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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78612 ***
+
+
+
+
+                           MY DAYS AND DREAMS
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  E. C. (1857), AGE THIRTEEN.
+]
+
+
+
+
+                           MY DAYS AND DREAMS
+                      BEING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                            EDWARD CARPENTER
+
+ _Author of “Towards Democracy” “Civilization: its Cause and Cure,” &c._
+
+                    WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                   LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
+                RUSKIN HOUSE      40 MUSEUM STREET W.C.
+
+
+                     _First published June 1916_
+                     _Second Edition October 1916_
+
+
+                        (_All rights reserved_)
+
+
+
+
+                                PREFACE
+
+
+Old St. Pancras Churchyard even now, though dominated by the huge
+gasometers of Wharf Road and backed against the roaring traffic of the
+Midland Railway, preserves something of the sylvan beauty which a
+hundred years ago made it the frequent trysting-place of Percy Shelley
+and Mary Godwin. As it happened, in the summer of 1890, when staying in
+London, I used to make the garden my resort for writing purposes; and
+one day in July of that year I started some autobiographical notes. In a
+very casual way, and with long intervals between, the notes have been
+continued down to the present time. The volume therefore to which this
+is the Preface has been composed in somewhat disjointed fashion; and the
+discerning reader will probably perceive slight differences of style and
+outlook in its different portions, and perhaps also experience some
+uncertainty as to the proper chronology of the events which it records.
+In order to mitigate the latter trouble I have from time to time
+inserted in square brackets the date of the year in which the
+corresponding portion was written.
+
+[Illustration: Edward Carpenter signature]
+
+  _May 1916_
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
+            PREFACE                                               7
+         I. BRIGHTON                                             13
+        II. MY PARENTS                                           36
+       III. CAMBRIDGE                                            45
+        IV. UNIVERSITY EXTENSION AND NORTHERN TOWNS              79
+         V. BRADWAY AND “TOWARDS DEMOCRACY”                      99
+        VI. MANUAL WORK AND MARKET-GARDENING                    109
+       VII. SHEFFIELD AND SOCIALISM                             124
+      VIII. TRADE AND PHILOSOPHY                                137
+        IX. MILLTHORPE AND HOUSEHOLD LIFE                       147
+         X. MILLTHORPIANA                                       167
+        XI. THE STORY OF MY BOOKS                               190
+       XII. PERSONALITIES—I.                                    210
+      XIII. PERSONALITIES—II.                                   234
+       XIV. LONDON AND LECTURES                                 254
+        XV. TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS                        269
+       XVI. RURAL CONDITIONS                                    282
+      XVII. HOW THE WORLD LOOKS AT SEVENTY                      301
+            APPENDIX I. CONGRATULATORY LETTER AND REPLY         318
+            APPENDIX II. BIBLIOGRAPHY                           323
+            INDEX                                               333
+
+
+
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    E. C. (1857), AGE THIRTEEN                       _Frontispiece_
+                                                        FACING PAGE
+    MY FATHER, CHARLES CARPENTER                                 36
+    MY MOTHER, SOPHIA WILSON CARPENTER                           44
+    MY SISTER LIZZIE                                             71
+    SELF, IN ABOUT 1875                                          79
+    ALBERT FEARNEHOUGH AND “BRUNO”                              103
+    E. C. (1887), AGE FORTY-THREE                               109
+    G. E. H.—ONE OF THE FIRST “SHEFFIELD SOCIALISTS”            131
+    THE HUT AND THE BROOK                                       146
+    GEORGE MERRILL                                              161
+    MILLTHORPE COTTAGE AND ORCHARD                              168
+    G. M. FEEDING THE FOWLS                                     176
+    SELF IN PORCH (1905). (_Photogravure_)                      208
+    CARTOON, “SIMPLIFICATION OF LIFE”                           257
+    LILLY NADLER-NUELLENS WITH HER DAUGHTER                     272
+    MARCELLE SENARD                                             280
+    E. C. (1910), AGE SIXTY-SIX                                 304
+
+
+
+
+                           MY DAYS AND DREAMS
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+                                BRIGHTON
+
+
+My life hitherto [7th July 1890] divides into four pretty distinct
+periods—first, my early life up to the age of twenty, during which time
+I lived mainly at Brighton, embedded in a would-be fashionable world
+which I hated; secondly, the period from ’64 to about ’74, during which
+time I was mostly at Cambridge, in a more or less intellectual
+atmosphere; thirdly, from ’74 to ’81, when I carried on the Extension
+lectures and made acquaintance with the manufacturing centres and
+commercial society of the North of England; and fourthly, for the ten
+years from ’80 and ’81 down to the present time, when I have lived
+almost entirely among the working masses, and been largely engaged in
+manual labour.
