly -on my recent remarks about America, naturally went on to criticize, -though equally kind, my remarks about Prohibition. Now, so far as I am -concerned, the problem is not so much Prohibition with a large P as -prohibition with a small one. I mean, I am interested not so much in -liquor as in liberty. I want to know on what principle the -prohibitionists are proceeding in this case, and how they think it -applies to any other case. And I cannot for the life of me make out. -They might be expected to argue that there is something peculiar in -principle about the position of liquor, and make that the basis for -attacking liquor. But in point of fact they do not attack liquor; they -do quite simply attack liberty. I mean that they are satisfied with -saying about this liberty what can obviously be said about any -liberty—that it can be, and is, abominably abused. If that had been a -final objection to any form of freedom, there never would have been any -form of freedom. And there most notably would never have been the -particular forms of freedom which are most sacred to the Nonconformist -Conscience. The Nonconformists have demanded liberty to secede, though -they knew it led to an anarchy of sects and spiteful controversies. -They<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span> have demanded the licence to print, though they knew it involved -the licence to print twenty falsehoods to one truth. I suppose there is -nothing in history of which the modern Puritan would be more innocently -proud than the thing called the Liberty of the Press, which arose out of -the pamphleteering of the seventeenth century, and especially the great -pamphlet of Milton. Yet everything that Milton says, about allowing -controversy in spite of its dangers, could be applied word for word to -the case of allowing drinking in spite of its dangers. Is not the virtue -that shuts itself up in a temperance hotel a fugitive and cloistered -virtue? Is not the morality that dare not have wine on the table, or in -the town, emphatically one that dares not sally out to meet its enemy? -All Milton’s arguments for freedom are arguments for beer; and, of -course, Milton himself would certainly have applied them to beer. The -highly successful brewer to whom he was Latin secretary—a gentleman of -the name of Williams, otherwise Cromwell—would hardly have been pleased -with him if he had not applied them to beer.</p> - -<p>For instance, the critic whom I am here venturing to criticize says that -people differ about Prohibition according to their knowledge or -ignorance of the dreadful state of the slums, the ravages of alcoholism -in our industrial cities, and all the rest of it. Whether or no this be -a good argument against the public-house, there is no doubt that I could -easily turn it against the public press. I could insist that I am a -common Cockney Fleet Street journalist who has done nightly work for -daily papers and fed off nocturnal potato-stalls; whereas he is probably -a cultivated Congregationalist minister writing in a library of -theological works. I might say that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span> know better than he does, or than -most people do, the cynicism and the vulgarity and the vices of -journalism. But, as a matter of fact, the vices of journalism have by -this time become as evident to the people who read journals as to the -people who write them. All responsible people are complaining of the -power and condition of the press, and no people more than these earnest -and ethical Nonconformists. It is they who complain most bitterly that a -Jingo press can manufacture war. It is they who declare most indignantly -that a sensational press is undermining morality. They often, to my -mind, unduly confuse matters of morality with matters of taste. They -often, to my mind, denounce as mere Jingoism what is simply the deeply -democratic and popular character of patriotism. But nobody will deny -that to a large extent they are legitimately and logically alarmed about -the abuses and absurdities of the newspapers. But they have not yet used -this as an argument for a veto upon all newspapers. Why in the world -should they use the parallel evils as an argument for a veto on all -public-houses?</p> - -<p>For my part I do feel very strongly about the frivolity and -irresponsibility of the press. It seems impossible to exaggerate the -evil that can be done by a corrupt and unscrupulous press. If drink -directly ruins the family, it only indirectly ruins the nation. But bad -journalism does directly ruin the nation, considered as a nation; it -acts on the corporate national will and sways the common national -decision. It may force a decision in a few hours that will be an -incurable calamity for hundreds of years. It may drive a whole -civilization to defeat, to slavery, to bankruptcy, to universal famine. -Even at this<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span> moment there are prominent papers wildly urging us to -war—not with our foes but with our friends. There are some journalists -so wicked as to want war, almost for its own sake; there are more -journalists so weak-minded as to work for war without even wanting it. -Let me give one example out of fifty of the sort of phrases that flash -by us when we turn over the papers. A headline in enormous letters -announces that the French are “scuttling” out of the disputed areas in -the Near East. The phrase about scuttling, and the policy of scuttle, -has been familiar and firmly established in English journalism as -meaning a cowardly and servile surrender, admitting abject defeat. And -the suggestion is that the French, being notoriously a nation of -cowards, having that tendency to panic produced by a habit of dancing -and a diet of frogs, can vividly be pictured as scampering with screams -of terror from the sight of a Turk with a drawn sabre. This is the way -our newspapers improve our relations with our Allies. Only the newspaper -men seem to have got a little mixed in their eagerness to expatiate on -the wide field of French vileness and ignominy. Only a little while ago -the same papers were telling us that the French were furious -filibusters, forcing war in every corner of the world. We were told that -it was France which was militaristic and aggressive, and all her rivals -were made to scuttle. We were told that it was the Frenchman and not the -Turk who was the terrible person holding the drawn sabre. In plain -words, these journalists are resolved to show that whatever the French -do is wrong. If they advance, they are arrogant; if they retreat, they -are cowardly. If they keep an army beyond the Rhine, they are pursuing a -policy of militarism; if they withdraw<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span> an army from somewhere else, -they are pursuing a policy of scuttle. Where M. Poincaré is ready to -fight, he is a fire-eater who cares for nothing but fighting; where he -is not ready to fight, he is a poltroon who is always notoriously too -timid to fight. The careful selection of language of this sort, for a -given period, might quite possibly land us in a European war—a war in -which we should be certainly on the wrong side, and almost certainly on -the losing side.</p> - -<p>Suppose I come forward with this great reform of the Prohibition of the -Press. Suppose I suggest that the police should forcibly shut up all the -newspaper-offices, as the other reformers wish to shut up all the -public-houses. What answer will the Puritan moralists make to me, or on -what principle do they distinguish between the one reform and the other? -There is no kind of doubt about the harm that journalism does; and their -own line of argument precludes them from appealing merely to the good -that it does. As a matter of fact, far better poems have been written in -taverns than are ever likely to appear in daily papers. And, from -Pantagruel to Pickwick, this form of festivity has a roll of literary -glory to its credit which is never likely to be found in the back files -of any newspaper that I know of. But the Puritans do not discuss the -healthier tradition of wine; they consider their argument sufficiently -supported by the unhealthy effects of gin and bad beer in the slums. And -if we adopt that principle of judging by the worst, then the worst -effects of the press are far wider than the worst effects of the -public-house. What exactly is the principle by which they distinguish -between lawful and unlawful liberty, or mixed and unmixed licence?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span> I -have a rough-and-ready test, which may be right or wrong, but which I -can at least state; but where has their test been stated? I say that the -simplest form of freedom is that which distinguishes the free man from -the slave—the ownership of his own body and his own bodily activities. -That there is a risk in allowing him this ownership is obvious, and has -always been obvious. The risk is not confined to the question of drink, -but covers the whole question of health. But surely the other forms of -freedom, such as freedom to print, are very much more indirect and -disputable. A newspaper may be made the instrument of the vilest sort of -swindling or starving of a whole people. Why are we to grant the remote -right, and deny the intimate right? Moreover, a newspaper is a new -thing; if our fathers had the right to it, they never knew it. Fermented -liquor is as old as civilization, or older. But what I have asked for -again and again is simply the principle of the Prohibitionists: and I am -asking still.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_MERCY_OF_MR_ARNOLD_BENNETT" id="THE_MERCY_OF_MR_ARNOLD_BENNETT"></a>The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. ARNOLD BENNETT recently wrote one of his humorous and humane -<i>causeries</i>, pleading very properly for social imagination and the -better understanding of our fellows. He carried it however to the point -of affirming, as some fatalists do, that we should never judge anybody -in the sense of condemning anybody, in connexion with his moral conduct. -Some time ago the same distinguished writer showed that his mercy and -magnanimity were indeed on a heroic scale by reviewing a book of mine, -and even saying many kind things about it. But to these he added a doubt -about whether true intelligence could be consistent with the acceptance -of any dogma. In truth there are only two kinds of people; those who -accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know -it. My only advantage over the gifted novelist lies in my belonging to -the former class. I suspect that his unconsciousness of his dogmas -extends to an unconsciousness of what he means by a dogma. If it means -merely the popular idea of being dogmatic, it might be suggested that -saying that all dogmatism is unintelligent is itself somewhat dogmatic. -And something of what is true of his veto on dogma is also true on his -veto of condemnation; which is really a veto on vetoes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span></p> - -<p>Mr. Arnold Bennett does not darken the question with the dreary -metaphysics of determinism; he is far too bright and adroit a journalist -for that. But he does make a simple appeal to charity, and even -Christianity, basing on it the idea that we should not judge people at -all, or even blame them at all. Like everybody else who argues thus, he -imagines himself to be pleading for mercy and humanity. Like everybody -else who argues thus, he is doing the direct contrary. This particular -notion of not judging people really means hanging them without trial. It -would really substitute for judgment not mercy but something much more -like murder. For the logical process through which the discussion passes -is always the same; I have seen it in a hundred debates about fate and -free-will. First somebody says, like Mr. Bennett: “Let us be kinder to -our brethren, and not blame them for faults we cannot judge.” Then some -casual common-sense person says: “Do you really mean you would let -anybody pick your pocket or cut your throat without protest?” Then the -first man always answers as Mr. Bennett does: “Oh no; I would punish him -to protect myself and protect society; but I would not <i>blame</i> him, -because I would not venture to judge him.” The philosopher seems to have -forgotten that he set out with the idea of being kinder to the -cut-throat and the pick-pocket. His sense of humour should suggest to -him that the pick-pocket might possibly prefer to be blamed, rather than -go to penal servitude for the protection of society.</p> - -<p>Now of course Mr. Bennett is quite right in the most mystical and -therefore the most deeply moral sense. We do not know what God knows -about the merits of a man. Nor do we know<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span> what God knows about the -needs of a community. A man who poisons his little niece for money may -have mysterious motives and excuses we cannot understand. And so he may -serve mysterious social purposes we cannot follow. We are not infallible -when we think we are punishing criminals; but neither are we infallible -when we think we are protecting society. Our inevitable ignorance seems -to me to cut both ways. But even in our ignorance one thing is vividly -clear. Mr. Bennett’s solution is not the more merciful, but the less -merciful of the two. To say that we may punish people, but not blame -them, is to say that we have a right to be cruel to them, but not a -right to be kind to them.</p> - -<p>For after all, blame is itself a compliment. It is a compliment because -it is an appeal; and an appeal to a man as a creative artist making his -soul. To say to a man, “rascal” or “villain” in ordinary society may -seem abrupt; but it is also elliptical. It is an abbreviation of a -sublime spiritual apostrophe for which there may be no time in our busy -social life. When you meet a millionaire, the cornerer of many markets, -out at dinner in Mayfair, and greet him (as is your custom) with the -exclamation “Scoundrel!” you are merely shortening for convenience some -such expression as: “How can you, having the divine spirit of man that -might be higher than the angels, drag it down so far as to be a -scoundrel?” When you are introduced at a garden party to a Cabinet -Minister who takes tips on Government contracts, and when you say to him -in the ordinary way “Scamp!” you are merely using the last word of a -long moral disquisition; which is in effect, “How pathetic is the -spiritual spectacle of this Cabinet Minister, who being from the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span> -made glorious by the image of God, condescends so far to lesser -ambitions as to allow them to turn him into a scamp.” It is a mere -taking of the tail of a sentence to stand for the rest; like saying ’bus -for omnibus. It is even more like the case of that seventeenth century -Puritan whose name was something like -“If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Higgins”; -but who was, for popular convenience, referred to as “Damned Higgins.” -But it is obvious, anyhow, that when we call a man a coward, we are in -so doing asking him how he can be a coward when he could be a hero. When -we rebuke a man for being a sinner, we imply that he has the powers of a -saint.</p> - -<p>But punishing him for the protection of society involves no regard for -him at all. It involves no limit of proportion in the punishment at all. -There are some limits to what ordinary men are likely to say that an -ordinary man deserves. But there are no limits to what the danger of the -community may be supposed to demand. We would not, even if we could, -boil the millionaire in oil or skin the poor little politician alive; -for we do not think a man deserves to be skinned alive for taking -commissions on contracts. But it is by no means so certain that the -skinning him alive might not protect the community. Corruption can -destroy communities; and torture can deter men. At any rate the thing is -not so self-evidently useless as it is self-evidently unjust and -vindictive. We refrain from such fantastic punishments, largely because -we <i>do</i> have some notion of making the punishment fit the crime, and not -merely fit the community. If the State were the sole consideration, it -may be inferred a priori that people might be much more cruel. And in -fact, where the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span> State was the sole consideration, it was found in -experience that they were much more cruel. They were much more cruel -precisely because they were freed from all responsibilities about the -innocence or guilt of the individual. I believe that in heathen Rome, -the model of a merely civic and secular loyalty, it was a common -practice to torture the slaves of any household subjected to legal -enquiry. If you had remonstrated, because no crime had been proved -against the slaves, the State would had answered in the modern manner: -“We are not punishing the crime; we are protecting the community.”</p> - -<p>Now that example is relevant just now in more ways than one. Of course I -do not mean that this was the motive of all historical cruelties, or -that some did not spring from quite an opposite motive. But it was the -motive of much tyranny in the heathen world; and in this, as in other -things, the modern world has largely become a heathen world. And modern -tyranny can find its prototype in the torturing of heathen slaves in two -fundamental respects. First, that the modern world has returned to the -test of the heathen world, that of considering service to the state and -not justice to the individual. And second, that the modern world, like -the heathen world, is here inflicting it chiefly on subordinate and -submerged classes of society; on slaves or those who are almost slaves.</p> - -<p>For the heathen state is a Servile State. And no one has more of this -view of the state than the State Socialists. The official Labour -Politician would be the first to say in theory that punishment must not -be a moral recompense, but merely a social regulation. And he would be -the first to say in practice that it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span> is the poor and ignorant who must -be regulated. Doubtless it is one thing to be regulated and another to -be tortured. But when once the principle is admitted broadly, the -progress towards torture may proceed pretty briskly. In the -psychological sphere, it is already as bad as it has ever been. It may -come as a surprise to the humanitarian to learn it; but it is none the -less true, that a mother may undergo moral torture in the last degree, -when her children are taken from her by brute force. And that incident -has become so common in the policing of the poor nowadays as hardly to -call for notice. And that example is particularly relevant to the -present argument. Nobody could pretend that the affectionate mother of a -rather backward child <i>deserves</i> to be punished by having all the -happiness taken out of her life. But anybody can pretend that the act is -needed for the happiness of the community. Nobody will say it was so -wicked of her to love her baby that she deserves to lose it. But it is -always easy to say that some remote social purpose will be served by -taking it away. Thus the elimination of punishment means the extension -of tyranny. Men would not do things so oppressive so long as they were -vindictive. It is only when punishment is purged of vengeance that it -can be as villainous as that.</p> - -<p>For that matter, it would be easy to find examples much nearer than this -one to the torturing of the Roman slaves. There is a very close parallel -in the Third Degree, as applied by the police to the criminal class on -suspicion, especially in America; for the criminal class is a submerged -class like the slaves; and it is but an experiment on the nerves in one -way instead of another, like a preference for the rack<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span> rather than the -thumbscrew. But the point is that it is applied to the criminal type -without any proof that it is in this case criminal; and the thing is -justified not by the criminality of the individual but by the needs of -the State. The police would answer exactly as the pagans answered: “We -are not punishing the crime; we are protecting the community.”</p> - -<p>This tyranny is spreading. And there is no hope for liberty or democracy -until we all demand again, with a tongue of thunder, the right to be -blamed. We shall never feel like free men until we assert again our -sacred claim to be punished. The denunciation of a man for what he chose -to do is itself the confession that he chose to do it; and it is beneath -his dignity to admit that he could have done nothing else. The only -alternative theory is that we can do nothing but what we do, and our -rulers can do anything whatever to restrain us. Compared with that, it -would be better that roaring mobs should rise all over England, -uproariously demanding to be hanged.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="A_DEFENCE_OF_DRAMATIC_UNITIES" id="A_DEFENCE_OF_DRAMATIC_UNITIES"></a>A Defence of Dramatic Unities <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>NJUSTICE is done to the old classical rules of artistic criticism, -because we do not treat them as artistic criticism. We first turn them -into police regulations, and then complain of them for being so. But I -suspect, with the submission proper to ignorance, that the art canons of -Aristotle and others were much more generally artistic, in the sense of -atmospheric. We allow a romantic critic to be as dogmatic as Ruskin, and -still feel that he is not really being so despotic as Boileau. If a -modern, like Maeterlinck, says that all drama is in an open door at the -end of an empty passage, we do not take it literally, like a notice -requiring an extra exit in case of fire. But if an ancient, like Horace, -says that all drama demands a closed door, which shall hide Medea while -she murders her children, then we do receive it as something rigid and -formal, like the order to close the shutters on Zeppelin nights. Now how -far the classical critics took their rules absolutely I do not know. But -I am substantially sure that there is a true instinct at the back of -them, whatever exceptions be allowed at the edges. The unities of time -and place, that is the idea of keeping figures and events within the -frame of a few hours or a few yards, is naturally derided as a specially -artificial affront to the intellect. But I am sure it is especially<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span> -true suggestion to the imagination. It is exactly in the artistic -atmosphere, where rules and reasons are so hard to define, that this -unification would be most easy to defend. This limitation to a few -scenes and actors really has something in it that pleases the -imagination and not the reason. There are instances in which it may be -broken boldly; there are types of art to which it does not apply at all. -But wherever it can be satisfied, something not superficial but rather -subconscious is satisfied. Something re-visits us that is the strange -soul of single places; the shadow of haunting ghosts or of household -gods. Like all such things, it is indescribable when it is successful: -it is easier to describe the disregard of it as unsuccessful. Thus -Stevenson’s masterpiece, “The Master of Ballantrae,” always seems to me -to fall into two parts, the finer which revolves round Durisdeer and the -inferior which rambles through India and America. The slender and -sinister figure in black, standing on the shore or vanishing from the -shrubbery, does really seem to have come from the ends of the earth. In -the chapters of travel he only serves to show that, for a boy’s -adventure tale, a good villain makes a bad hero. And even about Hamlet I -am so heretical as to be almost classical; I doubt whether the exile in -England does not rather dwarf than dignify the prisoner of Denmark. I am -not sure that he got anything out of the pirates he could not have got -out of the players. And I am very sure indeed that this figure in black, -like the other, produces a true though intangible effect of tragedy -when, and because, we see him against the great grey background of the -house of his fathers. In a word, it is what Mr. J. B. Yeats, the poet’s -stimulating parent, calls in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span> excellent book of essays “the drama of -the home.” The drama is domestic, and is dramatic because it is -domestic.</p> - -<p>We might say that superior literature is centripetal, while inferior -literature is centrifugal. But oddly enough, the same truth may be found -by studying inferior as well as superior literature. What is true of a -Shakespearian play is equally true of a shilling shocker. The shocker is -at its worst when it wanders and escapes through new scenes and new -characters. The shocker is at its best when it shocks by something -familiar; a figure or fact that is already known though not understood. -A good detective story also can keep the classic unities; or otherwise -play the game. I for one devour detective stories; I am delighted when -the dagger of the curate is found to be the final clue to the death of -the vicar. But there is a point of honour for the author; he may conceal -the curate’s crime, but he must not conceal the curate. I feel I am -cheated when the last chapter hints for the first time that the vicar -had a curate. I am annoyed when a curate, who is a total stranger to me, -is produced from a cupboard or a box in a style at once abrupt and -belated. I am annoyed most of all when the new curate is only the tool -of a terrible secret society ramifying from Moscow or Thibet. These -cosmopolitan complications are the dull and not the dramatic element in -the ingenious tales of Mr. Oppenheim or Mr. Le Queux. They entirely -spoil the fine domesticity of a good murder. It is unsportsmanlike to -call spies from the end of the earth, as it is to call spirits from the -vasty deep, in a story that does not imply them from the start. And this -because the supply is infinite; and the infinite, as Coventry Patmore -well said, is generally<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span> alien to art. Everybody knows that the universe -contains enough spies or enough spectres to kill the most healthy and -vigorous vicar. The drama of detection is in discovering how he can be -killed decently and economically, within the classic unities of time and -place.</p> - -<p>In short, the good mystery story should narrow its circles like an eagle -about to swoop. The spiral should curve inwards and not outwards. And -this inward movement is in true poetic mysteries as well as mere police -mystifications. It will be assumed that I am joking if I say there is a -serious social meaning in this novel-reader’s notion of keeping a crime -in the family. It must seem mere nonsense to find a moral in this fancy, -about washing gory linen at home. It will naturally be asked whether I -have idealized the home merely as a good place for assassinations. I -have not; any more than I have idealized the Church as a thing in which -the curates can kill the vicars. Nevertheless the thing, like many -things, is symbolic though it is not serious. And the objection to it -implies a subtle misunderstanding, in many minds, of the whole case for -the home as I have sometimes had occasion to urge it. When we defend the -family we do not mean it is always a peaceful family; when we maintain -the thesis of marriage we do not mean that it is always a happy -marriage. We mean that it is the theatre of the spiritual drama, the -place where things happen, especially the things that matter. It is not -so much the place where a man kills his wife as the place where he can -take the equally sensational step of not killing his wife. There is -truth in the cynicism that calls marriage a trial; but even the cynic -will admit that a trial may end in an acquittal. And the reason that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span> -the family has this central and crucial character is the same reason -that makes it in politics the only prop of liberty. The family is the -test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man -makes for himself and by himself. Other institutions must largely be -made for him by strangers, whether the institutions be despotic or -democratic. There is no other way of organizing mankind which can give -this power and dignity, not only to mankind but to men. If anybody likes -to put it so, we cannot really make all men democrats unless we make all -men despots. That is to say, the co-operation of the commonwealth will -be a mere automatic unanimity like that of insects, unless the citizen -has some province of purely voluntary action; unless he is so far not -only a citizen but a king. In the world of ethics this is called -liberty; in the world of economics it is called property, and in the -world of æsthetics, necessarily so much more dim and indefinable, it is -darkly adumbrated in the old dramatic unities of place or time. It must -indeed be a mistake in any case to treat such artistic rules as rigidly -as if they were moral rules. It was an error if they ever were so -treated; it may well be a question whether they were ever meant to be so -treated. But when critics have suggested that these classical canons -were a mere superficial varnish, it may safely be said that it is the -critics who are superficial. Modern artists would have been wiser if -they had developed sympathetically some of the Aristotelian æsthetics, -as mediæval philosophers developed sympathetically the Aristotelian -logic and ethics. For a more subtle study of the unities of time and -place, for example, as outlined for the Greek drama, might have led us -towards what is perhaps the last secret of all legend<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span> and literature. -It might have suggested why poets, pagan or not, returned perpetually to -the idea of happiness as a place for humanity as a person. It might -suggest why the world is always seeking for absolutes that are not -abstractions; why fairyland was always a land, and even the Superman was -almost a man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_BOREDOM_OF_BUTTERFLIES" id="THE_BOREDOM_OF_BUTTERFLIES"></a>The Boredom of Butterflies <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is one thing which critics perhaps tend to forget when they -complain that Mr. H. G. Wells no longer concerns himself with telling a -story. It is that nobody else could interest and excite us so much -without telling a story. It is possible to read one of his recent novels -almost without knowing the story at all. It is possible to dip into it -as into a book of essays, and pick up opinions here and there. But all -the essays are brilliant essays, and all the opinions are striking -opinions. It does not much matter who holds the opinions; it is possible -that the author does not hold them at all, and pretty certain that he -will not hold them long. But nobody else could make such splendid stuff -out of the very refuse of his rejected opinions. Seen from this side, -even what is called his failure must be recognized as a remarkable -success. The personal story may fade away, but it is something of an -achievement to be still interesting after becoming impersonal; like the -achievement of the Cheshire cat who could grin when he was no longer -there. Moreover, these impersonal and even irresponsible opinions of Mr. -Wells, though never conclusive, are always suggestive; each is a good -starting-point for thought, if only for the thought that refutes it. In -short, the critics of Mr. Wells rather exaggerate<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span> the danger of his -story running to speculation, as if it were merely running to seed. -Anyhow, they ought to remember that there are two meanings in running to -seed; and one of them is connected with seed-time.