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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..659dbdb --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69296 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69296) diff --git a/old/69296-0.txt b/old/69296-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6c1e371..0000000 --- a/old/69296-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2461 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Addresses in America, 1919, by John -Galsworthy - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Addresses in America, 1919 - -Author: John Galsworthy - -Release Date: November 5, 2022 [eBook #69296] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADDRESSES IN AMERICA, -1919 *** - - - - - -_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - - - VILLA RUBEIN, and Other Stories - THE ISLAND PHARISEES - THE MAN OF PROPERTY - THE COUNTRY HOUSE - FRATERNITY - THE PATRICIAN - THE DARK FLOWER - THE FREELANDS - BEYOND - FIVE TALES - SAINT’S PROGRESS - - * * * * * - - A COMMENTARY - A MOTLEY - THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY - THE LITTLE MAN, and Other Satires - A SHEAF - ANOTHER SHEAF - ADDRESSES IN AMERICA: 1919 - - * * * * * - - PLAYS: FIRST SERIES _and Separately_ - THE SILVER BOX - JOY - STRIFE - - PLAYS: SECOND SERIES _and Separately_ - THE ELDEST SON - THE LITTLE DREAM - JUSTICE - - PLAYS: THIRD SERIES _and Separately_ - THE FUGITIVE - THE PIGEON - THE MOB - - A BIT O’ LOVE - - * * * * * - - MOODS, SONGS, AND DOGGERELS - MEMORIES. Illustrated - - - - - ADDRESSES IN AMERICA - - 1919 - - - - -[Illustration: - -_From a photograph, copyright, 1919, by Eugene Hutchinson._ - - John Galsworthy] - - - - - ADDRESSES IN AMERICA - 1919 - - BY - JOHN GALSWORTHY - - - NEW YORK - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - 1919 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - - - Published August, 1919 - - - [Illustration] - - - - - CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - I. AT THE LOWELL CENTENARY 1 - - II. AMERICAN AND BRITON 11 - - III. FROM A SPEECH AT THE LOTUS CLUB, NEW YORK 45 - - IV. FROM A SPEECH TO THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, - NEW YORK 51 - - V. ADDRESS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 54 - - VI. TO THE LEAGUE OF POLITICAL EDUCATION, NEW YORK 67 - - VII. TALKING AT LARGE 73 - - - - - ADDRESSES IN AMERICA - - 1919 - - - - - I - - AT THE LOWELL CENTENARY - - -We celebrate to-night the memory of a great man of Letters. What strikes -me most about that glorious group of New England writers――Emerson and -Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whittier, Thoreau, Motley, Holmes, and Lowell――is -a certain measure and magnanimity. They were rare men and fine writers, -of a temper simple and unafraid. - -I confess to thinking more of James Russell Lowell as a critic and -master of prose than as a poet. His single-hearted enthusiasm for -Letters had a glowing quality which made it a guiding star for the -frail barque of culture. His humour, breadth of view, sagacity, and the -all-round character of his activities has hardly been equalled in your -country. Not so great a thinker or poet as Emerson, not so creative as -Hawthorne, so original in philosophy and life as Thoreau, so racy and -quaint as Holmes, he ran the gamut of those qualities as none of the -others did; and as critic and analyst of literature surpassed them all. - -But I cannot hope to add anything of value to American estimate and -praise of Lowell――critic, humorist, poet, editor, reformer, man of -Letters, man of State affairs. I may, perhaps, be permitted however to -remind you of two sayings of his: “I am never lifted up to any peak of -vision――but that when I look down in hope to see some valley of the -Beautiful Mountains I behold nothing but blackened ruins, and the moans -of the down-trodden the world over.... Then it seems as if my heart -would break in pouring out one glorious song that should be the Gospel -of Reform, full of consolation and strength to the oppressed――that -way my madness lies.” That was one side of the youthful Lowell, the -generous righter of wrongs, the man. And this other saying: “The -English-speaking nations should build a monument to the misguided -enthusiasts of the plains of Shinar, for as the mixture of many bloods -seems to have made them the most vigorous of modern races, so has the -mingling of divers speeches given them a language which is perhaps -the noblest vehicle of poetic thought that ever existed.” That was the -other side of Lowell, the enthusiast for Letters; and that the feeling -he had about our language. - -I am wondering, indeed, Mr. President, what those men who in the -fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth centuries were welding the English -language would think if they could visit this hall to-night, if -suddenly we saw them sitting here among us in their monkish dress, -their homespun, or their bright armour, having come from a greater Land -even than America――the Land of the Far Shades. What expression should -we see on the dim faces of them, the while they took in the marvellous -fact that the instrument of speech they forged in the cottages, -courts, cloisters, and castles of their little misty island had become -the living speech of half the world, and the second tongue for all -the nations of the other half! For even so it is now――this English -language, which they made, and Shakespeare crowned, which you speak and -we speak, and men speak under the Southern Cross, and unto the Arctic -Seas! - -I do not think that you Americans and we English are any longer -strikingly alike in physical type or general characteristics, no -more than I think there is much resemblance between yourselves and -the Australians. Our link is now but community of language――_and the -infinity which this connotes_. - -Perfected language――and ours and yours had come to flower before white -men began to seek these shores――is so much more than a medium through -which to exchange material commodities; it is cement of the spirit, -mortar linking the bricks of our thoughts into a single structure of -ideals and laws, painted and carved with the rarities of our fancy, the -manifold forms of Beauty and Truth. We who speak American and you who -speak English are conscious of a community which no differences can -take from us. Perhaps the very greatest result of the grim years we -have just been passing through is the promotion of our common tongue -to the position of the universal language. The importance of the -English-speaking peoples is now such that the educated man in every -country will perforce, as it were, acquire a knowledge of our speech. -The second-language problem, in my judgment, has been solved. Numbers, -and geographical and political accident have decided a question which -I think will never seriously be reopened, unless madness descends on -us and we speakers of English fight among ourselves. That fate I, at -least, cannot see haunting the future. - -Lowell says in one of his earlier writings: “We are the furthest -from wishing to see what many are so ardently praying for, namely, -a National Literature; for the same mighty lyre of the human heart -answers the touch of the master in all ages and in every clime, and any -literature in so far as it is national is diseased in so much as it -appeals to some climatic peculiarity rather than to universal nature.” -That is very true, but good fortune has now made of our English speech -a medium of _internationality_. - -Henceforth you and we are the inhabitants and guardians of a great -Spirit-City, to which the whole world will make pilgrimage. They will -make that pilgrimage primarily because our City is a market-place. -It will be for us to see that they who come to trade remain to -worship. What is it we seek in this motley of our lives, to what end -do we ply the multifarious traffic of civilisation? Is it that we -may become rich and satisfy a material caprice ever growing with the -opportunity of satisfaction? Is it that we may, of set and conscious -purpose, always be getting the better of one another? Is it even, -that of no sort of conscious purpose we may pound the roads of life -at top speed, and blindly use up our little energies? I cannot think -so. Surely, in dim sort we are trying to realise human happiness, -trying to reach a far-off goal of health and kindliness and beauty; -trying to live so that those qualities which make us human beings――the -sense of proportion, the feeling for beauty, pity, and the sense of -humour――should be ever more exalted above the habits and passions that -we share with the tiger, the ostrich, and the ape. - -And so I would ask what will become of all our reconstruction in -these days if it be informed and guided solely by the spirit of the -market-place? Do Trade, material prosperity, and the abundance -of creature comforts guarantee that we advance towards our real -goal? Material comfort in abundance is no bad thing; I confess to a -considerable regard for it. But for true progress it is but a flighty -consort. I can well see the wreckage from the world-storm completely -cleared away, the fields of life ploughed and manured, and yet no wheat -grown there which can feed the spirit of man, and help its stature. - -Lest we suffer such a disillusion as that, what powers and influence -can we exert? There is one at least: The proper and exalted use of this -great and splendid instrument, our common language. In a sophisticated -world speech is action, words are deeds; we cannot watch our winged -words too closely. Let us at least make our language the instrument of -Truth; prune it of lies and extravagance, of perversions and all the -calculated battery of partizanship; train ourselves to such sobriety of -speech, and penmanship, that we come to be trusted at home and abroad; -so making our language the medium of honesty and fair-play, that -meanness, violence, sentimentality, and self-seeking become strangers -in our Lands. Great and evil is the power of the lie, of the violent -saying, and the calculated appeal to base or dangerous motive; let us, -then, make them fugitives among us, outcast from our speech! - -I have often thought during these past years what an ironical eye -Providence must have been turning on National Propaganda――on all the -disingenuous breath which has been issued to order, and all those miles -of patriotic writings dutifully produced in each country, to prove to -other countries that they are its inferiors! A very little wind will -blow those ephemeral sheets into the limbo of thin air. Already they -are decomposing, soon they will be dust. To my thinking there are but -two forms of National Propaganda, two sorts of evidence of a country’s -worth, which defy the cross-examination of Time: The first and most -important is the rectitude and magnanimity of a Country’s conduct; its -determination not to take advantage of the weakness of other countries, -nor to tolerate tyranny within its own borders. And the other lasting -form of Propaganda is the work of the thinker and the artist, of men -whose unbidden, unfettered hearts are set on the expression of Truth -and Beauty as best they can perceive them. Such Propaganda the old -Greeks left behind them, to the imperishable glory of their Land. -By such Propaganda Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch; Dante, St. Francis; -Cervantes, Spinoza; Montaigne, Racine; Chaucer, Shakespeare; Goethe, -Kant; Turgenev, Tolstoi; Emerson, Lowell――a thousand and one more, have -exalted their countries in the sight of all, and advanced the stature -of mankind. - -You may have noticed in life that when we assure others of our virtue -and the extreme rectitude of our conduct, we make on them but a sorry -impression. If on the other hand we chance to perform some just act -or kindness, of which they hear, or to produce a beautiful work which -they can see, we become exalted in their estimation though we did not -seek to be. And so it is with Countries. They may proclaim their powers -from the housetops――they will but convince the wind; but let their -acts be just, their temper humane, the speech and writings of their -peoples sober, the work of their thinkers and their artists true and -beautiful――and those Countries shall be sought after and esteemed. - -We, who possess in common the English language――“best result of the -confusion of tongues” Lowell called it――that most superb instrument -for the making of word-music, for the telling of the truth, and the -expression of the imagination, may well remember this: That, in the use -we make of it, in the breadth, justice, and humanity of our thoughts, -the vigour, restraint, clarity, and beauty of the setting we give to -them, we have our greatest chance to make our Countries lovely and -beloved, to further the happiness of mankind, and to keep immortal the -priceless comradeship between us. - - - - - II - - AMERICAN AND BRITON - - -On the mutual understanding of each other by Americans and Britons, the -future happiness of nations depends more than on any other world cause. -Ignorance in Central Europe of the nature of American and Englishman -tipped the balance in favour of war; and the course of the future will -surely be improved by right comprehension of their characters. - -Well, I know something at least of the Englishman, who represents -four-fifths of the population of the British Isles. - -And, first, there exists no more unconsciously deceptive person on -the face of the globe. The Englishman does not know himself; outside -England he is only guessed at. - -Racially the Englishman is so complex and so old a blend that no one -can say precisely what he is. In character he is just as complex. -Physically, there are two main types; one inclining to length of limb, -bony jaws, and narrowness of face and head (you will nowhere see such -long and narrow heads as in our island); the other approximating more -to the legendary John Bull. The first type is gaining on the second. -There is little or no difference in the main mental character behind -these two. - -In attempting to understand the real nature of the Englishman, certain -salient facts must be borne in mind. - -THE SEA. To be surrounded generation after generation by the sea has -developed in him a suppressed idealism, a peculiar impermeability, a -turn for adventure, a faculty for wandering, and for being sufficient -unto himself in far and awkward surroundings. - -THE CLIMATE. Whoso weathers for centuries a climate that, though -healthy and never extreme, is, perhaps, the least reliable and one of -the wettest in the world, must needs grow in himself a counterbalance -of dry philosophy, a defiant humour, an enforced medium temperature of -soul. The Englishman is no more given to extremes than his climate; and -against its damp and perpetual changes he has become coated with a sort -of protective bluntness. - -THE POLITICAL AGE OF HIS COUNTRY. This is by far the oldest settled -Western power politically speaking. For 850 years England has known -no serious military incursion from without; for nearly 200 years she -has known no serious political turmoil within. This is partly the -outcome of her isolation, partly the happy accident of her political -constitution, partly the result of the Englishman’s habit of looking -before he leaps, which comes, no doubt, from the climate and the -mixture of his blood. This political stability has been a tremendous -factor in the formation of English character, has given the Englishman -of all ranks a certain deep, quiet sense of form and order, an -ingrained culture which makes no show, being in the bones of the man as -it were. - -THE GREAT PREPONDERANCE FOR SEVERAL GENERATIONS OF TOWN OVER COUNTRY -LIFE. Taken in conjunction with generations of political stability, -this is the main cause of a growing, inarticulate humaneness, of which -however the Englishman appears to be rather ashamed. - -The other chief factors have been: - -THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS. - -THE ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY OF THE GOVERNMENT. - -THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND THE PRESS (at present rather under a cloud). - -THE OLD-TIME FREEDOM FROM COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE. - -All these, the outcome of the quiet and stable home life of an island -people, have helped to make the Englishman a deceptive personality to -the outside eye. He has for centuries been licensed to grumble. There -is no such confirmed grumbler――until he really has something to grumble -at; and then, no one perhaps who grumbles less. An English soldier was -sitting in a trench, in the act of lighting his pipe, when a shell -burst close by, and lifted him bodily some yards away. He picked -himself up, bruised and shaken, and went on lighting his pipe, with the -words: “These French matches aren’t ’alf rotten.” - -Confirmed carper though the Englishman is at the condition of his -country, no one perhaps is so profoundly convinced that it is the best -in the world. A stranger might well think from his utterances that -he was spoiled by the freedom of his life, unprepared to sacrifice -anything for a land in such a condition. If that country be threatened, -and with it his liberty, you find that his grumbles have meant less -than nothing. You find, too, that behind the apparent slackness of -every arrangement and every individual, are powers of adaptability to -facts, elasticity, practical genius, a spirit of competition amounting -almost to disease, and great determination. Before this war began, it -was the fashion among a number of English to lament the decadence of -their race. Such lamentations, which plentifully deceived the outside -ear, were just English grumbles. All this democratic grumbling, and -habit of “going as you please,” serve a deep purpose. Autocracy, -censorship, compulsion destroy the salt in a nation’s blood, and -elasticity in its fibre; they cut at the very mainsprings of a nation’s -vitality. Only if reasonably free from control can a man really arrive -at what is or is not national necessity and truly identify himself with -a national ideal, by simple conviction from within. - -Two words of caution to strangers trying to form an estimate of -the Englishman: He must not be judged from his Press, which, manned -(with certain exceptions) by those who are not typically English, -is too hectic to illustrate the true English spirit; nor can he be -judged entirely from his literature. The Englishman is essentially -inexpressive, unexpressed; and his literary men have been for the most -part sports――Nature’s attempt to redress the balance. Further, he -must not be judged by the evidence of his wealth. England may be the -richest country in the world in proportion to its population, but not -ten per cent of that population have any wealth to speak of, certainly -not enough to have affected their hardihood; and, with few exceptions, -those who have enough wealth are brought up to worship hardihood. - -I have never held a whole-hearted brief for the British character. -There is a lot of good in it, but much which is repellent. It has a -kind of deliberate unattractiveness, setting out on its journey with -the words: “Take me or leave me.” One may respect a person of this -sort, but it’s difficult either to know or to like him. An American -officer said recently to a British Staff Officer in a friendly voice: -“So we’re going to clean up Brother Boche together!” and the British -Staff Officer replied: “Really!” No wonder Americans sometimes say: -“I’ve got no use for those fellows!” - -The world is consecrate to strangeness and discovery, and the attitude -of mind concreted in that: “Really!” seems unforgivable till one -remembers that it is _manner rather than matter_ which divides the -hearts of American and Briton. - -In your huge, still half-developed country, where every kind of -national type and habit comes to run a new thread into the rich -tapestry of American life and thought, people must find it almost -impossible to conceive the life of a little old island where traditions -persist generation after generation without anything to break them -up; where blood remains undoctored by new strains; demeanour becomes -crystallised for lack of contrasts; and manner gets set like a -plaster mask. Nevertheless the English manner of to-day, of what are -called the classes, is the growth of only a century or so. There was -probably nothing at all like it in the days of Elizabeth or even of -Charles II. The English manner was still racy not to say rude when -the inhabitants of Virginia, as we are told, sent over to ask that -there might be despatched to them some hierarchical assistance for -the good of their souls, and were answered: “D――――n your souls, grow -tobacco!” The English manner of to-day could not even have come into -its own when that epitaph of a Lady, quoted somewhere by Gilbert -Murray, was written: “Bland, passionate, and deeply religious, she -was second cousin to the Earl of Leitrim; of such are the Kingdom of -Heaven.” About that gravestone motto you will admit there was a certain -lack of self-consciousness; that element which is now the foremost -characteristic of the English manner. - -But this English self-consciousness is no mere fluffy gaucherie; it -is our special form of what Germans would call “Kultur.” Behind every -manifestation of thought or emotion, the Briton retains control of -self, and is thinking: “That’s all I’ll let myself feel; at all events -all I’ll let myself show.” This stoicism is good in its refusal to be -foundered; bad in that it fosters a narrow outlook; starves emotion, -spontaneity, and frank sympathy; destroys grace and what one may -describe roughly as the lovable side of personality. The English hardly -ever say just what comes into their heads. What we call “good form,” -the unwritten law which governs certain classes of the Briton, savours -of the dull and glacial; but there lurks within it a core of virtue. It -has grown up like callous shell round two fine ideals――suppression of -the ego lest it trample on the corns of other people; and exaltation of -the maxim: ‘Deeds before words.’ Good form, like any other religion, -starts well with some ethical truth, but in due time gets commonised, -twisted, and petrified till at last we can hardly trace its origin, and -watch with surprise its denial and contradiction of the root idea. - -Without doubt, before the war, good form had become a kind of disease -in England. A French friend told me how he witnessed in a Swiss Hotel -the meeting between an Englishwoman and her son, whom she had not -seen for two years; she was greatly affected――by the fact that he had -not brought a dinner-jacket. The best manners are no “manners,” or at -all events no mannerisms; but many Britons who have even attained to -this perfect purity are yet not free from the paralytic effects of -“good form”; are still self-conscious in the depths of their souls, -and never do or say a thing without trying not to show how much they -are feeling. All this guarantees perhaps a certain decency in life; -but in intimate intercourse with people of other nations who have not -this particular cult of suppression, we English disappoint, and jar, -and often irritate. Nations have their differing forms of snobbery. -At one time, if we are to believe Thackeray, the English all wanted -to be second cousins to the Earl of Leitrim, like that lady bland and -passionate. Now-a-days it is not so simple. The Earl of Leitrim has -become etherialised. We no longer care how a fellow is born, so long -as he behaves as the Earl of Leitrim would have; never makes himself -conspicuous or ridiculous, never shows too much what he’s really -feeling, never talks of what he’s going to do, and always “plays the -game.” The cult is centred in our Public Schools and Universities. - -At a very typical and honoured old Public School, he to whom you are -listening passed on the whole a happy time; but what an odd life -educationally speaking! We lived rather like young Spartans; and were -not encouraged to think, imagine, or see anything we learned, in -relation to life at large. It’s very difficult to teach boys, because -their chief object is not to be taught anything; but I should say we -were crammed, not taught. Living as we did the herd-life of boys with -little or no intrusion from our elders, and they men who had been -brought up in the same way as ourselves, we were debarred from any real -interest in philosophy, history, art, literature, and music, or any -advancing notions in social life or politics. We were reactionaries -almost to a boy. I remember one summer term Gladstone came down to -speak to us, and we repaired to the Speech Room with white collars and -dark hearts, muttering what we would do to that Grand Old Man if we -could have our way. But, after all, he contrived to charm us. Boys -are not difficult to charm. In that queer life we had all sorts of -unwritten rules of suppression. You must turn up your trousers; must -not go out with your umbrella rolled. Your hat must be worn tilted -forward; you must not walk more than two abreast till you reached a -certain form; nor be enthusiastic about anything, except such a supreme -matter as a drive over the pavilion at cricket, or a run the whole -length of the ground at football. You must not talk about yourself -or your home people; and for any punishment you must assume complete -indifference. - -I dwell on these trivialities, because every year thousands of British -boys enter these mills which grind exceeding small; and because these -boys constitute in after life the great majority of the official, -military, academic, professional, and a considerable proportion of -the business classes of Great Britain. They become the Englishmen -who say: “Really!” and they are for the most part the Englishmen who -travel and reach America. The great defence I have always heard put -up for our Public Schools is that they form character. As oatmeal is -supposed to form bone in the bodies of Scotsmen, so our Public Schools -are supposed to form good sound moral fibre in British boys. And there -is much in this plea. The life does make boys enduring, self-reliant, -good-tempered, and honourable, but it most carefully endeavours to -destroy all original sin of individuality, spontaneity, and engaging -freakishness. It implants, moreover, in the great majority of those who -have lived it the mental attitude of that swell, who when asked where -he went for his hats, replied: “Blank’s; is there another fellow’s?” - -To know all is to excuse all――to know all about the bringing-up of -English Public School boys makes one excuse much. The atmosphere and -tradition of those places is extraordinarily strong, and persists -through all modern changes. Thirty-eight years have gone since I was a -new boy, but cross-examining a young nephew who left not long ago, I -found almost precisely the same features and conditions. The War, which -has changed so much of our social life, will have some, but no very -great, effect on this particular institution. The boys still go there -from the same kind of homes and preparatory schools and come under the -same kind of masters. And the traditional unemotionalism, the cult of -a dry and narrow stoicism, is rather fortified than diminished by the -times we live in. - -Our Universities, on the other hand, have lately been but the ghosts of -their old selves. At my old College in Oxford last year they had only -two English students. In the Chapel under the Joshua Reynolds window, -through which the sun was shining, hung a long “roll of honour,” a -hundred names and more. In the College garden an open-air hospital was -ranged under the old City wall, where we used to climb and go wandering -in the early summer mornings after some all-night spree. Down on the -river the empty College barges lay stripped and stark. From the top of -one of them an aged custodian broke into words: “Ah! Oxford’ll never -be the same again in my time. Why, who’s to teach ’em rowin’? When we -do get undergrads again, who’s to teach ’em? All the old ones gone, -killed, wounded and that. No! Rowin’ll never be the same again――not in -my time.” That was _the_ tragedy of the War for him. Our Universities -will recover faster than he thinks, and resume the care of our -particular ‘Kultur,’ and cap the products of our public schools with -the Oxford accent and the Oxford manner. - -An acute critic tells me that Americans hearing such deprecatory words -as these from an Englishman about his country’s institutions would say -that this is precisely an instance of what an American means by the -Oxford manner. Americans whose attitude towards their own country seems -to be that of a lover to his lady or a child to its mother, cannot――he -says――understand how Englishmen can be critical of their own country, -and yet love her. Well, the Englishman’s attitude to his country is -that of a man to himself; and the way he runs her down is rather a -part of that special English bone-deep self-consciousness of which I -have been speaking. Englishmen (the speaker amongst them) love their -Country as much as the French love France, and the Americans America; -but she is so much a part of us that to speak well of her is like -speaking well of ourselves, which we have been brought up to regard -as impossible. When Americans hear Englishmen speaking critically of -their own country I think they should note it for a sign of complete -identification with their country rather than of detachment from it. -But to return to English Universities: They have, on the whole, a -broadening influence on the material which comes to them so set and -narrow. They do a little to discover for their children that there are -many points of view, and much which needs an open mind in this world. -They have not precisely a democratic influence, but taken by themselves -they would not be inimical to democracy. And when the War is over -they will surely be still broader in philosophy and teaching. Heaven -forefend that we should see vanish all that is old, all that has as it -were the virginia-creeper, the wistaria bloom of age upon it; there is -a beauty in age and a health in tradition, ill dispensed with. But what -is hateful in age is its lack of understanding and of sympathy; in a -word――its intolerance. Let us hope this wind of change may sweep out -and sweeten the old places of my country, sweep away the cobwebs and -the dust, our narrow ways of thought, our mannikinisms. But those who -hate intolerance dare not be intolerant with the foibles of age; they -should rather see them as comic, and gently laugh them out. - -The educated Briton may be self-sufficient, but he has grit; and at -bottom grit is, I fancy, what Americans at any rate appreciate more -than anything. If the motto of my old Oxford College: “Manners makyth -man,” were true, I should often be sorry for the Briton. But his -manners don’t make him, they mar him. His goods are all absent from -the shop window; he is not a man of the world in the wider meaning -of that expression. And there is, of course, a particularly noxious -type of travelling Briton, who does his best, unconsciously, to take -the bloom off his country wherever he goes. Selfish, coarse-fibred, -loud-voiced――the sort which thanks God he is a Briton――I suppose -because nobody else will do it for him! - -We live in times when patriotism is exalted above all other virtues, -because there have happened to lie before the patriotic tremendous -chances for the display of courage and self-sacrifice. Patriotism ever -has that advantage as the world is now constituted; but patriotism and -provincialism of course are pretty close relations, and they who can -only see beauty in the plumage of their own