+
+It may seem ungrateful to say so, but my abiding recollection of early
+days is one of discomfort. Not but that I had on the whole good times at
+school, in the classes and in the games; not but that at home I was
+lapped in the ease and attentive service of a well-to-do household, and
+had a hundred advantages denied to an ordinary child of the people; but
+that after all at home I never felt really at home. Perhaps I was unduly
+sensitive; anyhow I felt myself an alien, an outcast, a failure, and an
+object of ridicule.
+
+The social life which encircled us at Brighton was artificial enough;
+but it was the standard which we children had to live to. My parents
+were the best people in the world, but they could not fly out of the
+conditions in which they belonged. I hated the life, was miserable in
+it—the heartless conventionalities, silly proprieties—but I never
+imagined, it never occurred to me, that there _was_ any other life. To
+be pursued by the dread of appearances—what people would say about one’s
+clothes or one’s speech—to be always in fear of committing unconscious
+trespasses of invisible rules—this seemed in my childhood the normal
+condition of existence; so much so that I never dreamed of escaping from
+it. I only prayed for a time when grace might be given me to pass by
+without reproach. I was never a daring or rumbustious child. Timid and
+sensitive, my spirit was sadly lacking in the inestimable virtue of
+revolt. I suffered and was stupid enough to think myself in the wrong.
+
+There was a curate at one of the churches to which we used to go—a
+smooth-haired, carefully shaven, meek young man, probably of feeble
+mind; but all I knew was that people praised him: such a good-looking,
+well-mannered fellow he was, and preached such nice sermons! “Happy Mr.
+Cass,” I used to think, for even now I remember his name—“Oh, happy Mr.
+Cass, if only I could be like _you_ when I grow up.” I was then about
+fourteen, and I fancy that the mere sight of Cass in his spotless
+surplice must have worked upon me, for it was about that time or a
+little later that I began to make up my mind to take Orders. No doubt
+from the first there was a fatal bias towards religion. I remember
+distinctly—and it must have been about the same period—thinking as I lay
+awake in bed at night that if the house were on fire I would save my
+_prayer-book_! I saw myself in my mind’s eye in heroic attitude rushing
+into my mother’s room where the sacred volume lay, and bearing it out
+through flames and smoke into the street. It was not my mother or
+sisters that I was going to save ... but my prayer-book! Alas! what a
+defect of nature, or of teaching, must have been there!
+
+Curious, the covered underground life that some children lead! I never
+remember, all those years at Brighton, till I was nineteen or twenty, a
+single person older than myself who was my confidant. I do not remember
+a single occasion on which in any trouble or perplexity I was able to go
+to any one for help or consolation. My mother, firm, just, and
+courageous as she was, and setting her children an heroic example,
+belonged to the old school, which thought any manifestation of feeling
+unbecoming. We early learned to suppress and control emotion, and to
+fight our own battles alone: in some ways a good training, but liable in
+the long run to starve the emotional nature. Masters at school in those
+days did not “draw boys out”; education was mainly a nipping of buds;
+older friends outside the family, who may so often play a useful part in
+the development of boy or girl life, never came—that I remember—to the
+rescue; and so my abiding recollection of all that time is one of silent
+concealment and loneliness.
+
+Nevertheless of course there were joys. Though a town-house is not a
+congenial nursery for a child, yet we were comparatively fortunate.
+There was a large space at the back, where we kept, in succession,
+endless pets—pigeons, seagulls with clipped wings, rabbits, tortoises,
+guinea-pigs, and smaller fry (I was especially fond of an aquarium);
+while in front was the large garden of Brunswick Square, overrun,
+despite the efforts of the gardener and other authorities, by all the
+children of the surrounding houses. A fearfully active family, boys and
+girls, we kept a sort of proud superiority over the other children in
+running races, prisoners’ base, etc.; while inside the house, and for
+wet weather, we had a sport entirely our own, and which consisted in one
+pursuing the others up the front stairs and down the back stairs, or
+_vice versa_, with endless shrieks and uproar—a terrible affair, which
+nothing but the noblest self-sacrifice could have ever nerved our
+parents to endure! Also there was hide-and-seek in the dark, a grisly
+game, dangerous both to limbs and to furniture; and occasionally a
+battle of the giants—as when, on one occasion, an elder sister having
+with the greatest care built up a beautiful dummy man round a long
+smooth pole, my eldest brother came on the sly and drew the backbone
+out! Then there was earth-shaking conflict, which I, quite a small boy,
+witnessed from a distance, and with quaking limbs.