</p> - -<p>I have, however, a particular reason for mentioning the matter here. I -confess there is more than one of Mr. Wells’s recent novels that I have -both read and not read. I am never quite sure that I have read all -Shakespeare or all Boswell’s Johnson; because I have so long had the -habit of opening them anywhere. So I have opened the works of Mr. Wells -anywhere, and had great fun out of the essays that would have seemed -only long parentheses in the story. But, on getting to rather closer -grips with the last of his stories, “The Secret Places of the Heart,” I -think I have caught a glimpse of a difficulty in this sort of narrative -which is something deeper than mere digression. In a story like -“Pickwick” or “Tristram Shandy” digression is never disappointment. But -in this case, differing as I do from the merely hostile critics, I -cannot dispel the atmosphere of disappointment. The story seems -inconclusive in a sense beyond anything merely inconsistent; and I fancy -I can guess why.</p> - -<p>A pedantic logician may perhaps imagine that a thing can only be -inconclusive at the conclusion. But I will boldly claim the liberty in -language of saying that this sort of thing is inconclusive from the -start. It begins inconclusive, and in that sense begins dull. The hero -begins by telling the doctor about a mutable flux of flirtation, about -his own experiments as a philanderer, always flitting like a butterfly -from flower to flower. Now, it is highly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span> probable that the diary of a -butterfly would be very dull, even if it were only the diary of a day. -His round need be no more really amusing than a postman’s, since he has -no serious spiritual interest in any of his places of call. Now, by -starting his hero as a philosopher and also philanderer, and taking -seriously his philosophy of philandering, the author as good as tells -us, to start with, that his hero will not have any serious adventures at -all. At the beginning of the story, he practically tells us that there -will be no story. The story of a fickle man is not a story at all; -because there is no strain or resistance in it. Somebody talked about -tales with a twist; and it is certain that all tales are tales with a -tug.</p> - -<p>All the most subtle truths of literature are to be found in legend. -There is no better test of the truth of serious fiction than the simple -truths to be found in a fairy tale or an old ballad. Now, in the whole -of folk-lore there is no such thing as free love. There is such a thing -as false love. There is also another thing, which the old ballads always -talk of as true love. But the story always turns on the keeping of a -bond or the breaking of it; and this quite apart from orthodox morality -in the matter of the marriage bond. The love may be in the strict sense -sinful, but it is never anarchical. There was quite as little freedom -for Lancelot as for Arthur; quite as little mere philandering in the -philosophy of Tristram as in the philosophy of Galahad. It may have been -unlawful love, but it certainly was not lawless love. In the old ballads -there is the triumph of true love, as in “The Bailiff’s Daughter of -Islington”; or the tragedy of true love, as in “Helen of Kirkconnel -Lea”; or the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span> tragedy of false love, as in the ballad of “Oh waly, waly -up the bank.” But there is neither triumph nor tragedy in the idea of -<i>avowedly</i> transient love; and no literature will ever be made out of -it, except the very lightest literature of satire. And even the satire -must be a satire on fickleness, and therefore involve an indirect ideal -of fidelity. But you cannot make any enduring literature out of love -<i>conscious</i> that it will not endure. Even if this mutability were -working as morality, it would still be unworkable as art.</p> - -<p>The decadents used to say that things like the marriage vow might be -very convenient for commonplace public purposes, but had no place in the -world of beauty and imagination. The truth is exactly the other way. The -truth is that if marriage had not existed it would have been necessary -for artists to invent it. The truth is that if constancy had never been -needed as a social requirement, it would still have been created out of -cloud and air as a poetical requirement. If ever monogamy is abandoned -in practice, it will linger in legend and in literature. When society is -haunted by the butterfly flitting from flower to flower, poetry will -still be describing the desire of the moth for the star; and it will be -a fixed star. Literature must always revolve round loyalties; for a -rudimentary psychological reason, which is simply the nature of -narrative. You cannot tell a <i>story</i> without the idea of pursuing a -purpose and sticking to a point. You cannot tell a story without the -idea of the Quest, the idea of the Vow; even if it be only the idea of -the Wager.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the most modern equivalent to the man who makes a vow is the man -who makes a bet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span> But he must not hedge on a bet; still less must he -welsh, or do a bolt when he has made a bet. Even if the story ends with -his doing so, the dramatic emotion depends on our realizing the -dishonesty of his doing so. That is, the drama depends on the keeping or -breaking of a bond, if it be only a bet. A man wandering about a -race-course, making bets that nobody took seriously, would be merely a -bore. And so the hero wandering through a novel, making vows of love -that nobody took seriously, is merely a bore. The point here is not so -much that morally it cannot be a creditable story, but that artistically -it cannot be a story at all. Art is born when the temporary touches the -eternal; the shock of beauty is when the irresistible force hits the -immovable post.</p> - -<p>Thus in the last novel of Mr. Wells, what is inconclusive in the second -part is largely due to what is convincing in the first part. By the time -that the hero meets his new heroine on Salisbury Plain, he has seriously -convinced us that there is nothing heroic about him, and that nothing -heroic will happen to him; at any rate in that department. He -disenchants the enchantment beforehand, and warns the reader against -even a momentary illusion. When once a man looks forward as well as -backward to disillusionment, no romance can be made of him.</p> - -<p>Profligacy may be made romantic, precisely because it implies some -betrayal or breaking of a law. But polygamy is not in the least -romantic. Polygamy is dull to the point of respectability. When a man -looks forward to a number of wives as he does to a number of cigarettes, -you can no more make a book out of them than out of the bills from his -tobacconist. Anything having the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span> character of a Turkish harem has also -something of the character of a Turkey carpet. It is not a portrait, or -even a picture, but a pattern. We may at the moment be looking at one -highly coloured and even flamboyant figure in the carpet; but we know -that on every side, in front as well as behind, the image is repeated -without purpose and without finality.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_TERROR_OF_A_TOY" id="THE_TERROR_OF_A_TOY"></a>The Terror of a Toy <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>T would be too high and hopeful a compliment to say that the world is -becoming absolutely babyish. For its chief weak-mindedness is an -inability to appreciate the intelligence of babies. On every side we -hear whispers and warnings that would have appeared half-witted to the -Wise Men of Gotham. Only this Christmas I was told in a toy-shop that -not so many bows and arrows were being made for little boys; because -they were considered dangerous. It might in some circumstances be -dangerous to have a little bow. It is always dangerous to have a little -boy. But no other society, claiming to be sane, would have dreamed of -supposing that you could abolish all bows unless you could abolish all -boys. With the merits of the latter reform I will not deal here. There -is a great deal to be said for such a course; and perhaps we shall soon -have an opportunity of considering it. For the modern mind seems quite -incapable of distinguishing between the means and the end, between the -organ and the disease, between the use and the abuse; and would -doubtless break the boy along with the bow, as it empties out the baby -with the bath.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span></p> - -<p>But let us, by way of a little study in this mournful state of things, -consider this case of the dangerous toy. Now the first and most -self-evident truth is that, of all the things a child sees and touches, -the most dangerous toy is about the least dangerous thing. There is -hardly a single domestic utensil that is not much more dangerous than a -little bow and arrows. He can burn himself in the fire, he can boil -himself in the bath, he can cut his throat with the carving-knife, he -can scald himself with the kettle, he can choke himself with anything -small enough, he can break his neck off anything high enough. He moves -all day long amid a murderous machinery, as capable of killing and -maiming as the wheels of the most frightful factory. He plays all day in -a house fitted up with engines of torture like the Spanish Inquisition. -And while he thus dances in the shadow of death, he is to be saved from -all the perils of possessing a piece of string, tied to a bent bough or -twig. When he is a little boy it generally takes him some time even to -learn how to hold the bow. When he does hold it, he is delighted if the -arrow flutters for a few yards like a feather or an autumn leaf. But -even if he grows a little older and more skilful, and has yet not -learned to despise arrows in favour of aeroplanes, the amount of damage -he could conceivably do with his little arrows would be about -one-hundredth part of the damage that he could always in any case have -done by simply picking up a stone in the garden.</p> - -<p>Now you do not keep a little boy from throwing stones by preventing him -from ever seeing stones. You do not do it by locking up all the stones -in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span> Geological Museum, and only issuing tickets of admission to -adults. You do not do it by trying to pick up all the pebbles on the -beach, for fear he should practise throwing them into the sea. You do -not even adopt so obvious and even pressing a social reform as -forbidding roads to be made of anything but asphalt, or directing that -all gardens shall be made on clay and none on gravel. You neglect all -these great opportunities opening before you; you neglect all these -inspiring vistas of social science and enlightenment. When you want to -prevent a child from throwing stones, you fall back on the stalest and -most sentimental and even most superstitious methods. You do it by -trying to preserve some reasonable authority and influence over the -child. You trust to your private relation with the boy, and not to your -public relation with the stone. And what is true of the natural missile -is just as true, of course, of the artificial missile; especially as it -is a very much more ineffectual and therefore innocuous missile. A man -could be really killed, like St. Stephen, with the stones in the road. I -doubt if he could be really killed, like St. Sebastian, with the arrows -in the toy-shop. But anyhow the very plain principle is the same. If you -can teach a child not to throw a stone, you can teach him when to shoot -an arrow; if you cannot teach him anything, he will always have -something to throw. If he can be persuaded not to smash the Archdeacon’s -hat with a heavy flint, it will probably be possible to dissuade him -from transfixing that head-dress with a toy arrow. If his training -deters him from heaving half a brick at the postman, it will probably -also warn him against constantly loosening shafts of death against<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span> the -policeman. But the notion that the child depends upon particular -implements, labelled dangerous, in order to be a danger to himself and -other people, is a notion so nonsensical that it is hard to see how any -human mind can entertain it for a moment. The truth is that all sorts of -faddism, both official and theoretical, have broken down the natural -authority of the domestic institution, especially among the poor; and -the faddists are now casting about desperately for a substitute for the -thing they have themselves destroyed. The normal thing is for the -parents to prevent a boy from doing more than a reasonable amount of -damage with his bow and arrow; and for the rest, to leave him to a -reasonable enjoyment of them. Officialism cannot thus follow the life of -the individual boy, as can the individual guardian. You cannot appoint a -particular policeman for each boy, to pursue him when he climbs trees or -falls into ponds. So the modern spirit has descended to the -indescribable mental degradation of trying to abolish the abuse of -things by abolishing the things themselves; which is as if it were to -abolish ponds or abolish trees. Perhaps it will have a try at that -before long. Thus we have all heard of savages who try a tomahawk for -murder, or burn a wooden club for the damage it has done to society. To -such intellectual levels may the world return.</p> - -<p>There are indeed yet lower levels. There is a story from America about a -little boy who gave up his toy cannon to assist the disarmament of the -world. I do not know if it is true, but on the whole I prefer to think -so; for it is perhaps more tolerable to imagine one small monster<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span> who -could do such a thing than many more mature monsters who could invent or -admire it. There were some doubtless who neither invented nor admired. -It is one of the peculiarities of the Americans that they combine a -power of producing what they satirize as “sobstuff” with a parallel -power of satirizing it. And of the two American tall stories, it is -sometimes hard to say which is the story and which the satire. But it -seems clear that some people did really repeat this story in a -reverential spirit. And it marks, as I have said, another stage of -cerebral decay. You can (with luck) break a window with a toy arrow; but -you can hardly bombard a town with a toy gun. If people object to the -mere model of a cannon, they must equally object to the picture of a -cannon, and so to every picture in the world that depicts a sword or a -spear. There would be a splendid clearance of all the great -art-galleries of the world. But it would be nothing to the destruction -of all the great libraries of the world, if we logically extended the -principle to all the literary masterpieces that admit the glory of arms. -When this progress had gone on for a century or two, it might begin to -dawn on people that there was something wrong with their moral -principle. What is wrong with their moral principle is that it is -immoral. Arms, like every other adventure or art of man, have two sides -according as they are invoked for the infliction or the defiance of -wrong. They have also an element of real poetry and an element of -realistic and therefore repulsive prose. The child’s symbolic sword and -bow are simply the poetry without the prose; the good without the evil. -The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span> toy sword is the abstraction and emanation of the heroic, apart -from all its horrible accidents. It is the soul of the sword, that will -never be stained with blood.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="FALSE_THEORY_AND_THE_THEATRE" id="FALSE_THEORY_AND_THE_THEATRE"></a>False Theory and the Theatre <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> THEATRICAL manager recently insisted on introducing Chinese labour -into the theatrical profession. He insisted on having real Chinamen to -take the part of Chinese servants; and some actors seem to have resented -it—as I think, very reasonably. A distinguished actress, who is clever -enough to know better, defended it on the ground that nothing must -interfere with the perfection of a work of art. I dispute the moral -thesis in any case; and Nero would no doubt have urged it in defence of -having real deaths in the amphitheatre. I do not admit in any case that -the artist can be entirely indifferent to hunger and unemployment, any -more than to lions or boiling oil. But, as a matter of fact, there is no -need to raise the moral question, because the case is equally strong in -relation to the artistic question. I do not think that a Chinese -character being represented by a Chinese actor is the finishing touch to -the perfection of a work of art. I think it is the last and lowest phase -of the vulgarity that is called realism. It is in the same style and -taste as the triumphs on which, I believe, some actor-managers have -prided themselves: the triumphs of having real silver for goblets or -real jewels for crowns. That is not the spirit of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span> a perfect artist, but -rather of a purse-proud parvenu. The perfect artist would be he who -could put on a crown of gilt wire or tinsel and make us feel he was a -king.</p> - -<p>Moreover, if the principle is to be extended from properties to persons, -it is not easy to see where the principle can stop. If we are to insist -on real Asiatics to act “Chu Chin Chow,” why not insist on real -Venetians to act “The Merchant of Venice”? We did experiment recently, -and I believe very successfully, in having the Jew acted by a real Jew. -But I hardly think we should like to make it a rule that nobody must be -allowed to act Shylock unless he can prove his racial right to call upon -his father Abraham. Must the characters of Macbeth and Macduff only be -represented by men with names like Macpherson and Macnab? Must the -Prince of Denmark be native there and to the manner born? Must we import -a crowd of Greeks before we are allowed to act “Troilus and Cressida,” -or a mob of real Egyptians to form the background of “Antony and -Cleopatra”? Will it be necessary to kidnap an African gentleman out of -Africa, by the methods of the slave trade, and force him into acting -Othello? It was rather foolishly suggested at one time that our allies -in Japan might be offended at the fantastic satire of “The Mikado.” As a -matter of fact, the satire of “The Mikado” is not at all directed -against Japanese things, but exclusively against English things. But I -certainly think there might be some little ill-feeling in Japan if gangs -of Japanese coolies were shipped across two continents merely in order -to act in it. If once this singular rule be recognized, a dramatist<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span> -will certainly be rather shy of introducing Zulus or Red Indians into -his dramas, owing to the difficulty in securing appropriate dramatic -talent. He will hesitate before making his hero an Eskimo. He will -abandon his intention of seeking his heroine in the Sandwich Islands. If -he were to insist on introducing real cannibals, it seems possible that -they might insist on introducing real cannibalism. This would be quite -in the spirit of Nero and all the art critics of the Roman realism of -the amphitheatre. But surely it would be putting almost too perfect a -finishing touch to the perfection of a work of art. That kind of -finishing touch is a little too finishing.</p> - -<p>The irony grew more intense when the newspapers that had insisted on -Chinamen because they could not help being Chinamen began to praise them -with admiration and astonishment because they looked Chinese. This opens -up a speculation so complex and contradictory that I do not propose to -follow it, for I am interested here not in the particular incident but -in the general idea. It will be a sufficient statement of the -fundamental fact of all the arts if I say simply that I do not believe -in the resemblance. I do not believe that a Chinaman does look like a -Chinaman. That is, I do not believe that any Chinaman will necessarily -look like <i>the</i> Chinaman—the Chinaman in the imagination of the artist -and the interest of the crowd. We all know the fable of the man who -imitated a pig, and his rival who was hooted by the crowd because he -could only produce what was (in fact) the squeak of a real pig. The -crowd was perfectly right. The crowd was a crowd of very penetrating and -philosophical art critics. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span> had come there not to hear an ordinary -pig, which they could hear by poking in any ordinary pigsty. They had -come to hear how the voice of the pig affects the immortal mind and -spirit of man; what sort of satire he would make of it; what sort of fun -he can get out of it; what sort of exaggeration he feels to be an -exaggeration of its essence, and not of its accidents. In other words, -they had come to hear a squeak, but the sort of squeak which expresses -what a man thinks of a pig—not the vastly inferior squeak which only -expresses what a pig thinks of a man. I have myself a poetical -enthusiasm for pigs, and the paradise of my fancy is one where the pigs -have wings. But it is only men, especially wise men, who discuss whether -pigs can fly; we have no particular proof that pigs ever discuss it. -Therefore the actor who imitated the quadruped may well have put into -his squeak something of the pathetic cry of one longing for the wings of -the dove. The quadruped himself might express no such sentiment; he -might appear, and generally does appear, singularly unconscious of his -own lack of feathers. But the same principle is true of things more -dignified than the most dignified porker, though clad in the most superb -plumage. If a vision of a stately Arab has risen in the imagination of -an author who is an artist, he will be wise if he confides it to an -actor who is also an artist. He will be much wiser to confide it to an -actor than to an Arab. The actor, being a fellow-countryman and a -fellow-artist, may bring out what the author thinks the Arab stands for; -whereas the real Arab might be a particular individual who at that -particular moment refused to stand for anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span> of the sort, or for -anything at all. The principle is a general one; and I mean no -disrespect to China in the porcine parallel, or in the figurative -association of pigs and pigtails.</p> - -<p>But, as a matter of fact, the argument is especially apt in the case of -China. For I fear that China is chiefly interesting to most of us as the -other end of the world. It is valued as something far-off, and therefore -fantastical, like a kingdom in the clouds of sunrise. It is not the very -real virtues of the Chinese tradition—its stoicism, its sense of -honour, its ancient peasant cults—that most people want to put into a -play. It is the ordinary romantic feeling about something remote and -extravagant, like the Martians or the Man in the Moon. It is perfectly -reasonable to have that romantic feeling in moderation, like other -amusements. But it is not reasonable to expect the remote person to feel -remote from himself, or the man at the other end of the world not to -feel it as this end. We must not ask the outlandish Oriental to feel -outlandish, or a Chinaman to be astonished at being Chinese. If, -therefore, the literary artist has the legitimate literary purpose of -expressing the mysterious and alien atmosphere which China implies to -him, he will probably do it much better with the aid of an actor who is -not Chinese. Of course, I am not criticizing the particular details of -the particular performance, of which I know little or nothing. I do not -know the circumstances; and under the circumstances, for all I know, the -experiment may have been very necessary or very successful. I merely -protest against a theory of dramatic truth, urged in defence of the -dramatic experi<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span>ment, which seems to me calculated to falsify the whole -art of the drama. It is founded on exactly the same fallacy as that of -the infant in Stevenson’s nursery rhyme, who thought that the Japanese -children must suffer from home-sickness through being always abroad in -Japan.</p> - -<p>This brings us very near to an old and rather threadbare theatrical -controversy, about whether staging should be simple or elaborate. I do -not mean to begin that argument all over again. What is really wanted is -not so much the simple stage-manager as the simple spectator. In a very -real sense, what is wanted is the simple critic, who would be in truth -the most subtle critic. The healthy human instincts in these things are -at least as much spoiled by sophistication in the stalls as by -elaboration on the stage. A really simple mind would enjoy a simple -scene—and also a gorgeous scene. A popular instinct, to be found in all -folklore, would know well enough when the one or the other was -appropriate. But what is involved here is not the whole of that -sophistication, but only one particular sophistry, and against that -sophistry we may well pause to protest. It is the critical fallacy of -cutting off a real donkey’s head to put it on Bottom the Weaver; when -the head is symbolical, and in that case more appropriate to the critic -than to the actor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_SECRET_SOCIETY_OF_MANKIND" id="THE_SECRET_SOCIETY_OF_MANKIND"></a>The Secret Society of Mankind <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>ITH that fantastic love of paradox which gives pain to so many critics, -I once suggested that there may be some truth in the notion of the -brotherhood of men. This was naturally a subject for severe criticism -from the modern or modernist standpoint; and I remember that the -cleverest refutation of it occurred in a book which was called “We -Moderns.” It was written by Mr. Edward Moore, and very well written too; -indeed the author did himself some injustice in insisting on his own -modernity; for he was not so very modern after all, but really quite -lucid and coherent. But I will venture to take his remark as a text here -because it concerns a matter on which most moderns darken counsel in a -highly incoherent manner. It concerns the nature of the unity of men; -which I did certainly state in its more defiant form as the equality of -man. And I said that this norm or meeting-place of mankind can be found -in the two extremes of the comic and the tragic. I said that no -individual tragedy could be so tragic as having to die; and all men have -equally to die. I said that nothing can be funnier than having two legs; -and all men can join equally in the joke.</p> - -<p>The critic in question was terribly severe on this remark. I believe -that the words of his condem<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span>nation ran as follows: “Well, in this -passage, there is an error so plain, it is almost inconceivable that a -responsible thinker could have put it forward even in jest. For it is -clear that the tragic and comic elements of which Mr. Chesterton speaks -make not only mankind, but <i>all life</i>, equal. Everything that lives must -die; and therefore it is, in Mr. Chesterton’s sense, tragic. Everything -that lives has shape; and therefore it is, in Mr. Chesterton’s sense, -comic. His premises lead to the equality not of mankind, but of all that -lives; whether it be leviathan or butterfly, oak or violet, worm or -eagle.... Would that he had said this! Then we who affirm inequality -would be the first to echo him.” I do not feel it hard to show that -where Mr. Moore thinks equality wrong is exactly where it is right; and -I will begin with mortality; premising that the same is true (for those -who believe it) of immortality. Both are absolutes: a man cannot be -somewhat mortal; nor can he be rather immortal.</p> - -<p>To begin with, it must be understood that having an equality in being -black or white is not even the same as being equally black or white. It -is generally fair to take a familiar illustration; and I will take the -ordinary expression about being all in the same boat. Mr. Moore and I -and all men are not only all in the same boat, but have a very real -equality implied in that fact. Nevertheless, since there is a word -“inner” as well as a word “in,” there is a sense in which some of us -might be more in the boat than others. My fellow passengers might have -stowed me at the bottom of the boat and sat on top of me, moved by a -natural distaste for my sitting on top of them. I have noticed that I am -often<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span> thus packed in a preliminary fashion into the back seats or basic -parts of cabs, cars, or boats; there being evidently a feeling that I am -the stuff of which the foundations of an edifice are made rather than -its toppling minarets or tapering spires. Meanwhile Mr. Moore might be -surveying the world from the masthead, if there were one, or leaning out -over the prow with the forward gestures of a leader of men, or even -sitting by preference on the edge of the boat with his feet paddling in -the water, to indicate the utmost possible aristocratic detachment from -us and our concerns. Nevertheless, in the large and ultimate matters -which are the whole meaning of the phrase “all in the same boat,” we -should be all equally in the same boat. We should be all equally -dependent upon the reassuring fact that a boat can float. If it did not -float but sink, each one of us would have lost his one and only boat at -the same decisive time and in the same disconcerting manner. If the King -of the Cannibal Islands, upon whose principal island we might suffer the -inconvenience of being wrecked, were to exclaim in a loud voice “I will -eat every single man who has arrived by that identical boat and no -other,” we should all be eaten, and we should all be equally eaten. For -being eaten, considered as a tragedy, is not a matter of degree.</p> - -<p>Now there is a fault in every analogy; but the fault in my analogy is -not a fault in my argument; it is the chief fault in Mr. Moore’s -argument. It may be said that even in a shipwreck men are not equal, for -some of us might be so strong that we could swim to the shore, or some -of us might be so tough that the island king would repent of his rash -vow after the first bite. But it is precisely here<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span> that I have again, -as delicately as possible, to draw the reader’s attention to the modest -and little-known institution called death. We are all in a boat which -will certainly drown us all, and drown us equally, the strongest with -the weakest; we sail to the land of an ogre, <i>edax rerum</i>, who devours -all without distinction. And the meaning in the phrase about being all -in the same boat is, not that there are no degrees among the people in a -boat, but that all those degrees are nothing compared with the -stupendous fact that the boat goes home or goes down. And it is when I -come to the particular criticism on my remarks about “the fact of having -to die” that I feel most confident that I was right and that Mr. Moore -is wrong.