kind, who prefer the bad -points of their countrymen to the good points of foreigners, merely -write themselves down blind of an eye, and panderers to herd feeling. -America is advantaged in this matter. She lives so far away from other -nations that she might well be excused for thinking herself the only -country in the world; but in the many strains of blood which go to make -up America, there is as yet a natural corrective to the narrower kind -of patriotism. America has vast spaces and many varieties of type and -climate, and life to her is still a great adventure. - -I pretend to no proper knowledge of the American people. It takes -more than two visits of two months each to know the American -people; there is just one thing, however, I can tell you: You seem -easy, but are difficult to know. Americans have their own form of -self-absorption; but they appear to be free as yet from the special -competitive self-centrement which has been forced on Britons through -long centuries by countless continental rivalries and wars. Insularity -was driven into the very bones of our people by the generation-long -wars of Napoleon. A Frenchman, André Chevrillon, whose book: “England -and the War” I commend to anyone who wishes to understand British -peculiarities, justly, subtly studied by a Frenchman, used these words -in a recent letter to me: “You English are so strange to us French; -you are so utterly different from any other people in the world.” -It is true; we are a lonely race. Deep in our hearts, I think, we -feel that only the American people could ever really understand us. -And being extraordinarily self-conscious, perverse, and proud, we do -our best to hide from Americans that we have any such feeling. It -would distress the average Briton to confess that he wanted to be -understood, had anything so natural as a craving for fellowship or for -being liked. We are a weird people, though we look so commonplace. In -looking at photographs of British types among photographs of other -European nationalities, one is struck at once by something which is -in no other of those races――exactly as if we had an extra skin; as -if the British animal had been tamed longer than the rest. And so he -has. His political, social, legal life was fixed long before that of -any other Western country. He was old before the _Mayflower_ touched -American shores and brought there avatars, grave and civilised as ever -founded nation. There is something touching and terrifying about our -character, about the depth at which it keeps its real yearnings, about -the perversity with which it disguises them, and its inability to show -its feelings. We are, deep down, under all our lazy mentality, the most -combative and competitive race in the world, with the exception perhaps -of the American. This is at once a spiritual link with America, and -yet one of the great barriers to friendship between the two peoples. -Whether we are better than Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Italians, -Chinese, or any other race, is of course more than a question; but -those peoples are all so different from us that we are bound, I -suppose, secretly to consider ourselves superior. But between Americans -and ourselves under all differences there is some mysterious deep -kinship which causes us to doubt, and makes us irritable, as if we -were continually being tickled by that question: Now am I really a -better man than he? Exactly what proportion of American blood at this -time of day is British, I know not; but enough to make us definitely -cousins――always an awkward relationship. We see in Americans a sort -of image of ourselves; feel near enough, yet far enough, to criticise -and carp at the points of difference. It is as though a man went out -and encountered, in the street, what he thought for the moment was -himself; and, decidedly disturbed in his self-love, instantly began to -disparage the appearance of that fellow. Probably community of language -rather than of blood accounts for our sense of kinship, for a common -means of expression cannot but mould thought and feeling into some -kind of unity. Certainly one can hardly overrate the intimacy which a -common literature brings. The lives of great Americans, Washington and -Franklin, Lincoln and Lee and Grant are unsealed for us, just as to -Americans are the lives of Marlborough and Nelson, Pitt and Gladstone, -and Gordon. Longfellow and Whittier and Whitman can be read by the -British child as simply as Burns and Shelley and Keats. Emerson and -William James are no more difficult to us than Darwin and Spencer to -Americans. Without an effort we rejoice in Hawthorne and Mark Twain, -Henry James and Howells, as Americans can in Dickens and Thackeray, -Meredith and Thomas Hardy. And, more than all, Americans own with -ourselves all literature in the English tongue before the _Mayflower_ -sailed; Chaucer and Spenser and Shakespeare, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, and -the authors of the English Bible Version are their spiritual ancestors -as much as ever they are ours. The tie of language is all-powerful――for -language is the food formative of minds. Why! a volume could be written -on the formation of character by literary humour alone. It has, I am -sure, had a say in planting in American and Briton, especially the -British townsman, a kind of bone-deep defiance of Fate, a readiness -for anything which may turn up, a dry, wry smile under the blackest -sky, an individual way of looking at things, which nothing can shake. -Americans and Britons both, we must and will think for ourselves, and -know why we do a thing before we do it. We have that ingrained respect -for the individual conscience, which is at the bottom of all free -institutions. Some years before the War, an intelligent and cultivated -Austrian who had lived long in England, was asked for his opinion of -the British. “In many ways,” he said, “I think you are inferior to us; -but one great thing I have noticed about you which we have not. You -think and act and speak for yourselves.” If he had passed those years -in America instead of in England he must needs have pronounced the very -same judgment of Americans. Free speech, of course, like every form of -freedom, goes in danger of its life in war time. In 1917 an Englishman -in Russia came on a street meeting shortly after the first revolution -had begun. An Extremist was addressing the gathering and telling them -that they were fools to go on fighting, that they ought to refuse and -go home, and so forth. The crowd grew angry, and some soldiers were for -making a rush at him; but the Chairman, a big burly peasant, stopped -them with these words: “Brothers, you know that our country is now a -country of free speech. We must listen to this man, we must let him say -anything he will. But, brothers, when he’s finished, we’ll bash his -head in!” - -I cannot assert that either Britons or Americans are incapable in times -like these of a similar interpretation of “free speech.” Things have -been done in my country, and perhaps in America, which should make us -blush. But so strong is the free instinct in both countries, that it -will survive even this War. Democracy, in fact, is a sham unless it -means the preservation and development of this instinct of thinking for -oneself throughout a people. “Government of the people by the people -for the people” means nothing unless the individuals of a people keep -their consciences unfettered, and think freely. Accustom the individual -to be nose-led and spoon-fed, and democracy is a mere pretence. The -measure of democracy is the measure of the freedom and sense of -individual responsibility in its humblest citizens. And democracy is -still in the evolutionary stage. - -An English scientist, Dr. Spurrell, in a recent book, “Man and -his Forerunners,” thus diagnoses the growth of civilisations: A -civilisation begins with the enslavement by some hardy race of a -tame race living a tame life in more congenial natural surroundings. -It is built up on slavery, and attains its maximum vitality in -conditions little removed therefrom. Then, _as individual freedom -gradually grows_, disorganisation sets in and the civilisation slowly -dissolves away in anarchy. Dr. Spurrell does not dogmatise about -our present civilisation, but suggests that it will probably follow -the civilisations of the past into dissolution. I am not convinced -of that, because of certain factors new to the history of man. -Recent discoveries have so unified the world, that such old isolated -successful swoops of race on race are not now possible. In our great -Industrial States, it is true, a new form of slavery has arisen (the -enslavement of men by their machines), but it is hardly of the nature -on which the civilisations of the past were reared. Moreover, all -past civilisations have been more or less Southern, and subject to -the sapping influence of the sun. Modern civilisation is essentially -Northern. The individualism, however, which according to Dr. Spurrell, -dissolved the Empires of the past, exists already, in a marked degree, -in every modern State; and the problem before us is to discover -how democracy and liberty of the subject can be made into enduring -props rather than dissolvents. It is, in fact, the problem of making -democracy genuine. If that cannot be achieved and perpetuated, then I -agree there is nothing to prevent democracy drifting into an anarchism -which will dissolve modern States, till they are the prey of pouncing -Dictators, or of other States not so far gone in dissolution――the same -process in kind though different in degree from the old descents of -savage races on their tamer neighbours. - -Ever since the substantial introduction of democracy, nearly a century -and a half ago with the American War of Independence, I would point out -that Western Civilisation has been living on two planes or levels――the -autocratic plane with which is bound up the idea of nationalism, and -the democratic, to which has become conjoined in some sort the idea -of internationalism. Not only little wars, but great wars such as -this, come because of inequality in growth, dissimilarity of political -institutions between States; because this State or that is basing its -life on different principles from its neighbours. - -We fall into glib usage of words like democracy, and make fetiches -of them without due understanding. Democracy is certainly inferior -to autocracy from the aggressively national point of view; it is not -necessarily superior to autocracy as a guarantee of general well-being; -it might even turn out to be inferior unless we can improve it. -But democracy is the rising tide; it may be dammed or delayed but -cannot be stopped. It seems to be a law in human nature that where, -in any corporate society, the idea of self-government sets foot it -refuses ever to take that foot up again. State after State, copying -the American example, has adopted the democratic principle; and the -world’s face is that way set. Autocracy has, practically speaking, -vanished from the western world. It is my belief that only in a world -thus uniform in its principles of government, and freed from the -danger of pounce by autocracies, have States any chance to develop -the individual conscience to a point which shall make democracy proof -against anarchy, and themselves proof against dissolution; and only in -such a world can a League of Nations to enforce peace succeed. - -But though we have now secured a single plane for Western civilisation -and ultimately, I hope, for the world, there will be but slow and -difficult progress in the lot of mankind. And for this progress the -solidarity of the English-speaking races is vital; for without that -there is but sand on which to build. - -The ancestors of the American people sought a new country, because -they had in them a reverence for the individual conscience; they came -from Britain, the first large State in the Christian era to build -up the idea of political freedom. The instincts and ideals of our -two races have ever been the same. That great and lovable people -the French, with their clear thought and expression, and their quick -blood, have expressed those ideals more vividly than either of us. -But the phlegmatic tenacity of the English and the dry tenacity -of the American temperament have ever made our countries the most -settled and safe homes of the individual conscience. And we must look -to our two countries to guarantee its strength and activity. If we -English-speaking races quarrel and become disunited, civilisation will -split up again and go its way to ruin. The individual conscience is the -heart of democracy. Democracy is the new order; of the new order the -English-speaking nations are the ballast. - -I don’t believe in formal alliances, or in grouping nations to exclude -and keep down other nations. Friendships between countries should have -the only true reality of common sentiment, _and be animated by desire -for the general welfare of mankind_. We need no formal bonds, but we -have a sacred charge in common, to let no petty matters, differences -of manner, divergencies of material interest, destroy our spiritual -agreement. Our pasts, our geographical positions, our temperaments -make us beyond all other races, the hope and trustees of mankind’s -advance along the only line now open――democratic internationalism. It -is childish to claim for Americans or Britons virtues beyond those of -other nations, or to believe in the superiority of one national culture -to another; they are different, that is all. It is by accident that -we find ourselves in this position of guardianship to the main line -of human development; no need to pat ourselves on the back about it. -But we are at a great and critical moment in the world’s history――how -critical, none of us alive will ever realise to the full. The -civilisation slowly built since the fall of Rome has either to break up -and dissolve into jagged and isolated fragments through a century of -revolutions and wars; or, unified and reanimated by a single idea, to -move forward on one plane and attain greater height and breadth. - -Under the pressure of this War there has often been, beneath the -lip-service we pay to democracy, a disposition to lose faith in it, -because of its undoubted weakness and inconvenience in a struggle with -States autocratically governed; there has even been a sort of secret -reaction towards autocracy. On those lines there is no way out of a -future of bitter rivalries, chicanery, and wars, and the probable total -failure of our civilisation. The only cure which I can see, lies in -democratising the whole world, and removing the present weaknesses and -shams of democracy by education of the individual conscience in every -country. Goodbye to that chance, if Americans and Britons fall foul of -each other, refuse to make common cause of their thoughts and hopes, -and to keep the general welfare of mankind in view. They have got to -stand together, not in aggressive and jealous policies, but in defence -and championship of the self-helpful, self-governing, ‘live and let -live’ philosophy of life. - -Who would not desire, rushing through the thick dark of the future, to -stand on the cliffs of vision――two hundred years, say――hence――and view -this world? - -Will there then be this League for War, this caldron where, beneath -the thin crust, a boiling lava bubbles, and at any minute may break -through and leap up, as of late, jet high? Will there still be reek and -desolation, and man at the mercy of the machines he has made; still -be narrow national policies and rancours, and such mutual fear, that -no country dare be generous? Or will there be over the whole world -something of the glamour that each one of us now sees hovering over his -own country; and men and women――all――feel they are natives of one land? -Who dare say? - -The guns have ceased fire and all is still; from the woods and fields -and seas, from the skeleton towns of ravaged countries the wistful dead -rise, and with their eyes question us. In this hour we have for answer -only this: We fought for a better Future for Mankind! - -Did we? Do we? That is the great question. Is our gaze really fixed on -the far horizon? Or do we only dream it; and have the slain no comfort -in their untimely darkness; the maimed, the ruined, the bereaved, no -shred of consolation? Is it all to be for nothing but the salving of -national prides? And shall the Ironic Spirit fill the whole world with -his laughter? - -The House of the Future is always dark. There are few cornerstones to -be discerned in the Temple of our Fate. But, of these few, one is the -brotherhood and bond of the English-speaking races; not for narrow -purposes, but that mankind may yet see Faith and Good Will enshrined, -yet breathe a sweeter air, and know a life where Beauty passes, with -the sun on her wings. - -We want in the lives of men a “Song of Honour,” as in Ralph Hodgson’s -poem: - - “The song of men all sorts and kinds - As many tempers, moods and minds - As leaves are on a tree, - As many faiths and castes and creeds - As many human bloods and breeds - As in the world may be.” - -In the making of that song the English-speaking races will assuredly -unite. What set this world in motion we know not; the Principle of -Life is inscrutable and will for ever be; but we do know, that Earth -is yet on the upgrade of existence, the mountain top of man’s life not -reached, that many centuries of growth are yet in front of us before -Time begins to chill this planet, till it swims, at last, another -moon, in space. In the climb to that mountain top, of a happy life -for mankind, our two great nations are as guides who go before, roped -together in perilous ascent. On their nerve, loyalty, and wisdom, the -adventure now hangs. What American or British knife would sever the -rope? - -He who ever gives a thought to the life of man at large, to his -miseries, and disappointments, to the waste and cruelty of existence, -will remember that if American or Briton fail in this climb, there can -but be for us both, and for all other peoples, a hideous slip, a swift -and fearful fall into an abyss, whence all shall be to begin over again. - -We shall not fail――neither ourselves, nor each other. Our comradeship -will endure. - - - - - III - - FROM A SPEECH AT THE LOTUS CLUB, NEW YORK - - -I wonder whether you in America can realise what an entrancing voyage -of discovery you represent to us primeval Anglo-Britons. I prefer that -term to Anglo-Saxon, for even if we English glory in the thought that -our seaborne ancestors were extremely bloodthirsty, we have no evidence -that they brought their own women to Britain in any quantities, or had -the power of reproducing themselves without aid from the other sex! - -Can you, I say, realise how much more enticing to my English mind -America is, than the Arabian Nights were to your fascinating fabulist, -O. Henry? One longs to unriddle to oneself the significance and sense -of America. In the English-speaking world to-day we need understanding -of each others’ natures, aims, sympathies, and dislikes. For without -understanding we become doctrinaire and partizan, building our ship in -compartments very watertight, and getting into them and shutting the -doors when the ship threatens to go down. - -We English have a reputation for self-sufficiency. But speaking for -myself, who find no name that is not English in my genealogy, I never -can get up quite the interest in my own race that I can in others. We -English are so set and made, you Americans are yet in the making. We at -most experience modification of type; you are in process of creating -one. I have often asked Americans: What is now the American type? and -have been answered by――a smile. When I go back home my countrymen will -ask me the same question. I would I could sit down and listen to you -telling me what it is. - -It will not have escaped you, at all events, that for four years the -various branches of the English-speaking peoples have been credited -with all the virtues――a love of liberty, humanity, and justice has, -as it were, been patented for them on both sides of the Atlantic, and -under the Southern Cross, till one has come to listen with a sort of -fascinated terror for those three words to tinkle from the tongue. I -am prepared to sacrifice a measure of the truth sooner than pronounce -them to-night. Let me rather speak of those lower qualities which I -think we English-speaking peoples possess in a conspicuous degree: -Commonsense and Energy. From those vulgar attributes, I am sure, the -historian of the far future will say that the English-speaking era has -germinated; and that by those vulgar attributes it will flourish. Deep -in the American spirit and in the English spirit is a curious intense -realism――sometimes very highly camouflaged by hot air――an instinct -for putting the finger on the button of life, and pressing it there -till the bell rings. We are so extraordinarily successful that we may -expect the historian of the far future to write: ‘The English-speaking -races were so rapid in their subjugation of the forces of Nature, so -prodigal of inventions, so eager in their use of them, so extremely -practical, and altogether so successful, that the only thing they -missed was――happiness.’ - -When I read of some great new American invention, or of a Lord -Leverhulme converting an island of Lewis into a commercial Paradise, -I confess to trembling. Gentlemen, it is a melancholy fact that the -complete man does not live by invention and trade alone. At the risk of -being laughed out of Paradise, I dare put in a plea for Beauty. Both -our peoples, indeed, are so severely practical that I do feel we run -the risk of getting machine-made, and coming actually to look down on -those who give themselves to anything so unpractical as the love of -Beauty. Now, I venture to think that the spirit of the old builders -of Seville cathedral: ‘Let us make us a church such as the world has -never seen before!’ ought to inspire us in these days too. ‘But it -does, my dear Sir.’ I shall be answered: ‘We make flying machines, and -iron foundries, Palace hotels, stock-yards, self-playing pianos, film -pictures, cocktails, and ladies’ hats, such as the world has never seen -before. A fig for the Giralda, the Sphynx, Shakespeare, and Michael -Angelo! They did not elevate the lot of man. We are for invention, -industry, and trade.’ Far be it from me to run down any of those -things, so excellent in moderation; but since I solemnly aver that -man’s greatest quality is the sense of proportion, I feel that if he -neglects Beauty (which is but proportion elegantly cooked)――the ‘result -of perfect economy’ Emerson had it――he sags backwards, no matter how -inventive and commercially successful he may be. - -But this is to become grave, which is detestable, even in a country -which has just been taking its ticket for the Garden of Eden. - -I believe I shall yet see (unless I perish of public speaking) America -taking the long cut to Beauty――for there are no short cuts to Her, no -cheap nostrums by which she can be conjured from the blue. Beauty and -Simplicity are the natural antidotes to the feverish industrialism of -our age. If only America will begin to take them freely she has it in -her power to re-inspire in us older peoples, just now rather breathless -and exhausted, the belief in Beauty, and a new fervour for the creation -of fine and rare things. If on the other hand America turns Beauty -down as a dangerous ‘bit of fluff’ and Simplicity as an impecunious -alien, we over there, one behind the other, will sink into a soup of -utilitarianism so thick that we may never get out. - -Gentlemen, I long to see established between the English-speaking -peoples a fellowship, not only in matters political and commercial, -important as these are, but in philosophy and art. For after all those -laughing-stocks, philosophy and art――the beautiful expression of our -highest thoughts and fancies――are the lanterns of a nation’s life, and -we ought to hang them in each others’ houses. - - - - - IV - - FROM A SPEECH TO THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, NEW YORK - - -I do not know what your chief thought is now; for me the overmastering -thought is that of Creation――Re-creation. You know when we look at a -bit of moorland where the gorse and heather have been burned――swaled -we call it in Devon――how we delight in the green, pushing up among -the black shrivelled roots. I long to see the green pushing up, the -creative impulse at work in its thousand ways all over the world again; -each of us on both continents in his own line doing creative work; and -not so much that wealth and comfort, as that health and beauty may be -born again. - -But, confronting as I do to-night, the Arts and Sciences, let me -divide my words. You sciences have no need to listen. You have never -had such a heyday as this; in engineering, in chemistry, in surgery, -in every branch except perhaps ‘star-gazing,’ you have been shooting -ahead, earning fresh laurels, putting new discoveries at the service -of bewildered Man. Science drags no lame foot, it dances along like -the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I had better not pursue the simile. But the -Arts, with faces muffled to the eyes, stand against the walls of life, -and gaze a little enviously, a little mournfully at the passing rout. -This is not their time for carnival; their lovers sleep, heavy with war -and toil. It is to those poor wallflowers the Arts, that I would speak: -Drop your veils, have the courage of your charms; you shall break many -a heart yet, make many a lover happy. - -Ladies and gentlemen, you have all noticed as I have the difference -between a town by daylight and a town by night; well, the daylight -town belongs to the Sciences, the night-lit town to the Arts. I don’t -mean that artists are night-birds, though I have heard of such a case; -I mean that the Arts live on Mystery and Imagination. Have you ever -thought how we should get through if we had to live in a town which -never put on the filmy dark robe of night, so that hour-in, hour-out -we had to stare at things garbed in the efficient overalls of Science, -with their prices properly pinned on? How long would it be before we -found ourselves in Coney Hatch? Well, we are in a fair way to abolish -Night――Mystery and Imagination are ‘off,’ as they say, and that way -sooner or later madness lies. - -It is time the Arts left off leaning against the wall, and took their -share of the dance again. We want them to be as creative, nay, as -seductive as the Sciences. We have seen Science work miracles of late; -now let Art work her miracles in turn. - -People are inclined to smile at me when I suggest that you in America -are at the commencement of a period of fine and vigorous Art. The -signs, they say, are all the other way. Of course you ought to know -best; all the same, I stick to my opinion with British obstinacy, and I -believe I shall see it justified. - - - - - V - - ADDRESS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - - -A doubter of the general divinity of our civilisation is labelled -‘pedant.’ Anyone who questions modern progress is tabooed. And yet -there is no doubt, I think, that we are getting feverish, rushed, -complicated, and have multiplied conveniences to such an extent that we -do little with them but scrape the surface of life. - -We were rattling into a species of barbarism when the war came, and -unless we check ourselves shall continue to rattle now that it is over. -The underlying cause in every country is the increase of herd-life, -based on machines, money-getting, and the dread of being dull. Everyone -knows how fearfully strong that dread is. But to be capable of being -dull is in itself a disease. - -And most of modern life seems to be a process of creating disease, -then finding a remedy, which in its turn creates another disease, -demanding fresh remedy, and so on. We pride ourselves, for example, on -scientific sanitation; but what is scientific sanitation if not one -huge palliative of evils which have arisen from herd-life enabling -herd-life to be intensified, so that we shall presently need even more -scientific sanitation? The true elixirs vitæ――for there be two, I -think――are open-air life, and a proud pleasure in one’s work, but we -have evolved a mode of existence in which it is comparatively rare to -find these two conjoined. In old countries such as mine, the evils of -herd-life are at present vastly more acute than in a new country such -as yours. On the other hand, the further one is from hades, the faster -one drives towards it, and machines are beginning to run along with -America even more violently than with Europe. - -When our Tanks first appeared, they were described as snouting monsters -creeping at their own sweet will. I confess that this is how my -inflamed eye sees all our modern machines――monsters running on their -own, dragging us along, and very often squashing us. - -We are, I believe, awakening to the dangers of this ‘Gadarening,’ of -rushing down the high cliff into the sea, possessed and pursued by the -devils of――machinery. But if any would see how little alarmed he really -is――let him ask himself how much of his present mode of existence he is -prepared to alter. Altering the modes of other people is delightful; -one would have great hope of the future if we had nothing before us but -that. The mediæval Irishman, indicted for burning down the cathedral -at Armagh, together with the Archbishop, defended himself thus: “As -for the cathedral, ’tis true I burned it; but indeed an’ I wouldn’t -have, only they told me himself was inside.” We are all ready to alter -our opponents, if not to burn them. But even if we were as ardent -reformers as that Irishman, we could hardly force men to live in the -open, or take a proud pleasure in their work, or enjoy beauty, or not -concentrate themselves on making money. No amount of legislation will -make us “lilies of the field” or “birds of the air,” or prevent us from -worshipping false gods, or neglecting to reform ourselves. - -I once wrote the unpopular sentence: “Democracy at present offers the -spectacle of a man running down a road followed at a more and more -respectful distance by his own soul.” For democracy read rather the -words modern civilisation which prides itself on redress after the -event, foresees nothing and avoids less; is purely empirical if one may -use so high brow a word. - -I look very eagerly and watchfully to America in many ways. After the -war she will be more emphatically than ever, in material things, the -most important and powerful nation of the earth. We British have a -legitimate and somewhat breathless interest in the use she will make -of her strength, and in the course of her national life, for this will -greatly influence the course of our own. But power for real light and -leading in America will depend, not so much on her material wealth, -or her armed force, as on what her attitude towards life, and what -the ideals of her citizens are going to be. Americans have a certain -eagerness for knowledge; they have also, for all their absorption in -success, the aspiring eye. They do want the good thing. They don’t -always know when they see it, but they want it. These qualities, in -combination with material strength, give America her chance. Yet, if -she does not set her face against “Gadarening,” we are all bound for -downhill. If she goes in for spreadeagleism, if her aspirations are -towards quantity, not quality, we shall all go on being commonised. -If she should get that purse-and-power-proud fever which comes from -national success, we are all bound for another world flare-up. The -burden of proving that democracy can be real and yet live up to an -ideal of health and beauty will be on America’s shoulders, and on ours. -What are we and Americans going to make of our inner life, of our -individual habits of thought? What are we going to reverence, and what -despise? Do we mean to lead, in spirit and in truth, not in mere money -and guns? Britain is an old country, though still in her prime, I hope; -America is yet on the threshold. Is she to step out into the sight of -the world as a great leader? That is for America the long decision, to -be worked out, not so much in her Senate and her Congress, as in her -homes and schools. On America, now that the war is over, the destiny -of civilisation may hang for the next century. If she mislays, indeed -if she does not improve the power of self-criticism――that special dry -American humour which the great Lincoln had――she might soon develop -the intolerant provincialism which has so often been the bane of the -earth and the undoing of nations. Above all, if she does not solve the -problems of town life, of Capital and Labour, of the distribution of -wealth, of national health, and attain to a mastery over inventions -and machinery――she is in for a cycle of mere anarchy, disruption, and -dictatorships, into which we shall all follow. The motto “noblesse -oblige” applies as much to democracy as ever it did to the old-time -aristocrat. It applies with terrific vividness to America. Ancestry and -Nature have bestowed on her great gifts. Behind her stand Conscience, -Enterprise, Independence, and Ability――such were the companions of the -first Americans, and are the comrades of American citizens to this day. -She has abounding energy, an unequalled spirit of discovery, a vast -territory not half developed, and great natural beauty. I remember -sitting on a bench overlooking the Grand Canyon of Arizona; the sun was -shining into it, and a snow storm was whirling down there. All that -most marvellous work of Nature was flooded to the brim with rose and -tawny-gold, with white, and wine-dark shadows; the colossal carvings -as of huge rock-gods and sacrificial altars, and great beasts along -its sides, were made living by the very mystery of light and darkness, -on that violent day of Spring; I remember sitting there, and an old -gentleman passing close behind, leaning towards me and saying in a sly, -gentle voice: “How are you going to tell it to the folks at home?” -America has so much, that one despairs of telling to the folks at home, -so much grand beauty to be to her an inspiration and uplift towards -high and free thought and vision. Great poems of Nature she has, -wrought in the large, to make of her and keep her a noble people. In my -beloved Britain――all told, not half the size of Texas――there is a quiet -beauty of a sort which America has not. I walked not long ago from -Worthing to the little village of Steyning, in the South Downs. It was -such a day as one seldom gets in England; when the sun was dipping and -there came on the cool chalky hills the smile of late afternoon, and -across a smooth valley on the rim of the Downs one saw a tiny group -of trees, one little building, and a stack, against the clear-blue, -pale sky――it was like a glimpse of heaven, so utterly pure in line and -colour so removed, and touching. The tale of loveliness in our land is -varied and unending, but it is not in the grand manner. America has the -grand manner in her scenery and in her blood, for in America all are -the children of adventure, every single man an emigrant himself or a -descendant of one who had the pluck to emigrate. She has already had -past-masters in dignity, but she has still to reach as a nation the -grand manner in achievement. She knows her own dangers and failings; -her qualities and powers; but she cannot realise the intense concern -and interest, deep down behind our provoking stolidities, with which -we of the old country watch her, feeling that what she does reacts on -us above all nations, and will ever react more and more. Underneath -surface differences and irritations we English-speaking peoples are -fast bound together. May it not be in misery and iron! If America walks -upright, so shall we; if she goes bowed under the weight of machines, -money, and materialism, we too shall creep our ways. We run a long -race, we nations; a generation is but a day. But in a day a man may -leave the track, and never again recover it! Nations depend for their -health and safety on the behaviour of the individuals who compose them. - -Modern man is a very new and marvellous creature. Without quite -realising it, we have evolved a fresh species of stoic――even more -stoical, I suspect, than were the old Stoics. Modern man stands on -his own feet. His religion is to take what comes without flinching -or complaint, as part of the day’s work, which an unknowable God, -Providence, Creative Principle, has appointed. By courage and kindness -modern man exists, warmed by the glow of the great human fellowship. He -has re-discovered the old Greek saying: “God is the helping of man by -man”; has found out in his unselfconscious way that if he does not help -himself, and help his fellows, he cannot reach that inner peace which -satisfies. To do his bit; and to be kind! It is by that creed, rather -than by any mysticism, that he finds the salvation of his soul, for, of -a truth, the religion of this age is conduct. - -After all, does not the only real spiritual warmth, not tinged by -Pharisaism, egotism, or cowardice, come from the feeling of doing your -work well and helping others; is not all the rest embroidery, luxury, -pastime, pleasant sound and incense? Modern man is a realist with too -romantic a sense, perhaps, of the mystery which surrounds existence, to -pry into it. And, like modern civilisation itself, he is the creature -of West and North, of those atmospheres, climates, manners, of life, -which foster neither inertia, reverence, nor mystic meditation. -Essentially man of action, in ideal action he finds his only true -comfort. I am sure that padres at the front have seen that the men -whose souls they have gone out to tend, are living the highest form -of religion; that in their comic courage, unselfish humanity, their -endurance without whimper of things worse than death, they have gone -beyond all pulpit-and-deathbed teaching. And who are these men? Just -the early manhood of the race, just modern man as he was before the war -began, and will be now that the war is over. - -This modern world, of which we English and Americans are perhaps the -truest types, stands revealed from beneath its froth, frippery, and -vulgar excrescences, sound at core――a world whose implicit motto -is: “The good of all humanity.” But the herd-life which is its -characteristic, brings many evils, has many dangers; and to preserve -a sane mind in a healthy body is the riddle before us. Somehow we -must free ourselves from the driving domination of machines and -money-getting, not only for our own sakes but for that of all mankind. - -And there is another thing of the most solemn importance: We -English-speaking nations are by chance as it were, the ballast of the -future. It is _absolutely necessary_ for the happiness of the world -that we should remain united. The comradeship that we now feel must and -surely shall abide. For unless we work together, and in no selfish or -exclusive spirit――Goodbye to Civilisation! It will vanish like the dew -off grass. The betterment not only of the British nations and America, -but of all mankind is and must be our object. - -From all our hearts a great weight has been lifted; in those fields -death no longer sweeps his scythe, and our ears at last are free -from the rustling thereof――now comes the test of magnanimity, in all -countries. Will modern man rise to the ordering of a sane, a free, a -generous life? Each of us loves his own country best, be it a little -land or the greatest on earth; but jealousy is the dark thing, the -creeping poison. Where there is true greatness, let us acclaim it; -where there is true worth, let us prize it――as if it were our own. - -This earth is made too subtly, of too multiple warp and woof, for -prophecy. When he surveys the world around――“the wondrous things -which there abound,” the prophet closes foolish lips. Besides, as the -historian tells us: “Writers have that undeterminateness of spirit -which commonly makes literary men of no use in the world.” So I, for -one, prophesy not. Still, we do know this: All English-speaking peoples -will go to this adventure of Peace with something of big purpose and -spirit in their hearts, with something of free outlook. The world is -wide and Nature bountiful enough for all, if we keep sane minds. The -earth is fair and meant to be enjoyed, if we keep sane bodies. Who dare -affront this world of beauty with mean views? There is no darkness but -what the ape in us still makes, and in spite of all his monkey-tricks -modern man is at heart further from the ape than man has yet been. - -To do our jobs really well and to be brotherly! To seek health and -ensue Beauty! If, in Britain and America, in all the English-speaking -nations, we can put that simple faith into real and thorough practice, -what may not this century yet bring forth? Shall man, the highest -product of creation, be content to pass his little day in a house like -unto Bedlam? - -When the present great task in which we have joined hands is really -ended; when once more from the shuttered mad-house the figure of Peace -steps forth and stands in the risen sun, and we may go our ways again -in the wonder of a new morning――let it be with this vow in our hearts: -“No more of Madness――in War, or in Peace!” - - - - - VI - - TO THE LEAGUE OF POLITICAL EDUCATION, NEW YORK - - -Standing here, privileged to address my betters――I, the least -politically educated person in the world, have two thoughts to leave on -the air. They arise from the title of your League. - -I wish I did not feel, speaking in the large, that politics and -education have but a bowing acquaintanceship in the modern State; and I -wish I did feel that either education or politics had any definite idea -of what they were out to attain; in other words, had a clear image of -the ideal State. It seems to me that their object at present is just to -keep the heads of the citizens of the modern State above water; to keep -them alive, without real concern as to what kind of life they are being -preserved for. We seem, in fact, to be letting our civilisation run -us, instead of running our civilisation. If a man does not know where -he wants to go, he goes where circumstances and the telephone take -him. Where do we want to go? Can you answer me? Have you any definite -idea? What is the Ultima Thule of our longings? I suppose one ought to -say, roughly, that the modern ideal is: Maximum production of wealth -to the square mile of a country――an ideal which, seeing that a man -normally produces wealth in surplus to his own requirements, signifies -logically a maximum head of population to the square mile. And it seems -to me that the great modern fallacy is the identification of the word -wealth with the word welfare. Granted that demand creates supply, and -that it is impossible to stop human nature from demanding, the problem -is surely to direct demand into the best channels for securing health -and happiness. And I venture to say that the mere blind production of -wealth and population by no means fills that bill. We ought to produce -wealth only in such ways and to such an extent as shall make us all -good, clean, healthy, intelligent, and beautiful to look at. That is -the end, and production whether of wealth or population only the means -to that end, to be regulated accordingly. As things are, we confuse the -means with the end, and make of production a fetich. - -Let me take a parallel from the fields of Art. What kind of good in -the world is an artist who sets to work to cover the utmost possible -acreage of canvas, or to spoil the greatest possible number of reams -of paper, in deference to the call from a vulgar and undiscriminating -market for all he can produce? Do we admire him――a man whose ideal is -blind supply to meet blind demand? - -The most urgent need of the world to-day is to learn――or is it to -re-learn?――the love of quality. And how are we to learn that in a -democratic age, unless we so perfect our electoral machineries as to be -sure that we secure for our leaders, and especially for our leaders of -education, men and women who, themselves worshipping quality, will see -that the love of quality is instilled into the boys and girls of the -nation. - -After all, we have some common sense, and we really cannot contemplate -much longer the grimy, grinding monster of modern industrialism without -feeling that we are becoming disinherited, instead of――as we are -brought up to think――heirs to an ever-increasing fortune. - -It seems to me that no amount of political evolution or revolution -is going to do us any good unless it is accompanied by evolution or -revolution in ideals. What does it matter whether one class holds the -reins, or another class holds the reins, if the dominant impulse in -the population remains the craving for wealth without the power of -discriminating whether or not that wealth is taking forms which promote -health and happiness. - -A new educational charter――a charter of taste, affirming the rule of -dignity, beauty, and simplicity, is wanted before political change can -turn out to be anything but cheap-jack nostrums, and a mere shuffling -around. - -I would just cite three of the many changes necessary for any advance: - - (1) The reduction of working hours to a point that would enable - men and women to live lives of wider interest. - - (2) The abolition of smoke――which surely should not be beyond - attainment in this scientific age. - - (3) The rescue of educational forces from the grip of vested - interests. - -I would have all educational institutions financed by the State, but -give all the _directing_ power to heads of education elected by the -main body of teachers themselves. I would not have education dependent -on advertisement or on charity. I would not even have newspapers, -which are an educational force――though you might not always think -so――dependent on advertisements. A newspaper man told me the other -day that his paper had printed an article drawing attention to the -deleteriousness of a certain product. The manufacturers of that product -sent an ultimatum drawing the editor’s attention to the deleteriousness -of their advertising in a journal which printed such articles. The -result was perfect peace. What chance is there of rescuing newspapers, -for instance, until education has implanted in the rising generation -the feeling that to accept money for what you know is doing harm to -your neighbours, is not playing the game. Or take another instance: -Not long ago in England a College for the training of school-teachers -desired to make certain excellent advances in their curriculum, which -did not meet with the approval of the municipal powers controlling the -College. A short, sharp fight, and again perfect peace. - -I suppose it would be too sweeping to say that a vested interest never -yet held an enlightened view, but I think one may fairly say that their -enlightened views are rare birds. - -How, then, is any emancipation to come? I know not, unless we take to -looking on Education as the hub of the wheel――the Schools, the Arts, -the Press; and concentrate our thoughts on the best means of manning -these agencies with men and women of real honesty and vision, and -giving them real power to effect in the rising generation the evolution -of ethics and taste, in accordance with the rules of dignity, beauty, -and simplicity. - - - - - VII - - TALKING AT LARGE - - -It is of the main new factors which have come into the life of the -civilised world that I would speak. - -The division deep and subtle between those who have fought and those -who have not――concerns us in Europe far more than you in America; -for in proportion to your population the number of your soldiers -who actually fought has been small, compared with the number in any -belligerent European country. And I think that so far as you are -concerned the division will soon disappear, for the iron had not time -to enter into the souls of your soldiers. For us in Europe, however, -this factor is very tremendous, and will take a long time to wear away. -In my country the, as it were, professional English dislike to the -expression of feeling, which strikes every American so forcibly, covers -very deep hearts and highly sensitive nerves. The average Briton is -now not at all stolid underneath; I think he has changed a great deal -in this last century, owing to the town life which seven-tenths of our -population lead. Perhaps only of the Briton may one still invent the -picture which appeared in _Punch_ in the autumn of 1914――of the steward -on a battleship asking the naval lieutenant: “Will you take your bath -before or after the engagement, sir?” and only among Britons overhear -one stoker say to another in the heat of a sea-fight: “Well, wot I -say is――’E ought to ’ave married ’er.” For all that, the Briton feels -deeply; and on those who have fought the experiences of the battlefield -have had an effect which almost amounts to metamorphosis. There are -now two breeds of British people――such as have been long in the danger -zones, and such as have not; shading, of course, into each other -through the many who have just smelled powder and peril, and the very -few whose imaginations are vibrant enough to have lived the two lives, -while only living one. - -In a certain cool paper called: “The Balance-sheet of the Soldier -Workman” I tried to come at the effect of the war; but purposely -pitched it in a low and sober key; and there is a much more poignant -tale of change to tell of each individual human being. - -Take a man who, when the war broke out (or had been raging perhaps a -year), was living the ordinary Briton’s life, in factory, shop, and -home. Suppose that he went through that deep, sharp struggle between -the pull of home love and interests, and the pull of country (for -I hope it will never be forgotten that five million Britons were -volunteers) and came out committed to his country. That then he had to -submit to being rattled at great speed into the soldier-shape which we -Britons and you Americans have been brought up to regard as but the -half of a free man; that then he was plunged into such a hideous hell -of horrible danger and discomfort as this planet has never seen; came -out of it time and again, went back into it time and again; and finally -emerged, shattered or unscathed, with a spirit at once uplifted and -enlarged, yet bruised and ungeared for the old life of peace. Imagine -such a man set back among those who have not been driven and grilled -and crucified. What would he feel, and how bear himself? On the surface -he would no doubt disguise the fact that he felt different from his -neighbours――he would conform; but something within him would ever be -stirring, a sort of superiority, an impatient sense that he had been -through it and they had not; the feeling, too, that he had seen the -bottom of things, that nothing he could ever experience again would -give him the sensations he had had out there; that he had lived, and -there could be nothing more to it. I don’t think that we others quite -realise what it must mean to those men, most of them under thirty, to -have been stretched to the uttermost, to have no illusions left, and -yet have, perhaps, forty years still to live. There is something gained -in them, but there’s something gone from them. The old sanctions, the -old values won’t hold; are there any sanctions and values which can be -made to hold? A kind of unreality must needs cling about their lives -henceforth. This is a finespun way of putting it, but I think, at -bottom, true. - -The old professional soldier lived for his soldiering. At the end of -a war (however terrible) there was left to him a vista of more wars, -more of what had become to him the ultimate reality――his business in -life. For these temporary soldiers of what has been not so much a war -as a prolonged piece of very horrible carnage, there succeeds something -so mild in sensation that it simply will not fill the void. When the -dish of life has lost its savour, by reason of violent and uttermost -experience, wherewith shall it be salted? - -The American Civil War was very long and very dreadful, but it was -a human and humane business compared to what Europe has just come -through. There is no analogy in history for the present moment. An -old soldier of that Civil War, after hearing these words, wrote me -an account of his after-career which shows that in exceptional cases -a life so stirring, full, and even dangerful may be lived that no -void is felt. But one swallow does not make a summer, nor will a few -hundreds or even thousands of such lives leaven to any extent the vast -lump of human material used in this war. The spiritual point is this: -In front of a man in ordinary civilised existence there hovers ever -that moment in the future when he expects to prove himself more of a -man than he has yet proved himself. For these soldiers of the Great -Carnage the moment of probation is already in the past. They _have_ -proved themselves as they will never have the chance to do again, -and secretly they know it. One talks of their powers of heroism and -sacrifice being wanted just as much in time of Peace; but that cannot -really be so, because Peace times do not demand men’s lives――which is -the ultimate test――with every minute that passes. No, the great moment -of their existence lies behind them, young though so many of them are. -This makes them at once greater than us, yet in a way smaller, because -they have lost the power and hope of expansion. They have lived their -masterpiece already. Human nature is elastic, and hope springs eternal; -but a _climax_ of experience and sensation cannot be repeated; I think -these have reached and passed the uttermost climax; and in Europe they -number millions. - -This is a veritable portent, and I am glad that in America you will -not have it to any great extent. - -Now how does this affect the future? Roughly speaking it must, I think, -have a diminishing effect on what I may call loosely――Creative ability. -People have often said to me: “We shall have great writings and -paintings from these young men when they come back.” We shall certainly -have poignant expression of their experiences and sufferings; and the -best books and paintings of the war itself are probably yet to come. -But, taking the long view, I do not believe we shall have from them, in -the end, as much creative art and literature as we should have had if -they had not been through the war. Illusion about life, and interest -in ordinary daily experience and emotion, which after all, are to be -the stuff of their future as of ours, has in a way been blunted or -destroyed for them. And in the other provinces of life, in industry, in -trade, in affairs, how can we expect from men who have seen the utter -uselessness of money or comfort or power in the last resort, the same -naïve faith in these things, or the same driving energy towards the -attaining of them that we others exhibit? - -It may be cheering to assume that those who have been almost superhuman -these last four years in one environment will continue to be almost -superhuman under conditions the very opposite. But alack! it is not -logical. - -On the other hand I think that those who have had this great and -racking experience will be left, for the most part, with a real passion -for Justice; and that this will have a profoundly modifying effect on -social conditions. I think, too, that many of them will have a sort of -passion for humaneness, which will, if you will suffer me to say so, -come in very handy; for I have observed that the rest of us, through -reading about horrors, have lost the edge of our gentleness, and have -got into the habit of thinking that it is the business of women and -children to starve, if they happen to be German; of creatures to be -underfed and overworked if they happen to be horses; of families to be -broken up if they happen to be aliens; and that a general carelessness -as to what suffering is necessary and what is not, has set in. And, -queer as it may seem, I look to those who have been in the thick of -the worst suffering the world has ever seen, to set us in the right -path again, and to correct the vitriolic sentiments engendered by the -armchair and the inkpot, in times such as we have been and are still -passing through. A cloistered life in times like these engenders bile; -in fact, I think it always does. For sheer ferocity there is no place, -you will have noticed, like a club full of old gentlemen. I expect the -men who have come home from killing each other to show us the way back -to brotherliness! And not before it’s wanted. Here is a little true -story of war-time, when all men were supposed to be brothers if they -belonged to the same nation. In the fifth year of the war two men sat -alone in a railway carriage. One, pale, young, and rather worn, had an -unlighted cigarette in his mouth. The other, elderly, prosperous, and -of a ruddy countenance, was smoking a large cigar. - -The young man, who looked as if his days were strenuous, took his -unlighted cigarette from his mouth, gazed at it, searched his pockets, -and looked at the elderly man. His nose twitched, vibrated by the scent -of the cigar, and he said suddenly: - -“Could you give me a light, sir?” - -The elderly man regarded him for a moment, drooped his eyelids, and -murmured: - -“I’ve no matches.” - -The young man sighed, mumbling the cigarette in his watering lips, then -said very suddenly: - -“Perhaps you’ll kindly give me a light from your cigar, sir.” - -The elderly man moved throughout his body as if something very sacred -had been touched within him. - -“I’d rather not,” he said; “if you don’t mind.” - -A quarter of an hour passed, while the young man’s cigarette grew -moister, and the elder man’s cigar shorter. Then the latter stirred, -took it from under his grey moustache, looked critically at it, held -it out a little way towards the other with the side which was least -burned-down foremost, and said: - -“Unless you’d like to take it from the edge.” - -On the other hand one has often travelled in these last years with -extreme embarrassment because our soldiers were so extraordinarily -anxious that one should smoke their cigarettes, eat their apples, and -their sausages. The marvels of comradeship they have performed would -fill the libraries of the world. - -The second main new factor in the world’s life is the disappearance of -the old autocracies. - -In 1910, walking in Hyde Park with a writer friend, I remember saying: -“It’s the hereditary autocracies in Germany, Austria, and Russia -which make the danger of war.” He did not agree――but no two writers -agree with each other at any given moment. “If only autocracies go -down in the wreckage of this war!” was almost the first thought I -put down in writing when the war broke out. Well, they are gone! -They were an anachronism, and without them and the bureaucracies and -secrecy which buttressed them we should not, I think, have had this -world catastrophe. But let us not too glibly assume that the forms -of government which take their place can steer the battered ships -of the nations in the very troubled waters of to-day, or that they -will be truly democratic. Even highly democratic statesmen have been -known to resort to the way of the headmaster at my old school, who -put a motion to the masters’ meeting and asked for a show of hands -in its favour. Not one hand was held up. “Then,” he said, “I shall -adopt it with the greater regret.” Nevertheless, the essential new -factor is, that, whereas in 1914 civilisation was on two planes, it is -now, theoretically, at least, on the one democratic plane or level. -That is a great easing of the world-situation, and removes a chief -cause of international misunderstanding. The rest depends on what we -can now make of democracy. Surely no word can so easily be taken in -vain; to have got rid of the hereditary principle in government is by -no means to have made democracy a real thing. Democracy is neither -government by rabble, nor government by caucus. Its measure as a -beneficent principle is the measure of the intelligence, honesty, -public spirit, and independence of the average voter. The voter who -goes to the poll blind of an eye and with a cast in the other, so that -he sees no issue clear, and every issue only in so far as it affects -him personally, is not precisely the sort of ultimate administrative -power we want. Intelligent, honest, public-spirited, and independent -voters guarantee an honest and intelligent governing body. The best men -the best government is a truism which cannot be refuted. Democracy to -be real and effective must succeed in throwing up into the positions -of administrative power the most trustworthy of its able citizens. -In other words it must incorporate and make use of the principle of -aristocracy; government by the best――_best in spirit_, not best-born. -Rightly seen, there is no tug between democracy and aristocracy; -aristocracy should be the means and machinery by which democracy works -itself out. What then can be done to increase in the average voter -intelligence and honesty, public spirit and independence? Nothing -save by education. The Arts, the Schools, the Press. It is impossible -to overestimate the need for vigour, breadth, restraint, good taste, -enlightenment, and honesty in these three agencies. The artist, the -teacher (and among teachers one includes, of course, religious -teachers in so far as they concern themselves with the affairs of this -world), and the journalist have the future in their hands. As they -are fine the future will be fine; as they are mean the future will be -mean. The burden is very specially on the shoulders of Public Men, -and that most powerful agency the Press, which reports them. Do we -realise the extent to which the modern world relies for its opinions on -public utterances and the Press? Do we realise how completely we are -all in the power of report? Any little lie or exaggerated sentiment -uttered by one with a bee in his bonnet, with a principle, or an end -to serve, can, if cleverly expressed and distributed, distort the -views of thousands, sometimes of millions. Any wilful suppression of -truth for Party or personal ends can so falsify our vision of things -as to plunge us into endless cruelties and follies. Honesty of thought -and speech and written word is a jewel, and they who curb prejudice -and seek honourably to know and speak the truth are the only true -builders of a better life. But what a dull world if we can’t chatter -and write irresponsibly, can’t slop over with hatred, or pursue our -own ends without scruple! To be tied to the apron-strings of truth, or -coiffed with the nightcap of silence; who in this age of cheap ink and -oratory will submit to such a fate? And yet, if we do not want another -seven million violent deaths, another eight million maimed and halt -and blind, and if we do not want anarchy, our tongues must be sober, -and we must tell the truth. Report, I would almost say, now rules the -world and holds the fate of man on the sayings of its many tongues. -If the good sense of mankind cannot somehow restrain utterance and -cleanse report, Democracy, so highly vaunted, will not save us; and -all the glib words of promise spoken might as well have lain unuttered -in the throats of orators. We are always in peril under Democracy of -taking the line of least resistance and immediate material profit. -The gentleman, for instance, whoever he was, who first discovered -that he could sell his papers better by undercutting the standard of -his rivals, and, appealing to the lower tastes of the Public under -the flag of that convenient expression “what the Public wants,” made -a most evil discovery. The Press is for the most part in the hands -of men who know what is good and right. It can be a great agency for -levelling up. But whether on the whole it is so or not, one continually -hears doubted. There ought to be no room for doubt in any of our minds -that the Press is on the side of the angels. It can do as much as -any other single agency to raise the level of honesty, intelligence, -public spirit, and taste in the average voter, in other words, to build -Democracy on a sure foundation. This is a truly tremendous trust; for -the safety of civilisation and the happiness of mankind hangs thereby. -The saying about little children and the kingdom of heaven was meant -for the ears of all those who have it in their power to influence -simple folk. To be a good and honest editor, a good and honest -journalist is in these days to be a veritable benefactor of mankind. - -Now take the function of the artist, of the man who in stone, or music, -marble, bronze, paint, or words, can express himself, and his vision -of life, truly and beautifully. Can we set limit to his value? The -answer is in the affirmative. We set such limitation to his value that -he has been known to die of it. And I would only venture to say here -that if we don’t increase the store we set by him, we shall, in this -reach-me-down age of machines and wholesale standardisations, emulate -the Goths who did their best to destroy the art of Rome, and all these -centuries later, by way of atonement, have filled the Thiergarten at -Berlin and the City of London with peculiar brands of statuary, and are -always writing their names on the Sphynx. - -I suppose the hardest lesson we all have to learn in life is that we -can’t have things both ways. If we want to have beauty, that which -appeals not merely to the stomach and the epidermis (which is the -function of the greater part of industrialism), but to what lies -deeper within the human organism, the heart and the brain, we must -have conditions which permit and even foster the production of beauty. -The artist, unfortunately, no less than the rest of mankind, must eat -to live. Now, if we insist that we will pay the artist only for what -fascinates the popular uneducated instincts, he will either produce -beauty, remain unpaid and starve; or he will give us shoddy, and fare -sumptuously every day. My experience tells me this: An artist who is by -accident of independent means can, if he has talent, give the Public -what he, the artist, wants, and sooner or later the public will take -whatever he gives it, at his own valuation. But very few artists, _who -have no independent means_, have enough character to hold out until -they can sit on the Public’s head and pull the Public’s beard, to use -the old Sikh saying. How many times have I not heard over here――and -it’s very much the same over there――that a man must produce this or -that kind of work or else of course he can’t live. My advice――at all -events to young artists and writers――is: ‘Sooner than do that and have -someone sitting on _your_ head and pulling your beard all the time, -go out of business――there are other means of making a living, besides -faked or degraded art. Become a dentist and revenge yourself on the -Public’s teeth――even editors and picture dealers go to the dentist!’ -The artist has got to make a stand against being exploited, and he has -got, also, to live the kind of life which will give him a chance to -see clearly, to feel truly, and to express beautifully. He, too, is a -trustee for the future of mankind. Money has one inestimable value――it -guarantees independence, the power of going your own way and giving out -the best that’s in you. But, generally speaking, we don’t stop there in -our desire for money; and I would say that any artist who doesn’t stop -there is not ‘playing the game,’ neither towards himself nor towards -mankind; he is not standing up for the faith that is in him, and the -future of civilisation. - -And now what of the teacher? One of the discouraging truths of life is -the fact that a man cannot raise himself from the ground by the hair -of his own head. And if one took Democracy logically, one would have -to give up the idea of improvement. But things are not always what -they seem, as somebody once said; and fortunately, government ‘of the -people by the people for the people’ does not in practice prevent the -people from using those saving graces――Commonsense and Selection. In -fact, only by the use of those graces will democracy work at all. When -twelve men get together to serve on a jury, their commonsense makes -them select the least stupid among them to be their foreman. Each of -them, of course, feels that he is that least stupid man, but since a -man cannot vote for himself, he votes for the least dense among his -neighbours, and the foreman comes to life. The same principle applied -thoroughly enough throughout the social system produces government by -the best. And it is more vital to apply it _thoroughly_ in matters -of education than in other branches of human activity. But when we -have secured our best heads of education, we must trust them and give -them real power, for they are the hope――well nigh the only hope――of -our future. They alone, by the selection and instruction of their -subordinates and the curricula which they lay down, can do anything -substantial in the way of raising the standard of general taste, -conduct, and learning. They alone can give the starting push towards -greater dignity and simplicity; promote the love of proportion, and -the feeling for beauty. They alone can gradually instil into the body -politic the understanding that education is not a means towards -wealth as such, or learning as such, but towards the broader ends of -health and happiness. The first necessity for improvement in modern -life is that our teachers should have the wide view, and be provided -with the means and the curricula which make it possible to apply this -enlightenment to their pupils. Can we take too much trouble to secure -the best men as heads of education――that most responsible of all -positions in the modern State? The child is father to the man. We think -too much of politics and too little of education. We treat it almost -as cavalierly as the undergraduate treated the Master of Balliol. -“Yes,” he said, showing his people round the quadrangle, “that’s the -Master’s window;” then, picking up a pebble, he threw it against the -window pane. “And that,” he said, as a face appeared, “is the Master!” -Democracy has come, and on education Democracy hangs; the thread as yet -is slender. - -It is a far cry to the third new factor: Exploitation of the air. We -were warned, by Sir Hiram Maxim about 1910 that a year or so of war -would do more for the conquest of the air than many years of peace. It -has. We hear of a man flying 260 miles in 90 minutes; of the Atlantic -being flown in 24 hours; of airships which will have a lifting capacity -of 300 tons; of air mail-routes all over the world. The time will -perhaps come when we shall live in the air, and come down to earth on -Sundays. - -I confess that, mechanically marvellous as all this is, it interests -me chiefly as a prime instance of the way human beings prefer the -shadow of existence to its substance. Granted that we speed up -everything, that we annihilate space, that we increase the powers of -trade, leave no point of the earth unsurveyed, and are able to perform -air-stunts which people will pay five dollars apiece to see――how shall -we have furthered human health, happiness, and virtue, speaking in -the big sense of these words? It is an advantage, of course, to be -able to carry food to a starving community in some desert; to rescue -shipwrecked mariners; to have a letter from one’s wife four days -sooner than one could otherwise; and generally to save time in the -swopping of our commodities and the journeys we make. But how does -all this help human beings to inner contentment of spirit, and health -of body? Did the arrival of motor-cars, bicycles, telephones, trains, -and steamships do much for them in that line? Anything which serves to -stretch human capabilities to the utmost, would help human happiness, -if each new mechanical activity, each new human toy as it were, did not -so run away with our sense of proportion as to debauch our energies. -A man, for instance, takes to motoring, who used to ride or walk; it -becomes a passion with him, so that he now never rides or walks――and -his calves become flabby and his liver enlarged. A man puts a telephone -into his house to save time and trouble, and is straightway a slave -to the tinkle of its bell. The few human activities in themselves and -of themselves pure good are just eating, drinking, sleeping, and the -affections――in moderation; the inhaling of pure air, exercise in most -of its forms, and interesting creative work――in moderation; the study -and contemplation of the arts and Nature――in moderation; thinking of -others and not thinking of yourself――in moderation; doing kind acts and -thinking kind thoughts. All the rest seems to be what the prophet had -in mind when he said: ‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!’ Ah! but the one -great activity――adventure and the craving for sensation! It is that -for which the human being really lives, and all his restless activity -is caused by the desire for it. True; yet adventure and sensation -without rhyme or reason lead to disharmony and disproportion. We may -take civilisation to the South Sea Islands, but it would be better -to leave the islanders naked and healthy than to improve them with -trousers and civilisation off the face of the earth. We may invent new -cocktails, but it would be better to stay dry. In mechanical matters I -am reactionary, for I cannot believe in inventions and machinery unless -they can be so controlled as to minister definitely to health and -happiness――and how difficult that is! In my own country the townsman -has become physically inferior to the countryman (speaking in the -large), and I infer from this that we British――at all events――are not -so in command of ourselves and our wonderful inventions and machines -that we are putting them to uses which are really beneficent. If we had -proper command of ourselves no doubt we could do this, but we haven’t; -and if you look about you in America, the same doubt may possibly -attack you. - -But there is another side to the exploitation of the air which -does not as yet affect you in America as it does us in Europe――the -destructive side. Britain, for instance, is no longer an island. In -five or ten years it will, I think, be impossible to guarantee the -safety of Britain and Britain’s commerce, by sea-power; and those who -continue to pin faith to that formula will find themselves nearly as -much back-numbered as people who continued to prefer wooden ships to -iron, when the iron age came in. Armaments on land and sea will be -limited; not, I think, so much by a League of Nations, if it comes, -as by the commonsense of people who begin to observe that with the -development of the powers of destruction and of transport from the -air, land and sea armaments are becoming of little use. We may all -disarm completely, and yet――so long as there are flying-machines and -high explosives――remain almost as formidably destructive as ever. -So difficult to control, so infinite in its possibilities for evil -and so limited in its possibilities for good do I consider this -exploitation of the air that, personally, I would rejoice to see the -nations in solemn conclave agree this very minute to ban the use of -the air altogether, whether for trade, travel, or war; destroy every -flying-machine and every airship, and forbid their construction. That, -of course, is a consummation which will remain devoutly to be wished. -Every day one reads in one’s paper that some country or other is to -take the lead in the air. What a wild-goose chase we are in for! I -verily believe mankind will come one day in their underground dwellings -to the annual practice of burning in effigy the Guy (whoever he was) -who first rose off the earth. After I had talked in this strain once -before, a young airman came up to me and said: “Have you been up?” I -shook my head. “You wait!” he said. When I do go up I shall take great -pains not to go up with that one. - -We come now to the fourth great new factor――Bolshevism, and the social -unrest. But I am shy of saying anything about it, for my knowledge -and experience are insufficient. I will only offer one observation. -Whatever philosophic cloak may be thrown over the shoulders of -Bolshevism, it is obviously――like every revolutionary movement of the -past――an aggregation of individual discontents, the sum of millions -of human moods of dissatisfaction with the existing state of things; -and whatever philosophic cloak we drape on the body of liberalism, -if by that name we may designate our present social and political -system――that system has clearly not yet justified its claim to the -word evolutionary, so long as the disproportion between the very rich -and the very poor continues (as hitherto it has) to grow. No system -can properly be called evolutionary which provokes against it the -rising of so formidable a revolutionary wave of discontent. One hears -that co-operation is now regarded as _vieux jeu_. If that be so, it -is because co-operation in its true sense of spontaneous friendliness -between man and man, has never been tried. Perhaps human nature in the -large can never rise to that ideal. But if it cannot, if industrialism -cannot achieve a change of heart, so that in effect employers would -rather their profits (beyond a quite moderate scale) were used for the -amelioration of the lot of those they employ, it looks to me uncommonly -like being the end of the present order of things, after an era of -class-struggle which will shake civilisation to its foundations. Being -myself an evolutionist, who fundamentally distrusts violence, and -admires the old Greek saying: “God is the helping of man by man,” I -yet hope it will not come to that; I yet believe we may succeed in -striking the balance, without civil wars. But I feel that (speaking -of Europe) it is touch and go. In America, in Canada, in Australia, -the conditions are different, the powers of expansion still large, the -individual hopefulness much greater. There is little analogy with the -state of things in Europe; but, whatever happens in Europe must have -its infectious influence in America. The wise man takes Time by the -forelock――and goes in front of events. - -Let me turn away to the fifth great new factor: The impetus towards a -League of Nations. - -This, to my thinking, so wholly advisable, would inspire more -hopefulness, if the condition of Europe was not so terribly confused, -and if the most salient characteristics of human nature were not -elasticity, bluntness of imagination, and shortness of memory. Those -of us who, while affirming the principle of the League, are afraid -of committing ourselves to what obviously cannot at the start be -a perfect piece of machinery, seem inclined to forget that if the -assembled Statesmen fail to _place in running order, now_, some -definite machinery for the consideration of international disputes, -the chance will certainly slip. We cannot reckon on more than a very -short time during which the horror of war will rule our thoughts and -actions. And during that short time it is essential that the League -should have had some tangible success in preventing war. Mankind puts -its faith in facts, not theories; in proven, and not in problematic, -success. One can imagine with what profound suspicion and contempt the -armed individualists of the Neolithic Age regarded the first organised -tribunal; with what surprise they found that it actually worked so well -that they felt justified in dropping their habit of taking the lives -and property of their neighbours first and thinking over it afterwards. -Not till the Tribunal of the League of Nations has had successes of -conciliation, visible to all, will the armed individualist nations of -to-day begin to rub their cynical and suspicious eyes, and to sprinkle -their armour with moth-powder. No one who, like myself, has recently -experienced the sensation of landing in America after having lived -in Europe throughout the war, can fail to realise the reluctance of -Americans to commit themselves, and the difficulty Americans have -in realising the need for doing so. But may I remind Americans that -during the first years of the war there was practically the same -general American reluctance to interfere in an old-world struggle; -and that in the end America found that it was not an old-world but -a world-struggle. It is entirely reasonable to dislike snatching -chestnuts out of the fire for other people, and to shun departure from -the letter of cherished tradition; but things do not stand still in -this world; storm centres shift; and live doctrine often becomes dead -dogma. - -The League of Nations is but an incorporation of the co-operative -principle in world affairs. We have seen to what the lack of that -principle leads both in international and national life. Americans seem -almost unanimously in favour of a League of Nations, so long as it is -sufficiently airy――perhaps one might say ‘hot-airy’; but when it comes -to earth, many of them fear the risk. I would only say that no great -change ever comes about in the lives of men unless they take risks; no -progress can be made. As to the other objection taken to the League, -not only by Americans――that it won’t work, well we shall never know -the rights of that unless we try it. The two chief factors in avoiding -war are Publicity and Delay. If there is some better plan for bringing -these two factors into play than the machinery of a League of Nations, -I have yet to learn of it. The League which, I think, will come in -spite of all our hesitations, may very likely make claims larger than -its real powers; and there is, of course, danger in that; but there -is also wisdom and advantage, for the success of the League must -depend enormously on how far it succeeds in riveting the imaginations -of mankind in its first years. The League should therefore make bold -claims. After all, there is solidity and truth in this notion of a -Society of Nations. The world is really growing towards it beneath -all surface rivalries. We must admit it to be in the line of natural -development, unless we turn our back on all analogy. Don’t then let -us be ashamed of it, as if it were a piece of unpractical idealism. -It is much more truly real than the state of things which has led to -the misery of these last four years. The soldiers who have fought and -suffered and known the horrors of war, desire it. The objections come -from those who have but watched them fight and suffer. Like every -other change in the life of mankind, and like every new development in -industry or art, the League needs faith. Let us have faith and give it -a good ‘send-off.’ - -I have left what I deem the greatest new factor till the -last――Anglo-American unity. Greater it is even than the impetus -towards a League of Nations, because without it the League of Nations -has surely not the chance of a lost dog. - -I have been reading a Life of George Washington, which has filled me -with admiration of your stand against our Junkers of those days. And I -am familiar with the way we outraged the sentiment of both the North -and the South, in the days of your Civil War. No wonder your history -books were not precisely Anglophile, and that Americans grew up in a -traditional dislike of Great Britain! I am realist enough to know that -the past will not vanish like a ghost――just because we have fought side -by side in this war; and realist enough to recognise the other elements -which make for patches of hearty dislike between our peoples. But, -surveying the whole field, I believe there are links and influences -too strong for the disruptive forces; and I am sure that the first -duty of English and American citizens to-day is to be fair and open to -understanding about each other. If anyone will take down the map of the -world and study it, he will see at once how that world is ballasted by -the English-speaking countries; how, so long as they remain friends, -holding as they do the trade routes and the main material resources of -the world under their control, the world must needs sail on an even -keel. And if he will turn to the less visible chart of the world’s -mental qualities, he will find a certain reassuring identity of ideals -between the various English-speaking races, which form a sort of -guarantee of stable unity. Thirdly, in community of language we have a -factor promoting unity of ethics, potent as blood itself; for community -of language is ever unconsciously producing unity of traditions and -ideas. Americans and Britons, we are both, of course, very competitive -peoples, and I suppose consider our respective nations the chosen -people of the earth. That is a weakness which, though natural, is -extremely silly, and merely proves that we have not yet outgrown -provincialism. But competition is possible without reckless rivalry. -There was once a bootmaker who put over his shop: ‘Mens conscia -recti’ (‘A mind conscious of right’). He did quite well, till a rival -bootmaker came along, established himself opposite, and put over _his_ -shop the words: ‘Men’s, Women’s, and Children’s conscia recti,’ and did -even better. The way nations try to cut each other’s commercial throats -is what makes the stars twinkle――that smile on the face of the heavens. -It has the even more ruinous effect of making bad blood in the veins of -the nations. Let us try playing the game of commerce like sportsmen, -and respect each other’s qualities and efforts. Sportsmanship has been -rather ridiculed of late, yet I dare make the assertion that she will -yet hold the field, both in your country and in mine; and if in our -countries――then in the world. - -It is ignorance of each other, not knowledge, which has always made -us push each other off――the habit, you know, is almost endemic in -strangers, so that they do it even in their sleep. There were once two -travellers, a very large man and a very little man, strangers to each -other, whom fate condemned to share a bed at an inn. In his sleep the -big man stirred, and pushed the little man out on to the floor. The -little man got up in silence, climbed carefully over the big man who -was still asleep, got his back against the wall and his feet firmly -planted against the small of the big man’s back, gave a tremendous -revengeful push and――pushed the bed away from the wall and fell down -in between. Such is the unevenness of fate, and the result of taking -things too seriously. America and England must not push each other -out, even in their sleep, nor resent the unconscious shoves they give -each other, too violently. Since we have been comrades in this war we -have taken to speaking well of each other, even in public print. To -cease doing that now will show that we spoke nicely of each other only -because we were afraid of the consequences if we did not. Well, we both -have a sense of humour. - -But not only self-preservation and the fear of ridicule guard our -friendship. We have, I hope, also the feeling that we stand, by -geographical and political accident, trustees for the health and -happiness of all mankind. The magnitude of this trust cannot be -exaggerated, and I would wish that every American and British boy and -girl could be brought up to reverence it――not to believe that they are -there to whip creation. We are here to _serve_ creation, that creation -may be ever better all over the earth, and life more humane, more just, -more free. The habit of being charitable to each other will grow if we -give it a little chance. If we English-speaking peoples bear with each -other’s foibles, help each other over the stiles we come on, and keep -the peace of the world, there is still hope that some day that world -may come to be God’s own. - -Let us be just and tolerant; let us stand fast and stand together――for -light and liberty, for humanity and Peace! - - - * * * * * - - - Transcriber’s Notes: - - ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). - - ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. - - ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. - - ――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADDRESSES IN AMERICA, -1919 *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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- margin-right: 10%; -} - -/* General headers */ -h1 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -/* Chapter headers */ -h2 { - text-align: center; - font-weight: bold; - margin: .75em 0; -} - -div.chapter { - page-break-before: always; -} - -.nobreak { - page-break-before: avoid; -} - -/* Indented paragraph */ -p { - margin-top: .51em; - margin-bottom: .49em; - text-align: justify; - text-indent: 1em; -} - -/* Unindented paragraph */ -.noi {text-indent: 0em;} - -/* Centered unindented paragraph */ -.noic { - text-indent: 0em; - text-align: center; -} - -/* Drop caps */ -p.cap {text-indent: 0em;} - -p.cap:first-letter { - float: left; - padding-right: 3px; - font-size: 250%; - line-height: 83%; -} - -.x-ebookmaker p.cap:first-letter { - float: left; - padding-right: 3px; - font-size: 250%; - line-height: 83%; -} - -/* Non-standard paragraph margins */ -.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} -.p6 {margin-top: 6em;} - -/* Horizontal rules */ -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap { - width: 65%; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -@media print { - hr.chap { - display: none; - visibility: hidden; - } -} - -hr.r20 { - width: 20%; - margin-left: 40%; - margin-right: 40%; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; -} - -/* Lists */ -ul {list-style-type: none;} - -li { - text-indent: 0em; - padding-left: 0em; -} - -li.isub1 { - text-indent: -2em; - padding-left: 4em; -} - -/* Tables */ -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} - -td { - padding: 5px; -} - -th { - padding: 5px; - font-weight: normal; -} - -/* Table cell alignments */ -.tdl { - text-align: left; -} - -.tdrb { - text-align: right; - vertical-align: bottom; -} - -.tdrt { - text-align: right; - vertical-align: top; -} - -/* Physical book page and line numbers */ -.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ - /* visibility: hidden; */ - position: absolute; - right: 3%; 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-} - -/* Poetry indents */ -.poetry .indent0 {padding-left: 3em;} -.poetry .indent1 {padding-left: 3.5em;} - -/* Transcriber's notes */ -.tnote { - background-color: #E6E6FA; - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; - padding: .5em; -} - -.tntitle { - font-size: 1.25em; - font-weight: bold; - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -/* Title page borders and content. */ -.halftitle { - font-size: 1.5em; - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -.author { - font-size: 1.25em; - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -.works { - font-size: .75em; - clear: both; -} - -/* Advertisement formatting. */ -.adauthor { - font-size: 1.25em; - clear: both; -} - -/* Hanging indent. */ -.hang { - text-indent: -3em; - padding-left: 4em; -} - - </style> -</head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Addresses in America, 1919, by John Galsworthy</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Addresses in America, 1919</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: John Galsworthy</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 5, 2022 [eBook #69296]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADDRESSES IN AMERICA, 1919 ***</div> - - -<div class="figcenter" id="cover"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover" title="cover"> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="noi adauthor"><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></p> - -<ul> -<li>VILLA RUBEIN, and Other Stories</li> -<li>THE ISLAND PHARISEES</li> -<li>THE MAN OF PROPERTY</li> -<li>THE COUNTRY HOUSE</li> -<li>FRATERNITY</li> -<li>THE PATRICIAN</li> -<li>THE DARK FLOWER</li> -<li>THE FREELANDS</li> -<li>BEYOND</li> -<li>FIVE TALES</li> -<li>SAINT’S PROGRESS</li> -</ul> - -<hr class="r20"> - -<ul> -<li>A COMMENTARY</li> -<li>A MOTLEY</li> -<li>THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY</li> -<li>THE LITTLE MAN, and Other Satires</li> -<li>A SHEAF</li> -<li>ANOTHER SHEAF</li> -<li>ADDRESSES IN AMERICA: 1919</li> -</ul> - -<hr class="r20"> - -<ul> -<li>PLAYS: FIRST SERIES <i>and Separately</i></li> -<li class="isub1">THE SILVER BOX</li> -<li class="isub1">JOY</li> -<li class="isub1">STRIFE</li> - -<li>PLAYS: SECOND SERIES <i>and Separately</i></li> -<li class="isub1">THE ELDEST SON</li> -<li class="isub1">THE LITTLE DREAM</li> -<li class="isub1">JUSTICE</li> - -<li>PLAYS: THIRD SERIES <i>and Separately</i></li> -<li class="isub1">THE FUGITIVE</li> -<li class="isub1">THE PIGEON</li> -<li class="isub1">THE MOB</li> - -<li>A BIT O’ LOVE</li> - -</ul> - -<hr class="r20"> - -<ul> -<li>MOODS, SONGS, AND DOGGERELS</li> -<li>MEMORIES. Illustrated</li> -</ul> -</div> - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="noi halftitle">ADDRESSES IN AMERICA</p> - -<p class="noic">1919</p> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="figcenter" id="i_frontis"> - <img src="images/i_frontis.jpg" alt="" title=""> - <div class="caption"> - -<p class="noi works"><i>From a photograph, copyright, 1919, by Eugene Hutchinson.</i></p> - -<p class="noi halftitle">John Galsworthy</p></div> -</div> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h1 class="nobreak">ADDRESSES IN AMERICA<br> -<small>1919</small></h1> - -<p class="noic">BY</p> - -<p class="noi author">JOHN GALSWORTHY</p> - - -<p class="p6 noic adauthor">NEW YORK<br> -CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS<br> -1919</p> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="noic"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1919, by<br> -Charles Scribner’s Sons</span></p> - -<hr class="r20"> - -<p class="noic">Published August, 1919</p> - -<div class="figcenter" id="logo"> - <img class="p4 illowe8" src="images/logo.jpg" alt="logo" title="logo"> -</div> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> - - -<table> -<colgroup> - <col style="width: 10%;"> - <col style="width: 80%;"> - <col style="width: 10%;"> -</colgroup> -<tr> - <th class="tdl"></th> - <th class="tdl"></th> - <th class="smfontr">PAGE</th> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdrt">I.</td> - <td class="tdl"><a href="#I">AT THE LOWELL CENTENARY</a></td> - <td class="tdrb">1</td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdrt">II.</td> - <td class="tdl"><a href="#II">AMERICAN AND BRITON</a></td> - <td class="tdrb">11</td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdrt">III.</td> - <td class="tdl"><a href="#III">FROM A SPEECH AT THE LOTUS CLUB, NEW YORK</a></td> - <td class="tdrb">45</td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdrt">IV.</td> - <td class="tdl"><a href="#IV">FROM A SPEECH TO THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, -NEW YORK</a></td> - <td class="tdrb">51</td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdrt">V.</td> - <td class="tdl"><a href="#V">ADDRESS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY</a></td> - <td class="tdrb">54</td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdrt">VI.