+
+As to school life, I suppose it is a general experience that what one
+learns at school does not count for much. At the age of ten I began at
+the Brighton College. My eldest sister had taught me a little Latin
+grammar before that. My eldest brother Charlie was already at the
+College. He was a kind of hero there. At that time (or possibly a year
+or two later) he was easily first in _everything_. In mathematics,
+classics, foreign languages, in cricket, football, athletics—no matter
+what it was—he took all the prizes. Withal he was so friendly, so
+sociable, that he was a universal favorite; so generous and so
+humorous—so naturally full of fun and comedy—that I really think he
+disarmed all jealousy in others—nor felt a spark of jealousy or vanity
+in himself. Seldom I should think has there been such a boy; and when at
+the age of nineteen or twenty he took his final leave in order to join
+the Indian Civil Service, his memory lingered long and long behind him
+in the school.[1]
+
+My reception under those circumstances was naturally favorable. One day,
+shortly after my arrival, I was playing by myself in a corner of the
+entrance hall, when a big boy with a pleasant face came up to me and,
+making a suitable gesture, said, “Sweep up the Chips, sweep up the
+Chips.” Then I knew that my nickname was Chips—a family nickname indeed,
+since my father and my brothers at different times bore it.
+
+The College was a large school of 150 or 200 boys—on public school
+lines. I went through the classes in due order from the lowest upwards;
+and the personality of each master in turn impressed its unconscious
+weight upon me. I remember distinctly the agonized effort and the
+triumph of passing the “Asses’ Bridge” in Euclid. The name of the master
+who got me over was Newton, and for some years I firmly believed that he
+was no other than the celebrated Sir Isaac. I joined in the games and
+athletics—and not without success, though I was never very partial to
+cricket; I climbed slowly up through the classes; I rubbed shoulders
+with all the queer, red-haired, pock-marked, fat, lean, mean, generous,
+handsome, clever, tyrannical, cross-eyed, gentle, good-natured,
+specimens of fellow humanity—the other boys—whose influence on one at
+that age is so strange and incalculable, and whose characters and deeds
+appear at the time so mysterious and inexplicable; though when one looks
+back upon them at a later date, they seem transparently clear and
+simple. I cannot remember anything very heroic that I did, though I can
+remember some mean things. I remember joining with the others in teasing
+the French master—that ever defenceless quarry; and I remember what was
+much worse, taking a kind of delight in privately tormenting an idiot
+boy. That was indeed a strange experience. I don’t know why the boy was
+allowed in the school; he was certainly quite weak-minded and incapable;
+and besides there exhaled from him an odd and fearsome odour. That boy
+convulsed me with alternate rage and pity. At one moment I was seized
+with the greatest sympathy for his weakness, and the next I was filled
+with wrath at his odour and his idiocy, and found or invented excuses
+for slapping him! Then after that I would sometimes lie awake at night
+remorseful over my conduct, and planning little schemes of reparation;
+but in the morning the sight of him would launch me on the waves of
+irritation again. It was quite a little tragedy to me—and I mention it
+because this savage and instinctive dislike of anything malformed, which
+is so very marked in boys, no doubt accounts for much of their cruelty.
+It remains in the mind of course to a much later age, but is gradually
+covered over by the growth of sympathy and understanding. As a rule my
+better deeds were done in defence of the weak. Timid for the most part,
+I regained my courage on these occasions—as in delivering a small boy
+from a big bully; or once in sticking up for two brothers, the dirtiest
+and most stupid boys in the class, against the gibes of the master; or
+another time in helping a poor man in the street with his bundle—on
+which last occasion the said Sir Isaac Newton passing by, instead of
+scolding me as I expected, actually said, “That’s right, my boy”—a
+remark for which I felt ever so grateful to him—for indeed I was feeling
+rather ashamed of myself.