</p> - -<p>It will be noted that I spoke of the fact of having to die, not of the -fact of dying. The brotherhood of men, being a spiritual thing, is not -concerned merely with the truth that all men will die, but with the -truth that all men know it. It is true, as Mr. Moore says, that -everything will die, “whether it be leviathan or butterfly, oak or -violet, worm or eagle”; but exactly what, at the very start, we do not -know is whether they know it. Can Mr. Moore draw forth leviathan with a -hook, and extract his hopes and fears about the heavenly harpooner? Can -he worm its philosophy out of a worm, or get the caterpillar to talk -about the faint possibility of a butterfly? The caterpillar on the leaf -may repeat to Blake his mother’s grief; but it does not repeat to -anybody its own grief about its own mother. Can he know whether oaks -confront their fate with hearts of oak, as the phrase is used in a -sailor’s song? He cannot; and this is the whole point about human -brotherhood, the point the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span> vegetarians cannot see. This is why a -harpooner is not an assassin; this is why eating whale’s blubber, though -not attractive to the fancy, is not repulsive to the conscience. We do -not know what a whale thinks of death; still less what the other whales -think of his being killed and eaten. He may be a pessimistic whale, and -be perpetually wishing that this too, too solid blubber would melt, thaw -and resolve itself into a dew. He may be a fanatical whale, and feel -frantically certain of passing instantly into a polar paradise of -whales, ruled by the sacred whale who swallowed Jonah. But we can elicit -no sign or gesture from him suggestive of such reflections; and the -working common sense of the thing is that no creatures outside man seem -to have any sense of death at all. Mr. Moore has therefore chosen a -strangely unlucky point upon which to challenge the true egalitarian -doctrine. Almost the most arresting and even startling stamp of the -solidarity and sameness of mankind is precisely this fact, not only of -death, but of the shadow of death. We do know of any man whatever what -we do not know of any other thing whatever, that his death is what we -call a tragedy. From the fact that it is a tragedy flow all the forms -and tests by which we say it is a murder or an execution, a martyrdom or -a suicide. They all depend on an echo or vibration, not only in the soul -of man, but in the souls of all men.</p> - -<p>Oddly enough, Mr. Moore has made exactly the same mistake about the -comic as about the tragic. It is true, I think, that almost everything -which has a shape is humorous; but it is not true that everything which -has a shape has a sense of humour. The whale may be laughable, but it is -not the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span> whale who laughs; the image indeed is almost alarming. And the -instant the question is raised, we collide with another colossal fact, -dwarfing all human differentiations; the fact that man is the only -creature who does laugh. In the presence of this prodigious fact, the -fact that men laugh in different degrees, and at different things, -shrivels not merely into insignificance but into invisibility. It is -true that I have often felt the physical universe as something like a -firework display: the most practical of all practical jokes. But if the -cosmos is meant for a joke, men seem to be the only cosmic conspirators -who have been let into the joke. There could be no fraternity like our -freemasonry in that secret pleasure. It is true that there are no limits -to this jesting faculty, that it is not confined to common human jests; -but it is confined to human jesters. Mr. Moore may burst out laughing -when he beholds the morning star, or be thrown into convulsions of -amusement by the effect of moonrise seen through a mist. He may, to -quote his own catalogue, see all the fun of an eagle or an oak tree. We -may come upon him in some quiet dell rolling about in uproarious mirth -at the sight of a violet. But we shall not find the violet in a state of -uproarious mirth at Mr. Moore. He may laugh at the worm; but the worm -will not turn and laugh at him. For that comfort he must come to his -fellow-sinners: I shall always be ready to oblige.</p> - -<p>The truth involved here has had many names; that man is the image of -God; that he is the microcosm; that he is the measure of all things. He -is the microcosm in the sense that he is the mirror, the only crystal we -know in which the fantasy and fear in things are, in the double and real -sense,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span> things of reflection. In the presence of this mysterious -monopoly the differences of men are like dust. That is what the equality -of men means to me; and that is the only intelligible thing it ever -meant to anybody. The common things of men infinitely outclass all -classes. For a man to disagree with this it is necessary that he should -understand it; Mr. Moore may really disagree with it; but the ordinary -modern anti-egalitarian does not understand it, or apparently anything -else. If a man says he had some transcendental dogma of his own, as Mr. -Moore may possibly have, which mixes man with nature or claims to see -other values in men, I shall say no more than that my religion is -different from his, and I am uncommonly glad of it. But if he simply -says that men cannot be equal because some of them are clever and some -of them are stupid—why then I shall merely agree (not without tears) -that some of them are very stupid.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_SENTIMENTALISM_OF_DIVORCE" id="THE_SENTIMENTALISM_OF_DIVORCE"></a>The Sentimentalism of Divorce <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">D</span>IVORCE is a thing which the newspapers now not only advertise, but -advocate, almost as if it were a pleasure in itself. It may be, indeed, -that all the flowers and festivities will now be transferred from the -fashionable wedding to the fashionable divorce. A superb iced and -frosted divorce-cake will be provided for the feast, and in military -circles will be cut with the co-respondent’s sword. A dazzling display -of divorce presents will be laid out for the inspection of the company, -watched by a detective dressed as an ordinary divorce guest. Perhaps the -old divorce breakfast will be revived; anyhow, toasts will be drunk, the -guests will assemble on the doorstep to see the husband and wife go off -in opposite directions; and all will go merry as a divorce-court bell. -All this, though to some it might seem a little fanciful, would really -be far less fantastic than the sort of things that are really said on -the subject. I am not going to discuss the depth and substance of that -subject. I myself hold a mystical view of marriage; but I am not going -to debate it here. But merely in the interests of light and logic I -would protest against the way in which it is frequently debated. The -process cannot rationally be called a debate at all. It is a sort of -chorus of sentimentalists in the sensational<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span> newspapers, perpetually -intoning some such formula as this: “We respect marriage, we reverence -marriage, holy, sacred, ineffably exquisite and ideal marriage. True -marriage is love, and when love alters, marriage alters, and when love -stops or begins again, marriage does the same; wonderful, beautiful, -beatific marriage.”</p> - -<p>Now, with all reasonable sympathy with everything sentimental, I may -remark that all that talk is tosh. Marriage is an institution like any -other, set up deliberately to have certain functions and limitations; it -is an institution like private property, or conscription, or the legal -liberties of the subject. To talk as if it were made or melted with -certain changing moods is a mere waste of words. The object of private -property is that as many citizens as possible should have a certain -dignity and pleasure in being masters of material things. But suppose a -dog-stealer were to say that as soon as a man was bored with his dog it -ceased to be his dog, and he ceased to be responsible for it. Suppose he -were to say that by merely coveting the dog, he could immediately -morally possess the dog. The answer would be that the only way to make -men responsible for dogs was to make the relation a legal one, apart -from the likes and dislikes of the moment. Suppose a burglar were to -say: “Private property I venerate, private property I revere; but I am -convinced that Mr. Brown does not truly value his silver Apostle spoons -as such sacred objects should be valued; they have therefore ceased to -be his property; in reality they have already become my property, for I -appreciate their precious character as nobody else can do.” Suppose a -murderer were to say: “What can be more amiable and admirable than<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span> -human life lived with a due sense of its priceless opportunity! But I -regret to observe that Mr. Robinson has lately been looking decidedly -tired and melancholy; life accepted in this depressing and demoralizing -spirit can no longer truly be called life; it is rather my own exuberant -and perhaps exaggerated joy of life which I must gratify by cutting his -throat with a carving-knife.”</p> - -<p>It is obvious that these philosophers would fail to understand what we -mean by a rule, quite apart from the problem of its exceptions. They -would fail to grasp what we mean by an institution, whether it be the -institution of law, of property, or of marriage. A reasonable person -will certainly reply to the burglar: “You will hardly soothe us by -merely poetical praises of property; because your case would be much -more convincing if you denied, as the Communists do, that property ought -to exist at all. There may be, there certainly are, gross abuses in -private property; but, so long as it is an institution at all, it cannot -alter merely with moods and emotions. A farm cannot simply float away -from a farmer, in proportion as his interest in it grows fainter than it -was. A house cannot shift away by inches from a householder, by certain -fine shades of feeling that he happens to have about it. A dog cannot -drift away like a dream, and begin to belong to somebody else who -happens just then to be dreaming of him. And neither can the serious -social relation of husband and wife, of mother and father, or even of -man and woman, be resolved in all its relations by passions and -reactions of sentiment.” This question is quite apart from the question -of whether there are exceptions to the rule of loyalty, or what they -are.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span> The primary point is that there is an institution to which to be -loyal. If the new sentimentalists mean what they say, when they say they -venerate that institution, they must not suggest that an institution can -be actually identical with an emotion. And that is what their rhetoric -does suggest, so far as it can be said to suggest anything.</p> - -<p>These writers are always explaining to us why they believe in divorce. I -think I can easily understand why they believe in divorce. What I do not -understand is why they believe in marriage. Just as the philosophical -burglar would be more philosophical if he were a Bolshevist, so this -sort of divorce advocate would be more philosophical if he were a -free-lover. For his arguments never seem to touch on marriage as an -institution, or anything more than an individual experience. The real -explanation of this strange indifference to the institutional idea is, I -fancy, something not only deeper, but wider; something affecting all the -institutions of the modern world. The truth is that these sociologists -are not at all interested in promoting the sort of social life that -marriage does promote. The sort of society of which marriage has always -been the strongest pillar is what is sometimes called the distributive -society; the society in which most of the citizens have a tolerable -share of property, especially property in land. Everywhere, all over the -world, the farm goes with the family and the family with the farm. -Unless the whole domestic group hold together with a sort of loyalty or -local patriotism, unless the inheritance of property is logical and -legitimate, unless the family quarrels are kept out of the courts of -officialism, the tradition of family ownership cannot be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span> handed on -unimpaired. On the other hand, the Servile State, which is the opposite -of the distributive state, has always been rather embarrassed by the -institution of marriage. It is an old story that the negro slavery of -“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” did its worst work in the breaking-up of families. -But, curiously enough, the same story is told from both sides. For the -apologists of the Slave States, or, at least, of the Southern States, -made the same admission even in their own defence. If they denied -breaking up the slave family, it was because they denied that there was -any slave family to break up.</p> - -<p>Free love is the direct enemy of freedom. It is the most obvious of all -the bribes that can be offered by slavery. In servile societies a vast -amount of sexual laxity can go on in practice, and even in theory, save -when now and then some cranky speculator or crazy squire has a fad for -some special breed of slaves like a breed of cattle. And even that -lunacy would not last long; for lunatics are the minority among -slave-owners. Slavery has a much more sane and a much more subtle appeal -to human nature than that. It is much more likely that, after a few such -fads and freaks, the new Servile State would settle down into the sleepy -resignation of the old Servile State; the old pagan repose in slavery, -as it was before Christianity came to trouble and perplex the world with -ideals of liberty and chivalry. One of the conveniences of that pagan -world is that, below a certain level of society, nobody really need -bother about pedigree or paternity at all. A new world began when slaves -began to stand on their dignity as virgin martyrs. Christendom is the -civilization that such martyrs made; and slavery is its returning enemy. -But of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span> all the bribes that the old pagan slavery can offer, this luxury -and laxity is the strongest; nor do I deny that the influences desiring -the degradation of human dignity have here chosen their instrument -well.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="STREET_CRIES_AND_STRETCHING_THE_LAW" id="STREET_CRIES_AND_STRETCHING_THE_LAW"></a>Street Cries and Stretching the Law <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>BOUT a hundred years ago some enemy sowed among our people the heresy -that it is more practical to use a corkscrew to open a sardine-tin, or -to employ a door-scraper as a paperweight. Practical politics came to -mean the habit of using everything for some other purpose than its own; -of snatching up anything as a substitute for something else. A law that -had been meant to do one thing, and had conspicuously failed to do it, -was always excused because it might do something totally different and -perhaps directly contrary. A custom that was supposed to keep everything -white was allowed to survive on condition that it made everything black. -In reality this is so far from being practical that it does not even -rise to the dignity of being lazy. At the best it can only claim to save -trouble, and it does not even do that. What it really means is that some -people will take every other kind of trouble in the world, if they are -saved the trouble of thinking. They will sit for hours trying to open a -tin with a corkscrew, rather than make the mental effort of pursuing the -abstract, academic, logical connexion between a corkscrew and a cork.</p> - -<p>Here is an example of the sort of thing I mean, which I came across in a -daily paper to-day. A<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span> headline announces in staring letters, and with -startled notes of exclamation, that some abominable judicial authority -has made the monstrous decision that musicians playing in the street are -not beggars. The journalist bitterly remarks that they may shove their -hats under our very noses for money, but yet we must not call them -beggars. He follows this remark with several notes of exclamation, and I -feel inclined to add a few of my own. The most astonishing thing about -the matter, to my mind, is that the journalist is quite innocent in his -own indignation. It never so much as crosses his mind that -organ-grinders are not classed as beggars because they are not beggars. -They may be as much of a nuisance as beggars; they may demand special -legislation like beggars; it may be right and proper for every -philanthropist to stop them, starve them, harry them, and hound them to -death just as if they were beggars. But they are not beggars, by any -possible definition of begging. Nobody can be said to be a mere -mendicant who is offering something in exchange for money, especially if -it is something which some people like and are willing to pay for. A -street singer is no more of a mendicant than Madame Clara Butt, though -the method (and the scale) of remuneration differs more or less. Anybody -who sells anything, in the streets or in the shops, is begging in the -sense of begging people to buy. Mr. Selfridge is begging people to buy; -the Imperial International Universal Cosmic Stores is begging people to -buy. The only possible definition of the actual beggar is not that he is -begging people to buy, but that he has nothing to sell.</p> - -<p>Now, it is interesting to ask ourselves what the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span> newspaper really -meant, when it was so wildly illogical in what it said. Superficially -and as a matter of mood or feeling, we can all guess what was meant. The -writer meant that street musicians looked very much like beggars, -because they wore thinner and dirtier clothes than his own; and that he -had grown quite used to people who looked like that being treated anyhow -and arrested for everything. That is a state of mind not uncommon among -those whom economic security has kept as superficial as a varnish. But -what was intellectually involved in his vague argument was more -interesting. What he meant was, in that deeper sense, that it would be a -great convenience if the law that punishes beggars could be <i>stretched</i> -to cover people who are certainly not beggars, but who may be as much of -a botheration as beggars. In other words, he wanted to use the mendicity -laws in a matter quite unconnected with mendicity; but he wanted to use -the old laws because it would save the trouble of making new laws—as -the corkscrew would save the trouble of going to look for the -tin-opener. And for this notion of the crooked and anomalous use of -laws, for ends logically different from their own, he could, of course, -find much support in the various sophists who have attacked reason in -recent times. But, as I have said, it does not really save trouble; and -it is becoming increasingly doubtful whether it will even save disaster. -It used to be said that this rough-and-ready method made the country -richer; but it will be found less and less consoling to explain why the -country is richer when the country is steadily growing poorer. It will -not comfort us in the hour of failure to listen to long<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span> and ingenious -explanations of our success. The truth is that this sort of practical -compromise has not led to practical success. The success of England came -as the culmination of the highly logical and theoretical eighteenth -century. The method was already beginning to fail by the time we came to -the end of the compromising and constitutional nineteenth century. -Modern scientific civilization was launched by logicians. It was only -wrecked by practical men. Anyhow, by this time everybody in England has -given up pretending to be particularly rich. It is, therefore, no -appropriate moment for proving that a course of being consistently -unreasonable will always lead to riches.</p> - -<p>In truth, it would be much more practical to be more logical. If street -musicians are a nuisance, let them be legislated against for being a -nuisance. If begging is really wrong, a logical law should be imposed on -all beggars, and not merely on those whom particular persons happen to -regard as being also nuisances. What this sort of opportunism does is -simply to prevent any question being considered as a whole. I happen to -think the whole modern attitude towards beggars is entirely heathen and -inhuman. I should be prepared to maintain, as a matter of general -morality, that it is intrinsically indefensible to punish human beings -for asking for human assistance. I should say that it is intrinsically -insane to urge people to give charity and forbid people to accept -charity. Nobody is penalized for crying for help when he is drowning; -why should he be penalized for crying for help when he is starving? -Every one would expect to have to help a man to save his life in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span> -shipwreck; why not a man who has suffered a shipwreck of his life? A man -may be in such a position by no conceivable fault of his own; but in any -case his fault is never urged against him in the parallel cases. A man -is saved from shipwreck without inquiry about whether he has blundered -in the steering of his ship; and we fish him out of a pond before asking -whose fault it was that he fell into it. A striking social satire might -be written about a man who was rescued again and again out of mere -motives of humanity in all the wildest places of the world; who was -heroically rescued from a lion and skilfully saved out of a sinking -ship; who was sought out on a desert island and scientifically recovered -from a deadly swoon; and who only found himself suddenly deserted by all -humanity when he reached the city that was his home.</p> - -<p>In the ultimate sense, therefore, I do not myself disapprove of -mendicants. Nor do I disapprove of musicians. It may not unfairly be -retorted that this is because I am not a musician. I allow full weight -to the fairness of the retort, but I cannot think it a good thing that -even musicians should lose all their feelings except the feeling for -music. And it may surely be said that a man must have lost most of his -feelings if he does not feel the pathos of a barrel-organ in a poor -street. But there are other feelings besides pathos covered by any -comprehensive veto upon street music and minstrelsy. There are feelings -of history, and even of patriotism. I have seen in certain rich and -respectable quarters of London a notice saying that all street cries are -forbidden. If there were a notice up to say that all old tombstones -should<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span> be carted away like lumber, it would be rather less of an act of -vandalism. Some of the old street cries of London are among the last -links that we have with the London of Shakespeare and the London of -Chaucer. When I meet a man who utters one I am so far from regarding him -as a beggar; it is I who should be a beggar, and beg him to say it -again.</p> - -<p>But in any case it should be made clear that we cannot make one law do -the work of another. If we have real reasons for forbidding something -like a street cry, we should give the reasons that are real; we should -forbid it because it is a cry, because it is a noise, because it is a -nuisance, or perhaps, according to our tastes, because it is old, -because it is popular, because it is historic and a memory of Merry -England. I suspect that the subconscious prejudice against it is rooted -in the fact that the pedlar or hawker is one of the few free men left in -the modern city; that he often sells his own wares directly to the -consumer, and does not pay rent for a shop. But if the modern spirit -wishes to veto him, to harry him, or to hang, draw and quarter him for -being free, at least let it so far recognize his dignity as to define -him; and let the law deal with him in principle as well as in practice.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_REVOLT_OF_THE_SPOILT_CHILD" id="THE_REVOLT_OF_THE_SPOILT_CHILD"></a>The Revolt of the Spoilt Child <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">E</span>VERYBODY says that each generation revolts against the last. Nobody -seems to notice that it generally revolts against the revolt of the -last. I mean that the latest grievance is really the last reform. To -take but one example in passing. There is a new kind of novel which I -have seen widely reviewed in the newspapers. No; it is not an improper -novel. On the contrary, it is more proper—almost in the sense of -prim—than its authors probably imagine. It is really a reaction towards -a more old-fashioned morality, and away from a new-fashioned one. It is -not so much a revolt of the daughters as a return of the grandmothers.</p> - -<p>Miss May Sinclair wrote a novel of the kind I mean, about a spinster -whose life had been blighted by a tender and sensitive touch in her -education, which had taught her—or rather, expected her—always to -“behave beautifully.” Mrs. Delafield wrote a story with the refreshing -name of “Humbug” on somewhat similar lines. It suggests that children -are actually trained to deception, and especially self-deception, by a -delicate and considerate treatment that continually appealed to their -better feelings, which was always saying, “You would not hurt father.” -Now, certainly a more old-fashioned and simple style of education did -not invariably say<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span> “You would not hurt father.” Sometimes it preferred -to say, “Father will hurt you.” I am not arguing for or against the -father with the big stick. I am pointing out that Miss Sinclair and the -modern novelists really <i>are</i> arguing for the father with the big stick, -and against a more recent movement that is supposed to have reformed -him. I myself can remember the time when the progressives offered us, as -a happy prospect, the very educational method which the novelists now -describe so bitterly in retrospect. We were told that true education -would only appeal to the better feelings of children; that it would -devote itself entirely to telling them to live beautifully; that it -would use no argument more arbitrary than saying “You would not hurt -father.” That ethical education was the whole plan for the rising -generation in the days of my youth. We were assured beforehand how much -more effective such a psychological treatment would be than the bullying -and blundering idea of authority. The hope of the future was in this -humanitarian optimism in the training of the young; in other words, the -hope was set on something which, when it is established, Mrs. Delafield -instantly calls humbug and Miss Sinclair appears to hate as a sort of -hell. What they are suffering from, apparently, is not the abuses of -their grandfathers, but the most modern reforms of their fathers. These -complaints are the first fruits of reformed education, of ethical -societies and social idealists. I repeat that I am for the moment -talking about their opinions and not mine. I am not eulogizing either -big sticks or psychological scalpels; I am pointing out that the outcry -against the scalpel inevitably involves something of a case for the -stick. I have never tied myself to a final<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span> belief in either; but I -point out that the progressive, generation after generation, does -elaborately tie himself up in new knots, and then roar and yell aloud to -be untied.</p> - -<p>It seems a little hard on the late Victorian idealist to be so bitterly -abused merely for being kind to his children. There is something a -little unconsciously comic about the latest generation of critics, who -are crying out against their parents, “Never, never can I forgive the -tenderness with which my mother treated me.” There is a certain irony in -the bitterness which says, “My soul cries for vengeance when I remember -that papa was always polite at the breakfast-table; my soul is seared by -the persistent insolence of Uncle William in refraining from clouting me -over the head.” It seems harsh to blame these idealists for idealizing -human life, when they were only following what was seriously set before -them as the only ideal of education. But, if this is to be said for the -late Victorian idealist, there is also something to be said for the -early Victorian authoritarian. Upon their own argument, there is -something to be said for Uncle William if he did clout them over the -head. It is rather hard, even on the great-grandfather with the big -stick, that we should still abuse him merely for having neglected the -persuasive methods that we have ourselves abandoned. It is hard to -revile him for not having discovered to be sound the very -sentimentalities that we have since discovered to be rotten.</p> - -<p>For the case of these moderns is worst of all when they do try to find -any third ideal, which is neither the authority which they once -condemned for not being persuasion, nor the persuasion which they now -condemn for being worse than authority. The nearest<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span> they can get to any -other alternative is some notion about individuality; about drawing out -the true personality of the child, or allowing a human being to find his -real self. It is, perhaps, the most utterly meaningless talk in the -whole muddle of the modern world. How is a child of seven to decide -whether he has or has not found his true individuality? How, for that -matter, is any grown-up person to tell it for him? How is anybody to -know whether anybody has become his true self? In the highest sense it -can only be a matter of mysticism; it can only mean that there was a -purpose in his creation. It can only be the purpose of God, and even -then it is a mystery. In anybody who does not accept the purpose of God, -it can only be a muddle. It is so unmeaning that it cannot be called -mystery but only mystification. Humanly considered, a human personality -is only the thing that does in fact emerge out of a combination of the -forces inside the child and the forces outside. The child cannot grow up -in a void or vacuum with no forces outside. Circumstances will control -or contribute to his character, whether they are the grandfather’s stick -or the father’s persuasion or the conversations among the characters of -Miss May Sinclair. Who in the world is to say positively which of these -things has or has not helped his real personality?