</td> - <td class="tdl"><a href="#VI">TO THE LEAGUE OF POLITICAL EDUCATION, NEW YORK</a></td> - <td class="tdrb">67</td> -</tr> -<tr> - <td class="tdrt">VII.</td> - <td class="tdl"><a href="#VII">TALKING AT LARGE</a></td> - <td class="tdrb">73</td> -</tr> -</table> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="noi halftitle">ADDRESSES IN AMERICA</p> - -<p class="noic">1919</p> -</div> - - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="I">I<br> -<small>AT THE LOWELL CENTENARY</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="cap">We celebrate to-night the memory of a -great man of Letters. What strikes me -most about that glorious group of New England -writers—Emerson and Longfellow, Hawthorne, -Whittier, Thoreau, Motley, Holmes, and Lowell—is -a certain measure and magnanimity. They -were rare men and fine writers, of a temper -simple and unafraid.</p> - -<p>I confess to thinking more of James Russell -Lowell as a critic and master of prose than as -a poet. His single-hearted enthusiasm for -Letters had a glowing quality which made it a -guiding star for the frail barque of culture. -His humour, breadth of view, sagacity, and the -all-round character of his activities has hardly -been equalled in your country. Not so great -a thinker or poet as Emerson, not so creative -as Hawthorne, so original in philosophy and -life as Thoreau, so racy and quaint as Holmes,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span> -he ran the gamut of those qualities as none of -the others did; and as critic and analyst of -literature surpassed them all.</p> - -<p>But I cannot hope to add anything of value -to American estimate and praise of Lowell—critic, -humorist, poet, editor, reformer, man of -Letters, man of State affairs. I may, perhaps, -be permitted however to remind you of two -sayings of his: “I am never lifted up to any -peak of vision—but that when I look down in -hope to see some valley of the Beautiful Mountains -I behold nothing but blackened ruins, -and the moans of the down-trodden the world -over.... Then it seems as if my heart would -break in pouring out one glorious song that -should be the Gospel of Reform, full of consolation -and strength to the oppressed—that -way my madness lies.” That was one side of -the youthful Lowell, the generous righter of -wrongs, the man. And this other saying: “The -English-speaking nations should build a monument -to the misguided enthusiasts of the plains -of Shinar, for as the mixture of many bloods -seems to have made them the most vigorous of -modern races, so has the mingling of divers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span> -speeches given them a language which is perhaps -the noblest vehicle of poetic thought that -ever existed.” That was the other side of -Lowell, the enthusiast for Letters; and that -the feeling he had about our language.</p> - -<p>I am wondering, indeed, Mr. President, -what those men who in the fourteenth, fifteenth, -sixteenth centuries were welding the English -language would think if they could visit this -hall to-night, if suddenly we saw them sitting -here among us in their monkish dress, their -homespun, or their bright armour, having come -from a greater Land even than America—the -Land of the Far Shades. What expression -should we see on the dim faces of them, the -while they took in the marvellous fact that the -instrument of speech they forged in the cottages, -courts, cloisters, and castles of their little -misty island had become the living speech of -half the world, and the second tongue for all -the nations of the other half! For even so it -is now—this English language, which they -made, and Shakespeare crowned, which you -speak and we speak, and men speak under the -Southern Cross, and unto the Arctic Seas!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span></p> - -<p>I do not think that you Americans and we -English are any longer strikingly alike in physical -type or general characteristics, no more -than I think there is much resemblance between -yourselves and the Australians. Our -link is now but community of language—<em>and -the infinity which this connotes</em>.</p> - -<p>Perfected language—and ours and yours had -come to flower before white men began to seek -these shores—is so much more than a medium -through which to exchange material commodities; -it is cement of the spirit, mortar linking -the bricks of our thoughts into a single structure -of ideals and laws, painted and carved -with the rarities of our fancy, the manifold -forms of Beauty and Truth. We who speak -American and you who speak English are conscious -of a community which no differences can -take from us. Perhaps the very greatest result -of the grim years we have just been passing -through is the promotion of our common -tongue to the position of the universal language. -The importance of the English-speaking peoples -is now such that the educated man in every -country will perforce, as it were, acquire a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span> -knowledge of our speech. The second-language -problem, in my judgment, has been solved. -Numbers, and geographical and political accident -have decided a question which I think -will never seriously be reopened, unless madness -descends on us and we speakers of English -fight among ourselves. That fate I, at least, -cannot see haunting the future.</p> - -<p>Lowell says in one of his earlier writings: -“We are the furthest from wishing to see what -many are so ardently praying for, namely, a -National Literature; for the same mighty lyre -of the human heart answers the touch of the -master in all ages and in every clime, and any -literature in so far as it is national is diseased -in so much as it appeals to some climatic peculiarity -rather than to universal nature.” -That is very true, but good fortune has now -made of our English speech a medium of <em>internationality</em>.</p> - -<p>Henceforth you and we are the inhabitants -and guardians of a great Spirit-City, to which -the whole world will make pilgrimage. They -will make that pilgrimage primarily because -our City is a market-place. It will be for us<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span> -to see that they who come to trade remain to -worship. What is it we seek in this motley -of our lives, to what end do we ply the multifarious -traffic of civilisation? Is it that we -may become rich and satisfy a material caprice -ever growing with the opportunity of -satisfaction? Is it that we may, of set and -conscious purpose, always be getting the better -of one another? Is it even, that of no sort of -conscious purpose we may pound the roads of -life at top speed, and blindly use up our little -energies? I cannot think so. Surely, in dim -sort we are trying to realise human happiness, -trying to reach a far-off goal of health and -kindliness and beauty; trying to live so that -those qualities which make us human beings—the -sense of proportion, the feeling for beauty, -pity, and the sense of humour—should be ever -more exalted above the habits and passions -that we share with the tiger, the ostrich, and -the ape.</p> - -<p>And so I would ask what will become of all -our reconstruction in these days if it be informed -and guided solely by the spirit of the market-place? -Do Trade, material prosperity, and the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span> -abundance of creature comforts guarantee that -we advance towards our real goal? Material -comfort in abundance is no bad thing; I confess -to a considerable regard for it. But for -true progress it is but a flighty consort. I can -well see the wreckage from the world-storm -completely cleared away, the fields of life -ploughed and manured, and yet no wheat -grown there which can feed the spirit of man, -and help its stature.</p> - -<p>Lest we suffer such a disillusion as that, what -powers and influence can we exert? There is -one at least: The proper and exalted use of -this great and splendid instrument, our common -language. In a sophisticated world speech -is action, words are deeds; we cannot watch -our winged words too closely. Let us at least -make our language the instrument of Truth; -prune it of lies and extravagance, of perversions -and all the calculated battery of partizanship; -train ourselves to such sobriety of speech, and -penmanship, that we come to be trusted at -home and abroad; so making our language the -medium of honesty and fair-play, that meanness, -violence, sentimentality, and self-seeking<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span> -become strangers in our Lands. Great and -evil is the power of the lie, of the violent saying, -and the calculated appeal to base or dangerous -motive; let us, then, make them fugitives -among us, outcast from our speech!</p> - -<p>I have often thought during these past years -what an ironical eye Providence must have -been turning on National Propaganda—on all -the disingenuous breath which has been issued -to order, and all those miles of patriotic writings -dutifully produced in each country, to -prove to other countries that they are its inferiors! -A very little wind will blow those -ephemeral sheets into the limbo of thin air. -Already they are decomposing, soon they will -be dust. To my thinking there are but two -forms of National Propaganda, two sorts of -evidence of a country’s worth, which defy the -cross-examination of Time: The first and most -important is the rectitude and magnanimity -of a Country’s conduct; its determination not -to take advantage of the weakness of other -countries, nor to tolerate tyranny within its own -borders. And the other lasting form of Propaganda -is the work of the thinker and the artist,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span> -of men whose unbidden, unfettered hearts are -set on the expression of Truth and Beauty as -best they can perceive them. Such Propaganda -the old Greeks left behind them, to the -imperishable glory of their Land. By such -Propaganda Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch; Dante, -St. Francis; Cervantes, Spinoza; Montaigne, -Racine; Chaucer, Shakespeare; Goethe, Kant; -Turgenev, Tolstoi; Emerson, Lowell—a thousand -and one more, have exalted their countries -in the sight of all, and advanced the -stature of mankind.</p> - -<p>You may have noticed in life that when we -assure others of our virtue and the extreme -rectitude of our conduct, we make on them -but a sorry impression. If on the other hand -we chance to perform some just act or kindness, -of which they hear, or to produce a beautiful -work which they can see, we become -exalted in their estimation though we did not -seek to be. And so it is with Countries. -They may proclaim their powers from the -housetops—they will but convince the wind; -but let their acts be just, their temper humane, -the speech and writings of their peoples sober,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span> -the work of their thinkers and their artists -true and beautiful—and those Countries shall -be sought after and esteemed.</p> - -<p>We, who possess in common the English -language—“best result of the confusion of -tongues” Lowell called it—that most superb -instrument for the making of word-music, for -the telling of the truth, and the expression of -the imagination, may well remember this: -That, in the use we make of it, in the breadth, -justice, and humanity of our thoughts, the -vigour, restraint, clarity, and beauty of the -setting we give to them, we have our greatest -chance to make our Countries lovely and beloved, -to further the happiness of mankind, -and to keep immortal the priceless comradeship -between us.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II<br> -<small>AMERICAN AND BRITON</small></h2> -</div> - - -<p class="cap">On the mutual understanding of each other -by Americans and Britons, the future -happiness of nations depends more than on -any other world cause. Ignorance in Central -Europe of the nature of American and Englishman -tipped the balance in favour of war; and -the course of the future will surely be improved -by right comprehension of their characters.</p> - -<p>Well, I know something at least of the Englishman, -who represents four-fifths of the population -of the British Isles.</p> - -<p>And, first, there exists no more unconsciously -deceptive person on the face of the globe. The -Englishman does not know himself; outside -England he is only guessed at.</p> - -<p>Racially the Englishman is so complex and -so old a blend that no one can say precisely -what he is. In character he is just as complex. -Physically, there are two main types; one inclining -to length of limb, bony jaws, and narrowness<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span> -of face and head (you will nowhere see -such long and narrow heads as in our island); -the other approximating more to the legendary -John Bull. The first type is gaining on the -second. There is little or no difference in the -main mental character behind these two.</p> - -<p>In attempting to understand the real nature -of the Englishman, certain salient facts must -be borne in mind.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The Sea.</span> To be surrounded generation -after generation by the sea has developed in -him a suppressed idealism, a peculiar impermeability, -a turn for adventure, a faculty for -wandering, and for being sufficient unto himself -in far and awkward surroundings.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The Climate.</span> Whoso weathers for centuries -a climate that, though healthy and never -extreme, is, perhaps, the least reliable and one -of the wettest in the world, must needs grow -in himself a counterbalance of dry philosophy, -a defiant humour, an enforced medium temperature -of soul. The Englishman is no more -given to extremes than his climate; and against -its damp and perpetual changes he has become -coated with a sort of protective bluntness.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The Political Age of His Country.</span> This -is by far the oldest settled Western power -politically speaking. For 850 years England -has known no serious military incursion from -without; for nearly 200 years she has known -no serious political turmoil within. This is -partly the outcome of her isolation, partly the -happy accident of her political constitution, -partly the result of the Englishman’s habit of -looking before he leaps, which comes, no doubt, -from the climate and the mixture of his blood. -This political stability has been a tremendous -factor in the formation of English character, -has given the Englishman of all ranks a certain -deep, quiet sense of form and order, an -ingrained culture which makes no show, being -in the bones of the man as it were.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The Great Preponderance for Several -Generations of Town Over Country Life.</span> -Taken in conjunction with generations of political -stability, this is the main cause of a growing, -inarticulate humaneness, of which however the -Englishman appears to be rather ashamed.</p> - -<p>The other chief factors have been:</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The English Public Schools.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span></span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The Essential Democracy of the Government.</span></p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The Freedom of Speech and the Press</span> -(at present rather under a cloud).</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">The Old-Time Freedom from Compulsory -Military Service.</span></p> - -<p>All these, the outcome of the quiet and stable -home life of an island people, have helped to -make the Englishman a deceptive personality -to the outside eye. He has for centuries been -licensed to grumble. There is no such confirmed -grumbler—until he really has something -to grumble at; and then, no one perhaps who -grumbles less. An English soldier was sitting -in a trench, in the act of lighting his pipe, when -a shell burst close by, and lifted him bodily -some yards away. He picked himself up, -bruised and shaken, and went on lighting his -pipe, with the words: “These French matches -aren’t ’alf rotten.”</p> - -<p>Confirmed carper though the Englishman -is at the condition of his country, no one perhaps -is so profoundly convinced that it is the -best in the world. A stranger might well -think from his utterances that he was spoiled<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span> -by the freedom of his life, unprepared to sacrifice -anything for a land in such a condition. -If that country be threatened, and with it his -liberty, you find that his grumbles have meant -less than nothing. You find, too, that behind -the apparent slackness of every arrangement -and every individual, are powers of adaptability -to facts, elasticity, practical genius, a spirit of -competition amounting almost to disease, and -great determination. Before this war began, -it was the fashion among a number of English -to lament the decadence of their race. Such -lamentations, which plentifully deceived the -outside ear, were just English grumbles. All -this democratic grumbling, and habit of “going -as you please,” serve a deep purpose. Autocracy, -censorship, compulsion destroy the salt -in a nation’s blood, and elasticity in its fibre; -they cut at the very mainsprings of a nation’s -vitality. Only if reasonably free from control -can a man really arrive at what is or is not -national necessity and truly identify himself -with a national ideal, by simple conviction -from within.</p> - -<p>Two words of caution to strangers trying to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span> -form an estimate of the Englishman: He must -not be judged from his Press, which, manned -(with certain exceptions) by those who are not -typically English, is too hectic to illustrate the -true English spirit; nor can he be judged entirely -from his literature. The Englishman is -essentially inexpressive, unexpressed; and his -literary men have been for the most part sports—Nature’s -attempt to redress the balance. -Further, he must not be judged by the evidence -of his wealth. England may be the -richest country in the world in proportion to -its population, but not ten per cent of that -population have any wealth to speak of, certainly -not enough to have affected their hardihood; -and, with few exceptions, those who have -enough wealth are brought up to worship -hardihood.</p> - -<p>I have never held a whole-hearted brief for -the British character. There is a lot of good -in it, but much which is repellent. It has a -kind of deliberate unattractiveness, setting out -on its journey with the words: “Take me or -leave me.” One may respect a person of this -sort, but it’s difficult either to know or to like<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span> -him. An American officer said recently to a -British Staff Officer in a friendly voice: “So -we’re going to clean up Brother Boche together!” -and the British Staff Officer replied: -“Really!” No wonder Americans sometimes -say: “I’ve got no use for those fellows!”</p> - -<p>The world is consecrate to strangeness and -discovery, and the attitude of mind concreted -in that: “Really!” seems unforgivable till one -remembers that it is <em>manner rather than matter</em> -which divides the hearts of American and -Briton.</p> - -<p>In your huge, still half-developed country, -where every kind of national type and habit -comes to run a new thread into the rich tapestry -of American life and thought, people must find -it almost impossible to conceive the life of a -little old island where traditions persist generation -after generation without anything to -break them up; where blood remains undoctored -by new strains; demeanour becomes -crystallised for lack of contrasts; and manner -gets set like a plaster mask. Nevertheless the -English manner of to-day, of what are called -the classes, is the growth of only a century or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span> -so. There was probably nothing at all like it -in the days of Elizabeth or even of Charles II. -The English manner was still racy not to say -rude when the inhabitants of Virginia, as we -are told, sent over to ask that there might be -despatched to them some hierarchical assistance -for the good of their souls, and were answered: -“D——n your souls, grow tobacco!” -The English manner of to-day could not even -have come into its own when that epitaph of a -Lady, quoted somewhere by Gilbert Murray, -was written: “Bland, passionate, and deeply -religious, she was second cousin to the Earl of -Leitrim; of such are the Kingdom of Heaven.” -About that gravestone motto you will admit -there was a certain lack of self-consciousness; -that element which is now the foremost characteristic -of the English manner.</p> - -<p>But this English self-consciousness is no -mere fluffy gaucherie; it is our special form of -what Germans would call “Kultur.” Behind -every manifestation of thought or emotion, -the Briton retains control of self, and is thinking: -“That’s all I’ll let myself feel; at all events -all I’ll let myself show.” This stoicism is good<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span> -in its refusal to be foundered; bad in that it -fosters a narrow outlook; starves emotion, -spontaneity, and frank sympathy; destroys -grace and what one may describe roughly as -the lovable side of personality. The English -hardly ever say just what comes into their -heads. What we call “good form,” the unwritten -law which governs certain classes of the -Briton, savours of the dull and glacial; but -there lurks within it a core of virtue. It has -grown up like callous shell round two fine -ideals—suppression of the ego lest it trample -on the corns of other people; and exaltation of -the maxim: ‘Deeds before words.’ Good -form, like any other religion, starts well with -some ethical truth, but in due time gets commonised, -twisted, and petrified till at last we -can hardly trace its origin, and watch with -surprise its denial and contradiction of the -root idea.</p> - -<p>Without doubt, before the war, good form -had become a kind of disease in England. A -French friend told me how he witnessed in a -Swiss Hotel the meeting between an Englishwoman -and her son, whom she had not seen<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span> -for two years; she was greatly affected—by the -fact that he had not brought a dinner-jacket. -The best manners are no “manners,” or at all -events no mannerisms; but many Britons who -have even attained to this perfect purity are -yet not free from the paralytic effects of “good -form”; are still self-conscious in the depths of -their souls, and never do or say a thing without -trying not to show how much they are feeling. -All this guarantees perhaps a certain decency -in life; but in intimate intercourse with people -of other nations who have not this particular -cult of suppression, we English disappoint, -and jar, and often irritate. Nations -have their differing forms of snobbery. At one -time, if we are to believe Thackeray, the English -all wanted to be second cousins to the -Earl of Leitrim, like that lady bland and -passionate. Now-a-days it is not so simple. -The Earl of Leitrim has become etherialised. -We no longer care how a fellow is born, so long -as he behaves as the Earl of Leitrim would -have; never makes himself conspicuous or -ridiculous, never shows too much what he’s -really feeling, never talks of what he’s going<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span> -to do, and always “plays the game.” The cult -is centred in our Public Schools and Universities.</p> - -<p>At a very typical and honoured old Public -School, he to whom you are listening passed -on the whole a happy time; but what an odd -life educationally speaking! We lived rather -like young Spartans; and were not encouraged -to think, imagine, or see anything we learned, -in relation to life at large. It’s very difficult -to teach boys, because their chief object is not -to be taught anything; but I should say we -were crammed, not taught. Living as we did -the herd-life of boys with little or no intrusion -from our elders, and they men who had been -brought up in the same way as ourselves, we -were debarred from any real interest in philosophy, -history, art, literature, and music, or any -advancing notions in social life or politics. We -were reactionaries almost to a boy. I remember -one summer term Gladstone came down to -speak to us, and we repaired to the Speech -Room with white collars and dark hearts, muttering -what we would do to that Grand Old -Man if we could have our way. But, after all,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span> -he contrived to charm us. Boys are not difficult -to charm. In that queer life we had all -sorts of unwritten rules of suppression. You -must turn up your trousers; must not go out -with your umbrella rolled. Your hat must be -worn tilted forward; you must not walk more -than two abreast till you reached a certain -form; nor be enthusiastic about anything, except -such a supreme matter as a drive over -the pavilion at cricket, or a run the whole -length of the ground at football. You must -not talk about yourself or your home people; -and for any punishment you must assume complete -indifference.</p> - -<p>I dwell on these trivialities, because every -year thousands of British boys enter these -mills which grind exceeding small; and because -these boys constitute in after life the -great majority of the official, military, academic, -professional, and a considerable proportion of -the business classes of Great Britain. They -become the Englishmen who say: “Really!” -and they are for the most part the Englishmen -who travel and reach America. The great -defence I have always heard put up for our<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span> -Public Schools is that they form character. -As oatmeal is supposed to form bone in the -bodies of Scotsmen, so our Public Schools are -supposed to form good sound moral fibre in -British boys. And there is much in this plea. -The life does make boys enduring, self-reliant, -good-tempered, and honourable, but it most -carefully endeavours to destroy all original sin -of individuality, spontaneity, and engaging -freakishness. It implants, moreover, in the -great majority of those who have lived it the -mental attitude of that swell, who when asked -where he went for his hats, replied: “Blank’s; -is there another fellow’s?”</p> - -<p>To know all is to excuse all—to know all -about the bringing-up of English Public School -boys makes one excuse much. The atmosphere -and tradition of those places is extraordinarily -strong, and persists through all modern -changes. Thirty-eight years have gone since I -was a new boy, but cross-examining a young -nephew who left not long ago, I found almost -precisely the same features and conditions. -The War, which has changed so much of our -social life, will have some, but no very great,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span> -effect on this particular institution. The boys -still go there from the same kind of homes and -preparatory schools and come under the same -kind of masters. And the traditional unemotionalism, -the cult of a dry and narrow stoicism, -is rather fortified than diminished by the times -we live in.</p> - -<p>Our Universities, on the other hand, have -lately been but the ghosts of their old selves. -At my old College in Oxford last year they had -only two English students. In the Chapel -under the Joshua Reynolds window, through -which the sun was shining, hung a long “roll -of honour,” a hundred names and more. In -the College garden an open-air hospital was -ranged under the old City wall, where we used -to climb and go wandering in the early summer -mornings after some all-night spree. Down -on the river the empty College barges lay -stripped and stark. From the top of one of -them an aged custodian broke into words: -“Ah! Oxford’ll never be the same again in -my time. Why, who’s to teach ’em rowin’? -When we do get undergrads again, who’s to -teach ’em? All the old ones gone, killed,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span> -wounded and that. No! Rowin’ll never be -the same again—not in my time.” That was -<em>the</em> tragedy of the War for him. Our Universities -will recover faster than he thinks, and -resume the care of our particular ‘Kultur,’ and -cap the products of our public schools with the -Oxford accent and the Oxford manner.</p> - -<p>An acute critic tells me that Americans hearing -such deprecatory words as these from an -Englishman about his country’s institutions -would say that this is precisely an instance of -what an American means by the Oxford manner. -Americans whose attitude towards their own -country seems to be that of a lover to his lady -or a child to its mother, cannot—he says—understand -how Englishmen can be critical of -their own country, and yet love her. Well, -the Englishman’s attitude to his country is -that of a man to himself; and the way he runs -her down is rather a part of that special English -bone-deep self-consciousness of which I -have been speaking. Englishmen (the speaker -amongst them) love their Country as much as -the French love France, and the Americans -America; but she is so much a part of us that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span> -to speak well of her is like speaking well of -ourselves, which we have been brought up to -regard as impossible. When Americans hear -Englishmen speaking critically of their own -country I think they should note it for a sign -of complete identification with their country -rather than of detachment from it. But to -return to English Universities: They have, on -the whole, a broadening influence on the material -which comes to them so set and narrow. -They do a little to discover for their children -that there are many points of view, and much -which needs an open mind in this world. They -have not precisely a democratic influence, but -taken by themselves they would not be inimical -to democracy. And when the War is over they -will surely be still broader in philosophy and -teaching. Heaven forefend that we should see -vanish all that is old, all that has as it were the -virginia-creeper, the wistaria bloom of age -upon it; there is a beauty in age and a health -in tradition, ill dispensed with. But what is -hateful in age is its lack of understanding and -of sympathy; in a word—its intolerance. Let -us hope this wind of change may sweep out and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span> -sweeten the old places of my country, sweep -away the cobwebs and the dust, our narrow -ways of thought, our mannikinisms. But those -who hate intolerance dare not be intolerant -with the foibles of age; they should rather see -them as comic, and gently laugh them out.</p> - -<p>The educated Briton may be self-sufficient, -but he has grit; and at bottom grit is, I fancy, -what Americans at any rate appreciate more -than anything. If the motto of my old Oxford -College: “Manners makyth man,” were true, -I should often be sorry for the Briton. But -his manners don’t make him, they mar him. -His goods are all absent from the shop window; -he is not a man of the world in the wider meaning -of that expression. And there is, of course, -a particularly noxious type of travelling Briton, -who does his best, unconsciously, to take the -bloom off his country wherever he goes. Selfish, -coarse-fibred, loud-voiced—the sort which -thanks God he is a Briton—I suppose because -nobody else will do it for him!