+
+I think that was about the only occasion on which a master exercised any
+directly helpful influence. Schools were odd places in those days. The
+idea of really reaching the boy and drawing out his interest seems never
+to have occurred to the masters. When I arrived in the Sixth Form, the
+Headmaster was a certain Dr. Griffith—a burly, headstrong,
+muddle-headed, perhaps rather good-natured man. As often as not he would
+arrive in the class-room late, with his hair a-tumble, and looking as if
+he had not slept all night, would complain that some naughty boy in the
+Fourth Form was preoccupying his mind, and would leave us again alone
+with our books. Then presently his study door would open, and he would
+push the said boy into the room, saying, “I wish one of you gentlemen
+would _cane_ this boy,” and throwing a cane in over the boy’s head would
+close the door again. Once, drawing a handful of silver and gold out of
+his pocket, he asked me to cane a boy for him—and afterwards I felt
+sorry I had not accepted the bargain. I think he must have been a little
+touched in the head. It is certainly aggravating to think that we used
+to read Homer and Virgil and the Greek plays, and _never_ that I
+remember was any attempt made to make us understand the subject or the
+plot or the literary interest of these works—nothing but grammar and
+syntax. As to mathematics the neglect was worse—and I left school at
+eighteen or nineteen having done nothing beyond Euclid and Algebra.
+
+My record in the classes was on the whole, I suppose, good—though
+nothing remarkable. I gained the usual number of prizes, and kept about
+an equal interest in classics and mathematics. With regard to the
+former, my father—who had progressive ideas on such subjects—gave me a
+word for word _crib_ to Horace, saying that the best way to learn a
+language was to use such a crib. Naturally after that I rejoiced in it
+freely in my preparation-work at home of an evening. But one day I could
+not resist taking it to school and showing it to some of my class-mates.
+Of course we were pounced upon, and the crib confiscated. The
+form-master at that time was E. C. Hawkins—a really fine type of man,
+father of Anthony Hope Hawkins the novelist. But when he asked me where
+I got the crib from, and I replied quite truthfully and simply “My
+father gave it me,” he was struck dumb! He certainly thought I was
+lying, but could make no reply. And for a long time after that would
+hardly speak to me.
+
+Cricket I never took to much. Being a bad player I voted it ‘slow.’
+Probably it gave too much rope to my dreamy tendencies, and I got into
+trouble missing unexpected catches. But hockey and football I was fond
+of, and fives, as being more lively.
+
+When I was about thirteen an event important to us children happened,
+which I must not pass by. My parents determined to spend a year in
+France, and they actually transported the whole household, nine children
+(i.e. all except my brother Charlie) and two servants, to Versailles. I
+remember only too well that awful night journey by Newhaven and Dieppe,
+the raging sea, the arrival drenched, the dim lights of the Customhouse,
+the cries of lost children, the journey by train to Paris and onwards.
+How my mother survived it I do not know. We settled in a house in the
+Avenue de Sceaux, amid barracks, and continual fanfaronades and
+trampings of military, near the great Palace with its endless galleries,
+and the Park with its fountains and music. All very exciting and
+delightful. And we found some good and friendly French neighbours. At
+first they did not the least understand our household. It never occurred
+to them for a moment that it was all one family, and for some time it
+was supposed that my father and mother kept a school! But when the truth
+at last dawned upon them, their delight and amazement knew no bounds,
+and we became the centre of the greatest interest. I and my younger
+brother, Alfred, went as day-boys to school at the Lycée Hoche (then
+Imperiale)—a great place of five hundred boys—where we learned French by
+sheer necessity. I do not think we learned much else. In the matter of
+lessons the instruction was much on a par with that at the Brighton
+school, and the playground life and social organization of the boys were
+far less pregnant of good influences.
+
+I don’t know how the Lycées are now, but at that time the school methods
+were only poor. The boys sat an outrageously long time at their
+desks—ten hours a day or more—either construing or preparing lessons;
+but got through very little work, spending most of their time in furtive
+games or conversations with each other. Everything was done in set and
+military style—marchings along corridors from class-room to class-room,
+or from class-room to refectory, or from refectory to playground. In the
+latter a master (always called ‘pion’) was present to see that there was
+no bullying, or to disperse knots of boys (who might of course be
+talking sedition) or to prevent individuals approaching the playground
+wall within a set distance (lest they should escape). The games were
+limited and regulated. Everything was regulated. It was said that the
+Minister of Education at Paris could at any hour of the day place his
+finger on the line of Virgil that was being translated, or the
+proposition of Geometry that was being proved at that moment in all the
+Lycées alike over the face of the land. One very curious custom
+prevailed, which has probably now gone out of date, but which had a
+strong suggestion about it of the Church system of Indulgences. At the
+end of the week the marks gained by each boy during the week were added
+up and announced by the master. Then those boys who were credited with
+more than a certain number of marks were told they might write out for
+themselves a certificate of satisfaction, good for exemption from one,
+two, or even three hours’ punishment, according to circumstances! Great
+excitement prevailed. You cut yourself a neat square of paper, adorned
+it with lines and flourishes, and inscribed on it “Témoignage de
+Satisfaction—Elève Carpenter—bonne à une heure”—and left a space at foot
+for the signature of the master. When signed you treasured this up in
+your desk—and at some later date when the hour of punishment came,
+produced it, and unless your crime was very heinous were duly let off!