</p> - -<p>What is his real personality? These philosophers talk as if there was a -complete and complex animal curled up inside every baby, and we had -nothing to do but to let it come out with a yell. As a matter of fact, -we all know, in the case of the finest and most distinguished -personalities, that it would be very difficult to disentangle them from -the trials they have suffered, as well as from the truths they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span> have -found. But, anyhow, these thinkers must give us some guidance as to how -they propose to tell whether their transcendental notion of a true self -has been realized or no. As it is, anybody can say of any part of any -personality that it is or is not an artificial addition obscuring that -personality. In fiction, most of the wild and anarchical characters -strike me as entirely artificial. In real life they would no doubt be -much the same, if they could ever be met with in real life. But anyhow, -they would be the products of experience as well as of elemental -impulses; they would be influenced in some way by all they had gone -through; and anybody would be free to speculate on what they would have -been like if they had never had such experiences. Anybody might amuse -himself by trying to subtract the experiences and find the self; anybody -who wanted to waste his time.</p> - -<p>Therefore, without feeling any fixed fanaticism for all the old methods, -whether coercive or persuasive, I do think they both had a basis of -common sense which is wanting in this third theory. The parent, whether -persuading or punishing the child, was at least aware of one simple -truth. He knew that, in the most serious sense, God alone knows what the -child is really like, or is meant to be really like. All we can do to -him is to fill him with those truths which we believe to be equally true -whatever he is like. We must have a code of morals which we believe to -be applicable to all children, and impose it on this child because it is -applicable to all children. If it seems to be a part of his personality -to be a swindler or a torturer, we must tell him that we do not want any -personalities to be swindlers and torturers. In other words, we must -believe in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span> religion or philosophy firmly enough to take the -responsibility of acting on it, however much the rising generations may -knock, or kick, at the door. I know all about the word education meaning -drawing things out, and mere instruction meaning putting things in. And -I respectfully reply that God alone knows what there is to draw out; but -we can be reasonably responsible for what we are ourselves putting in.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_INNOCENCE_OF_THE_CRIMINAL" id="THE_INNOCENCE_OF_THE_CRIMINAL"></a>The Innocence of the Criminal <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> PHRASE, which we have all heard, is sometimes uttered by some small -man sentenced to some small term of imprisonment, for either or both of -the two principal reasons for imprisoning a man in modern England: that -he is known to the police, and that he is not known to the magistrate. -When such a man receives a more or less temperate term of imprisonment, -he is often reported as having left the dock saying that he would “do it -on his head.” In his own self-consciousness, he is merely seeking to -maintain his equilibrium by that dazed and helpless hilarity which is -the only philosophy allowed to him. But the phrase itself, like a great -part of really popular slang, is highly symbolic. The English pauper -(who tends to become numerically the preponderant Englishman) does -really reconcile himself to existence by putting himself in an inverted -and grotesque posture towards it. He does really stand on his head, -because he is living in topsy-turvydom.</p> - -<p>He finds himself in an Upsidonia fully as fantastic as Mr. Archibald -Marshall’s, and far less fair and logical; in a landscape as wild as if -the trees grew downwards or the moon hung below his feet. He lives in a -world in which the man who lends him<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span> money makes him a beggar; in -which, when he is a beggar, the man who gives him money makes him a -criminal; in which, when he is a criminal and “known to the police,” he -becomes permanently liable to be arrested for other people’s crimes. He -is punished if his home is neglected, though there is nobody to look -after it, and punished again if it is not neglected, and the children -are kept from school to look after it. He is arrested for sleeping on -private land, and arrested again for sleeping on public land, and -arrested, be it noted, for the positive and explicit reason that he has -no money to sleep anywhere else. In short, he is under laws of such -naked and admitted lunacy that they might quite as well tell him to -pluck all the feathers off the cows, or to amputate the left leg of a -whale. There is no possible way of behaving in such a pantomime city -except as a sort of comic acrobat, a knockabout comedian who does as -many things as possible on his head. He is, both by accident and design, -a tumbler. It is a proverb about his children that they tumble up; it is -the whole joke about his drunkenness that he tumbles down. But he is in -a world in which standing straight or standing still have become both -impossible and fatal. Meredith rightly conceived the only possible -philosophy of this modern outlaw as that of Juggling Jerry; and even -what is called his swindling is mostly this sort of almost automatic -juggling. His nearest approach to social status is mere kinetic -stability, like a top. There was, indeed, another tumbler called in -tradition Our Lady’s Tumbler, who performed happier antics before a -shrine in the days of superstition; and whose philosophy was perhaps -more positive than Juggling<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span> Jerry’s or Meredith’s. But a strenuous -reform has passed through our own cities, careful of the survival of the -fittest, and we have been able to preserve the antic while abolishing -the altar.</p> - -<p>But though this form of reaction into ridicule, and even self-ridicule, -is very natural, it is also very national; it is not the only human -reaction against injustice, nor perhaps the most obvious. The Irishman -has shot his landlord, the Italian has joined a revolutionary secret -society, the Russian has either thrown a bomb or gone on a pilgrimage, -long before the Englishman has come finally to the conclusion that -existence is a joke. Even as he does so he is too fully conscious that -it would be too bad as a tragedy if it were not so good as a farce. It -is further to be noticed, for the fact is of ominous importance, that -this topsy-turvy English humour has, during the last six or seven -generations, been more and more abandoned to the poorer orders. Sir John -Falstaff is a knight; Tony Weller is a coachman; his son Sam is a -servant to the middle classes, and the recent developments of social -discipline seem calculated to force Sam Weller into the status of the -Artful Dodger. It is certain that a youth of that class who should do -to-day a tenth of the things that Sam Weller did would in one way or -another spend most of his life in jail. To-day, indeed, it is the main -object of social reform that he should spend the whole of his life in -jail; but in a jail that can be used as a factory. That is the real -meaning of all the talk about scientific criminology and remedial -penalties. For such outcasts, punishment is to be abolished by being -perpetuated. When men propose to elim<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span>inate retribution as “vindictive,” -they mean two very simple things: ceasing altogether to punish the few -who are rich, and enslaving all the rest for being poor.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless this half-conscious buffoon who is the butt of our society -is also the satirist of it. He is even the judge of it, in the sense -that he is the normal test by which it will be judged. In a number of -quite practical matters it is he who represents historic humanity, and -speaks naturally and truthfully where his judges and critics are -crooked, crabbed and superstitious. This can be seen, for instance, if -we see him for a moment not in the dock but in the witness-box. In -several books and newspapers I happened to read lately, I have noticed a -certain tone touching the uneducated witness; phrases like “the -vagueness characteristic of their class,” or “easily confused, as such -witnesses are.” Now such vagueness is simple truthfulness. Nine times -out of ten, it is the confusion any man would show at any given instant -about the complications which crowd human life. Nine times out of ten, -it is avoided in the case of educated witnesses by the mere expedient of -a legal fiction. The witness has a brief, like the barrister: he has -consulted dates, he has made memoranda, he has frequently settled with -solicitors exactly what he can safely say. His evidence is artificial -even when it is not fictitious; we might almost say it is fictitious -even when it is not false. The model testimony, regarded as the most -regular of all in a law court, is constabulary testimony; if what the -soldier said is not evidence, what the policeman says is often the only -evidence. And what the policeman says is incredible, as he says it. It -is something like this: “I met the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span> prisoner coming out of Clapham -Junction Station and he told me he went to see Mrs. Nehemiah Blagg, of -192, Paardeburg Terrace, West Ealing, about a cat which he had left -there last Tuesday week which she was going to keep if it was a good -mouser, and she told him it had killed a mouse in the back kitchen on -Sunday morning so he had better leave it. She gave him a shilling for -his trouble, and he went to West Ealing post-office where he bought two -halfpenny stamps and a ball of string, and then to the Imperial Stores -at Ealing Broadway, and bought a pennyworth of mixed sweets. Coming out -he met a friend, and they went to the Green Dolphin and made an -appointment for 5.30 next day at the third lamp-post in Eckstein -Street,” and so on. It is frankly impossible for anybody to say such a -sentence; still more for anybody to remember it. If the thing is not a -tissue of mere inventions, it can only be the arbitrary summary of a -very arbitrary cross-examination, conducted precisely as are the -examinations of a secret police in Russia. The story was not only -discovered bit by bit, but discovered backwards. Mountains were in -labour to bring forth that mouse in West Ealing. The police made a -thorough official search of the man’s mental boxes and baggage, before -that cat was let out of the bag. I am not here supposing the tale to be -untrue—I am pointing out that the telling of it is unreal. The right -way to tell a story is the way in which the prisoner told it to the -policeman, and not the way in which the policeman tells it to the court. -It is the way in which all true tales are told, the way in which all men -learn the news about their neighbours, the way in which we all learned -everything we know in childhood; it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span> the only real evidence for -anything on this earth, and it is not evidence in a court of law. The -man who tells it is vague about some things, less vague about others, -and so on in proportion; but at his very vaguest, among the stiff -unreason of modern conditions, he is a judgment on those conditions. His -very bewilderment is a criticism, and his very indecision is a decision -against us. It is an old story that we are judged by the innocence of a -child, and every child is, in the French phrase, a terrible child. There -is a true sense in which all our laws are judged by the innocence of a -criminal.</p> - -<p>In politics, of course, the case is the same. I will defer the question -of whether the democracy knows how to answer questions until the -oligarchy knows how to ask them. Asking a man if he approves of Tariff -Reform is not only a silly but an insane question, for it covers the -wildest possibilities, just as asking him whether he approves of Trouser -Reform might mean anything from wearing no trousers to wearing a -particular pattern of yellow trousers decorated with scarlet snakes. -Talking about Temperance, when you mean pouring wine down the gutter, is -quite literally as senseless as talking about Thrift, when you mean -throwing money into the sea. The rambling speech of yokels and tramps is -as much wiser than this as a rambling walk in the woods is wiser than -the mathematical straightness of a fall from a precipice. The present -leaders of progress are, I think, very near to that precipice; about all -their schemes and ideals there is a savour of suicide. But the clown -will go on talking in a living and, therefore, a leisurely fashion, and -the great truth of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span> pure gossip which sprang up in simpler ages and was -the fountain of all the literatures, will flow on when our intricate and -tortured society has died of its sins.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_PRUDERY_OF_THE_FEMINISTS" id="THE_PRUDERY_OF_THE_FEMINISTS"></a>The Prudery of the Feminists <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>N the ultimate and universal sense I am astonished at the lack of -astonishment. Starting from scratch, so to speak, we are all in the -position of the first frog, whose pious and compact prayer was: “Lord, -how you made me jump!” Matthew Arnold told us to see life steadily and -see it whole. But the flaw in his whole philosophy is that when we do -see life whole we do not see it steadily, in Arnold’s sense, but as a -staggering prodigy of creation. There is a primeval light in which all -stones are precious stones; a primeval darkness against which all -flowers are as vivid as fireworks. Nevertheless, there is one kind of -surprise that does surprise me, the more, perhaps, because it is not -true surprise but a supercilious fuss. There is a kind of man who not -only claims that his stone is the only pebble on the beach, but declares -it must be the one and only philosopher’s stone, because he is the one -and only philosopher. He does not discover suddenly the sensational fact -that grass is green. He discovers it very slowly, and proves it still -more slowly, bringing us one blade of grass at a time. He is made -haughty instead of humble by hitting on the obvious. The flowers do not -make him open his eyes, but, rather, cover them with spectacles; and -this is even more true of the weeds<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span> and thorns. Even his bad news is -banal. A young man told me he had abandoned his Bible religion and -vicarage environment at the withering touch of the one line of -Fitzgerald: “The flower that once has blown, for ever dies.” I vainly -pointed out that the Bible or the English burial service could have told -him that man cometh up as a flower and is cut down. If that were -self-evidently final, there would never have been any Bibles or any -vicarages. I do not see how the flower can be any more dead, when a -mower can cut it down, merely because a botanist can cut it up. It -should further be remembered that the belief in the soul, right or -wrong, arose and flourished among men who knew all there is to know -about cutting down, not unfrequently cutting each other down, with -considerable vivacity. The physical fact of death, in a hundred horrid -shapes, was more naked and less veiled in times of faith or superstition -than in times of science or scepticism. Often it was not merely those -who had seen a man die, but those who had seen him rot, who were most -certain that he was everlastingly alive.</p> - -<p>There is another case somewhat analogous to this discovery of the new -disease of death. I am puzzled in somewhat the same way when I hear, as -we often hear just now, somebody saying that he was formerly opposed to -Female Suffrage but was converted to it by the courage and patriotism -shown by women in nursing and similar war work. Really, I do not wish to -be superior in my turn, when I can only express my wonder in a question. -But from what benighted dens can these people have crawled, that they -did not know that women are brave? What horrible sort of women have they -known all their lives? Where do they come from? Or, what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span> is a still -more apposite question, where do they think they come from? Do they -think they fell from the moon, or were really found under -cabbage-leaves, or brought over the sea by storks? Do they (as seems -more likely) believe they were produced chemically by Mr. Schafer on -principles of abiogenesis? Should we any of us be here at all if women -were not brave? Are we not all trophies of that war and triumph? Does -not every man stand on the earth like a graven statue as the monument of -the valour of a woman?</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact, it is men much more than women who needed a war to -redeem their reputation, and who have redeemed it. There was much more -plausibility in the suspicion that the old torture of blood and iron -would prove too much for a somewhat drugged and materialistic male -population long estranged from it. I have always suspected that this -doubt about manhood was the real sting in the strange sex quarrel, and -the meaning of the new and nervous tattoo about the unhappiness of -women. Man, like the Master Builder, was suspected by the female -intelligence of having lost his nerve for climbing that dizzy -battle-tower he had built in times gone by. In this the war did -certainly straighten out the sex tangle; but it did also make clear on -how terrible a thread of tenure we hold our privileges—and even our -pleasures. For even bridge parties and champagne suppers take place on -the top of that toppling war-tower; an hour can come when even a man who -cared for nothing but bridge would have to defend it like Horatius; or -when the man who only lives for champagne would have to die for -champagne, as certainly as thousands of French soldiers have died for -that flat land of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span> vines; when he would have to fight as hard for the -wine as Jeanne D’Arc for the oil of Rheims.</p> - -<p>Just as civilization is guarded by potential war, so it is guarded by -potential revolution. We ought never to indulge in either without -extreme provocation; but we ought to be cured for ever of the fancy that -extreme provocation is impossible. Against the tyrant within, as against -the barbarian without, every voter should be a potential volunteer. -“Thou goest with women, forget not thy whip,” said the Prussian -philosopher; and some such echo probably infected those who wanted a war -to make them respect their wives and mothers. But there would really be -a symbolic sense in saying, “Thou goest with men, forget not thy sword.” -Men coming to the council of the tribe should sheathe their swords, but -not surrender them. Now I am not going to talk about Female Suffrage at -this time of day; but these were the elements upon which a fair and sane -opposition to it were founded. These are the risks of real politics; and -the woman was not called upon to run such a risk, for the very simple -reason that she was already running another risk. It was not laws that -fixed her in the family; it was the very nature of the family. If the -family was a fact in any very full sense, and if popular rule was also a -fact in any very full sense, it was simply physically impossible for the -woman to play the same part in such politics as the man. The difficulty -was only evaded because the democracy was not a free democracy or the -family not a free family. But whether this view was right or wrong, it -is at least clear that the only honourable basis for any limitations of -womanhood is the same as the basis of the respect for womanhood. It -consisted in certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span> realities, which it may be undesirable to discuss, -but is certainly even more undesirable to ignore. And my complaint -against the more fussy feminists (so called from their detestation of -everything feminine) is that they do ignore these realities. I do not -even propose the alternative of discussing them; on that point I am -myself content to be what some call conventional, and others, civilized. -I do not in the least demand that anyone should accept my own deduction -from them; and I do not care a brass farthing what deduction anybody -accepts about such a rag as a modern ballot-paper. But I do suggest that -the peril with which one half of humanity is perpetually at war should -be at least present in the minds of those who are perpetually bragging -about breaking conventions, rending veils, and violating antiquated -taboos. And, in nine cases out of ten, it seems to be quite absent from -their minds. The mere fact of using the argument before mentioned, of -woman’s strength vindicated by war work, shows that it is absent from -their minds.</p> - -<p>If this oddity of the new obscurantism means, rather, that women have -shown the moral courage and mental capacity needed for important -concerns, I am equally unable to summon up any surprise at the -revelation. Nothing can well be more important than our own souls and -bodies; and they, at their most delicate and determining period, are -almost always and almost entirely confided to women. Those who have been -appointed as educational experts in every age are not surely a new order -of priestesses. If it means that in a historic crisis all kinds of -people must do all kinds of work, and that women are the more to be -admired for doing work to which they are unaccustomed, or even<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span> -unsuited, it is a point which I should quite as warmly concede. But if -it means that in planning the foundations of a future society we should -ignore the one eternal and incurable contrast in humanity; if it means -that we may now go ahead gaily as if there were really no difference at -all; if it means, as I read in a magazine to-day, and as almost anyone -may now read almost anywhere, that if such and such work is bad for -women it must be bad for men; if it means that patriotic women in -munition factories prove that any women can be happy in any factories; -if, in short, it means that the huge and primeval facts of the family no -longer block the way to a mere social assimilation and -regimentation—then I say that the prospect is not one of liberty but of -perpetuation of the dreariest sort of humbug. It is not emancipation, it -is not even anarchy; it is simply prudery in the thoughts. It means that -we have Bowdlerized our brains as well as our books. It is every bit as -senseless a surrender to a superstitious decorum as it would be to force -every woman to cut herself with a razor, because it is not etiquette to -admit that she cannot grow a beard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="HOW_MAD_LAWS_ARE_MADE" id="HOW_MAD_LAWS_ARE_MADE"></a>How Mad Laws are Made <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>NY one of the strange laws we suffer is a compromise between a fad and -a vested interest. The fashionable way of effecting a social reform is -as follows. To make the story clearer, and worthier of its wild and -pointless process, I will call the two chief agents in it the March Hare -and the Hatter. The Hatter is mad, in a quiet way; but he is merely mad -on making hats, or rather on making money. He has a huge and prosperous -emporium which advertises all possible hats to fit all possible heads; -but he certainly nourishes an occult conviction that it is really the -duty of the heads to fit the hats. This is his mild madness; in other -respects he is a stodgy and rather stupid millionaire. Now, the man whom -we will call the March Hare is at first sight the flat contrary of this. -He is a wild intellectual and the leader of the Hatless Brigade. It does -not much matter why there is this quarrel between the Hare and the Hat; -it may be any progressive sophistry. Perhaps it is because he is a March -Hare; and finds it hard to keep his hat on in a March wind. Perhaps it -is because his ears are too long to allow him to wear a hat; or perhaps -he hopes that every emancipated member of the Hatless Brigade will -eventually evolve ears as long as a hare’s—or a donkey’s. The point is -that anyone would fancy that the Hare and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">{156}</a></span> the Hatter would collide. As -a matter of fact they co-operate. In other words, every “reform” to-day -is a treaty between the two most influential modern figures—the great -capitalist and the small faddist. They are the father and mother of a -new law; and therefore it is so much of a mongrel as to be a monster.</p> - -<p>What happens is something like this. The line of least resistance is -found between the two by a more subtle analysis of their real respective -aims. The intuitive eye of friendship detects a fine shade in the -feelings of the Hatter. The desire of his heart, when delicately -apprehended, is not necessarily that people should wear his hats, but -rather that they should buy them. On the other hand, even his -fanatically consistent colleague has no particular objection to a human -being purchasing a hat, so long as he does not wreck his health, blast -his prospects and generally blow his brains out, by the one suicidal act -of putting it on. Between them they construct a law called the Habitual -Hat-Pegs Act, which lays it down that every householder shall have not -less than twenty-three hat-pegs and that, lest these should accumulate -unwholesome dust, each must be covered by a hat in uninterrupted -occupation. Or the thing might be managed some other way; as by -arranging that a great modern nobleman should wear an accumulation of -hats, one on top of the other, in pleasing memory of what has often been -the itinerant occupation of his youth. Broadly, it would be enacted that -hats might be used in various ways; to take rabbits out of, as in the -case of conjurers, or put pennies into, as in the case of beggars, or -smash on the heads of scarecrows, or stick on the tops of poles; if only -it were guaranteed that as many citizens as possible should be forced to -go<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">{157}</a></span> bareheaded. Thus, the two most powerful elements in the governing -class are satisfied; of which the first is finance and the second -fidgets. The Capitalist has made money; and he only wanted to make -money. The Social Reformer has done something; and he only wanted -something to do.</p> - -<p>Now every one of the recent tricks about temperance and economy has been -literally of this type. I have chosen the names from a nonsense story -merely for algebraic lucidity and universality; what has really happened -in our own shops and streets is every bit as nonsensical. But quite -recent events have confirmed this analysis with an accuracy which even -the unconverted can hardly regard as a coincidence. I have already -traced the truth in the case of the liquor traffic; but many -public-spirited persons of the Prohibitionist school have found it very -difficult to believe. All “temperance legislation” is a compromise -between a liquor merchant who wants to get rid of his liquor and a -teetotaller who does not want his neighbours to get it. But as the -capitalist is much stronger than the crank, the compromise is lop-sided -as such; the neighbours do get it, but always in the wrong way. But -again, since the crank has not a true creed, but only an intellectual -itch, he cares much more to be up and doing than to understand what he -has done. As I said above, he only wants to do something; and he has -done something; he has increased drunkenness. Anyhow, all such reforms -are upon the plan of my parable. Sometimes it is decreed that drink -shall only be sold in large quantities suitable to large incomes; that -is exactly like allowing one nobleman to wear twenty hats. Sometimes it -is proposed that the State should take over the liquor<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">{158}</a></span> traffic; we -hardly need to be told what that means, when it is the Plutocratic -State. It means quite simply this: the policeman goes to the hatter and -buys his whole stock of hats at a hundred pounds a piece, and then -parades the street handing out hats to those who may take his fancy, and -by blows of the truncheon forcing every man Jack of the rest of them to -pay a hundred pounds for a hat he does not get. Merely to divert the -rivers of ale or gin from private power to public power or from poor men -to rich men, or from good taverns to bad taverns, is the sort of effort -with which the faddists are satisfied and the liquor lords much more -than satisfied.</p> - -<p>There was a curious case of the same thing in the attempt to economize -food during the Great War. The reformers did not wish <i>really</i> to -economize food; the great food profiteers would not let them. The fussy -person wants to force or forbid something, under the conditions defining -all such effort; it must be something that will interfere with the -citizen and will not interfere with the profiteer. Given such a problem, -we might almost predict, for instance, that he will propose the -limitation of the number of courses at a restaurant. It will not save -the beef; it is not meant to save the beef; but to save the -beef-merchant. There will actually be more food bought, if the cook is -not allowed to turn the scraps into kickshaws. But why should a -plutocracy including food profiteers object to more food being bought? -Why, for that matter, should the pure-minded social idealist object to -more food being bought, as long as it is the wrong food that is sold? -His quite disinterested aim is not that food should be restricted, but -merely that freedom<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">{159}</a></span> should be restricted. When once he is assured that -a sufficient number of thoughtless persons are really getting what they -don’t want, he says he is building Jerusalem in England’s green and -pleasant land. And so he is; if the expression signifies handing over -England to the wealthier Jews.</p> - -<p>Now the only way in which this conclusive explanation can be countered -is by ridiculing, as impossible, the notion that so fantastic a compact -can be clearly and coolly made. And of course it is not so made. The two -attitudes are not logically interlocked, like the antlers of stags; they -simply squeeze each other out of shape, as in a wrestle of two rival -jelly-fish. We should be far safer if they had the intellectual honesty -of a bargain or a bribe. As it is, they have an almost creepy quality -which justifies the comparison to shapeless beasts of the sea. I defy -any rational man to deny that he has noticed something moonstruck and -mis-shapen, as apart from anything unjust or uncomfortable, about the -little laws which have lately been tripping him up; laws which may tell -him at any minute that he must not purchase turpentine before a certain -tick of the clock, or that if he buys a pound of tea he must also buy a -pennyworth of tin-tacks. The strictly correct word for such things is -half-witted; and they are half-witted because each of the two -incongruous partners has only half his will. They have not, for -instance, the sweeping simplicity of the old sumptuary laws or even the -old Puritan persecutions. But they are also half-witted because even the -one mind is not the whole mind; it is largely the subconscious mind, -which dares not trust itself in speech. The Drink Capitalist dares not -actually say to the teetotaller, “Let me sell a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">{160}</a></span> quart bottle of whisky -to be drunk in a day, and then I will let you pester a poor fellow who -makes a pot of beer last half an hour.” That is exactly what happens in -essence; but it is easy to guess what happens in external form. The -teetotaller has twenty schemes for cutting off free citizens from the -beverage of their fathers; and out of these twenty the liquor lord, -without whose permission nothing can be done, selects the one scheme -which will not interfere with him and his money. It is even more -probable that the temperance reformer himself selects, by an instinct -for what he would call practical politics, the one scheme which the -liquor lord is likely to look at. And it matters nothing that it is a -scheme too witless for Wonderland; a scheme for abolishing hats while -preserving hatters.