</p> - -<p>We live in times when patriotism is exalted -above all other virtues, because there have -happened to lie before the patriotic tremendous<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span> -chances for the display of courage and self-sacrifice. -Patriotism ever has that advantage -as the world is now constituted; but patriotism -and provincialism of course are pretty -close relations, and they who can only see -beauty in the plumage of their own kind, who -prefer the bad points of their countrymen to -the good points of foreigners, merely write -themselves down blind of an eye, and panderers -to herd feeling. America is advantaged -in this matter. She lives so far away from -other nations that she might well be excused -for thinking herself the only country in the -world; but in the many strains of blood which -go to make up America, there is as yet a natural -corrective to the narrower kind of patriotism. -America has vast spaces and many varieties -of type and climate, and life to her is still a -great adventure.</p> - -<p>I pretend to no proper knowledge of the -American people. It takes more than two -visits of two months each to know the American -people; there is just one thing, however, I -can tell you: You seem easy, but are difficult -to know. Americans have their own form of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span> -self-absorption; but they appear to be free as -yet from the special competitive self-centrement -which has been forced on Britons through -long centuries by countless continental rivalries -and wars. Insularity was driven into the -very bones of our people by the generation-long -wars of Napoleon. A Frenchman, André -Chevrillon, whose book: “England and the -War” I commend to anyone who wishes to -understand British peculiarities, justly, subtly -studied by a Frenchman, used these words in -a recent letter to me: “You English are so -strange to us French; you are so utterly different -from any other people in the world.” It is -true; we are a lonely race. Deep in our hearts, -I think, we feel that only the American people -could ever really understand us. And being -extraordinarily self-conscious, perverse, and -proud, we do our best to hide from Americans -that we have any such feeling. It would distress -the average Briton to confess that he -wanted to be understood, had anything so -natural as a craving for fellowship or for being -liked. We are a weird people, though we look -so commonplace. In looking at photographs<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span> -of British types among photographs of other -European nationalities, one is struck at once -by something which is in no other of those -races—exactly as if we had an extra skin; as -if the British animal had been tamed longer -than the rest. And so he has. His political, -social, legal life was fixed long before that of -any other Western country. He was old before -the <i>Mayflower</i> touched American shores -and brought there avatars, grave and civilised -as ever founded nation. There is something -touching and terrifying about our character, -about the depth at which it keeps its real -yearnings, about the perversity with which it -disguises them, and its inability to show its -feelings. We are, deep down, under all our -lazy mentality, the most combative and competitive -race in the world, with the exception -perhaps of the American. This is at once a -spiritual link with America, and yet one of the -great barriers to friendship between the two -peoples. Whether we are better than Frenchmen, -Germans, Russians, Italians, Chinese, or -any other race, is of course more than a question; -but those peoples are all so different<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span> -from us that we are bound, I suppose, secretly -to consider ourselves superior. But between -Americans and ourselves under all differences -there is some mysterious deep kinship which -causes us to doubt, and makes us irritable, as -if we were continually being tickled by that -question: Now am I really a better man than -he? Exactly what proportion of American -blood at this time of day is British, I know not; -but enough to make us definitely cousins—always -an awkward relationship. We see in -Americans a sort of image of ourselves; feel -near enough, yet far enough, to criticise and -carp at the points of difference. It is as though -a man went out and encountered, in the street, -what he thought for the moment was himself; -and, decidedly disturbed in his self-love, instantly -began to disparage the appearance of -that fellow. Probably community of language -rather than of blood accounts for our sense of -kinship, for a common means of expression -cannot but mould thought and feeling into some -kind of unity. Certainly one can hardly overrate -the intimacy which a common literature -brings. The lives of great Americans, Washington<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span> -and Franklin, Lincoln and Lee and -Grant are unsealed for us, just as to Americans -are the lives of Marlborough and Nelson, Pitt -and Gladstone, and Gordon. Longfellow and -Whittier and Whitman can be read by the -British child as simply as Burns and Shelley -and Keats. Emerson and William James are -no more difficult to us than Darwin and Spencer -to Americans. Without an effort we rejoice -in Hawthorne and Mark Twain, Henry James -and Howells, as Americans can in Dickens and -Thackeray, Meredith and Thomas Hardy. -And, more than all, Americans own with ourselves -all literature in the English tongue before -the <i>Mayflower</i> sailed; Chaucer and Spenser -and Shakespeare, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, and the -authors of the English Bible Version are their -spiritual ancestors as much as ever they are -ours. The tie of language is all-powerful—for -language is the food formative of minds. -Why! a volume could be written on the formation -of character by literary humour alone. -It has, I am sure, had a say in planting in -American and Briton, especially the British -townsman, a kind of bone-deep defiance of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span> -Fate, a readiness for anything which may turn -up, a dry, wry smile under the blackest sky, -an individual way of looking at things, which -nothing can shake. Americans and Britons -both, we must and will think for ourselves, and -know why we do a thing before we do it. We -have that ingrained respect for the individual -conscience, which is at the bottom of all free -institutions. Some years before the War, an -intelligent and cultivated Austrian who had -lived long in England, was asked for his opinion -of the British. “In many ways,” he said, -“I think you are inferior to us; but one great -thing I have noticed about you which we have -not. You think and act and speak for yourselves.” -If he had passed those years in -America instead of in England he must needs -have pronounced the very same judgment of -Americans. Free speech, of course, like every -form of freedom, goes in danger of its life in -war time. In 1917 an Englishman in Russia -came on a street meeting shortly after the first -revolution had begun. An Extremist was addressing -the gathering and telling them that -they were fools to go on fighting, that they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span> -ought to refuse and go home, and so forth. -The crowd grew angry, and some soldiers were -for making a rush at him; but the Chairman, a -big burly peasant, stopped them with these -words: “Brothers, you know that our country -is now a country of free speech. We must -listen to this man, we must let him say anything -he will. But, brothers, when he’s finished, -we’ll bash his head in!”</p> - -<p>I cannot assert that either Britons or Americans -are incapable in times like these of a similar -interpretation of “free speech.” Things -have been done in my country, and perhaps in -America, which should make us blush. But -so strong is the free instinct in both countries, -that it will survive even this War. Democracy, -in fact, is a sham unless it means the preservation -and development of this instinct of thinking -for oneself throughout a people. “Government -of the people by the people for the people” -means nothing unless the individuals of a -people keep their consciences unfettered, and -think freely. Accustom the individual to be -nose-led and spoon-fed, and democracy is a -mere pretence. The measure of democracy is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span> -the measure of the freedom and sense of individual -responsibility in its humblest citizens. -And democracy is still in the evolutionary stage.</p> - -<p>An English scientist, Dr. Spurrell, in a recent -book, “Man and his Forerunners,” thus diagnoses -the growth of civilisations: A civilisation -begins with the enslavement by some hardy -race of a tame race living a tame life in more -congenial natural surroundings. It is built -up on slavery, and attains its maximum vitality -in conditions little removed therefrom. Then, -<em>as individual freedom gradually grows</em>, disorganisation -sets in and the civilisation slowly -dissolves away in anarchy. Dr. Spurrell does -not dogmatise about our present civilisation, -but suggests that it will probably follow the -civilisations of the past into dissolution. I am -not convinced of that, because of certain factors -new to the history of man. Recent discoveries -have so unified the world, that such -old isolated successful swoops of race on race -are not now possible. In our great Industrial -States, it is true, a new form of slavery has -arisen (the enslavement of men by their machines), -but it is hardly of the nature on which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span> -the civilisations of the past were reared. Moreover, -all past civilisations have been more or -less Southern, and subject to the sapping influence -of the sun. Modern civilisation is -essentially Northern. The individualism, however, -which according to Dr. Spurrell, dissolved -the Empires of the past, exists already, in a -marked degree, in every modern State; and the -problem before us is to discover how democracy -and liberty of the subject can be made into -enduring props rather than dissolvents. It is, -in fact, the problem of making democracy genuine. -If that cannot be achieved and perpetuated, -then I agree there is nothing to prevent -democracy drifting into an anarchism -which will dissolve modern States, till they are -the prey of pouncing Dictators, or of other -States not so far gone in dissolution—the same -process in kind though different in degree from -the old descents of savage races on their tamer -neighbours.</p> - -<p>Ever since the substantial introduction of -democracy, nearly a century and a half ago -with the American War of Independence, I -would point out that Western Civilisation has<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span> -been living on two planes or levels—the autocratic -plane with which is bound up the idea -of nationalism, and the democratic, to which -has become conjoined in some sort the idea of -internationalism. Not only little wars, but -great wars such as this, come because of inequality -in growth, dissimilarity of political institutions -between States; because this State -or that is basing its life on different principles -from its neighbours.</p> - -<p>We fall into glib usage of words like democracy, -and make fetiches of them without due -understanding. Democracy is certainly inferior -to autocracy from the aggressively national -point of view; it is not necessarily superior -to autocracy as a guarantee of general -well-being; it might even turn out to be inferior -unless we can improve it. But democracy -is the rising tide; it may be dammed or -delayed but cannot be stopped. It seems to -be a law in human nature that where, in any -corporate society, the idea of self-government -sets foot it refuses ever to take that foot up -again. State after State, copying the American -example, has adopted the democratic<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span> -principle; and the world’s face is that way set. -Autocracy has, practically speaking, vanished -from the western world. It is my belief that -only in a world thus uniform in its principles -of government, and freed from the danger of -pounce by autocracies, have States any chance -to develop the individual conscience to a point -which shall make democracy proof against -anarchy, and themselves proof against dissolution; -and only in such a world can a League of -Nations to enforce peace succeed.</p> - -<p>But though we have now secured a single -plane for Western civilisation and ultimately, -I hope, for the world, there will be but slow -and difficult progress in the lot of mankind. -And for this progress the solidarity of the -English-speaking races is vital; for without -that there is but sand on which to build.</p> - -<p>The ancestors of the American people sought -a new country, because they had in them a -reverence for the individual conscience; they -came from Britain, the first large State in the -Christian era to build up the idea of political -freedom. The instincts and ideals of our two -races have ever been the same. That great<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span> -and lovable people the French, with their clear -thought and expression, and their quick blood, -have expressed those ideals more vividly than -either of us. But the phlegmatic tenacity of -the English and the dry tenacity of the American -temperament have ever made our countries -the most settled and safe homes of the individual -conscience. And we must look to our -two countries to guarantee its strength and -activity. If we English-speaking races quarrel -and become disunited, civilisation will split up -again and go its way to ruin. The individual -conscience is the heart of democracy. Democracy -is the new order; of the new order the -English-speaking nations are the ballast.</p> - -<p>I don’t believe in formal alliances, or in -grouping nations to exclude and keep down -other nations. Friendships between countries -should have the only true reality of common -sentiment, <em>and be animated by desire for the general -welfare of mankind</em>. We need no formal -bonds, but we have a sacred charge in common, -to let no petty matters, differences of manner, -divergencies of material interest, destroy our -spiritual agreement. Our pasts, our geographical<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span> -positions, our temperaments make us -beyond all other races, the hope and trustees -of mankind’s advance along the only line now -open—democratic internationalism. It is childish -to claim for Americans or Britons virtues -beyond those of other nations, or to believe in -the superiority of one national culture to another; -they are different, that is all. It is by -accident that we find ourselves in this position -of guardianship to the main line of human development; -no need to pat ourselves on the -back about it. But we are at a great and critical -moment in the world’s history—how critical, -none of us alive will ever realise to the full. -The civilisation slowly built since the fall of -Rome has either to break up and dissolve into -jagged and isolated fragments through a century -of revolutions and wars; or, unified and -reanimated by a single idea, to move forward -on one plane and attain greater height and -breadth.</p> - -<p>Under the pressure of this War there has -often been, beneath the lip-service we pay to -democracy, a disposition to lose faith in it, -because of its undoubted weakness and inconvenience<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span> -in a struggle with States autocratically -governed; there has even been a sort of -secret reaction towards autocracy. On those -lines there is no way out of a future of bitter -rivalries, chicanery, and wars, and the probable -total failure of our civilisation. The only cure -which I can see, lies in democratising the whole -world, and removing the present weaknesses -and shams of democracy by education of the -individual conscience in every country. Goodbye -to that chance, if Americans and Britons -fall foul of each other, refuse to make common -cause of their thoughts and hopes, and to keep -the general welfare of mankind in view. They -have got to stand together, not in aggressive -and jealous policies, but in defence and championship -of the self-helpful, self-governing, ‘live -and let live’ philosophy of life.</p> - -<p>Who would not desire, rushing through the -thick dark of the future, to stand on the cliffs -of vision—two hundred years, say—hence—and -view this world?</p> - -<p>Will there then be this League for War, this -caldron where, beneath the thin crust, a boiling -lava bubbles, and at any minute may break<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span> -through and leap up, as of late, jet high? Will -there still be reek and desolation, and man at -the mercy of the machines he has made; still -be narrow national policies and rancours, and -such mutual fear, that no country dare be -generous? Or will there be over the whole -world something of the glamour that each one -of us now sees hovering over his own country; -and men and women—all—feel they are natives -of one land? Who dare say?</p> - -<p>The guns have ceased fire and all is still; -from the woods and fields and seas, from the -skeleton towns of ravaged countries the wistful -dead rise, and with their eyes question us. -In this hour we have for answer only this: We -fought for a better Future for Mankind!</p> - -<p>Did we? Do we? That is the great question. -Is our gaze really fixed on the far horizon? -Or do we only dream it; and have the -slain no comfort in their untimely darkness; -the maimed, the ruined, the bereaved, no shred -of consolation? Is it all to be for nothing but -the salving of national prides? And shall the -Ironic Spirit fill the whole world with his -laughter?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span></p> - -<p>The House of the Future is always dark. -There are few cornerstones to be discerned in -the Temple of our Fate. But, of these few, -one is the brotherhood and bond of the English-speaking -races; not for narrow purposes, but -that mankind may yet see Faith and Good -Will enshrined, yet breathe a sweeter air, and -know a life where Beauty passes, with the sun -on her wings.</p> - -<p>We want in the lives of men a “Song of -Honour,” as in Ralph Hodgson’s poem:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“The song of men all sorts and kinds</div> - <div class="verse indent1">As many tempers, moods and minds</div> - <div class="verse indent1">As leaves are on a tree,</div> - <div class="verse indent1">As many faiths and castes and creeds</div> - <div class="verse indent1">As many human bloods and breeds</div> - <div class="verse indent1">As in the world may be.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p>In the making of that song the English-speaking -races will assuredly unite. What set -this world in motion we know not; the Principle -of Life is inscrutable and will for ever be; -but we do know, that Earth is yet on the upgrade -of existence, the mountain top of man’s -life not reached, that many centuries of growth<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span> -are yet in front of us before Time begins to -chill this planet, till it swims, at last, another -moon, in space. In the climb to that mountain -top, of a happy life for mankind, our two -great nations are as guides who go before, -roped together in perilous ascent. On their -nerve, loyalty, and wisdom, the adventure now -hangs. What American or British knife would -sever the rope?</p> - -<p>He who ever gives a thought to the life of -man at large, to his miseries, and disappointments, -to the waste and cruelty of existence, -will remember that if American or Briton fail -in this climb, there can but be for us both, and -for all other peoples, a hideous slip, a swift -and fearful fall into an abyss, whence all shall -be to begin over again.</p> - -<p>We shall not fail—neither ourselves, nor each -other. Our comradeship will endure.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III<br> -<small>FROM A SPEECH AT THE LOTUS -CLUB, NEW YORK</small></h2> -</div> - - -<p class="cap">I wonder whether you in America can -realise what an entrancing voyage of discovery -you represent to us primeval Anglo-Britons. -I prefer that term to Anglo-Saxon, -for even if we English glory in the thought that -our seaborne ancestors were extremely bloodthirsty, -we have no evidence that they brought -their own women to Britain in any quantities, -or had the power of reproducing themselves -without aid from the other sex!</p> - -<p>Can you, I say, realise how much more enticing -to my English mind America is, than the -Arabian Nights were to your fascinating fabulist, -O. Henry? One longs to unriddle to -oneself the significance and sense of America. -In the English-speaking world to-day we need -understanding of each others’ natures, aims, -sympathies, and dislikes. For without understanding<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span> -we become doctrinaire and partizan, -building our ship in compartments very watertight, -and getting into them and shutting the -doors when the ship threatens to go down.</p> - -<p>We English have a reputation for self-sufficiency. -But speaking for myself, who -find no name that is not English in my genealogy, -I never can get up quite the interest in -my own race that I can in others. We English -are so set and made, you Americans are -yet in the making. We at most experience -modification of type; you are in process of -creating one. I have often asked Americans: -What is now the American type? and have -been answered by—a smile. When I go back -home my countrymen will ask me the same -question. I would I could sit down and listen -to you telling me what it is.</p> - -<p>It will not have escaped you, at all events, -that for four years the various branches of the -English-speaking peoples have been credited -with all the virtues—a love of liberty, humanity, -and justice has, as it were, been patented -for them on both sides of the Atlantic, and -under the Southern Cross, till one has come to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span> -listen with a sort of fascinated terror for those -three words to tinkle from the tongue. I am -prepared to sacrifice a measure of the truth -sooner than pronounce them to-night. Let -me rather speak of those lower qualities which -I think we English-speaking peoples possess -in a conspicuous degree: Commonsense and -Energy. From those vulgar attributes, I am -sure, the historian of the far future will say -that the English-speaking era has germinated; -and that by those vulgar attributes it will -flourish. Deep in the American spirit and in -the English spirit is a curious intense realism—sometimes -very highly camouflaged by hot air—an -instinct for putting the finger on the button -of life, and pressing it there till the bell -rings. We are so extraordinarily successful -that we may expect the historian of the far -future to write: ‘The English-speaking races -were so rapid in their subjugation of the forces -of Nature, so prodigal of inventions, so eager -in their use of them, so extremely practical, -and altogether so successful, that the only -thing they missed was—happiness.’</p> - -<p>When I read of some great new American<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span> -invention, or of a Lord Leverhulme converting -an island of Lewis into a commercial Paradise, -I confess to trembling. Gentlemen, it is a -melancholy fact that the complete man does -not live by invention and trade alone. At the -risk of being laughed out of Paradise, I dare -put in a plea for Beauty. Both our peoples, -indeed, are so severely practical that I do feel -we run the risk of getting machine-made, and -coming actually to look down on those who give -themselves to anything so unpractical as the -love of Beauty. Now, I venture to think that -the spirit of the old builders of Seville cathedral: -‘Let us make us a church such as the world -has never seen before!’ ought to inspire us in -these days too. ‘But it does, my dear Sir.’ I -shall be answered: ‘We make flying machines, -and iron foundries, Palace hotels, stock-yards, -self-playing pianos, film pictures, cocktails, and -ladies’ hats, such as the world has never seen -before. A fig for the Giralda, the Sphynx, -Shakespeare, and Michael Angelo! They did -not elevate the lot of man. We are for invention, -industry, and trade.’ Far be it from me -to run down any of those things, so excellent in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span> -moderation; but since I solemnly aver that -man’s greatest quality is the sense of proportion, -I feel that if he neglects Beauty (which is but -proportion elegantly cooked)—the ‘result of -perfect economy’ Emerson had it—he sags -backwards, no matter how inventive and commercially -successful he may be.</p> - -<p>But this is to become grave, which is detestable, -even in a country which has just -been taking its ticket for the Garden of Eden.</p> - -<p>I believe I shall yet see (unless I perish of -public speaking) America taking the long cut -to Beauty—for there are no short cuts to Her, -no cheap nostrums by which she can be conjured -from the blue. Beauty and Simplicity -are the natural antidotes to the feverish industrialism -of our age. If only America will -begin to take them freely she has it in her -power to re-inspire in us older peoples, just now -rather breathless and exhausted, the belief in -Beauty, and a new fervour for the creation of -fine and rare things. If on the other hand -America turns Beauty down as a dangerous -‘bit of fluff’ and Simplicity as an impecunious -alien, we over there, one behind the other, will<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span> -sink into a soup of utilitarianism so thick that -we may never get out.</p> - -<p>Gentlemen, I long to see established between -the English-speaking peoples a fellowship, not -only in matters political and commercial, important -as these are, but in philosophy and art. -For after all those laughing-stocks, philosophy -and art—the beautiful expression of our highest -thoughts and fancies—are the lanterns of a -nation’s life, and we ought to hang them in -each others’ houses.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV<br> -<small>FROM A SPEECH TO THE SOCIETY -OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, -NEW YORK</small></h2> -</div> - - -<p class="cap">I do not know what your chief thought is -now; for me the overmastering thought -is that of Creation—Re-creation. You know -when we look at a bit of moorland where the -gorse and heather have been burned—swaled -we call it in Devon—how we delight in the -green, pushing up among the black shrivelled -roots. I long to see the green pushing up, the -creative impulse at work in its thousand ways -all over the world again; each of us on both -continents in his own line doing creative work; -and not so much that wealth and comfort, as -that health and beauty may be born again.</p> - -<p>But, confronting as I do to-night, the Arts -and Sciences, let me divide my words. You -sciences have no need to listen. You have -never had such a heyday as this; in engineering,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span> -in chemistry, in surgery, in every branch -except perhaps ‘star-gazing,’ you have been -shooting ahead, earning fresh laurels, putting -new discoveries at the service of bewildered -Man. Science drags no lame foot, it dances -along like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I had -better not pursue the simile. But the Arts, -with faces muffled to the eyes, stand against the -walls of life, and gaze a little enviously, a little -mournfully at the passing rout. This is not -their time for carnival; their lovers sleep, heavy -with war and toil. It is to those poor wallflowers -the Arts, that I would speak: Drop your -veils, have the courage of your charms; you -shall break many a heart yet, make many a -lover happy.</p> - -<p>Ladies and gentlemen, you have all noticed -as I have the difference between a town by -daylight and a town by night; well, the daylight -town belongs to the Sciences, the night-lit -town to the Arts. I don’t mean that artists -are night-birds, though I have heard of such a -case; I mean that the Arts live on Mystery and -Imagination. Have you ever thought how we -should get through if we had to live in a town<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span> -which never put on the filmy dark robe of night, -so that hour-in, hour-out we had to stare at -things garbed in the efficient overalls of Science, -with their prices properly pinned on? How -long would it be before we found ourselves in -Coney Hatch? Well, we are in a fair way to -abolish Night—Mystery and Imagination are -‘off,’ as they say, and that way sooner or later -madness lies.</p> - -<p>It is time the Arts left off leaning against the -wall, and took their share of the dance again. -We want them to be as creative, nay, as seductive -as the Sciences. We have seen Science -work miracles of late; now let Art work her -miracles in turn.</p> - -<p>People are inclined to smile at me when I -suggest that you in America are at the commencement -of a period of fine and vigorous -Art. The signs, they say, are all the other -way. Of course you ought to know best; all -the same, I stick to my opinion with British -obstinacy, and I believe I shall see it justified.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V<br> -<small>ADDRESS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY</small></h2> -</div> - - -<p class="cap">A doubter of the general divinity of our -civilisation is labelled ‘pedant.’ Anyone -who questions modern progress is tabooed. -And yet there is no doubt, I think, that we are -getting feverish, rushed, complicated, and have -multiplied conveniences to such an extent that -we do little with them but scrape the surface of -life.</p> - -<p>We were rattling into a species of barbarism -when the war came, and unless we check ourselves -shall continue to rattle now that it is -over. The underlying cause in every country -is the increase of herd-life, based on machines, -money-getting, and the dread of being dull. -Everyone knows how fearfully strong that dread -is. But to be capable of being dull is in itself -a disease.</p> - -<p>And most of modern life seems to be a process -of creating disease, then finding a remedy,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span> -which in its turn creates another disease, demanding -fresh remedy, and so on. We pride -ourselves, for example, on scientific sanitation; -but what is scientific sanitation if not one huge -palliative of evils which have arisen from herd-life -enabling herd-life to be intensified, so that -we shall presently need even more scientific -sanitation? The true elixirs vitæ—for there -be two, I think—are open-air life, and a proud -pleasure in one’s work, but we have evolved a -mode of existence in which it is comparatively -rare to find these two conjoined. In old countries -such as mine, the evils of herd-life are at -present vastly more acute than in a new country -such as yours. On the other hand, the -further one is from hades, the faster one drives -towards it, and machines are beginning to run -along with America even more violently than -with Europe.</p> - -<p>When our Tanks first appeared, they were -described as snouting monsters creeping at their -own sweet will. I confess that this is how my -inflamed eye sees all our modern machines—monsters -running on their own, dragging us -along, and very often squashing us.