</p> - -<p>It might be a good thing to give the control of drink to the State—if -there were a State to give it to. But there is not. There is nothing but -a congested compromise made by the pressure of powerful interests on -each other. The liquor lords may bargain with the other lords to take -their abnormal tribute in a lump instead of a lifetime; but not one of -them will live the poorer. The main point is that, in passing through -that plutocratic machinery, even a mad opinion will always emerge in a -shape more maniacal than its own; and even the silliest fool can only do -what the stupidest fool will let him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">{161}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_PAGODA_OF_PROGRESS" id="THE_PAGODA_OF_PROGRESS"></a>The Pagoda of Progress <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is one fashionable fallacy that crops up everywhere like a weed, -until a man feels inclined to devote the rest of his life to the -hopeless task of weeding it out. I take one example of it from a -newspaper correspondence headed “Have Women Gone Far Enough?” It is -immediately concerned with alleged impropriety in dress; but I am not -directly interested in that. I quote one paragraph from a lady -correspondent, not because it is any worse than the same thing as stated -by countless scholars and thinkers, but rather because it is more -clearly stated—</p> - -<p>“‘Women have gone far enough.’ That has always been the cry of the -individual with the unprogressive mind. It seems to me that until -Doomsday there will always be the type of man who will cry ‘Women have -gone far enough'; but no one can stop the tide of evolution, and women -will still go on.”</p> - -<p>Which raises the interesting question of where they will go to. Now, as -a matter of fact, every thinking person wants to stop the tide of -evolution at some particular mark in his own mind. If I were to propose -that people should wear no clothes at all, the lady might be shocked. -But I should have as much right as anyone else to say that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">{162}</a></span> was -obviously an individual with an unprogressive mind. If I were to propose -that this reform should be imposed on people by force, she would be -justly indignant. But I could answer her with her own argument—that -there had always been unprogressive people, and would be till Doomsday. -If I then proposed that people should not only be stripped but skinned -alive, she might, perhaps, see several moral objections. But her own -argument would still hold good, or as good as it held in her own case; -and I could say that evolution would not stop and the skinning would go -on. The argument is quite as good on my side as on hers; and it is -worthless on both.</p> - -<p>Of course, it would be just as easy to urge people to progress or evolve -in exactly the opposite direction. It would be as easy to maintain that -they ought to go on wearing more and more clothes. It might be argued -that savages wear fewer clothes, that clothes are a mark of -civilization, and that the evolution of them will go on. I am highly -civilized if I wear ten hats, and more highly civilized if I wear twelve -hats. When I have already evolved so far as to put on six pairs of -trousers, I must still hail the appearance of the seventh pair of -trousers with the joy due to the waving banner of a great reform. When -we balance these two lunacies against each other, the central point of -sanity is surely apparent. The man who headed his inquiry “Have Women -Gone Far Enough?” was at least in a real sense stating the point -rightly. The point is that there <i>is</i> a “far enough.” There is a point -at which something that was once neglected becomes exaggerated; -something that is valuable up to that stage becomes undesirable after<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">{163}</a></span> -that stage. It is possible for the human intellect to consider clearly -at what stage, or in what condition, it would have enough complication -of clothes, or enough simplification of clothes, or enough of any other -social element or tendency. It is possible to set a limit to the pagoda -of human hats, rising for ever into infinity. It is possible to count -the human legs, and, after a brief calculation, allot to them the -appropriate number of trousers. There is such a thing as the -miscalculation of making hats for a hydra or boots for a centipede, just -as there are such things as bare-footed friars or the Hatless Brigade. -There are exceptions and exaggerations, good and bad; but the point is -that they are not only both good and bad, but they are good and bad in -opposite directions. Let a man have what ideal of human costume or -custom he likes. That ideal must still consist of elements in a certain -proportion; and if that proportion is disturbed that ideal is destroyed. -Let him once be clear in his own mind about what he wants, and then, -whatever it is that he wants, he will not want the tide of evolution to -wash it away. His ideal may be as revolutionary as he likes or as -reactionary as he likes, but it must remain as he likes it. To make it -more revolutionary or more reactionary is distortion; to suggest its -growing more and more reactionary or revolutionary for ever is demented -nonsense. How can a man know what he wants, how can he even want what he -wants, if it will not even remain the same while he wants it?</p> - -<p>The particular argument about women is not primarily the point; but as a -matter of fact it is a very good illustration of the point. If a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">{164}</a></span> -thinks the Victorian conventions kept women out of things they would be -the happier for having, his natural course is to consider what things -they are; not to think that any things will do, so long as there are -more of them. This is only the sort of living logic everybody acts upon -in life. Suppose somebody says, “Don’t you think all this wood could be -used for something else besides palings?” we shall very probably answer, -“Well, I dare say it could,” and perhaps begin to think of wooden boxes -or wooden stools. But we shall not see, as in a sort of vision, a vista -of wooden razors, wooden carving-knives, wooden coats and hats, wooden -pillows and pocket-handkerchiefs. If people had made a false and -insufficient list of the uses of wood, we shall try to make a true and -sufficient list of them; but not imagine that the list can go on for -ever, or include more and more of everything in the world. I am not -establishing a scientific parallel between wood and womanhood. But there -would be nothing disrespectful in the symbol, considered as a symbol; -for wood is the most sacred of all substances: it typifies the divine -trade of the carpenter, and men count themselves fortunate to touch it. -Here it is only a working simile, but the point of it is this—that all -this nonsense about progressive and unprogressive minds, and the tide of -evolution, divides people into those who stick ignorantly to wood for -one thing and those who attempt insanely to use wood for everything. -Both seem to think it a highly eccentric suggestion that we should find -out what wood is really useful for, and use it for that. They either -profess to worship a wooden womanhood inside the wooden fences of -certain trivial and temporary Victorian<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">{165}</a></span> conventions; or else they -profess to see the future as a forest of dryads growing more and more -feminine for ever.</p> - -<p>But it does not matter to the main question whether anybody else draws -the line exactly where I do. The point is that I am not doing an -illogical thing, but the only logical thing, in drawing the line. I -think tennis for women normal and football for women quite abnormal; and -I am no more inconsistent than I am in having a wooden walking-stick and -not a wooden hat. I do not particularly object to a female despot; but I -do object to a female demagogue. And my distinction is as much founded -on the substance of things as my eccentric conduct in having a wooden -chair and table but not a wooden knife and fork. You may think my -division wrong; the point is that it is not wrong in being a division. -All this fallacy of false progress tends to obscure the old common sense -of all mankind, which is still the common sense of every man in his own -daily dealings: that everything has its place and proportion and proper -use, and that it is rational to trust its use and distrust its abuse. -Progress, in the good sense, does not consist in looking for a direction -in which one can go on indefinitely. For there is no such direction, -unless it be in quite transcendental things, like the love of God. It -would be far truer to say that true progress consists in looking for the -place where we can stop.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">{166}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_MYTH_OF_THE_MAYFLOWER" id="THE_MYTH_OF_THE_MAYFLOWER"></a>The Myth of the “Mayflower”<img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>GNOSTICISM, the ancient confession of ignorance, was a singularly sane -and healthy thing so far as it went. Unfortunately it has not gone as -far as the twentieth century. It has declared in all ages, as a heathen -chief declared in the dark ages, that the life of a man is like the -flight of a bird across a firelit room, because we know nothing of -whence it comes or whither it goes. It would seem natural to apply it -not only to man but to mankind. But the moderns do not apply the same -principle but the very opposite principle. They specialize in the -unknown origins and in the unknown future. They dwell on the prehistoric -and on the post-historic or prophetic; and neglect only the historic. -They will give a most detailed description of the habits of the bird -when he was a sort of pterodactyl only faintly to be traced in a fossil. -They will give an equally detailed description of the habits of the bird -a hundred years hence, when he shall have turned into a super-bird, or -the dove of universal peace. But the bird in the hand is worth far less -to them than the two mysterious birds in these two impenetrable bushes. -Thus they will publish a portrait with life, letters, and tabletalk of -the Missing Link, although he is missing; they will publish a plan and -documented history<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">{167}</a></span> of how the Social Revolution happened, though it has -not happened yet. It is the men who are not missing and the revolutions -that have happened that they have rather a habit of overlooking. Anyone -who has argued, for instance, with the young Jewish intellectuals who -are the brain of Bolshevism knows that their whole system turns on the -two pivots of the prehistoric and the prophetic. They talk of the -Communism of prehistoric ages as if it were a thing like the Crusades in -the Middle Ages; not even a probable conjecture but a proved and -familiar fact. They will tell you exactly how private property arose in -primitive times, just as if they had been there. And then they will take -one gigantic leap over all human history, and tell you about the -inevitable Communism of the future. Nothing seems to matter unless it is -either new enough to be foretold or old enough to be forgotten.</p> - -<p>Mr. H. G. Wells has hit off his human habit in the account of a very -human character, the American girl who glorifies Stonehenge in his last -novel. I do not make Mr. Wells responsible for her opinions, though she -is an attractive person and much too good for her Lothario. But she -interests me here because she typifies very truly another variation upon -this same tendency. To the prehistoric and the post-historic must be -added a third thing, which may be called the unhistoric. I mean the bad -teaching of real history that such intelligent people so often suffer. -She sums up exactly what I mean when she says humorously that Stonehenge -has been “kept from her,” that Notre Dame is far less important, and -that this is the real starting-point of the “Mayflower.”</p> - -<p>Now the “Mayflower” is a myth. It is an<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">{168}</a></span> intensely interesting example -of a real modern myth. I do not mean of course that the “Mayflower” -never sailed, any more than I admit that King Arthur never lived or that -Roland never died. I do not mean that the incident had no historic -interest, or that the men who figured in it had no heroic qualities; any -more than I deny that Charlemagne was a great man because the legend -says he was two hundred years old; any more than I deny that the -resistance of Roman Britain to the heathen invasion was valiant and -valuable, because the legend says that Arthur at Mount Badon killed nine -hundred men with his own hand. I mean that there exists in millions of -modern minds a traditional image or vision called the “Mayflower,” which -has far less relation to the real facts than Charlemagne’s two hundred -years or Arthur’s nine hundred corpses. Multitudes of people in England -and America, as intelligent and sympathetic as the young lady in Mr. -Wells’ novel, think of the “Mayflower” as an origin or archetype like -the Ark or at least the Argo. Perhaps it would be an exaggeration to say -that they think the “Mayflower” discovered America. They do really talk -as if the “Mayflower” populated America. Above all, they talk as if the -establishment of New England had been the first and formative example of -the expansion of England. They believe that English expansion was a -Puritan experiment; and that an expansion of Puritan ideas was also the -expansion of what have been claimed as English ideas, especially ideas -of liberty. The Puritans of New England were champions of religious -freedom, seeking to found a newer and freer state beyond the sea, and -thus becoming the origin and model of modern<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">{169}</a></span> democracy. All this -betrays a lack of exactitude. It is certainly nearer to exact truth to -say that Merlin built the castle at Camelot by magic, or that Roland -broke the mountains in pieces with his unbroken sword.</p> - -<p>For at least the old fables are faults on the right side. They are -symbols of the truth and not of the opposite of the truth. They -described Roland as brandishing his unbroken sword against the Moslems, -but not in favour of the Moslems. And the New England Puritans would -have regarded the establishment of real religious liberty exactly as -Roland would have regarded the establishment of the religion of Mahound. -The fables described Merlin as building a palace for a king and not a -public hall for the London School of Economics. And it would be quite as -sensible to read the Fabian politics of Mr. Sidney Webb into the local -kingships of the Dark Ages, as to read anything remotely resembling -modern liberality into the most savage of all the savage theological -frenzies of the seventeenth century. Thus the “Mayflower” is not merely -a fable, but is much more false than fables generally are. The revolt of -the Puritans against the Stuarts was really a revolt <i>against</i> religious -toleration. I do not say the Puritans were never persecuted by their -opponents; but I do say, to their great honour and glory, that the -Puritans never descended to the hypocrisy of pretending for a moment -that they did not mean to persecute their opponents. And in the main -their quarrel with the Stuarts was that the Stuarts would not persecute -those opponents enough. Not only was it then the Catholics who were -proposing toleration, but it was they who had already actually -estab<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">{170}</a></span>lished toleration in the State of Maryland, before the Puritans -began to establish the most intolerant sort of intolerance in the State -of New England. And if the fable is fabulous touching the emancipation -of religion, it is yet more fabulous touching the expansion of empire. -That had been started long before either New England or Maryland, by -Raleigh who started it in Virginia. Virginia is still perhaps the most -English of the states, certainly more English than New England. And it -was also the most typical and important of the states, almost up to -Lee’s last battle in the Wilderness. But I have only taken the -“Mayflower” as an example of the general truth; and in a way the truth -has its consoling side. Modern men are not allowed to have any history; -but at least nothing can prevent men from having legends.</p> - -<p>We have thus before us, in a very true and typical modern picture, the -two essential parts of modern culture. It consists first of false -history and second of fancy history. What the American tourist believed -about Plymouth Rock was untrue; what she believed about Stonehenge was -only unfounded. The popular story of Primitive Man cannot be proved. The -popular story of Puritanism can be disproved. I can fully sympathize -with Mr. Wells and his heroine in feeling the imaginative stimulus of -mysteries like Stonehenge; but the imagination springs from the mystery; -that is, the imagination springs from the ignorance. It is the very -greatness of Stonehenge that there is very little of it left. It is its -chief feature to be featureless. We are very naturally and rightly moved -to mystical emotions about signals from so far away along the path of -the past; but part of the poetry lies in our<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">{171}</a></span> inability really to read -the signals. And this is what gives an interest, and even an irony, to -the comparison half consciously invoked by the American lady herself -when she asked “What’s Notre Dame to this?” And the answer that should -be given to her is: “Notre Dame, compared to this, is <i>true</i>. It is -history. It is humanity. It is what has really happened, what we know -has really happened, what we know is really happening still. It is the -central fact of your own civilization. And it is the thing that has -really been kept from you.”</p> - -<p>Notre Dame is not a myth. Notre Dame is not a theory. Its interest does -not spring from ignorance but from knowledge; from a culture complicated -with a hundred controversies and revolutions. It is not featureless, but -carved into an incredible forest and labyrinth of fascinating features, -any one of which we could talk about for days. It is not great because -there is little of it, but great because there is a great deal of it. It -is true that though there is a great deal of it, Puritans may not be -allowed to see a great deal in it; whether they were those brought over -in the “Mayflower” or only those brought up on the “Mayflower.” But that -is not the fault of Notre Dame; but of the extraordinary evasion by -which such people can dodge to right and left of it, taking refuge in -things more recent or things more remote. Notre Dame, on its merely -human side, is mediæval civilization, and therefore not a fable or a -guess but a great solid determining part of modern civilization. It is -the whole modern debate about the guilds; for such cathedrals were built -by the guilds. It is the whole modern question of religion and -irreligion; for we know what religion it stands<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">{172}</a></span> for, while we really -have not a notion what religion Stonehenge stands for. A Druid temple is -a ruin, and a Puritan ship by this time may well be called a wreck. But -a church is a challenge; and that is why it is not answered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">{173}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="MUCH_TOO_MODERN_HISTORY" id="MUCH_TOO_MODERN_HISTORY"></a>Much Too Modern History <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>LL wise men will agree that history ought to be taught more fully in -the form of world history. In that respect at least Mr. Wells gave us an -excellent working model. England is meaningless without Europe, more -meaningless than England without Empire. But those who would broaden -history with human brotherhood too often suffer from a limitation not -absent even from Mr. Wells. They exchange the narrowness of a nation for -the narrowness of a theory, or even a fad. They think they have a -world-wide philosophy because they extend their own narrowness to the -whole world. A distinguished professor, who is a member of the League of -Nations Union, has been telling an interviewer what he thinks -history-books should teach. And it seems to me that, according to his -view if correctly reported, the new histories would be rather more -prejudiced and limited than the old.</p> - -<p>He begins with a small but singular error, which itself shows some lack -of the imagination that can see two sides of a question. He says, -“Textbooks of history should aim at truth. It should not be possible for -one version of the American War of Independence to be taught in American -schools, and another in English schools.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">{174}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Now, in point of fact, the same version of that story is taught both in -English and American schools. It is the other version, a very tenable -one, that is not allowed to be taught anywhere. No American historian, -however American, could be more positive that George III was wrong and -George Washington right than all the English historians are. What would -show real independence of mind would be to state the case for George -III. And there was a very real case for George III. I will not go into -it here, but every honest historical student will agree with me. Perhaps -the fairest way of putting it is this: that it was not really a case of -a government resolved on tyranny, but of a nation resolved on -independence. But if we sympathize with national independence, surely -there is something to be said for intellectual independence. And the -professor is far from being really sympathetic with intellectual -independence. He is so far from it that he wants both sides forced to -tell the same story, apparently whether they like it or not. As a fact, -they do agree; but apparently in any case the professor would coerce -them into agreement. And his extraordinary reason for this course is -that history should aim at truth.</p> - -<p>But suppose I do aim at truth, and sincerely come to the conclusion that -North was a patriot and Burke a sophist? How would the professor prevent -it being “possible” for me to teach what I think is true? The truth is -that it has never occurred to these progressive professors that there -could be any view of any question except their own, or what they call -their own. For it is only a tradition they have been taught; a -tra<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">{175}</a></span>dition as narrow as North’s and now nearly as old.</p> - -<p>But the professor goes on to say something much more interesting and -curious. After saying very truly that the past, the Plantagenet period -for instance, should not be made a mere matter of kings and battles, he -goes on to say, “What we want to see is the textbook of history and the -teaching of it brought more closely into touch with the realities of the -modern world—the world of the division of labour between different -countries, of the application of science to industry, of the shortening -of the spaces of the earth by improvements in transport—and with all -that these realities imply.”</p> - -<p>Now it seems to me obvious that what we want is exactly the opposite. A -child can see these realities of the modern world, whether he is taught -any history or not. He will see them whether you want him to or not. As -he grows up he will learn by experience all about the improvements in -transport, its acceleration by Zeppelins and its interruption by -submarines. He will realize for himself that the modern world is the -world of the division of labour between nations. For he will know that -England has been turned into an isolated workshop with hardly food -enough for a fortnight, with the potential alternative of surrender or -starvation or eating nails. He will by the light of nature know all -about the application of science to industry—in war by chemical -analyses of poison gas, in peace by bright little pamphlets about phossy -jaw. He will know “all that these realities imply,” about which also -there is very much that might be said. But even if we consider only the -somewhat cheerier<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span> products of the division of labour and the -application of science to industry, there is quite as little need -laboriously to instruct the infant in what he can see for himself. A -child has a very pure and poetical love of machinery, a love in which -there is nothing in the least evil or materialistic. But it is hardly -necessary to devote years to proving to him that motor-cars have been -invented, as he can see them going by in the street. It is not necessary -to read up in the British Museum the details with which to demonstrate -that there are really such things as tube stations or motor-bicycles. -The child can see these things everywhere, and the real danger obviously -is that he should think they had existed always. The danger is that he -should know nothing of humanity, except as it is under these special and -sometimes cramping conditions of scientific industry and the division of -labour. It is that he should be unable to imagine any civilization -without tube stations, whatever its substitutes in the way of temples or -trophies of war. It is that he should see man as a sort of -cyclist-centaur, inseparable from his motor-bike. In short, the whole -danger of historical ignorance is that he may be as limited to his local -circumstances as a savage on an island, or a provincial in a decayed -town, or a historical professor in the League of Nations Union.</p> - -<p>The whole object of history is to enlarge experience by imagination. And -this sort of history would enlarge neither imagination nor experience. -The whole object of history is to make us realize that humanity could be -great and glorious, under conditions quite different and even contrary -to our own. It is to teach us that men could achieve<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">{177}</a></span> most profitable -labour without our own division of labour. It is to teach us that men -could be industrious without being industrial. It is to make us -understand that there might be a world in which there was far less -improvement in the transport for visiting various places, and there -might still be a very great improvement in the places visited.</p> - -<p>The professor is perfectly right in saying that a history of the -Plantagenet period ought not merely to record the presence of kings and -armies. But what ought it to record? Is it to record only the absence of -motors and electric lights? Should we say nothing of the Plantagenet -period except that it did <i>not</i> have motor-bikes? I venture to suggest -that we might record the presence of some things which the whole people -had then and have not got now, such as the guilds, the great popular -universities, the use of the common lands, the fraternity of the common -creed.</p> - -<p>I fear the professor will not follow me into matters so disturbing to -his perfect picture of progress. But, in conclusion, there is one little -question I should like to ask him, and it is this. If you cannot see -Man, divine and democratic, under the disguises of all the centuries, -why on earth should you suppose you will be able to see him under the -disguises of all the nations and tribes? If the Dark Ages must be as -dark as they look, why are the black men not so black as they are -painted? If I may feel supercilious towards a Chaldean, why not towards -a Chinaman? If I may despise a Roman for not having a steam-plough, why -not a Russian for not wanting a steam-plough? If scientific industry is -the supreme historical test,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">{178}</a></span> it divides us as much from backward -peoples as from bygone peoples. It divides even European peoples from -each other. And if that be the test, why bother to join the League of -Nations Union?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">{179}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_EVOLUTION_OF_SLAVES" id="THE_EVOLUTION_OF_SLAVES"></a>The Evolution of Slaves <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span> VERY curious and interesting thing has recently happened in America. -There has suddenly appeared an organized political attack on Darwinian -Evolution, led by an old demagogue appealing entirely to the ideals of -democracy. I mean no discredit to Mr. Bryan in calling him a demagogue; -for I should have been far more heartily on his side in the days when he -was a demagogue than in the days when he was a diplomatist. He was a -much wiser man when he refused to allow the financiers to crucify -humanity on a golden cross, than when he consented to allow the Kaiser -to crucify it on an iron cross. The movement is religious and therefore -popular; but it is Protestant and therefore provincial. Its opponents, -the old guard of materialism, will of course do their best to represent -it as something like the village that voted the earth was flat. But -there is one sharp difference, which is the point of the whole position. -If an ignorant man went about saying that the earth was flat, the -scientific man would promptly and confidently answer, “Oh, nonsense; of -course it’s round.” He might even condescend to give the real reasons, -which I believe are quite different from the current ones. But when the -private citizen rushes wild-eyed down the streets of Heliopolis, Neb., -calling<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">{180}</a></span> out “Have you heard the news? Darwin’s wrong!” the scientific -man does not say, “Oh, nonsense, of course he’s right.” He says -tremulously, “Not entirely wrong; surely not entirely wrong”; and we can -draw our conclusions. But I believe myself there is a deeper and more -democratic force behind this reaction; and I think it worthy of further -study.</p> - -<p>I recently heard a debate on that American system of class privilege -which we call for convenience Prohibition; and I was very much amused by -one argument that was advanced in its favour. A very intelligent young -American, a Rhodes scholar from Oxford, advanced the thesis that -Prohibition was not a violation of liberty because, if it were fully -established, its victims would never know what they had lost. If a -generation of total abstainers could once grow up “without the desire” -for drink, they would not be conscious of any restraint on their -freedom. The argument is ingenious and promising and opens up a wide -field of application. Thus, if I happen to find it convenient to keep -miners or other proletarians permanently underground, I have only to -make sure that all their babies are born in pitch darkness and they will -certainly never imagine the light of day. My action therefore will not -only be just and benevolent in itself, but will obviously involve not -even the faintest infringement of the ideal of freedom. Or if I merely -kidnap all the babies from all the mothers in the country, it is obvious -that the infants will not remember their mothers, and in that sense will -not miss them. There is therefore no reason why I should not adopt this -course; and even if I hide the babies from their mothers by locking them -up in boxes, I shall not be violating the principle of liberty; because -the babies<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">{181}</a></span> will not understand what I have done. Or, to take a -comparison even closer in many ways, there is an ordinary social problem -like dress. I come to the conclusion that ladies spend too much money on -dress, that it is a social evil because families suffer from the -extravagance, and rivalries and seductions distract the state. I -therefore decree, on the lines of Prohibitionist logic, that the law -shall forbid anybody to wear any clothes at all. Nobody who grows up -naked, according to this theory, will ever have any regrets for beauty -or dignity or decency; and therefore will have suffered no loss. I -cannot sufficiently express my admiration for the extraordinary -simplicity which can smooth the path of Prussianism with this large, -elementary and satisfactory principle. So long as we tyrannize enough we -are not tyrannizing at all; and so long as we steal enough our victims -will never know what has been stolen. Seriously, everybody knows that -the rich planning the oppression of the poor will never lack a sycophant -to act as a sophist. But I never dreamed that I should live to enjoy so -crude and stark and startling a sophistry as this.</p> - -<p>But the last example I gave, that of the normality of clothes or of -nakedness, has a further relevance in this connexion. What is really at -the back of the minds of the people who say these strange things is one -very simple error. They imagine that the drinking of fermented liquor -has been an artifice and a luxury; something odd like the strange -self-indulgences praised by the decadent poets. This is simply an -accident of the ignorance of history and humanity. Drinking fermented -liquor is not a fashion like wearing a green carnation. It is a habit -like wearing clothes. It is one of the habits<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">{182}</a></span> that are indeed man’s -second nature; if indeed they are not his first nature. Wine is purest -and healthiest in the highest civilization, just as clothing is most -complete in the highest civilization. But there is nothing to show that -the savage has not shed the clothes of a higher civilization, retaining -only the ornaments; as a good many fashionable people in our own -civilization seem to be doing now. And there is nothing to show that -ruder races who brew their “native beers” in Africa or Polynesia have -not lost the art of brewing something better; just as Prohibitionist -America, before our very eyes, has left off brewing Christian beer and -taken to drinking fermented wood-pulp and methylated spirit. The very -example of modern America falling from better to baser drinks, under a -dismal taboo, is a perfect model of the way in which civilizations have -relapsed into savagery, and produced the savages we know. But the point -is that drink, like dress, is the rule; and the exceptions only prove -the rule. There are individuals who for personal and particular reasons -are right to drink no liquor but water; just as there are individuals -who have to stay in bed, and wear no clothes but bedclothes. There have -been sects of Moslems and there have been sects of Adamites. There have -been, as I have said, barbarized peoples fallen so far from civilization -as to wear grotesque garments or none, or to drink bad beer or none. But -nobody has ever seen Primitive Man, naked and drinking water; he is a -myth of the modern mythologists. Man, as Aristotle saw long ago, is an -abnormal animal whose nature it is to be civilized. In so far as he ever -becomes uncivilized he becomes unnatural, and even artificial.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">{183}</a></span></p> - -<p>Now at the back of all this, of course, the real difference is -religious. I only take this one case of what is called temperance for -the sake of the wider philosophy that underlies it. When my young -American friend talked of the next generation growing up without the -desire for “alcohol,” he had at the back of his mind a certain idea. It -is the idea which I have just seen expressed by another American in a -high-brow article, in the words: “Evolution does not stand still. We are -not finished. The world is not finished.” What it means is that the -nature of man can be modified to suit the convenience of particular men; -and this would certainly be very convenient. If the rich man wants the -miners to live underground, he may really breed for it a new race as -blind as bats and owls. If he finds it cheaper to run the schools and -school inspections on Adamite principles, he can hope to produce -Adamites not merely as a sect but as a species. And the same will be -true of teetotalism or vegetarianism; nature, having evolved man who is -an ale-drinking animal, may now evolve a super-man, or a sub-man, who -shall be a water-drinking animal. Having risen from a monkey who eats -nuts to a man who eats mutton, he may rise yet higher by eating nuts -again.</p> - -<p>Thinking people, of course, know that all that is nonsense. They know -there is no such constant flux of adaption. So far from saying that the -evolution of man has not finished, they will point out that (as far as -we know) it has not begun. In all the five thousand years of recorded -history, and in all the prehistoric indications before it, there is not -a shadow or suspicion of movement or change in the human biological -type. Even evolution, let alone<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">{184}</a></span> natural selection, is only a conjecture -about things unknown, compared with the broad daylight of things known -in all those thousands of years. The only difference is that evolution -seems a probable conjecture, and natural selection is on the face of it -an extravagantly improbable one. All this, which is obvious to thinking -people, has at last become obvious even to the most unthinking; and -<i>that</i> is the meaning of the attack on Darwinism in America and the -battle of Mr. Bryan against the Missing Link. The secret is out. The -obscurantism of the professors is over. Those of us who have humbly -hammered on this point from time to time suddenly find ourselves -hammering on an open door. For these changes almost always come -suddenly; which is alone enough to show that human history at least has -never been merely an evolution. As Darwinism came with a rush, so -Anti-Darwinism has come with a rush; and just as people who accepted -evolution could not be held back from embracing natural selection, so it -is likely enough that many, who now see reason to reject natural -selection, will not be stopped in their course till they have also -rejected evolution. They will merely have a vague but angry conviction -that the professors have been kidding them, as they had before that the -parsons had been kidding them. But behind all this there will be a very -real moral and religious reaction; the meaning of which is what I have -described in this article. It is the profound popular impression that -scientific materialism, at the end of its hundred years, is found to -have been used chiefly for the oppression of the people. Of this the -most evident example is that evolution itself can be offered as -something able to evolve a people who can be oppressed. As in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">{185}</a></span> -argument about Prohibition, it will offer to breed slaves; to produce a -new race indifferent to its rights. Morally the argument is quite -indistinguishable from justifying assassination by promising to bring up -children as suicides, who will prefer to be poisoned.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">{186}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="IS_DARWIN_DEAD" id="IS_DARWIN_DEAD"></a>Is Darwin Dead?<img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. ERNEST NEWMAN, that lively and acute critic, once rebuked the -arrogance of those of us who confessed that we knew nothing about music. -Why he should suppose we are arrogant about it, if he does think so, I -cannot quite understand. I, for one, am fully conscious of my -inferiority to him and others through this deficiency; nor is it, alas, -the only deficiency. I have sometimes thought it would be wholesome for -anybody who has succeeded pretty well by some trick of some trade, to -have a huge notice board or diagram hung in front of him all day; -showing exactly where he stood in all the other crafts and competitions -of mankind. Thus the poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling, as it rose -from the paper on which an entirely new type of villanelle had just -sprung into being, would encounter the disconcerting facts and figures -about his suitability to be a professional acrobat or a pearl-diver. On -the other hand, the radiant victor in the great International Egg and -Spoon Race can see at a glance how very far down he stands, so to speak, -in the queue of those waiting for the post of Astronomer Royal. Most of -us have at least one or two gaps in our general culture and information; -and sometimes whole departments of knowledge are practically hidden from -whole generations and classes of man<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">{187}</a></span>kind. There is something very -defective and disproportionate about even the ideal culture of a modern -man. It may be that Mr. Newman is deeply read in that mediæval theology -which is still the subconscious basis of most morality; but it is also -possible that he is not. He may have at his fingers’ ends that military -art which has often turned the fortunes of history; but he may not. He -would be none the less a highly cultivated gentleman, if he did not. Yet -the mystical and the military mind have been at least as pivotal and -practical in history as the musical mind. I can admire them all, but I -have no claim to possess any of them.</p> - -<p>But my ignorance of music happens to assist me with a convenient -metaphor in the more controversial matter of my ignorance of science. I -once made some remarks about the decline of Darwinism, in a review of -the Wells “Outline of History.” This aroused rather excited criticism; -but one comparatively calm critic challenged what really interests me in -the matter: he said that my conundrums about the wing of the bat and -similar things “could easily be solved on purely Darwinian lines by any -competent zoologist, or even by one so incompetent as myself.” The -conundrum in question, of course, concerns the survival value of -features in their unfinished state. If a thing can fly it may survive, -and if it has a wing it may fly; but if it cannot fly with half a wing, -why should it survive with half a wing? Yet Darwinism pre-supposes that -numberless generations could survive before one generation could fly. -Now it is quite true that I am not even an incompetent zoologist; and -that my critic is more competent than I, if only in the mere fact of -being a zoologist at all. Nevertheless, I adhere to my opinion, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">{188}</a></span> do -so for a reason that seems to me worthy of some little consideration. I -do it because this does happen to be exactly one of those questions on -which, as it seems to me, the independent critic has really a right to -check the specialist. For it is a larger question of logic, and not a -smaller question of fact. It is like the difficulty of believing that a -halfpenny can fall head or tail a hundred times running; which has -nothing to do with the numismatic value of the coin. It is like the -difficulty of believing that a mere tax could make a loaf cheaper, which -has nothing to do with the agrarian craft of growing corn. There is a -general tide of reason flowing against such improbabilities, even if -they are possibilities; they would still be exceptions, and reason would -be on the side of the rule. And whatever the details of natural history, -this thing is against the very nature of things.</p> - -<p>To explain what I mean I will take this parallel of the technique of -music, of which I know even less than of the technique of natural -history. To begin with a simple though moving musical instrument, -suppose an expert told me that a coach-horn could be blown quite as well -if it were only two feet long. I should believe him; partly because it -seems probable enough, and partly because I know nothing about the -matter. I am not even an incompetent coach-horn blower. But I should -certainly not believe him if he told me, as a generalization about all -musical instruments, that half a musical instrument was better than no -music, or even as good as any music. I should disbelieve it because it -is inconsistent with the general nature of a musical instrument, or any -instrument. I should disbelieve it long before I had thought of the -thousand par<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">{189}</a></span>ticular instruments to which it does not apply. I should -not primarily need to think of the particular examples, though they are -obvious enough. A stringed instrument cannot even be called stringed -without two fixed points to hold both ends of the string. At the stage -when the fiddle-strings floated like filaments in the void, feeling -their way towards an evolutionary other end of nowhere, there could be -nothing serving any purpose of a fiddle. A drum with a hole in is not a -drum at all. But an evolutionary drum has to turn slowly into a drum, -when it has begun by being only a hole. I cannot see any survival for a -bagpipe that begins by being slit; I think such bagpipes would die with -all their music in them. I feel a faint doubt, mingled with fascination, -about the idea that a violin could grow out of the ground like a tree; -it would at least make a charming fairy story. But whether or no a -fiddle could grow like a tree, I feel sure nobody could play on it while -it was still only a twig. But all these, as I say, are only examples -that throng into the mind afterwards, of a principle seen in a flash -from the first. Of things serving particular purposes, by a balance and -arrangement of parts, it <i>cannot</i> be generally true that they are fit -for use before they are finished for use. It is against the general -nature of such things; and can only be true by an individual -coincidence. I can see for myself, for instance, that some particular -case like the trunk of an elephant might really be compared to the -simpler case of the coach-horn. Length and flexibility <i>are</i> mere -matters of degree; and I might possibly find it convenient if my nose -were six inches longer, and sufficiently lively to be able to point -right and left at various objects on the tea-table. But this is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">{190}</a></span> simply -an accident of the particular qualities of length and laxity, not a -general truth about the qualities of growth and use. It is not in the -least true that I should experience the least convenience from the -membrane between my fingers thickening or widening a little; even if an -evolutionist at my elbow comforted and inspired me with the far-off -divine event when my descendant should have the wings of a bat. Until -the membrane can really be spread properly from point to point it is -like the fiddle-string before it is stretched properly from point to -point. It is no nearer serving its ultimate purpose than if it were not -there at all. But it would be easy to find a similar animal parallel to -the drum with a hole in it. There are monsters who would die instantly -if they could not close the holes in their head under water. One -supposes they would have died swiftly, before their closing apparatus -could develop slowly. But the principle is a general one, and is -involved in the very nature of any apparatus. It is only by way of -figure of speech, in defence of the freedom of the ignorant, that I take -the type of a musical apparatus. I take it because I am entirely -ignorant of musical instruments. I am of the candid class of those who -have “never tried” to perform on the violin. I cannot play upon this -pipe; especially if it be a bagpipe. But if anybody tells me that the -wildest pibroch rose from a whisper gradually, as a hole in the wind-bag -was filled up gradually—why then I shall not be so rude, I hope, as to -say that there is a windbag in his head, but I shall venture to say that -there is a hole in his argument. And if he says that pieces of wood came -together slowly, stick by stick, to form a fiddle, and that before it -was yet a fiddle at all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">{191}</a></span> the sticks discoursed most excellent -music—why, I fear I shall be content to say “fiddlesticks.”</p> - -<p>There is another answer often made which seems to me even more -illogical. The critic generally says it is unreasonable to expect from -the geological record that continuous gradation of types which the -challengers of Darwinism demand. He says that only a part of the earth -can be examined and that it could not in any case prove so much. This -mode of argument involves an amazing oblivion of what is the thing to be -proved, and who is trying to prove it. By hypothesis the Darwinians are -trying to prove Darwinism. The Anti-Darwinians are not trying to prove -anything; except that the Darwinians have not proved it. I do not demand -anything, in the sense of complaining anything or the absence of -anything. I am quite comfortable in a completely mysterious cosmos. I am -not reviling the rocks or cursing the eternal hills for not containing -these things. I am only saying that these are the things they would have -to contain to make me believe something that somebody else wants me to -believe. These traces are not things that the Anti-Darwinian demands. -They are things that the Darwinian requires. The Darwinian requires them -in order to convince his opponent of Darwinism; his opponent may be -right or wrong, but he cannot be expected to accept the mere absence of -them as proof of Darwinism. If the evidences in support of the theory -are unfortunately hidden, why then we do not know whether they were in -support of the theory. If the proofs of natural selection are lost, why -then there are no proofs of natural selection; and there is an end of -it.</p> - -<p>And I would respectfully ask these critics what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">{192}</a></span> would be thought of a -theological or miraculous argument which thus based itself on the very -gaps in its own evidence. Let them indulge in the flight of fancy that I -have just told them, let us say, that I saw the Devil at Brighton: and -that the proof of his presence there can still be seen on the sands, in -gigantic marks of a cloven hoof as big as the foot of an elephant. -Suppose we all search the sands of Brighton and find no such thing. And -suppose I then say that, after all, the tide might have washed away the -footprints, or that the fiend may have flown through the air from his -little country seat at the Dyke, or that he may have walked along the -hard asphalt of Brighton parade, as proudly as once upon the flaming -marl. To those acquainted with Brighton parade this will seem probable -enough; but there would be a fallacy in merely saying that the evil -spirit may have done all this. The sceptic will not unnaturally reply: -“Yes, he may; and he may not; and it may be a legend; and you may be a -liar; and I think our little investigation is now concluded.” I am very -far indeed from calling the Darwinian a liar; but I shall continue to -say that he is not always a logician.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">{193}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="TURNING_INSIDE_OUT" id="TURNING_INSIDE_OUT"></a>Turning Inside Out <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN the author of “If Winter Comes” brought out another book about the -life of the family, it was almost as much criticized as the first book -was praised. I do not say that there was nothing to criticize, but I do -say that I was not convinced by the abstract logic of the criticism. -Probably the critics would have accepted it as a true story if the -author had not been so incautious as to give it a true moral. And the -moral is not fashionable in the press at the moment; for it is to the -effect that a woman may gain a professional success at the price of a -domestic failure. And it is the convention of journalism at this moment -to support what is feminist against what is feminine. Anyhow, while the -story might be criticized, the criticisms can certainly be criticized. -It is not really conclusive to say that a woman may be ambitious in -business without her children going to the bad. It is just as easy to -say that a woman may be ambitious in politics without helping to murder -an old gentleman in his bed. But that does not make “Macbeth” either -inartistic or untrue. It is just as easy to say that a woman may be -ambitious in society without tricking her husband into a debtor’s -prison, so that she may spend the time with a bald-headed nobleman with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">{194}</a></span> -red whiskers. But that does not make the great scene in “Vanity Fair” -unconvincing either in detail or design. The question in fiction is not -whether that thing must occur, but whether that sort of thing may occur, -and whether it is significant of larger things. Now this business of the -woman at work and the woman at home is a very large thing, and this -story about it is highly significant.</p> - -<p>For in this matter the modern mind is inconsistent with itself. It has -managed to get one of its rather crude ideals in flat contradiction to -the other. People of the progressive sort are perpetually telling us -that the hope of the world is in education. Education is everything. -Nothing is so important as training the rising generation. Nothing is -really important except the rising generation. They tell us this over -and over again, with slight variations of the same formula, and never -seem to see what it involves. For if there be any word of truth in all -this talk about the education of the child, then there is certainly -nothing but nonsense in nine-tenths of the talk about the emancipation -of the woman. If education is the highest function in the State, why -should anybody want to be emancipated from the highest function in the -State? It is as if we talked of commuting the sentence that condemned a -man to be President of the United States; or a reprieve coming in time -to save him from being Pope. If education is the largest thing in the -world, what is the sense of talking about a woman being liberated from -the largest thing in the world? It is as if we were to rescue her from -the cruel doom of being a poet like Shakespeare; or to pity the -limitations of an all-round artist like<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">{195}</a></span> Leonardo da Vinci. Nor can -there be any doubt that there is truth in this claim for education. Only -precisely the sort of which it is particularly true is the sort called -domestic education. Private education really is universal. Public -education can be comparatively narrow. It would really be an -exaggeration to say that the schoolmaster who takes his pupils in -freehand drawing is training them in all the uses of freedom. It really -would be fantastic to say that the harmless foreigner who instructs a -class in French or German is talking with all the tongues of men and -angels. But the mother dealing with her own daughters in her own home -does literally have to deal with all forms of freedom, because she has -to deal with all sides of a single human soul. She is obliged, if not to -talk with the tongues of men and angels, at least to decide how much she -shall talk about angels and how much about men.</p> - -<p>In short, if education is really the larger matter, then certainly -domestic life is the larger matter; and official or commercial life the -lesser matter. It is a mere matter of arithmetic that anything taken -from the larger matter will leave it less. It is a mere matter of simple -subtraction that the mother must have less time for the family if she -has more time for the factory. If education, ethical and cultural, -really were a trivial and mechanical matter, the mother might possibly -rattle through it as a rapid routine, before going about her more -serious business of serving a capitalist for hire. If education were -merely instruction, she might briefly instruct her babies in the -multiplication tables, before she mounted to higher and nobler spheres -as the servant of a Milk Trust or the secretary of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">{196}</a></span> Drug Combine. But -the moderns are perpetually assuring us that education is not -instruction; they are perpetually insisting that it is not a mechanical -exercise, and must on no account be an abbreviated exercise. It must go -on at every hour. It must cover every subject. But if it must go on at -all hours, it must not be neglected in business hours. And if the child -is to be free to cover every subject, the parent must be free to cover -every subject too.</p> - -<p>For the idea of a non-parental substitute is simply an illusion of -wealth. The advanced advocate of this inconsistent and infinite -education for the child is generally thinking of the rich child; and all -this particular sort of liberty should rather be called luxury. It is -natural enough for a fashionable lady to leave her little daughter with -the French governess or the Czecho-Slovakian governess or the Ancient -Sanskrit governess, and know that one or other of these sides of the -infant’s intelligence is being developed; while she, the mother, figures -in public as a money-lender or some other modern position of dignity. -But among poorer people there cannot be five teachers to one pupil. -Generally there are about fifty pupils to one teacher. There it is -impossible to cut up the soul of a single child and distribute it among -specialists. It is all we can do to tear in pieces the soul of a single -schoolmaster, and distribute it in rags and scraps to a whole mob of -boys. And even in the case of the wealthy child it is by no means clear -that specialists are a substitute for spiritual authority. Even a -millionaire can never be certain that he has not left out one governess, -in the long procession of governesses perpetually passing under his -marble portico;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">{197}</a></span> and the omission may be as fatal as that of the king -who forgot to ask the bad fairy to the christening. The daughter, after -a life of ruin and despair, may look back and say, “Had I but also had a -Lithuanian governess, my fate as a diplomatist’s wife in Eastern Europe -would have been very different.” But it seems rather more probable, on -the whole, that what she would miss would not be one or other of these -special accomplishments, but some commonsense code of morals or general -view of life. The millionaire could, no doubt, hire a mahatma or -mystical prophet to give his child a general philosophy. But I doubt if -the philosophy would be very successful even for the rich child, and it -would be quite impossible for the poor child. In the case of comparative -poverty, which is the common lot of mankind, we come back to a general -parental responsibility, which is the common sense of mankind. We come -back to the parent as the person in charge of education. If you exalt -the education, you must exalt the parental power with it. If you -exaggerate the education, you must exaggerate the parental power with -it. If you depreciate the parental power, you must depreciate education -with it. If the young are always right and can do as they like, well and -good; let us all be jolly, old and young, and free from every kind of -responsibility. But in that case do not come pestering us with the -importance of education, when nobody has any authority to educate -anybody. Make up your mind whether you want unlimited education or -unlimited emancipation, but do not be such a fool as to suppose you can -have both at once.</p> - -<p>There is evidence, as I have noted, that the more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">{198}</a></span> hard-headed people, -even of the most progressive sort, are beginning to come back to -realities in this respect. The new work of Mr. Hutchinson’s is only one -of many indications among the really independent intelligences, working -on modern fiction, that the cruder culture of merely commercial -emancipation is beginning to smell a little stale. The work of Miss -Clemence Dane and even of Miss Sheila Kaye-Smith contains more than one -suggestion of what I mean. People are no longer quite so certain that a -woman’s liberty consists of having a latch-key without a house. They are -no longer wholly convinced that every housekeeper is dull and prosaic, -while every bookkeeper is wild and poetical. And among the intelligent -the reaction is actually strengthened by all the most modern excitements -about psychology and hygiene. We cannot insist that every trick of -nerves or train of thought is important enough to be searched for in -libraries and laboratories, and not important enough for anybody to -watch by simply staying at home. We cannot insist that the first years -of infancy are of supreme importance, and that mothers are not of -supreme importance; or that motherhood is a topic of sufficient interest -for men, but not of sufficient interest for mothers. Every word that is -said about the tremendous importance of trivial nursery habits goes to -prove that being a nurse is not trivial. All tends to the return of the -simple truth that the private work is the great one and the public work -the small. The human house is a paradox, for it is larger inside than -out.