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span></p> - -<p>We are, I believe, awakening to the dangers -of this ‘Gadarening,’ of rushing down the high -cliff into the sea, possessed and pursued by the -devils of—machinery. But if any would see -how little alarmed he really is—let him ask -himself how much of his present mode of existence -he is prepared to alter. Altering the -modes of other people is delightful; one would -have great hope of the future if we had nothing -before us but that. The mediæval Irishman, -indicted for burning down the cathedral at -Armagh, together with the Archbishop, defended -himself thus: “As for the cathedral, -’tis true I burned it; but indeed an’ I wouldn’t -have, only they told me himself was inside.” -We are all ready to alter our opponents, if not -to burn them. But even if we were as ardent -reformers as that Irishman, we could hardly -force men to live in the open, or take a proud -pleasure in their work, or enjoy beauty, or not -concentrate themselves on making money. -No amount of legislation will make us “lilies -of the field” or “birds of the air,” or prevent -us from worshipping false gods, or neglecting -to reform ourselves.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span></p> - -<p>I once wrote the unpopular sentence: “Democracy -at present offers the spectacle of a -man running down a road followed at a more -and more respectful distance by his own soul.” -For democracy read rather the words modern -civilisation which prides itself on redress after -the event, foresees nothing and avoids less; is -purely empirical if one may use so high brow a -word.</p> - -<p>I look very eagerly and watchfully to America -in many ways. After the war she will be more -emphatically than ever, in material things, the -most important and powerful nation of the -earth. We British have a legitimate and somewhat -breathless interest in the use she will -make of her strength, and in the course of her -national life, for this will greatly influence the -course of our own. But power for real light -and leading in America will depend, not so -much on her material wealth, or her armed -force, as on what her attitude towards life, and -what the ideals of her citizens are going to be. -Americans have a certain eagerness for knowledge; -they have also, for all their absorption -in success, the aspiring eye. They do want the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> -good thing. They don’t always know when -they see it, but they want it. These qualities, -in combination with material strength, give -America her chance. Yet, if she does not set -her face against “Gadarening,” we are all bound -for downhill. If she goes in for spreadeagleism, -if her aspirations are towards quantity, not -quality, we shall all go on being commonised. -If she should get that purse-and-power-proud -fever which comes from national success, we -are all bound for another world flare-up. The -burden of proving that democracy can be real -and yet live up to an ideal of health and beauty -will be on America’s shoulders, and on ours. -What are we and Americans going to make of -our inner life, of our individual habits of -thought? What are we going to reverence, and -what despise? Do we mean to lead, in spirit -and in truth, not in mere money and guns? -Britain is an old country, though still in her -prime, I hope; America is yet on the threshold. -Is she to step out into the sight of the world as -a great leader? That is for America the long -decision, to be worked out, not so much in -her Senate and her Congress, as in her homes<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span> -and schools. On America, now that the war -is over, the destiny of civilisation may hang for -the next century. If she mislays, indeed if she -does not improve the power of self-criticism—that -special dry American humour which the -great Lincoln had—she might soon develop the -intolerant provincialism which has so often -been the bane of the earth and the undoing of -nations. Above all, if she does not solve the -problems of town life, of Capital and Labour, -of the distribution of wealth, of national health, -and attain to a mastery over inventions and -machinery—she is in for a cycle of mere anarchy, -disruption, and dictatorships, into which we -shall all follow. The motto “noblesse oblige” -applies as much to democracy as ever it did -to the old-time aristocrat. It applies with -terrific vividness to America. Ancestry and -Nature have bestowed on her great gifts. Behind -her stand Conscience, Enterprise, Independence, -and Ability—such were the companions -of the first Americans, and are the -comrades of American citizens to this day. -She has abounding energy, an unequalled spirit -of discovery, a vast territory not half developed,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span> -and great natural beauty. I remember -sitting on a bench overlooking the Grand -Canyon of Arizona; the sun was shining into -it, and a snow storm was whirling down there. -All that most marvellous work of Nature was -flooded to the brim with rose and tawny-gold, -with white, and wine-dark shadows; the colossal -carvings as of huge rock-gods and sacrificial -altars, and great beasts along its sides, -were made living by the very mystery of light -and darkness, on that violent day of Spring; -I remember sitting there, and an old gentleman -passing close behind, leaning towards me -and saying in a sly, gentle voice: “How are you -going to tell it to the folks at home?” America -has so much, that one despairs of telling to the -folks at home, so much grand beauty to be to -her an inspiration and uplift towards high and -free thought and vision. Great poems of -Nature she has, wrought in the large, to make -of her and keep her a noble people. In my beloved -Britain—all told, not half the size of -Texas—there is a quiet beauty of a sort which -America has not. I walked not long ago from -Worthing to the little village of Steyning, in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span> -the South Downs. It was such a day as one -seldom gets in England; when the sun was -dipping and there came on the cool chalky hills -the smile of late afternoon, and across a smooth -valley on the rim of the Downs one saw a tiny -group of trees, one little building, and a stack, -against the clear-blue, pale sky—it was like a -glimpse of heaven, so utterly pure in line and -colour so removed, and touching. The tale of -loveliness in our land is varied and unending, -but it is not in the grand manner. America -has the grand manner in her scenery and in her -blood, for in America all are the children of -adventure, every single man an emigrant himself -or a descendant of one who had the pluck -to emigrate. She has already had past-masters -in dignity, but she has still to reach as a nation -the grand manner in achievement. She knows -her own dangers and failings; her qualities and -powers; but she cannot realise the intense concern -and interest, deep down behind our provoking -stolidities, with which we of the old -country watch her, feeling that what she does -reacts on us above all nations, and will ever -react more and more. Underneath surface<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span> -differences and irritations we English-speaking -peoples are fast bound together. May it not -be in misery and iron! If America walks upright, -so shall we; if she goes bowed under the -weight of machines, money, and materialism, -we too shall creep our ways. We run a long -race, we nations; a generation is but a day. -But in a day a man may leave the track, and -never again recover it! Nations depend for -their health and safety on the behaviour of the -individuals who compose them.</p> - -<p>Modern man is a very new and marvellous -creature. Without quite realising it, we have -evolved a fresh species of stoic—even more -stoical, I suspect, than were the old Stoics. -Modern man stands on his own feet. His religion -is to take what comes without flinching -or complaint, as part of the day’s work, which -an unknowable God, Providence, Creative Principle, -has appointed. By courage and kindness -modern man exists, warmed by the glow of the -great human fellowship. He has re-discovered -the old Greek saying: “God is the helping of -man by man”; has found out in his unselfconscious -way that if he does not help himself,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span> -and help his fellows, he cannot reach that inner -peace which satisfies. To do his bit; and to -be kind! It is by that creed, rather than by -any mysticism, that he finds the salvation of -his soul, for, of a truth, the religion of this age -is conduct.</p> - -<p>After all, does not the only real spiritual -warmth, not tinged by Pharisaism, egotism, or -cowardice, come from the feeling of doing your -work well and helping others; is not all the -rest embroidery, luxury, pastime, pleasant -sound and incense? Modern man is a realist -with too romantic a sense, perhaps, of the mystery -which surrounds existence, to pry into it. -And, like modern civilisation itself, he is the -creature of West and North, of those atmospheres, -climates, manners, of life, which foster -neither inertia, reverence, nor mystic meditation. -Essentially man of action, in ideal action -he finds his only true comfort. I am sure -that padres at the front have seen that the -men whose souls they have gone out to tend, -are living the highest form of religion; that in -their comic courage, unselfish humanity, their -endurance without whimper of things worse<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span> -than death, they have gone beyond all pulpit-and-deathbed -teaching. And who are these -men? Just the early manhood of the race, just -modern man as he was before the war began, -and will be now that the war is over.</p> - -<p>This modern world, of which we English and -Americans are perhaps the truest types, stands -revealed from beneath its froth, frippery, and -vulgar excrescences, sound at core—a world -whose implicit motto is: “The good of all humanity.” -But the herd-life which is its characteristic, -brings many evils, has many dangers; -and to preserve a sane mind in a healthy body -is the riddle before us. Somehow we must free -ourselves from the driving domination of machines -and money-getting, not only for our own -sakes but for that of all mankind.</p> - -<p>And there is another thing of the most -solemn importance: We English-speaking nations -are by chance as it were, the ballast of the -future. It is <em>absolutely necessary</em> for the happiness -of the world that we should remain -united. The comradeship that we now feel -must and surely shall abide. For unless we -work together, and in no selfish or exclusive -spirit—Goodbye to Civilisation! It will vanish<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span> -like the dew off grass. The betterment not -only of the British nations and America, but -of all mankind is and must be our object.</p> - -<p>From all our hearts a great weight has been -lifted; in those fields death no longer sweeps -his scythe, and our ears at last are free from -the rustling thereof—now comes the test of -magnanimity, in all countries. Will modern -man rise to the ordering of a sane, a free, a -generous life? Each of us loves his own country -best, be it a little land or the greatest on -earth; but jealousy is the dark thing, the creeping -poison. Where there is true greatness, let -us acclaim it; where there is true worth, let -us prize it—as if it were our own.</p> - -<p>This earth is made too subtly, of too multiple -warp and woof, for prophecy. When he surveys -the world around—“the wondrous things -which there abound,” the prophet closes foolish -lips. Besides, as the historian tells us: “Writers -have that undeterminateness of spirit which -commonly makes literary men of no use in the -world.” So I, for one, prophesy not. Still, -we do know this: All English-speaking peoples -will go to this adventure of Peace with something -of big purpose and spirit in their hearts,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span> -with something of free outlook. The world is -wide and Nature bountiful enough for all, if -we keep sane minds. The earth is fair and -meant to be enjoyed, if we keep sane bodies. -Who dare affront this world of beauty with -mean views? There is no darkness but what -the ape in us still makes, and in spite of all his -monkey-tricks modern man is at heart further -from the ape than man has yet been.</p> - -<p>To do our jobs really well and to be brotherly! -To seek health and ensue Beauty! If, in -Britain and America, in all the English-speaking -nations, we can put that simple faith into -real and thorough practice, what may not this -century yet bring forth? Shall man, the highest -product of creation, be content to pass his -little day in a house like unto Bedlam?</p> - -<p>When the present great task in which we -have joined hands is really ended; when once -more from the shuttered mad-house the figure -of Peace steps forth and stands in the risen sun, -and we may go our ways again in the wonder -of a new morning—let it be with this vow in -our hearts: “No more of Madness—in War, or -in Peace!”</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI<br> -<small>TO THE LEAGUE OF POLITICAL -EDUCATION, NEW YORK</small></h2> -</div> - - -<p class="cap">Standing here, privileged to address my -betters—I, the least politically educated -person in the world, have two thoughts to -leave on the air. They arise from the title of -your League.</p> - -<p>I wish I did not feel, speaking in the large, -that politics and education have but a bowing -acquaintanceship in the modern State; and I -wish I did feel that either education or politics -had any definite idea of what they were out to -attain; in other words, had a clear image of -the ideal State. It seems to me that their -object at present is just to keep the heads of -the citizens of the modern State above water; -to keep them alive, without real concern as to -what kind of life they are being preserved for. -We seem, in fact, to be letting our civilisation<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span> -run us, instead of running our civilisation. If -a man does not know where he wants to go, he -goes where circumstances and the telephone -take him. Where do we want to go? Can -you answer me? Have you any definite idea? -What is the Ultima Thule of our longings? I -suppose one ought to say, roughly, that the -modern ideal is: Maximum production of -wealth to the square mile of a country—an -ideal which, seeing that a man normally produces -wealth in surplus to his own requirements, -signifies logically a maximum head of population -to the square mile. And it seems to me -that the great modern fallacy is the identification -of the word wealth with the word welfare. -Granted that demand creates supply, and that -it is impossible to stop human nature from demanding, -the problem is surely to direct demand -into the best channels for securing health -and happiness. And I venture to say that the -mere blind production of wealth and population -by no means fills that bill. We ought to -produce wealth only in such ways and to such -an extent as shall make us all good, clean, -healthy, intelligent, and beautiful to look at.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span> -That is the end, and production whether of -wealth or population only the means to that -end, to be regulated accordingly. As things -are, we confuse the means with the end, and -make of production a fetich.</p> - -<p>Let me take a parallel from the fields of Art. -What kind of good in the world is an artist who -sets to work to cover the utmost possible acreage -of canvas, or to spoil the greatest possible -number of reams of paper, in deference to the -call from a vulgar and undiscriminating market -for all he can produce? Do we admire him—a -man whose ideal is blind supply to meet blind -demand?</p> - -<p>The most urgent need of the world to-day is -to learn—or is it to re-learn?—the love of -quality. And how are we to learn that in a -democratic age, unless we so perfect our electoral -machineries as to be sure that we secure -for our leaders, and especially for our leaders -of education, men and women who, themselves -worshipping quality, will see that the love of -quality is instilled into the boys and girls of -the nation.</p> - -<p>After all, we have some common sense, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span> -we really cannot contemplate much longer the -grimy, grinding monster of modern industrialism -without feeling that we are becoming disinherited, -instead of—as we are brought up to -think—heirs to an ever-increasing fortune.</p> - -<p>It seems to me that no amount of political -evolution or revolution is going to do us any -good unless it is accompanied by evolution or -revolution in ideals. What does it matter -whether one class holds the reins, or another -class holds the reins, if the dominant impulse -in the population remains the craving for wealth -without the power of discriminating whether -or not that wealth is taking forms which promote -health and happiness.</p> - -<p>A new educational charter—a charter of taste, -affirming the rule of dignity, beauty, and simplicity, -is wanted before political change can -turn out to be anything but cheap-jack nostrums, -and a mere shuffling around.</p> - -<p>I would just cite three of the many changes -necessary for any advance:</p> - -<p class="hang">(1) The reduction of working hours to a -point that would enable men and -women to live lives of wider interest.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span></p> - -<p class="hang">(2) The abolition of smoke—which surely -should not be beyond attainment in -this scientific age.</p> - -<p class="hang">(3) The rescue of educational forces from -the grip of vested interests.</p> - -<p>I would have all educational institutions financed -by the State, but give all the <em>directing</em> -power to heads of education elected by the -main body of teachers themselves. I would -not have education dependent on advertisement -or on charity. I would not even have -newspapers, which are an educational force—though -you might not always think so—dependent -on advertisements. A newspaper man -told me the other day that his paper had -printed an article drawing attention to the deleteriousness -of a certain product. The manufacturers -of that product sent an ultimatum -drawing the editor’s attention to the deleteriousness -of their advertising in a journal which -printed such articles. The result was perfect -peace. What chance is there of rescuing newspapers, -for instance, until education has implanted -in the rising generation the feeling that -to accept money for what you know is doing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span> -harm to your neighbours, is not playing the -game. Or take another instance: Not long ago -in England a College for the training of school-teachers -desired to make certain excellent advances -in their curriculum, which did not meet -with the approval of the municipal powers controlling -the College. A short, sharp fight, and -again perfect peace.</p> - -<p>I suppose it would be too sweeping to say -that a vested interest never yet held an enlightened -view, but I think one may fairly say -that their enlightened views are rare birds.</p> - -<p>How, then, is any emancipation to come? I -know not, unless we take to looking on Education -as the hub of the wheel—the Schools, the -Arts, the Press; and concentrate our thoughts -on the best means of manning these agencies -with men and women of real honesty and vision, -and giving them real power to effect in the rising -generation the evolution of ethics and taste, in -accordance with the rules of dignity, beauty, and -simplicity.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII<br> -<small>TALKING AT LARGE</small></h2> -</div> - - -<p class="cap">It is of the main new factors which have -come into the life of the civilised world -that I would speak.</p> - -<p>The division deep and subtle between those -who have fought and those who have not—concerns -us in Europe far more than you in -America; for in proportion to your population -the number of your soldiers who actually -fought has been small, compared with the number -in any belligerent European country. And -I think that so far as you are concerned the division -will soon disappear, for the iron had not -time to enter into the souls of your soldiers. -For us in Europe, however, this factor is very -tremendous, and will take a long time to wear -away. In my country the, as it were, professional -English dislike to the expression of feeling, -which strikes every American so forcibly, -covers very deep hearts and highly sensitive<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span> -nerves. The average Briton is now not at all -stolid underneath; I think he has changed a -great deal in this last century, owing to the -town life which seven-tenths of our population -lead. Perhaps only of the Briton may one -still invent the picture which appeared in -<cite>Punch</cite> in the autumn of 1914—of the steward -on a battleship asking the naval lieutenant: -“Will you take your bath before or after the -engagement, sir?” and only among Britons -overhear one stoker say to another in the heat -of a sea-fight: “Well, wot I say is—’E ought -to ’ave married ’er.” For all that, the Briton -feels deeply; and on those who have fought the -experiences of the battlefield have had an effect -which almost amounts to metamorphosis. -There are now two breeds of British people—such -as have been long in the danger zones, -and such as have not; shading, of course, into -each other through the many who have just -smelled powder and peril, and the very few -whose imaginations are vibrant enough to have -lived the two lives, while only living one.</p> - -<p>In a certain cool paper called: “The Balance-sheet -of the Soldier Workman” I tried to come<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span> -at the effect of the war; but purposely pitched -it in a low and sober key; and there is a much -more poignant tale of change to tell of each -individual human being.</p> - -<p>Take a man who, when the war broke out -(or had been raging perhaps a year), was living -the ordinary Briton’s life, in factory, shop, and -home. Suppose that he went through that -deep, sharp struggle between the pull of home -love and interests, and the pull of country (for -I hope it will never be forgotten that five million -Britons were volunteers) and came out -committed to his country. That then he had -to submit to being rattled at great speed into -the soldier-shape which we Britons and you -Americans have been brought up to regard as -but the half of a free man; that then he was -plunged into such a hideous hell of horrible -danger and discomfort as this planet has never -seen; came out of it time and again, went back -into it time and again; and finally emerged, -shattered or unscathed, with a spirit at once -uplifted and enlarged, yet bruised and ungeared -for the old life of peace. Imagine such -a man set back among those who have not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span> -been driven and grilled and crucified. What -would he feel, and how bear himself? On the -surface he would no doubt disguise the fact -that he felt different from his neighbours—he -would conform; but something within him -would ever be stirring, a sort of superiority, an -impatient sense that he had been through it -and they had not; the feeling, too, that he had -seen the bottom of things, that nothing he -could ever experience again would give him the -sensations he had had out there; that he had -lived, and there could be nothing more to it. -I don’t think that we others quite realise what -it must mean to those men, most of them under -thirty, to have been stretched to the uttermost, -to have no illusions left, and yet have, perhaps, -forty years still to live. There is something -gained in them, but there’s something gone -from them. The old sanctions, the old values -won’t hold; are there any sanctions and values -which can be made to hold? A kind of unreality -must needs cling about their lives -henceforth. This is a finespun way of putting -it, but I think, at bottom, true.</p> - -<p>The old professional soldier lived for his soldiering.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span> -At the end of a war (however terrible) -there was left to him a vista of more -wars, more of what had become to him the -ultimate reality—his business in life. For these -temporary soldiers of what has been not so -much a war as a prolonged piece of very horrible -carnage, there succeeds something so mild -in sensation that it simply will not fill the void. -When the dish of life has lost its savour, by -reason of violent and uttermost experience, -wherewith shall it be salted?</p> - -<p>The American Civil War was very long and -very dreadful, but it was a human and humane -business compared to what Europe has just -come through. There is no analogy in history -for the present moment. An old soldier of that -Civil War, after hearing these words, wrote me -an account of his after-career which shows that -in exceptional cases a life so stirring, full, and -even dangerful may be lived that no void is -felt. But one swallow does not make a summer, -nor will a few hundreds or even thousands -of such lives leaven to any extent the vast -lump of human material used in this war. The -spiritual point is this: In front of a man in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span> -ordinary civilised existence there hovers ever -that moment in the future when he expects to -prove himself more of a man than he has yet -proved himself. For these soldiers of the -Great Carnage the moment of probation is already -in the past. They <em>have</em> proved themselves -as they will never have the chance to -do again, and secretly they know it. One talks -of their powers of heroism and sacrifice being -wanted just as much in time of Peace; but that -cannot really be so, because Peace times do not -demand men’s lives—which is the ultimate -test—with every minute that passes. No, the -great moment of their existence lies behind -them, young though so many of them are. -This makes them at once greater than us, yet -in a way smaller, because they have lost the -power and hope of expansion. They have lived -their masterpiece already. Human nature is -elastic, and hope springs eternal; but a <em>climax</em> -of experience and sensation cannot be repeated; -I think these have reached and passed the -uttermost climax; and in Europe they number -millions.</p> - -<p>This is a veritable portent, and I am glad<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span> -that in America you will not have it to any -great extent.</p> - -<p>Now how does this affect the future? -Roughly speaking it must, I think, have a -diminishing effect on what I may call loosely—Creative -ability. People have often said to -me: “We shall have great writings and paintings -from these young men when they come -back.” We shall certainly have poignant expression -of their experiences and sufferings; -and the best books and paintings of the war -itself are probably yet to come. But, taking -the long view, I do not believe we shall have -from them, in the end, as much creative art -and literature as we should have had if they -had not been through the war. Illusion about -life, and interest in ordinary daily experience -and emotion, which after all, are to be the stuff -of their future as of ours, has in a way been -blunted or destroyed for them. And in the -other provinces of life, in industry, in trade, in -affairs, how can we expect from men who have -seen the utter uselessness of money or comfort -or power in the last resort, the same naïve faith -in these things, or the same driving energy<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span> -towards the attaining of them that we others -exhibit?</p> - -<p>It may be cheering to assume that those who -have been almost superhuman these last four -years in one environment will continue to be -almost superhuman under conditions the very -opposite. But alack! it is not logical.</p> - -<p>On the other hand I think that those who -have had this great and racking experience -will be left, for the most part, with a real passion -for Justice; and that this will have a -profoundly modifying effect on social conditions. -I think, too, that many of them will have a -sort of passion for humaneness, which will, if -you will suffer me to say so, come in very -handy; for I have observed that the rest of us, -through reading about horrors, have lost the -edge of our gentleness, and have got into the -habit of thinking that it is the business of -women and children to starve, if they happen -to be German; of creatures to be underfed and -overworked if they happen to be horses; of -families to be broken up if they happen to be -aliens; and that a general carelessness as to -what suffering is necessary and what is not,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span> -has set in. And, queer as it may seem, I look -to those who have been in the thick of the worst -suffering the world has ever seen, to set us in -the right path again, and to correct the vitriolic -sentiments engendered by the armchair and -the inkpot, in times such as we have been and -are still passing through. A cloistered life in -times like these engenders bile; in fact, I think -it always does. For sheer ferocity there is no -place, you will have noticed, like a club full of -old gentlemen. I expect the men who have -come home from killing each other to show us -the way back to brotherliness! And not before -it’s wanted. Here is a little true story -of war-time, when all men were supposed to -be brothers if they belonged to the same nation. -In the fifth year of the war two men sat -alone in a railway carriage. One, pale, young, -and rather worn, had an unlighted cigarette in -his mouth. The other, elderly, prosperous, and -of a ruddy countenance, was smoking a large -cigar.</p> - -<p>The young man, who looked as if his days -were strenuous, took his unlighted cigarette -from his mouth, gazed at it, searched his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span> -pockets, and looked at the elderly man. His -nose twitched, vibrated by the scent of the -cigar, and he said suddenly:</p> - -<p>“Could you give me a light, sir?”</p> - -<p>The elderly man regarded him for a moment, -drooped his eyelids, and murmured:</p> - -<p>“I’ve no matches.”</p> - -<p>The young man sighed, mumbling the cigarette -in his watering lips, then said very suddenly:</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you’ll kindly give me a light from -your cigar, sir.”</p> - -<p>The elderly man moved throughout his body -as if something very sacred had been touched -within him.</p> - -<p>“I’d rather not,” he said; “if you don’t -mind.”</p> - -<p>A quarter of an hour passed, while the young -man’s cigarette grew moister, and the elder -man’s cigar shorter. Then the latter stirred, -took it from under his grey moustache, looked -critically at it, held it out a little way towards -the other with the side which was least burned-down -foremost, and said:</p> - -<p>“Unless you’d like to take it from the edge.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span></p> - -<p>On the other hand one has often travelled -in these last years with extreme embarrassment -because our soldiers were so extraordinarily -anxious that one should smoke their cigarettes, -eat their apples, and their sausages. The -marvels of comradeship they have performed -would fill the libraries of the world.</p> - -<p>The second main new factor in the world’s -life is the disappearance of the old autocracies.