</p> - -<p>But in the problem of private versus public life there is another -neglected truth. It is true of many<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">{199}</a></span> masculine problems as well as of -this feminine problem. Indeed, feminism falls here into exactly the same -mistake as militarism and imperialism. I mean that anything on a grand -scale gives the illusion of a grand success. Curiously enough, -multiplication acts as a concealment. Repetition actually disguises -failure. Take a particular man, and tell him to put on a particular kind -of hat and coat and trousers, and to stand in particular attitudes in -the back garden; and you will have great difficulty in persuading -yourself (or him) that he has passed through a triumph and -transfiguration. Order four hundred such hats, and eight hundred such -trousers, and you will have turned the fancy costume into a uniform. -Make all the four hundred men stand in the special attitudes on -Salisbury Plain, and there will rise up before you the spirit of a -regiment. Let the regiment march past, and, if you have any life in you -above the brutes that perish, you will have an overwhelming sense that -something splendid has just happened, or is just going to begin. I -sympathize with this moral emotion in militarism; I think it does -symbolize something great in the soul, which has given us the image of -St. Michael. But I also realize that in practical relations that emotion -can get mixed up with an illusion. It is not really possible to know the -characters of all the four hundred men in the marching column as well as -one might know the character of the one man attitudinizing in the back -garden. If all the four hundred men were individual failures, we could -still vaguely feel that the whole thing was a success. If we know the -one man to be a failure, we cannot think him a success.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">{200}</a></span></p> - -<p>That is why a footman has become rather a foolish figure, while a -foot-soldier remains rather a sublime one. Or rather, that is one of the -reasons; for there are others much more worthy. Anyhow, footmen were -only formidable or dignified when they could come in large numbers like -foot-soldiers—when they were in fact the feudal army of some great -local family, having some of the loyalty of local patriotism. Then a -livery was as dignified as a uniform, because it really was a uniform. A -man who said he served the Nevilles or rode with the Douglases could -once feel much like a man fighting for France or England. But military -feeling is mob feeling, noble as mob feeling may be. Parading one -footman is like lunching on one pea, or curing baldness by the growth of -one hair. There ought not to be anything but a plural for flunkeys, any -more than for measles or vermin or animalculæ or the sweets called -hundreds and thousands. Strictly speaking, I suppose that a logical -Latinist could say, “I have seen an animalcula”; but I never heard of a -child having the moderation to remark, “I have eaten a hundred and -thousand.” Similarly, any one of us can feel that to have hundreds and -thousands of slaves, let alone soldiers, might give a certain -imaginative pleasure in magnificence. To have one slave reveals all the -meanness of slavery. For the solitary flunkey really is the man in fancy -dress, the man standing in the back-garden in the strange and the -fantastic coat and breeches. His isolation reveals our illusion. We find -our failure in the back-garden, when we have been dreaming a dream of -success in the market-place. When you ride through the streets amid a -great mob of vassals (you may have noticed)<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">{201}</a></span> you have a genial and not -ungenerous sense of being at one with them all. You cannot remember -their names or count their numbers, but their very immensity seems a -substitute for intimacy. That is what great men have felt at the head of -great armies; and the reason why Napoleon or Foch would call his -soldiers “<i>mes enfants</i>.” He feels at that moment that they are a part -of him, as if he had a million arms and legs. But it is very different -if you disband your army of lackeys; or if (as is, after all, possible) -you have not got an army of lackeys. It is very different if you look at -one lackey; one solitary solemn footman standing in your front hall. You -never have the sense of being caught up into a rapture of unity with -<i>him</i>. All your sense of social solidarity with your social inferiors -has dropped from you. It is only in public that people can be so -intimate as that. When you look into the eyes of the lonely footman, you -see that his soul is far away.</p> - -<p>In other words, you find yourself at the foot of a steep and staggering -mountain crag, that is the real character and conscience of a man. To be -really at one with that man, you would have to solve real problems and -believe that your own solutions were real. In dealing with the one man -you would really have a far huger and harder job than in dealing with -your throng of thousands. And <i>that</i> is the job that people run away -from when they wish to escape from domesticity to public work, -especially educational work. They wish to escape from a sense of failure -which is simply a sense of fact. They wish to recapture the illusion of -the market-place. It is an illusion that departs<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">{202}</a></span> in the dark interiors -of domesticity, where the realities dwell. As I have said, I am very far -from condemning it altogether; it is a lawful pleasure, and a part of -life, in its proper proportion, like any other. But I am concerned to -point out to the feminists and the faddists that it is not an approach -to truth, but rather the opposite. Publicity is rather of the nature of -a harmless romance. Public life at its very best will contain a great -deal of harmless romancing, and much more often of very harmful -romancing. In other words, I am concerned with pointing out that the -passage from private life to public life, while it may be right or -wrong, or necessary or unnecessary, or desirable or undesirable, is -always of necessity a passage from a greater work to a smaller one, and -from a harder work to an easier one. And that is why most of the moderns -do wish to pass from the great domestic task to the smaller and easier -commercial one. They would rather provide the liveries of a hundred -footmen than be bothered with the love-affairs of one. They would rather -take the salutes of a hundred soldiers than try to save the soul of one. -They would rather serve out income-tax papers or telegraph forms to a -hundred men than meals, conversation, and moral support to one. They -would rather arrange the educational course in history or geography, or -correct the examination papers in algebra or trigonometry, for a hundred -children, than struggle with the whole human character of one. For -anyone who makes himself responsible for one small baby, as a whole, -will soon find that he is wrestling with gigantic angels and demons.</p> - -<p>In another way there is something of illusion, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">{203}</a></span> of irresponsibility, -about the purely public function, especially in the case of public -education. The educationist generally deals with only one section of the -pupil’s mind. But he always deals with only one section of the pupil’s -life. The parent has to deal, not only with the whole of the child’s -character, but also with the whole of the child’s career. The teacher -sows the seed, but the parent reaps as well as sows. The schoolmaster -sees more children, but it is not clear that he sees more childhood; -certainly he sees less youth and no maturity. The number of little girls -who take prussic acid is necessarily small. The boys who hang themselves -on bed-posts, after a life of crime, are generally the minority. But the -parent has to envisage the whole life of the individual, and not merely -the school life of the scholar. It is not probable that the parent will -exactly anticipate crime and prussic acid as the crown of the infant’s -career. But he will anticipate hearing of the crime if it is committed; -he will probably be told of the suicide if it takes place. It is quite -doubtful whether the schoolmaster or schoolmistress will ever hear of it -at all. Everybody knows that teachers have a harassing and often heroic -task, but it is not unfair to them to remember that in this sense they -have an exceptionally happy task. The cynic would say that the teacher -is happy in never seeing the results of his own teaching. I prefer to -confine myself to saying that he has not the extra worry of having to -estimate it from the other end. The teacher is seldom in at the death. -To take a milder theatrical metaphor, he is seldom there on the night. -But this is only one of many instances of the same truth: that what is -called public life is not larger<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">{204}</a></span> than private life, but smaller. What -we call public life is a fragmentary affair of sections and seasons and -impressions; it is only in private life that dwells the fullness of our -life bodily.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">{205}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="STRIKES_AND_THE_SPIRIT_OF_WONDER" id="STRIKES_AND_THE_SPIRIT_OF_WONDER"></a>Strikes and the Spirit of Wonder <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE is a story which pleases me so much that I feel sure I have -repeated it in print, about an alleged and perhaps legendary lady -secretary of Madam Blavatsky or Mrs. Besant, who was so much delighted -with a new sofa or ottoman that she sat on it by preference when resting -or reading her correspondence. At last it moved slightly, and she found -it was a Mahatma covered with his Eastern robe and rigid in prayer, or -some more impersonal ecstasy. That a lady secretary should have a seat -any gentleman will approve; that a Mahatma should be sat on no Christian -will deny; nevertheless, there is another possible moral to the fable -which is a reproach rather to the sitter than the seat. It might be put, -as in a sort of vision or allegory, by imagining that all our furniture -really was made thus of living limbs instead of dead sticks. Suppose the -legs of the table were literally legs—the legs of slaves standing -still. Suppose the arms of an armchair really were arms—the arms of a -patient domestic permanently held out, like those of an old nurse -waiting for a baby. It would be calculated to make the luxurious -occupant of the easy-chair feel rather like a baby; which might do him -good. Suppose<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">{206}</a></span> every sofa were like that of Mrs. Besant’s -secretary—simply made of a man. They need not be made merely of -Theosophists or Buddhists—God forbid. Many of us would greatly prefer -to trust ourselves to a Moslem or Turk. This might, with strict -accuracy, be called sitting on an Ottoman. I have even read, I think, of -some oriental potentate who rejoiced in a name sounding like “sofa.” It -might even be hinted that some of them might be Christians, but there is -no reason, of course, why all of them should not be praying. To sit on a -man while he was praying would doubtless require some confidence. It -would also give a more literal version of the possession of a Prie-Dieu -chair. It would be easy to expand the extravagance into a vision of a -whole house alive, an architecture of arms and legs, a temple of temples -of the spirit. The four walls might be made of men like the squares in -military formation. There is even, perhaps, a shadow of the fantasy in -the popular phrases that compare the roof to the human head, that name -the chimney-pot hat after the chimney, or lightly allude to all modern -masculine head-dresses as “tiles.” But the only value of the vision, as -of most visions—even the most topsy-turvy ones—is a moral value. It -figures forth, in emblem and enigma, the truth that we do treat merely -as furniture a number of people who are, at the very least, live stock. -And the proof of it is that when they move we are startled like the -secretary sitting on the praying man; but perhaps it is we who should -begin to pray.</p> - -<p>In the current criticisms of the Strikes there is a particular tone, -which affects me not as a matter<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">{207}</a></span> of politics, but rather of philosophy, -or even of poetry. It is, indeed, the servile spirit expressed, if not -in its poetry, at least in its rhetoric. But it is a spirit I can -honestly claim to have hated and done my best to hammer long before I -ever heard of the Servile State, long before I ever dreamed of applying -this test to Strikes, or indeed of applying it to any political -question. I felt it originally touching things at once elemental and -every day—things like grass or daylight, like stones or daisies. But in -the light of it, at least, I always rebelled against the trend or tone -of which I speak. It may roughly be described as the spirit of taking -things for granted. But, indeed, oddly enough, the very form of this -phrase rather misses its own meaning. The spirit I mean, strictly -speaking, does not take things for granted. It takes them as if they had -not been granted. It takes them as if it held them by something more -autocratic than a right; by a cold and unconscious occupation, as stiff -as a privilege and as baseless as a caprice. As a fact, things generally -are granted, ultimately by God, but often immediately by men. But this -type of man is so unconscious of what he has been given that he is -almost unconscious of what he has got; not realizing things as gifts, he -hardly realizes them as goods. About the natural things, with which I -began, this oblivion has only inward and spiritual, and not outward and -political, effects. If we forget the sun the sun will not forget us, or, -rather, he will not remember us to revenge himself by “striking” at us -with a sunstroke. The stars will not go on strike or extinguish the -illumination of the universe as the electricians would extinguish the -illumination<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">{208}</a></span> of the city. And so, while we repeat that there is a -special providence in a falling star, we can ignore it in a fixed star. -But when we at once ignore and assume thousands of thinking, brooding, -free, lonely and capricious human creatures, they will remind us that we -can no more order souls than we can order stars. This primary duty of -doubt and wonder has nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of special -industrial quarrels. The workmen might be quite wrong to go on strike, -and we should still be much more wrong in never expecting them to go on -strike. Ultimately, it is a mystical but most necessary mood of -astonishment at everything outside one’s own soul—even one’s own body. -It may even involve a wild vision in which one’s own boots on one’s own -feet seem to be things distant and unfamiliar. And if this sound a shade -fantastic, it is far less fantastic than the opposite extreme—the state -of the man who feels as if he owned not only his own feet, but hundreds -of other human feet like a huge centipede, or as if he were a universal -octopus, and all rails, tubes and tramlines were his own tentacles, the -nerves of his own body, or the circulation of his own blood. That is a -much worse nightmare, and at this moment a much commoner one.</p> - -<p>Tennyson struck a true note of the nineteenth century when he talked -about “the fairy-tales of science and the long result of time.” The -Victorians had a very real and even childlike wonder at things like the -steam-engine or the telephone, considered as toys. Unfortunately the -long result of time, on the fairy-tales of science, has been to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">{209}</a></span> extend -the science and lessen the fairy-tale, that is, the sense of the -fairy-tale. Take for example the case of a strike on the Tubes. Suppose -that at an age of innocence you had met a strange man who had promised -to drive you by the force of the lightning through the bowels of the -earth. Suppose he had offered, in a friendly way, to throw you from one -end of London to the other, not only like a thunderbolt, but by the same -force as a thunderbolt. Or if we picture it a pneumatic and not an -electric railway; suppose he gaily promised to blow you through a -pea-shooter to the other side of London Bridge. Suppose he indicated all -these fascinating opportunities by pointing to a hole in the ground and -telling you he would take you there in a sort of flying or falling room. -I hope you would have agreed that there was a special providence in a -falling room. But whether or no you could call it providential, you -would agree to call it special. You would at least think that the -strange man was a very strange man. You would perhaps call him a very -strange and special liar, if he merely undertook to do it. You might -even call him a magician, if he did do it. But the point is this, that -you would not call him a Bolshevik merely because he did not do it. You -would think it a wonderful thing that it should be done at all; passing -in that swift car through those secret caverns, you would feel yourself -whirled away like Cinderella carried off in the coach that had once been -a pumpkin. But though such things happened in every fairy-tale, they -were not expected in any fairy-tale. Nobody turned on the fairies and -complained that they were not working, because<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">{210}</a></span> they were not always -working wonders. The press in those parts did not break into big -headlines of “Pumpkins Held Up; No Transformation Scenes,” or “Wands -Won’t Work; Famine of Coaches.” They did not announce with horror a -“Strike of Fairy Godmothers.” They did not draw panic-stricken pictures -of mobs of fairy godmothers, meeting in parks and squares, merely -because the majority of pumpkins still continued to be pumpkins. Now I -do not argue that we ought to treat every tube-girl as our fairy -godmother; she might resent the familiarity, especially the suggestion -of anything so near to a grandmother. But I do suggest that we should, -by a return to earlier sentiments, realize that the tube servants are -doing something for us that we could not do for ourselves; something -that is no part of our natural capacities, or even of our natural -rights. It is not inevitable, or in the nature of things, that when we -have walked as we can or want to, somebody else should carry us further -in a cart, even for hire: or that when we have wandered up a road and -come to a river, a total stranger should take us over in a boat, even if -we bribe him to do so. If we would look at things in this plain white -daylight of wonder, that shines on all the roads of the fairy-tales, we -come to see at last the simplest truth about the Strikes, which is -utterly missed in all contemporary comments on them. It is merely the -fact that Strikers are not <i>doing</i> something: they are doing nothing. If -you mean that they should be <i>made</i> to do something, say so, and -establish slavery. But do not be muddled by the mere word “strike” into -mixing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">{211}</a></span> it up with breaking a window or hitting a policeman on the nose. -Do not be stunned by a metaphor; there are no metaphors in fairy-tales.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">{212}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="A_NOTE_ON_OLD_NONSENSE" id="A_NOTE_ON_OLD_NONSENSE"></a>A Note on Old Nonsense <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Suffragettes have found out that they were wrong; I might even be so -egotistical as to say they have found out that we were right. At least -they have found out that the modern plutocratic parliamentary franchise -is what I for one always said it was. In other words, they are startled -and infuriated to find that the most vital modern matters are not -settled in Parliament at all, but mostly by a conflict or compromise -between Trusts and Trade Unions. Hence Mrs. Flora Drummond actually -cries aloud that she is being robbed of her precious vote; and says -dramatically “We women are being disenfranchized”—apparently by -“Soviets.” It is as if somebody who had just spent half a million on a -sham diamond, that ought never to have deceived anybody, should shriek -from the window that thieves had stolen the real diamond that never -existed at all.</p> - -<p>Whether or no there are Soviets, there are undoubtedly Strikes; and I do -not underrate the difficulty or danger of the hour. There is at least a -case for blaming men for striking right and left, illogically and -without a system; there is a case for blaming them for striking steadily -and logically in accordance with a false system; there is a case for -saying that “direct action<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">{213}</a></span>” implies such a false system. But there is -no case whatever for blaming them for having depreciated the waste paper -of the Westminster ballot-box; for that was depreciated long before the -war, and long before the word “Soviet” came to soothe and satisfy the -mind of Mrs. Drummond. It is absurd to blame the poor miners for -discrediting the members of Parliament, who could always be trusted to -discredit themselves. It was not the wild destructive Soviet which -decided that Parliament should not know who paid the bills of its own -political parties; it was Parliament itself. It was not a mad Bolshevist -addressing a mob who said that the men of the parliamentary group have -to treat charges of corruption among themselves differently from those -outside; it was the greatest living parliamentarian in a great -parliamentary debate. Miners had no more to be with it than missionaries -in the Cannibal Islands; it was not because men could not get coal that -they wanted to get coronets; and the empty coal-scuttle did not fill the -party chest. But in any case the policy of people like Mrs. Drummond -seems to require explanation. I can only fall back on the suggestion I -have already made; that she and her friends insisted on taking shares in -a rotten concern. They were quite sincere; so far as anybody can be -quite sincere who flatly refuses to listen to reason. They have no right -to complain if those who had to listen to their lawlessness will not -listen to their legalism.</p> - -<p>As a fact such a lady is rather contemptuous than complaining. She says -the miners do not want Nationalization; which may or may not be true. -But she explains the demand by the old disdainful allusion to agitators; -or Labour<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">{214}</a></span> leaders who “have to beat the big drum or lose their jobs.” -Nobody of course could possibly connect Mrs. Flora Drummond with the -idea of a big drum; any more than with a big horse or a uniform or a -self-created military rank. But this particular school of Feminists must -not be too fastidious in the present case. The miners are poor and -rudely instructed men; and cannot be expected to have that touch of -quiet persuasiveness and softening courtesy, by which the Militant -Suffragettes did so much to defend the historic dignity of their sex. -They have to fall back on something only too like a big drum, having no -skill in the silvery flutings of the W.S.P.U., or that tender lute which -Miss Pankhurst touched at twilight. But under all the disadvantages of -the coarser sex, the advocates of Nationalization have not yet used all -the methods that precedent might suggest to them. Mr. Smillie has not -cut up any Raphaels or Rembrandts at the National Gallery; nor even set -fire to any of the theatres he may happen to pass when he is out for a -walk. Mr. Bonar Law, on returning home at evening, does not find Mr. -Sidney Webb, a solitary figure chained to his railings. One of the -Suffragettes distinguished herself by getting inside a grand piano; but -it is seldom that we open our own private piano and find a large -coal-miner inside the instrument. The coal-miner may be better at the -big drum than the grand piano; but he remains on the outside of both; -and his drum is really smaller than some. The big drum, however, is -rather a convenient metaphor for something obvious and loud and hollow; -and the true moral in the matter is that recent English history was a -pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">{215}</a></span>cession led far too much by the big drum; and the agitation about -mere Parliamentary votes was one of the most recent and most remarkable -examples of it.</p> - -<p>What will be the future of the present industrial crisis I will not -prophesy; but I do know that every element in the past, which has led to -this impasse in the present, has been thus glorified as a mere novelty -by such a noisy minority. It was just because sanguine and shallow -people found it easier to act than to write, and easier to write than to -think, that every one of the changes came which now complicate our -position. The very industrialism which makes us dependent on coal, and -therefore on coal-miners and coal-owners, was forced on us by fussy -efficient fools, for whom anything fresh seemed to be free. Neither -miners nor mine-owners could have put out the fire by which Shakespeare -told his Winter’s Tale. The unequal ownership, which has justly -alienated the workers, was hurried happily through because the owners -were new, and it did not matter that they were few. The blind hypocrisy -with which our press and publicists hardened their hearts in the great -strikes before the war, was made possible by loud evasions about -political progress and especially by the big drum of Votes for Women. I -have begun this essay on a controversial note, with the echo of an old -controversy; and yet I do not mean to be merely provocative. The -Suffragettes are only doing what we all do; and I have only put them -first as an example of accumulated abuses for which we are all -responsible. I do not mean to blame the Suffragettes as they blame the -Socialists; but only to point to an<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">{216}</a></span> impasse of impenitence for which we -are all to blame.</p> - -<p>I am more and more convinced that what is wanted nowadays is not -optimism or pessimism, but a sort of reform that might more truly be -called repentance. The reform of a state ought to be a thing more like -the reform of a thief, which involves the admission that he has been a -thief. We ought not to be merely inventing consolations, or even merely -prophesying disasters; we ought, first and foremost, to be confessing -our own very bad mistakes. It is easy enough to say that the world is -getting better, by some mysterious thing called progress—which seems to -mean providence without purpose. But it is almost as easy to say the -world is getting worse, if we assume that it is only the younger -generation that has just begun to make it worse. It is easy enough to -say that the country is going to the dogs, if we are careful to identify -the dogs with the puppies. What we need is not the assertion that other -people are going to the dogs, but the confession that we ourselves have -only just come back from the swine. We also are the younger generation, -in the sense of being the Prodigal Son. As somebody said, there is such -a thing as the Prodigal Father. We could purchase hope at the dreadful -price of humility. But all thinkers and writers, of all political -parties and philosophical sects, seem to shrink from this notion of -admitting they are on the wrong road and getting back on to the right -one. They are always trying to pretend, by hook or crook, that they are -all on the same somewhat meandering road, and that they were right in -going east yesterday, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">{217}</a></span> they are right in going west to-day. They -will try to make out that every school of thought was an advance on the -last school of thought, and that no apology is due to anybody. For -instance, we might really have a moderate, cautious, and even -conservative reform of the evils affecting Labour, if we would only -confess that Capitalism itself was a blunder which it is very difficult -to undo. As it is, men seem to be divided into those that think it an -achievement so admirable that it cannot be improved upon, and those who -think it an achievement so encouraging that it <i>can</i> be improved upon. -The former will leave it in chaos, and the latter will probably improve -it into slavery. Neither will admit what is the truth—that we have got -to get <i>back</i> to a better distribution of property, as it was before we -fell into the blunder of allowing property to be clotted into monstrous -monopolies. For that involves admitting that we have made a mistake; and -that we none of us have the moral courage to do.</p> - -<p>I suggest very seriously that it will do good to our credit for courage -and right reason if we drop this way of doing things. The conversions -that have converted the world were not effected by this sort of -evolutionary curve. St. Paul did not pretend that he had changed slowly -and imperceptibly from a Pharisee to a Christian. Victor Hugo did not -maintain that he had been very right to be a Royalist, and only a little -more right to be a Republican. If we have come to the conclusion that we -have been wrong, let us say so, and congratulate ourselves on being now -right; not insinuate that in some relative fashion we were just as right -when we were wrong. For in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">{218}</a></span> this respect the progressive is the worst -sort of conservative. He insists on conserving, in the most obstinate -and obscurantist fashion, all the courses that have been marked out for -progress in the past. He does literally, in the rather unlucky metaphor -of Tennyson, “let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves -of change.” For anyone who changes in that fashion has only got into a -groove. There is no obligation on anybody to invent evolutionary excuses -for all these experiments. There is no need to be so much ashamed of our -blunders as all that. It is human to err; and the only final and deadly -error, among all our errors, is denying that we have ever erred.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">{219}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="MILTON_AND_MERRY_ENGLAND" id="MILTON_AND_MERRY_ENGLAND"></a>Milton and Merry England <img class="imgspc" src="images/symbol.png" width="70" alt="" /></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>R. FREEMAN, in contributing to the “London Mercury” some of those -critical analyses which we all admire, remarked about myself (along with -compliments only too generous and strictures almost entirely just) that -there was very little autobiography in my writings. I hope the reader -will not have reason to curse him for this kindly provocation, watching -me assume the graceful poses of Marie Bashkirtseff. But I feel tempted -to plead it in extenuation or excuse for this article, which can hardly -avoid being egotistical. For though it concerns one of those problems of -literature, of philosophy and of history that certainly interest me more -than my own psychology, it is one on which I can hardly explain myself -without seeming to expose myself.</p> - -<p>That valuable public servant, “The Gentleman with the Duster,” has -passed on from Downing Street, from polishing up the Mirrors and -polishing off the Ministers, to a larger world of reflections in “The -Glass of Fashion.” I call the glass a world of reflections rather than a -world of shadows; especially as I myself am one of those tenuous shades. -And the matter which interests me here is that the critic in question -complains that I have been very unjust to Puritans and Puritanism,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">{220}</a></span> and -especially to a certain ethical idealism in them, which he declares to -have been more essential than the Calvinism of which I “make so much.” -He puts the point in a genial but somewhat fantastic fashion by saying -that the world owes something to the jokes of Mr. G. K. Chesterton, but -more to the moral earnestness of John Milton. This involves rather a -dizzy elevation than a salutary depression; and the comparison is rather -too overwhelming to be crushing. For I suppose the graceful duster of -mirrors himself would hardly feel crushed, if I told him he did not hold -the mirror up to Nature quite so successfully as Shakespeare. Nor can I -be described as exactly reeling from the shock of being informed that I -am a less historic figure than Milton. I know not how to answer, unless -it be in the noble words of Sam Weller: “That’s what we call a -self-evident proposition, as the cats'-meat-man said to the housemaid -when she said he was no gentleman.” But for all that I have a -controversial issue with the critic about the moral earnestness of -Milton, and I have a confession to make which will seem to many only too -much in the personal manner referred to by Mr. Freeman.</p> - -<p>My first impulse to write, and almost my first impulse to think, was a -revolt of disgust with the Decadents and the æsthetic pessimism of the -’nineties. It is now almost impossible to bring home to anybody, even to -myself, how final that <i>fin de siècle</i> seemed to be; not the end of the -century but the end of the world. To a boy his first hatred is almost as -immortal as his first love. He does not realize that the objects of -either can alter; and I did not know that the twilight of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">{221}</a></span> the gods was -only a mood. I thought that all the wit and wisdom in the world was -banded together to slander and depress the world, and in becoming an -optimist I had the feelings of an outlaw. Like Prince Florizel of -Bohemia, I felt myself to be alone in a luxurious Suicide Club. But even -the death seemed to be a living or rather everlasting death. To-day the -whole thing is merely dead; it was not sufficiently immortal to be -damned. But then the image of Dorian Gray was really an idol, with -something of the endless youth of a god. To-day the picture of Dorian -Gray has really grown old. Dodo then was not merely an amusing female; -she was the eternal feminine. To-day the Dodo is extinct. Then, above -all, everyone claiming intelligence insisted on what was called “Art for -art’s sake.” To-day even the biographer of Oscar Wilde proposes to -abandon “art for art’s sake,” and to substitute “art for life’s sake.” -But at the time I was more inclined to substitute “no art, for God’s -sake.” I would rather have had no art at all than one which occupies -itself in matching shades of peacock and turquoise for a decorative -scheme of blue devils. I started to think it out, and the more I thought -of it the more certain I grew that the whole thing was a fallacy; that -art could not exist apart from, still less in opposition to, life; -especially the life of the soul, which is salvation; and that great art -never had been so much detached as that from conscience and common -sense, or from what my critic would call moral earnestness. -Unfortunately, by the time I had exposed it as a fallacy, it had -entirely evaporated as a fashion. Since then I have taken universal -annihil<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">{222}</a></span>ations more lightly. But I can still be stirred, as man always -can be by memories of their first excitements or ambitions, by anything -that shows the cloven hoof of that particular blue devil. I am still -ready to knock him about, though I no longer think he has a cloven hoof -or even a lame leg to stand on. But for all that there is one real -argument which I still recognize on his side; and that argument is in a -single word. There is still one word which the æsthete can whisper; and -the whisper will bring back all my childish fears that the æsthete may -be right after all. There is one name that does seem to me a strong -argument for the decadent doctrine that “art is unmoral.” When that name -is uttered, the world of Wilde and Whistler comes back with all its cold -levity and cynical connoisseurship. The butterfly becomes a burden and -the green carnation flourishes like the green bay-tree. For the moment I -do believe in “art for art’s sake.” And that name is John Milton.</p> - -<p>It does really seem to me that Milton was an artist, and nothing but an -artist; and yet so great an artist as to sustain by his own strength the -idea that art can exist alone. He seems to me an almost solitary example -of a man of magnificent genius whose greatness does not depend at all -upon moral earnestness, or upon anything connected with morality. His -greatness is in a style, and a style which seems to me rather unusually -separate from its substance. What is the exact nature of the pleasure -which I, for one, take in reading and repeating some such lines, for -instance, as those familiar ones:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">{223}</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Dying put on the weeds of Dominic<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>So far as I can see, the whole effect is in a certain unexpected order -and arrangement of words, independent and distinguished, like the -perfect manners of an eccentric gentleman. Say instead “Put on in death -the weeds of Dominic,” and the whole unique dignity of the line has -broken down. It is something in the quiet but confident inversion of -“Dying put on” which exactly achieves that perpetual slight novelty -which Aristotle profoundly said was the language of poetry. The idea -itself is at best an obvious and even conventional condemnation of -superstition, and in the ultimate sense a rather superficial one. Coming -where it does, indeed, it does not so much suggest moral earnestness as -rather a moralizing priggishness. For it is dragged in very laboriously -into the very last place where it is wanted, before a splendidly large -and luminous vision of the world newly created, and the first innocence -of earth and sky. It is that passage in which the wanderer through space -approaches Eden; one of the most unquestionable triumphs of all human -literature. That one book at least of “Paradise Lost” could claim the -more audacious title of “Paradise Found.” But if it was necessary for -the poet going to Eden to pass through Limbo, why was it necessary to -pass through Lambeth and Little Bethel? Why should he go there viâ Rome -and Geneva? Why was it necessary to compare the débris of Limbo to the -details of ecclesiastical quarrels in the seventeenth century, when he -was moving in a world before the dawn of all the centuries, or the -shadow of the first quarrel? Why did he talk as if the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">{224}</a></span> Church was -reformed before the world was made, or as if Latimer lit his candle -before God made the sun and moon? Matthew Arnold made fun of those who -claimed divine sanction for episcopacy by suggesting that when God said -“Let there be light,” He also said “Let there be Bishops.” But his own -favourite Milton went very near suggesting that when God said “Let there -be light,” He soon afterwards remarked “Let there be Nonconformists.” I -do not feel this merely because my own religious sympathies happen to be -rather on the other side. It is indeed probable that Milton did not -appreciate a whole world of ideas in which he saw merely the -corruptions: the idea of relics and symbolic acts and the drama of the -deathbed. It does not enlarge his place in the philosophy of history -that this should be his only relation either to the divine demagogy of -the Dogs of God or to the fantastical fraternity of the Jugglers of God. -But I should feel exactly the same incongruity if the theological animus -were the other way. It would be equally disproportionate if the approach -to Eden were interrupted with jokes against Puritans, or if Limbo were -littered with steeple-crowned hats and the scrolls of interminable -Calvinistic sermons. We should still feel that a book of “Paradise Lost” -was not the right place for a passage from Hudibras. So far from being -morally earnest, in the best sense, there is something almost -philosophically frivolous in the incapacity to think firmly and -magnanimously about the First Things, and the primary colours of the -creative palette, without spoiling the picture with this ink-slinging of -sectarian politics. Speaking from the standpoint of moral earnestness, -I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">{225}</a></span> confess it seems to me trivial and spiteful and even a little vulgar. -After which impertinent criticism, I will now repeat in a loud voice, -and for the mere lust of saying it as often as possible:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Dying put on the weeds of Dominic<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>And the exuberant joy I take in it is the nearest thing I have ever -known to art for art’s sake.</p> - -<p>In short, it seems to me that Milton was a great artist, and that he was -also a great accident. It was rather in the same sense that his master -Cromwell was a great accident. It is not true that all the moral virtues -were crystallized in Milton and his Puritans. It is not true that all -the military virtues were concentrated in Cromwell and his Ironsides. -There were masses of moral devotion on the other side, and masses of -military valour on the other side. But it did so happen that Milton had -more ability and success in literary expression, and Cromwell more -ability and success in military science, than any of their many rivals. -To represent Cromwell as a fiend or Milton as a hypocrite is to rush to -another extreme and be ridiculous; they both believed sincerely enough -in certain moral ideas of their time. Only they were not, as seems to be -supposed, the only moral ideas of their time. And they were not, in my -private opinion, the best moral ideas of their time. One of them was the -idea that wisdom is more or less weakened by laughter and a popular -taste in pleasure; and we may call this moral earnestness if we like. -But the point is that Cromwell did not succeed by his moral -earnestness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">{226}</a></span> but by his strategy; and Milton did not succeed by his -moral earnestness, but by his style.</p> - -<p>And, first of all, let me touch on the highest form of moral earnestness -and the relation of Milton to the religious poetry of his day. “Paradise -Lost” is certainly a religious poem; but, for many of its admirers, the -religion is the least admirable part of it. The poet professes indeed to -justify the ways of God to men; but I never heard of any men who read it -in order to have them justified, as men do still read a really religious -poem, like the dark and almost sceptical Book of Job. A poem can hardly -be said to justify the ways of God, when its most frequent effect is -admittedly to make people sympathize with Satan. In all this I am in a -sense arguing against myself; for all my instincts, as I have said, are -against the æsthetic theory that art so great can be wholly irreligious. -And I agree that even in Milton there are gleams of Christianity. Nobody -quite without them could have written the single line: “By the dear -might of Him that walked the waves.” But it is hardly too much to say -that it is the one place where that Figure walks in the whole world of -Milton. Nobody, I imagine, has ever been able to recognize Christ in the -cold conqueror who drives a chariot in the war in heaven, like Apollo -warring on the Titans. Nobody has ever heard Him in the stately -disquisitions either of the Council in Heaven or of Paradise Regained. -But, apart from all these particular problems, it is surely the general -truth that the great religious epic strikes us with a sense of -disproportion; the sense of how little it is religious considering how -manifestly it is great. It seems almost strange<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">{227}</a></span> that a man should have -written so much and so well without stumbling on Christian tradition.</p> - -<p>Now in the age of Milton there was a riot of religious poetry. Most of -it had moral earnestness, and much of it had splendid spiritual -conviction. But most of it was not the poetry of the Puritans; on the -contrary, it was mostly the poetry of the Cavaliers. The most real -religion—we might say the most realistic religion—is not to be found -in Milton, but in Vaughan, in Treherne, in Crashaw, in Herbert, and even -in Herrick. The best proof of it is that the religion is alive to-day, -as religion and not merely as literature. A Roman Catholic can read -Crashaw, an Anglo-Catholic can read Herbert, in a direct devotional -spirit; I gravely doubt whether many modern Congregationalists read the -theology of “Paradise Lost” in that spirit. For the moment I mention -only this purely religious emotion; I do not deny that Milton’s poetry, -like all great poetry, can awaken other great emotions. For instance, a -man bereaved by one of the tragedies of the Great War might well find a -stoical serenity in the great lines beginning “Nothing is here for -tears.” That sort of consolation is uttered, as nobly as it could be -uttered, by Milton; but it might be uttered by Sophocles or Goethe, or -even by Lucretius or Voltaire. But supposing that a man were seeking a -more Christian kind of consolation, he would not find it in Milton at -all, as he would find it in the lines beginning “They are all gone into -the world of light.” The whole of the two great Puritan epics do not -contain all that is said in saying “O holy hope and high<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">{228}</a></span> humility.” -Neither hope nor humility were Puritan specialities.</p> - -<p>But it was not only in devotional mysticism that these Cavaliers could -challenge the great Puritan; it was in a mysticism more humanistic and -even more modern. They shine with that white mystery of daylight which -many suppose to have dawned with Wordsworth and with Blake. In that -sense they make earth mystical where Milton only made heaven material. -Nor are they inferior in philosophic freedom; the single line of -Crashaw, addressed to a woman, “By thy large draughts of intellectual -day,” is less likely, I fancy, to have been addressed by Adam to Eve, or -by Milton to Mrs. Milton. It seems to me that these men were superior to -Milton in magnanimity, in chivalry, in joy of life, in the balance of -sanity and subtlety, in everything except the fact (not wholly remote -from literary criticism) that they did not write so well as he did. But -they wrote well enough to lift the load of materialism from the English -name; and show us the shining fields of a paradise that is not wholly -lost.</p> - -<p>Of such was the Anti-Puritan party; and the reader may learn more about -it from the author of “The Glass of Fashion.” There he may form a -general idea of how, but for the Puritans, England would have been -abandoned to mere ribaldry and licence; blasted by the blasphemies of -George Herbert; rolled in the mire of the vile materialism of Vaughan; -tickled to ribald laughter by the cheap cynicism and tap-room -familiarities of Crashaw and Treherne. But the same Cavalier tradition -continued into the next age, and indeed into the next century; and the -critic must extend<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">{229}</a></span> his condemnation to include the brutal buffooneries -of Bishop Ken or the gay and careless worldliness of Jeremy Collier. -Nay, he must extend it to cover the last Tories who kept the tradition -of the Jacobites; the careless merriment of Dean Swift, the godless -dissipation of Dr. Johnson. None of these men were Puritans; all of them -were strong opponents of political and religious Puritanism. The truth -is that English literature bears a very continuous and splendid -testimony to the fact that England was not merely Puritan. Ben Jonson in -“Bartholomew Fair” spoke for most English people, and certainly for most -English poets. Anti-Puritanism was the one thing common to Shakespeare -and Dryden, to Swift and Johnson, to Cobbett and Dickens. And the -historical bias the other way has come, not from Puritan superiority, -but simply from Puritan success. It was the political triumph of the -party, in the Revolution and the resultant commercial industrialism, -that suppressed the testimony of the populace and the poets. Loyalty -died away in a few popular songs; the Cromwellians never had any popular -song to die. English history has moved away from English literature. Our -culture, like our agriculture, is at once very native and very -neglected. And as this neglect is regrettable, if only as neglect of -literature, I will pause in conclusion upon the later period, two -generations after Milton, when the last of the true Tories drank wine -with Bolingbroke or tea with Johnson.</p> - -<p>The truth that is missed about the Tories of this tradition is that they -were rebels. They had the virtues of rebels; they also had the vices of -rebels. Swift had the fury of a rebel; Johnson<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">{230}</a></span> the surliness of a -rebel; Goldsmith the morbid sensibility of a rebel; and Scott, at the -end of the process, something of the despair and mere retrospection of a -defeated rebel. And the Whig school of literary criticism, like the Whig -school of political history, has omitted or missed this truth about -them, because it necessarily omitted the very existence of the thing -against which they rebelled. For Macaulay and Thackeray and the average -of Victorian liberality the Revolution of 1688 was simply an -emancipation, the defeat of the Stuarts was simply a downfall of tyranny -and superstition; the politics of the eighteenth century were simply a -progress leading up to the pure and happy politics of the nineteenth -century; freedom slowly broadening down, etc., etc. This makes the -attitude of the Tory rebels entirely meaningless; so that the critics in -question have been forced to represent some of the greatest Englishmen -who ever lived as a mere procession of lunatics and ludicrous -eccentrics. But these rebels, right or wrong, can only be understood in -relation to the real power against which they were rebelling; and their -titanic figures can best be traced in the light of the lightning which -they defied. That power was a positive thing; it was anything but a mere -negative emancipation of everybody. It was as definite as the monarchy -which it had replaced; for it was an aristocracy that replaced it. It -was the oligarchy of the great Whig families, a very close corporation -indeed, having Parliament for its legal form, but the new wealth for its -essential substance. That is why these lingering Jacobites appear most -picturesque when they are pitted against some of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">{231}</a></span> the princes of the new -aristocratic order. That is why Bolingbroke remains in the memory, -standing in his box at the performance of “Cato,” and flinging forth his -defiance to Marlborough. That is why Johnson remains rigid in his -magnificent disdain, hurling his defiance at Chesterfield. Churchill and -Chesterfield were not small men, either in personality or in power; they -were brilliant ornaments of the triumph of the world. They represented -the English governing class when it could really govern; the modern -plutocracy when it still deserved to be called an aristocracy also. And -the whole point of the position of these men of letters is that they -were denying and denouncing something which was growing every day in -prestige and prosperity; which seemed to have, and indeed had, not only -the present but the future on its side. The only thing it had not got on -its side was the ancient tradition of the English populace. That -populace was being more and more harried by evictions and enclosures, -that its old common lands and yeoman freeholds might be added to the -enormous estates of the all-powerful aristocracy. One of the Tory rebels -has himself made that infamy immortal in the great lines of the -“Deserted Village.” At least, it is immortal in the sense that it can -never now be lost for lovers of English literature; but even this record -was for a long time lost to the public by under-valuation and neglect. -In recent times the “Deserted Village” was very much of a deserted poem. -But of that I may have occasion to speak later. The point for the moment -is that the psychology of these men, in its evil as well as its good, is -to be interpreted not so much in terms of a lingering<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">{232}</a></span> loyalty as of a -frustrated revolution. Some of them had, of course, elements of -extravagance and morbidity peculiar to their own characters; but they -grew ten times more extravagant and more morbid as their souls swelled -within them at the success of the shameless and the insolence of the -fortunate. I doubt whether anybody ever felt so bitter against the -Stuarts. Now this misunderstanding has made a very regrettable gap in -literary criticism. The masterpieces of these men are represented as -much more crabbed or cranky or inconsequent than they really were, -because their objective is not seen objectively. It is like judging the -raving of some Puritan preacher without allowing for the fact that the -Pope or the King had ever possessed any power at all. To ignore the fact -of the great Whig families because of the legal fiction of a free -Parliament is like ignoring the feelings of the Christian martyrs about -Nero, because of the legal fiction that the Imperator was only a -military general. These fictions do not prevent imaginative persons from -writing books like the “Apocalypse” or books like “Gulliver’s Travels.”</p> - -<p>I will take only one example of what I mean by this purely literary -misunderstanding: an example from “Gulliver’s Travels” itself. The case -of the under-valuation of Swift is a particularly subtle one, for Swift -was really unbalanced as an individual, which has made it much easier -for critics not to keep the rather delicate balance of justice about -him. There is a superficial case for saying he was mad, apart from the -physical accident of his madness; but the point is that even those who -have realized that he was sometimes mad with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">{233}</a></span> rage have not realized -what he was in a rage with. And there is a curious illustration of this -in the conclusion of the story of Gulliver. Everyone remembers the ugly -business about the Yahoos, and the still uglier business about the real -human beings who reminded the returned traveller of Yahoos; how Gulliver -shrank at first from his friends, and would only gradually consent to -sit near his wife. And everybody remembers the picturesque but hostile -sketch which Thackeray gives of the satire and the satirist; of Swift as -the black and evil blasphemer sitting down to write his terrible -allegory, of which the only moral is that all things are, and always -must be, valueless and vile. I say that everybody remembers both these -literary passages; but, indeed, I fear that many remember the critical -who do not really remember the creative passage, and that many have read -Thackeray who have not read Swift.</p> - -<p>Now it is here that purely literary criticism has a word to say. A man -of letters may be mad or sane in his cerebral constitution; he may be -right or wrong in his political antipathies; he may be anything we -happen to like or dislike from our own individual standpoint. But there -is one thing to which a man of letters has a right, whatever he is, and -that is a fair critical comprehension of any particular literary effect -which he obviously aims at and achieves. He has a right to his climax, -and a right not to be judged without reference to his climax. It would -not be fair to leave out the beautiful last lines of “Paradise Lost” as -mere bathos; without realizing that the poet had a fine intention in -allowing that conclusion, after all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">{234}</a></span> thunder and the trumps of doom, -to fall and fade away on a milder note of mercy and reasonable hope. It -would not be fair to stigmatize the incident of Ignorance, damned at the -very doors of heaven at the end of Bunyan’s book, as a mere blot of -black Calvinist cruelty and spite, without realizing that the writer -fully intended its fearful irony, like a last touch of the finger of -fear. But this justice which is done to the Puritan masters of -imagination has hardly been done to the great Tory master of irony. No -critic I have read has noticed the real point and climax of that passage -about the Yahoos. Swift leads up to it ruthlessly enough, for an artist -of that sort is often ruthless; and it is increased by his natural -talent for a sort of mad reality of detail, as in his description of the -slowly diminished distance between himself and his wife at the -dinner-table. But he was working up to something that he really wished -to say, something which was well worth saying, but which few seem to -have thought worth hearing. He suggests that he gradually lost the -loathing for humanity with which the Yahoo parallel had inspired him, -that although men are in many ways petty and animal, he came to feel -them to be normal and tolerable; that the sense of their unworthiness -now very seldom returns; and indeed that there is only one thing that -revives it. If one of these creatures exhibits Pride——.</p> - -<p>That is the voice of Swift, and the cry arraigning aristocracy. It is -natural for a monkey to collect nuts, and it may be pardonable for John -Churchill to collect guineas. But to think that John Churchill can be -proud of his heap of guineas, can convert them into stars and coronets, -and can carry that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">{235}</a></span> calm and classic face disdainful above the -multitude! It is natural for she-monkeys to be mated somehow; but to -think that the Duchess of Yarmouth is proud of being the Duchess of -Yarmouth! It may not be surprising that the nobility should have -scrambled like screaming Yahoos for the rags and ribbons of the -Revolution, tripping up and betraying anybody and everybody in turn, -with every dirty trick of treason, for anything and everything they -could get. But that those of them who had got everything should then -despise those who had got nothing, that the rich should sneer at the -poor for having no part of the plunder, that this oligarchy of Yahoos -should actually feel superior to anything or anybody—that does move the -prophet of the losing side to an indignation which is something much -deeper and nobler than the negative flippancies that we call blasphemy. -Swift was perhaps more of a Jeremiah than an Isaiah, and a faulty -Jeremiah at that; but in this great climax of his grim satire he is none -the less a seer and a speaker of the things of God; because he gives the -testimony of the strongest and most searching of human intellects to the -profound truth of the meanness and imbecility of pride.</p> - -<p>And the other men of the same tradition had essentially the same -instinct. Johnson was in many ways unjust to Swift, just as Cobbett was -afterwards unjust to Johnson. But looking back up the perspective of -history we can all see that those three great men were all facing the -same way; that they all regretted the rise of a rapacious and paganized -commercial aristocracy, and its conquest over the old popular -traditions, which some would call popular prejudices. When John<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">{236}</a></span>son said -that the devil was the first Whig, he might have merely varied the -phrase by saying that he was the first aristocrat. For the men of this -Tory tradition, in spirit if not in definition, distinguished between -the privilege of monarchy and that of the new aristocracy by a very -tenable test. The mark of aristocracy is ambition. The king cannot be -ambitious. We might put it now by saying that monarchy is authority; but -in its essence aristocracy is always anarchy. But the men of that school -did not criticize the oligarch merely as a rebel against those above; -they were well aware of his activities as an oppressor of those below. -This aspect, as has already been noted, was best described by a friend -of Johnson, for whom Johnson had a very noble and rather unique -appreciation—Oliver Goldsmith.</p> - -<p>A recent and sympathetic critic in the <i>Mercury</i> used the phrase that -Mr. Belloc had been anticipated by Disraeli in his view of England as -having evolved into a Venetian oligarchy. The truth is that Disraeli was -anticipated by Bolingbroke and the many highly intelligent men who -agreed with him; and not least by Goldsmith. The whole view, including -the very parallel with Venice, can be found stated with luminous logic -and cogency in the “Vicar of Wakefield.” And Goldsmith attacked the -problem entirely from the popular side. Nobody can mistake his Toryism -for a snobbish submission to a privilege or title:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Princes and lords, the shadow of a shade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A breath can make them, as a breath has made:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But a bold peasantry, a nation’s pride,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When once destroyed can never be supplied.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">{237}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">I hope he was wrong; but I sometimes have a horrible feeling that he may -have been right.</p> - -<p>But I have here, thank God, no cause for touching upon modern politics. -I was educated, as much as my critic, in the belief that Whiggism was a -pure deliverance; and I hope I am still as willing as he to respect -Puritans for their individual virtue as well as for their individual -genius. But it moves all my memories of the unmorality of the ’nineties -to be charged with indifference to the importance of being earnest. And -it is for the sake of English literature that I protest against the -suggestion that we had no purity except Puritanism, or that only a man -like the author of “Paradise Lost” could manage to be on the side of the -angels.</p> - -<p class="castr">* * * * *</p> - -<p>On Peace Day I set up outside my house two torches, and twined them with -laurel; because I thought at least there was nothing pacifist about -laurel. But that night, after the bonfire and the fireworks had faded, a -wind grew and blew with gathering violence, blowing away the rain. And -in the morning I found one of the laurelled posts torn off and lying at -random on the rainy ground; while the other still stood erect, green and -glittering in the sun. 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