</p> - -<p>In 1910, walking in Hyde Park with a writer -friend, I remember saying: “It’s the hereditary -autocracies in Germany, Austria, and Russia -which make the danger of war.” He did not -agree—but no two writers agree with each -other at any given moment. “If only autocracies -go down in the wreckage of this war!” -was almost the first thought I put down in -writing when the war broke out. Well, they -are gone! They were an anachronism, and -without them and the bureaucracies and secrecy -which buttressed them we should not, I think, -have had this world catastrophe. But let us -not too glibly assume that the forms of government -which take their place can steer the battered -ships of the nations in the very troubled<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span> -waters of to-day, or that they will be truly -democratic. Even highly democratic statesmen -have been known to resort to the way of -the headmaster at my old school, who put a -motion to the masters’ meeting and asked for -a show of hands in its favour. Not one hand -was held up. “Then,” he said, “I shall adopt -it with the greater regret.” Nevertheless, the -essential new factor is, that, whereas in 1914 -civilisation was on two planes, it is now, theoretically, -at least, on the one democratic plane -or level. That is a great easing of the world-situation, -and removes a chief cause of international -misunderstanding. The rest depends -on what we can now make of democracy. -Surely no word can so easily be taken in vain; -to have got rid of the hereditary principle in -government is by no means to have made democracy -a real thing. Democracy is neither -government by rabble, nor government by -caucus. Its measure as a beneficent principle -is the measure of the intelligence, honesty, -public spirit, and independence of the average -voter. The voter who goes to the poll blind -of an eye and with a cast in the other, so that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span> -he sees no issue clear, and every issue only in -so far as it affects him personally, is not precisely -the sort of ultimate administrative power -we want. Intelligent, honest, public-spirited, -and independent voters guarantee an honest -and intelligent governing body. The best -men the best government is a truism which -cannot be refuted. Democracy to be real and -effective must succeed in throwing up into the -positions of administrative power the most -trustworthy of its able citizens. In other -words it must incorporate and make use of the -principle of aristocracy; government by the -best—<em>best in spirit</em>, not best-born. Rightly -seen, there is no tug between democracy and -aristocracy; aristocracy should be the means -and machinery by which democracy works itself -out. What then can be done to increase -in the average voter intelligence and honesty, -public spirit and independence? Nothing save -by education. The Arts, the Schools, the Press. -It is impossible to overestimate the need for -vigour, breadth, restraint, good taste, enlightenment, -and honesty in these three agencies. -The artist, the teacher (and among teachers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span> -one includes, of course, religious teachers in so -far as they concern themselves with the affairs -of this world), and the journalist have the -future in their hands. As they are fine the -future will be fine; as they are mean the future -will be mean. The burden is very specially -on the shoulders of Public Men, and that most -powerful agency the Press, which reports them. -Do we realise the extent to which the modern -world relies for its opinions on public utterances -and the Press? Do we realise how completely -we are all in the power of report? Any -little lie or exaggerated sentiment uttered by -one with a bee in his bonnet, with a principle, -or an end to serve, can, if cleverly expressed -and distributed, distort the views of thousands, -sometimes of millions. Any wilful suppression -of truth for Party or personal ends can so falsify -our vision of things as to plunge us into endless -cruelties and follies. Honesty of thought and -speech and written word is a jewel, and they -who curb prejudice and seek honourably to -know and speak the truth are the only true -builders of a better life. But what a dull world -if we can’t chatter and write irresponsibly, can’t<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span> -slop over with hatred, or pursue our own ends -without scruple! To be tied to the apron-strings -of truth, or coiffed with the nightcap of -silence; who in this age of cheap ink and oratory -will submit to such a fate? And yet, if -we do not want another seven million violent -deaths, another eight million maimed and halt -and blind, and if we do not want anarchy, our -tongues must be sober, and we must tell the -truth. Report, I would almost say, now rules -the world and holds the fate of man on the sayings -of its many tongues. If the good sense of -mankind cannot somehow restrain utterance -and cleanse report, Democracy, so highly -vaunted, will not save us; and all the glib -words of promise spoken might as well have lain -unuttered in the throats of orators. We are -always in peril under Democracy of taking the -line of least resistance and immediate material -profit. The gentleman, for instance, whoever -he was, who first discovered that he could sell -his papers better by undercutting the standard -of his rivals, and, appealing to the lower tastes -of the Public under the flag of that convenient -expression “what the Public wants,” made a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span> -most evil discovery. The Press is for the most -part in the hands of men who know what is -good and right. It can be a great agency for -levelling up. But whether on the whole it is -so or not, one continually hears doubted. -There ought to be no room for doubt in any of -our minds that the Press is on the side of the -angels. It can do as much as any other single -agency to raise the level of honesty, intelligence, -public spirit, and taste in the average voter, in -other words, to build Democracy on a sure -foundation. This is a truly tremendous trust; -for the safety of civilisation and the happiness -of mankind hangs thereby. The saying about -little children and the kingdom of heaven was -meant for the ears of all those who have it in -their power to influence simple folk. To be a -good and honest editor, a good and honest -journalist is in these days to be a veritable -benefactor of mankind.</p> - -<p>Now take the function of the artist, of the -man who in stone, or music, marble, bronze, -paint, or words, can express himself, and his -vision of life, truly and beautifully. Can we -set limit to his value? The answer is in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span> -affirmative. We set such limitation to his -value that he has been known to die of it. -And I would only venture to say here that if -we don’t increase the store we set by him, we -shall, in this reach-me-down age of machines -and wholesale standardisations, emulate the -Goths who did their best to destroy the art of -Rome, and all these centuries later, by way of -atonement, have filled the Thiergarten at Berlin -and the City of London with peculiar -brands of statuary, and are always writing their -names on the Sphynx.</p> - -<p>I suppose the hardest lesson we all have to -learn in life is that we can’t have things both -ways. If we want to have beauty, that which -appeals not merely to the stomach and the epidermis -(which is the function of the greater -part of industrialism), but to what lies deeper -within the human organism, the heart and the -brain, we must have conditions which permit -and even foster the production of beauty. The -artist, unfortunately, no less than the rest of -mankind, must eat to live. Now, if we insist -that we will pay the artist only for what fascinates -the popular uneducated instincts, he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span> -will either produce beauty, remain unpaid and -starve; or he will give us shoddy, and fare -sumptuously every day. My experience tells -me this: An artist who is by accident of independent -means can, if he has talent, give the -Public what he, the artist, wants, and sooner -or later the public will take whatever he gives -it, at his own valuation. But very few artists, -<em>who have no independent means</em>, have enough -character to hold out until they can sit on the -Public’s head and pull the Public’s beard, to -use the old Sikh saying. How many times -have I not heard over here—and it’s very much -the same over there—that a man must produce -this or that kind of work or else of course -he can’t live. My advice—at all events to -young artists and writers—is: ‘Sooner than -do that and have someone sitting on <em>your</em> head -and pulling your beard all the time, go out of -business—there are other means of making a -living, besides faked or degraded art. Become -a dentist and revenge yourself on the Public’s -teeth—even editors and picture dealers go to -the dentist!’ The artist has got to make a -stand against being exploited, and he has got,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span> -also, to live the kind of life which will give him -a chance to see clearly, to feel truly, and to -express beautifully. He, too, is a trustee for -the future of mankind. Money has one inestimable -value—it guarantees independence, -the power of going your own way and giving -out the best that’s in you. But, generally -speaking, we don’t stop there in our desire for -money; and I would say that any artist who -doesn’t stop there is not ‘playing the game,’ -neither towards himself nor towards mankind; -he is not standing up for the faith that is in -him, and the future of civilisation.</p> - -<p>And now what of the teacher? One of the -discouraging truths of life is the fact that a -man cannot raise himself from the ground by -the hair of his own head. And if one took -Democracy logically, one would have to give -up the idea of improvement. But things are -not always what they seem, as somebody once -said; and fortunately, government ‘of the -people by the people for the people’ does not -in practice prevent the people from using those -saving graces—Commonsense and Selection. -In fact, only by the use of those graces will democracy<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span> -work at all. When twelve men get -together to serve on a jury, their commonsense -makes them select the least stupid among them -to be their foreman. Each of them, of course, -feels that he is that least stupid man, but since -a man cannot vote for himself, he votes for the -least dense among his neighbours, and the foreman -comes to life. The same principle applied -thoroughly enough throughout the social system -produces government by the best. And it is -more vital to apply it <em>thoroughly</em> in matters of -education than in other branches of human -activity. But when we have secured our best -heads of education, we must trust them and -give them real power, for they are the hope—well -nigh the only hope—of our future. They -alone, by the selection and instruction of their -subordinates and the curricula which they lay -down, can do anything substantial in the way -of raising the standard of general taste, conduct, -and learning. They alone can give the -starting push towards greater dignity and simplicity; -promote the love of proportion, and -the feeling for beauty. They alone can gradually -instil into the body politic the understanding<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span> -that education is not a means towards -wealth as such, or learning as such, but towards -the broader ends of health and happiness. The -first necessity for improvement in modern life -is that our teachers should have the wide view, -and be provided with the means and the curricula -which make it possible to apply this enlightenment -to their pupils. Can we take too -much trouble to secure the best men as heads -of education—that most responsible of all -positions in the modern State? The child is -father to the man. We think too much of -politics and too little of education. We treat -it almost as cavalierly as the undergraduate -treated the Master of Balliol. “Yes,” he said, -showing his people round the quadrangle, -“that’s the Master’s window;” then, picking -up a pebble, he threw it against the window -pane. “And that,” he said, as a face appeared, -“is the Master!” Democracy has -come, and on education Democracy hangs; the -thread as yet is slender.</p> - -<p>It is a far cry to the third new factor: Exploitation -of the air. We were warned, by -Sir Hiram Maxim about 1910 that a year or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span> -so of war would do more for the conquest of -the air than many years of peace. It has. -We hear of a man flying 260 miles in 90 minutes; -of the Atlantic being flown in 24 hours; -of airships which will have a lifting capacity -of 300 tons; of air mail-routes all over the -world. The time will perhaps come when we -shall live in the air, and come down to earth -on Sundays.</p> - -<p>I confess that, mechanically marvellous as -all this is, it interests me chiefly as a prime instance -of the way human beings prefer the -shadow of existence to its substance. Granted -that we speed up everything, that we annihilate -space, that we increase the powers of trade, -leave no point of the earth unsurveyed, and -are able to perform air-stunts which people will -pay five dollars apiece to see—how shall we -have furthered human health, happiness, and -virtue, speaking in the big sense of these words? -It is an advantage, of course, to be able to -carry food to a starving community in some -desert; to rescue shipwrecked mariners; to -have a letter from one’s wife four days sooner -than one could otherwise; and generally to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span> -save time in the swopping of our commodities -and the journeys we make. But how does all -this help human beings to inner contentment -of spirit, and health of body? Did the arrival -of motor-cars, bicycles, telephones, trains, and -steamships do much for them in that line? -Anything which serves to stretch human capabilities -to the utmost, would help human -happiness, if each new mechanical activity, -each new human toy as it were, did not so run -away with our sense of proportion as to debauch -our energies. A man, for instance, -takes to motoring, who used to ride or walk; -it becomes a passion with him, so that he now -never rides or walks—and his calves become -flabby and his liver enlarged. A man puts a -telephone into his house to save time and -trouble, and is straightway a slave to the tinkle -of its bell. The few human activities in themselves -and of themselves pure good are just -eating, drinking, sleeping, and the affections—in -moderation; the inhaling of pure air, exercise -in most of its forms, and interesting creative -work—in moderation; the study and contemplation -of the arts and Nature—in moderation;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span> -thinking of others and not thinking of -yourself—in moderation; doing kind acts and -thinking kind thoughts. All the rest seems to -be what the prophet had in mind when he said: -‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!’ Ah! but the -one great activity—adventure and the craving -for sensation! It is that for which the human -being really lives, and all his restless activity -is caused by the desire for it. True; yet adventure -and sensation without rhyme or reason -lead to disharmony and disproportion. We -may take civilisation to the South Sea Islands, -but it would be better to leave the islanders -naked and healthy than to improve them with -trousers and civilisation off the face of the -earth. We may invent new cocktails, but it -would be better to stay dry. In mechanical -matters I am reactionary, for I cannot believe -in inventions and machinery unless they can -be so controlled as to minister definitely to -health and happiness—and how difficult that -is! In my own country the townsman has -become physically inferior to the countryman -(speaking in the large), and I infer from this -that we British—at all events—are not so in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span> -command of ourselves and our wonderful inventions -and machines that we are putting -them to uses which are really beneficent. If -we had proper command of ourselves no doubt -we could do this, but we haven’t; and if you -look about you in America, the same doubt -may possibly attack you.</p> - -<p>But there is another side to the exploitation -of the air which does not as yet affect you in -America as it does us in Europe—the destructive -side. Britain, for instance, is no longer -an island. In five or ten years it will, I think, -be impossible to guarantee the safety of Britain -and Britain’s commerce, by sea-power; and -those who continue to pin faith to that formula -will find themselves nearly as much back-numbered -as people who continued to prefer -wooden ships to iron, when the iron age came -in. Armaments on land and sea will be limited; -not, I think, so much by a League of -Nations, if it comes, as by the commonsense of -people who begin to observe that with the development -of the powers of destruction and of -transport from the air, land and sea armaments -are becoming of little use. We may all<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span> -disarm completely, and yet—so long as there -are flying-machines and high explosives—remain -almost as formidably destructive as ever. -So difficult to control, so infinite in its possibilities -for evil and so limited in its possibilities -for good do I consider this exploitation of -the air that, personally, I would rejoice to see -the nations in solemn conclave agree this very -minute to ban the use of the air altogether, -whether for trade, travel, or war; destroy every -flying-machine and every airship, and forbid -their construction. That, of course, is a consummation -which will remain devoutly to be -wished. Every day one reads in one’s paper -that some country or other is to take the lead -in the air. What a wild-goose chase we are in -for! I verily believe mankind will come one -day in their underground dwellings to the annual -practice of burning in effigy the Guy -(whoever he was) who first rose off the earth. -After I had talked in this strain once before, a -young airman came up to me and said: “Have -you been up?” I shook my head. “You -wait!” he said. When I do go up I shall take -great pains not to go up with that one.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span></p> - -<p>We come now to the fourth great new factor—Bolshevism, -and the social unrest. But I -am shy of saying anything about it, for my -knowledge and experience are insufficient. I -will only offer one observation. Whatever -philosophic cloak may be thrown over the -shoulders of Bolshevism, it is obviously—like -every revolutionary movement of the past—an -aggregation of individual discontents, the -sum of millions of human moods of dissatisfaction -with the existing state of things; and whatever -philosophic cloak we drape on the body of -liberalism, if by that name we may designate -our present social and political system—that -system has clearly not yet justified its claim to -the word evolutionary, so long as the disproportion -between the very rich and the very -poor continues (as hitherto it has) to grow. -No system can properly be called evolutionary -which provokes against it the rising of so formidable -a revolutionary wave of discontent. -One hears that co-operation is now regarded -as <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vieux jeu</i>. If that be so, it is because co-operation -in its true sense of spontaneous friendliness -between man and man, has never been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span> -tried. Perhaps human nature in the large can -never rise to that ideal. But if it cannot, if -industrialism cannot achieve a change of heart, -so that in effect employers would rather their -profits (beyond a quite moderate scale) were -used for the amelioration of the lot of those -they employ, it looks to me uncommonly like -being the end of the present order of things, -after an era of class-struggle which will shake -civilisation to its foundations. Being myself -an evolutionist, who fundamentally distrusts -violence, and admires the old Greek saying: -“God is the helping of man by man,” I yet -hope it will not come to that; I yet believe we -may succeed in striking the balance, without -civil wars. But I feel that (speaking of Europe) -it is touch and go. In America, in Canada, in -Australia, the conditions are different, the -powers of expansion still large, the individual -hopefulness much greater. There is little analogy -with the state of things in Europe; but, -whatever happens in Europe must have its -infectious influence in America. The wise man -takes Time by the forelock—and goes in front -of events.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span></p> - -<p>Let me turn away to the fifth great new factor: -The impetus towards a League of Nations.</p> - -<p>This, to my thinking, so wholly advisable, -would inspire more hopefulness, if the condition -of Europe was not so terribly confused, -and if the most salient characteristics of human -nature were not elasticity, bluntness of imagination, -and shortness of memory. Those of us -who, while affirming the principle of the League, -are afraid of committing ourselves to what -obviously cannot at the start be a perfect piece -of machinery, seem inclined to forget that if -the assembled Statesmen fail to <em>place in running -order, now</em>, some definite machinery for -the consideration of international disputes, the -chance will certainly slip. We cannot reckon -on more than a very short time during which -the horror of war will rule our thoughts and -actions. And during that short time it is essential -that the League should have had some -tangible success in preventing war. Mankind -puts its faith in facts, not theories; in proven, -and not in problematic, success. One can -imagine with what profound suspicion and contempt -the armed individualists of the Neolithic<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span> -Age regarded the first organised tribunal; with -what surprise they found that it actually -worked so well that they felt justified in dropping -their habit of taking the lives and property -of their neighbours first and thinking over -it afterwards. Not till the Tribunal of the -League of Nations has had successes of conciliation, -visible to all, will the armed individualist -nations of to-day begin to rub their -cynical and suspicious eyes, and to sprinkle -their armour with moth-powder. No one who, -like myself, has recently experienced the sensation -of landing in America after having lived -in Europe throughout the war, can fail to realise -the reluctance of Americans to commit -themselves, and the difficulty Americans have -in realising the need for doing so. But may I -remind Americans that during the first years -of the war there was practically the same general -American reluctance to interfere in an old-world -struggle; and that in the end America -found that it was not an old-world but a world-struggle. -It is entirely reasonable to dislike -snatching chestnuts out of the fire for other -people, and to shun departure from the letter<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span> -of cherished tradition; but things do not stand -still in this world; storm centres shift; and live -doctrine often becomes dead dogma.</p> - -<p>The League of Nations is but an incorporation -of the co-operative principle in world -affairs. We have seen to what the lack of that -principle leads both in international and national -life. Americans seem almost unanimously in -favour of a League of Nations, so long as it is -sufficiently airy—perhaps one might say ‘hot-airy’; -but when it comes to earth, many of -them fear the risk. I would only say that no -great change ever comes about in the lives of -men unless they take risks; no progress can -be made. As to the other objection taken to -the League, not only by Americans—that it -won’t work, well we shall never know the rights -of that unless we try it. The two chief factors -in avoiding war are Publicity and Delay. -If there is some better plan for bringing these -two factors into play than the machinery of a -League of Nations, I have yet to learn of it. -The League which, I think, will come in spite -of all our hesitations, may very likely make -claims larger than its real powers; and there is,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span> -of course, danger in that; but there is also -wisdom and advantage, for the success of the -League must depend enormously on how far -it succeeds in riveting the imaginations of mankind -in its first years. The League should therefore -make bold claims. After all, there is -solidity and truth in this notion of a Society of -Nations. The world is really growing towards -it beneath all surface rivalries. We must admit -it to be in the line of natural development, -unless we turn our back on all analogy. Don’t -then let us be ashamed of it, as if it were a -piece of unpractical idealism. It is much more -truly real than the state of things which has -led to the misery of these last four years. The -soldiers who have fought and suffered and -known the horrors of war, desire it. The objections -come from those who have but watched -them fight and suffer. Like every other change -in the life of mankind, and like every new development -in industry or art, the League needs -faith. Let us have faith and give it a good -‘send-off.’</p> - -<p>I have left what I deem the greatest new -factor till the last—Anglo-American unity.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span> -Greater it is even than the impetus towards a -League of Nations, because without it the -League of Nations has surely not the chance -of a lost dog.</p> - -<p>I have been reading a Life of George Washington, -which has filled me with admiration of -your stand against our Junkers of those days. -And I am familiar with the way we outraged -the sentiment of both the North and the South, -in the days of your Civil War. No wonder -your history books were not precisely Anglophile, -and that Americans grew up in a traditional -dislike of Great Britain! I am realist -enough to know that the past will not vanish -like a ghost—just because we have fought side -by side in this war; and realist enough to recognise -the other elements which make for patches -of hearty dislike between our peoples. But, -surveying the whole field, I believe there are -links and influences too strong for the disruptive -forces; and I am sure that the first duty -of English and American citizens to-day is to -be fair and open to understanding about each -other. If anyone will take down the map of -the world and study it, he will see at once how<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span> -that world is ballasted by the English-speaking -countries; how, so long as they remain friends, -holding as they do the trade routes and the -main material resources of the world under -their control, the world must needs sail on an -even keel. And if he will turn to the less visible -chart of the world’s mental qualities, he -will find a certain reassuring identity of ideals -between the various English-speaking races, -which form a sort of guarantee of stable unity. -Thirdly, in community of language we have a -factor promoting unity of ethics, potent as -blood itself; for community of language is ever -unconsciously producing unity of traditions and -ideas. Americans and Britons, we are both, of -course, very competitive peoples, and I suppose -consider our respective nations the chosen -people of the earth. That is a weakness which, -though natural, is extremely silly, and merely -proves that we have not yet outgrown provincialism. -But competition is possible without -reckless rivalry. There was once a bootmaker -who put over his shop: ‘Mens conscia -recti’ (‘A mind conscious of right’). He did -quite well, till a rival bootmaker came along,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span> -established himself opposite, and put over <em>his</em> -shop the words: ‘Men’s, Women’s, and Children’s -conscia recti,’ and did even better. The -way nations try to cut each other’s commercial -throats is what makes the stars twinkle—that -smile on the face of the heavens. It has the -even more ruinous effect of making bad blood -in the veins of the nations. Let us try playing -the game of commerce like sportsmen, and respect -each other’s qualities and efforts. Sportsmanship -has been rather ridiculed of late, yet -I dare make the assertion that she will yet hold -the field, both in your country and in mine; -and if in our countries—then in the world.</p> - -<p>It is ignorance of each other, not knowledge, -which has always made us push each other off—the -habit, you know, is almost endemic in -strangers, so that they do it even in their sleep. -There were once two travellers, a very large -man and a very little man, strangers to each -other, whom fate condemned to share a bed at -an inn. In his sleep the big man stirred, and -pushed the little man out on to the floor. The -little man got up in silence, climbed carefully -over the big man who was still asleep, got his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span> -back against the wall and his feet firmly planted -against the small of the big man’s back, gave a -tremendous revengeful push and—pushed the -bed away from the wall and fell down in between. -Such is the unevenness of fate, and the -result of taking things too seriously. America -and England must not push each other out, even -in their sleep, nor resent the unconscious shoves -they give each other, too violently. Since we -have been comrades in this war we have taken -to speaking well of each other, even in public -print. To cease doing that now will show that -we spoke nicely of each other only because we -were afraid of the consequences if we did not. -Well, we both have a sense of humour.</p> - -<p>But not only self-preservation and the fear -of ridicule guard our friendship. We have, I -hope, also the feeling that we stand, by geographical -and political accident, trustees for -the health and happiness of all mankind. The -magnitude of this trust cannot be exaggerated, -and I would wish that every American and -British boy and girl could be brought up to -reverence it—not to believe that they are there -to whip creation. We are here to <em>serve</em> creation,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span> -that creation may be ever better all over -the earth, and life more humane, more just, -more free. The habit of being charitable to -each other will grow if we give it a little chance. -If we English-speaking peoples bear with each -other’s foibles, help each other over the stiles -we come on, and keep the peace of the world, -there is still hope that some day that world -may come to be God’s own.</p> - -<p>Let us be just and tolerant; let us stand fast -and stand together—for light and liberty, for -humanity and Peace!</p> - - -<hr class="chap"> -<div class="tnote"> -<p class="noi tntitle">Transcriber’s Notes:</p> - -<p class="smfont">Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.</p> - -<p class="smfont">Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.</p> - -<p class="smfont">Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.</p> -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADDRESSES IN AMERICA, 1919 ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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