+It was a curious arrangement, but one which had perhaps the advantage of
+discouraging a boy from being _too_ good—since obviously it would be a
+mistake to collect a greater number of such tickets than you were likely
+to make use of.
+
+My brother and I, as day-boys, escaped a good deal of the general school
+routine and regulation, and on the whole had not a bad time. The boys
+received us decently, and as we could play leap-frog or prisoners’ base
+(Les Barres) as well as any of them, paid us due respect; and one of the
+masters, Llandais by name, was quite kind and thoughtful towards me. Out
+of hours we careered through the woods of Satory, watched military
+evolutions on the plain above, or at dusk chased and caught the great
+stag-beetles—a thrilling joy. We wandered through the huge
+statue-adorned Park and the shady Bosquets of diamond-necklace
+celebrity, and learned swimming—as did also my sisters—in the fine
+open-air swimming bath, which used to be the bath of the pages of Louis
+XIV’s Court. After a year thus spent, the family returned to England,
+and we boys to the Brighton College.
+
+As I say, it is probably a common experience that mere school teaching
+does not leave a very deep impression. Probably a good deal really _is_
+learned—but these are the more indirect things which slip into the
+background or foundation of the mind and character and so pass
+comparatively unobserved. Only three or four subjects of interest stand
+out in my memory as belonging to my school-days, and these all lay
+outside school proper. The earliest of these was music. At the age of
+ten I desired mightily to learn the piano; but music was not considered
+appropriate for a boy—besides there were six sisters who had to be
+taught, poor things, whether they liked it or not—and so my appearance
+on the music stool was treated rather as an intrusion, and I was
+generally hustled off again forthwith. However I got my way by playing
+late of an evening, when they were all upstairs in the drawing-room; I
+never had any regular teaching, but my mother took pity on me and taught
+me my notes; and from that time I stumbled through the “Marche des
+Croates” and the “Nun’s Prayer” till at last I emerged on the far
+borderland of Beethoven’s Sonatas. This hour of piano practice to myself
+was for a long time one of the chief events of my day. Indeed, it is
+curious, but I took to composing, or attempting to compose, music before
+ever I thought of composing or attempting to compose poetry. Of course
+with a juvenile mind, and no musical training, nor even a particularly
+keen ear, my compositions were of no value, and I hardly ever troubled
+to write them out; still the habit of making up pianoforte pieces, and
+the love of doing so, continued all my life, and forced its way out from
+time to time. It is only in quite late years that, with more technical
+knowledge, I have written some of these down—perhaps twelve or twenty in
+all—and even occasionally thought of printing them.
+
+I was also fortunate enough, when I was about fifteen, to come in for
+the reversion of a cupboard full of chemical apparatus, which had
+belonged to my eldest brother, and here in a little room with retorts
+and test-tubes I spent many a half-holiday, carrying out important
+experiments and prosecuting valuable inventions, which ended almost
+invariably in bad smells and worse headaches. Perpetual motion, as usual
+in such cases, was one of my chief objects; and I could not for the life
+of me tell why a solid cylinder of wood, placed with its axis horizontal
+in the side of a box containing water, and so carefully fitted that it
+would turn on its axis without allowing the water to run out, would not
+revolve perpetually—seeing indeed that the one half of it which was in
+the water, being lighter than water, would continually tend to rise, and
+the other half of it which was in the air would continually tend to
+fall. I invented an arrangement for the pianoforte after the Morse
+telegraphic system, by which extemporaneous effusions could be written
+down in the act of playing—an invention which luckily has not been
+generally adopted; and was engaged on various other little patents at
+different times. Sometimes I gave a lecture—though it must be confessed
+that it was with difficulty that any of the household could be induced
+to attend! The lecture was small, but the danger from explosions and
+horrible smells was great. My remarks were not very lucid or
+explanatory, but consisted mainly of expressions like “Now I will show
+you something else” or “You needn’t be frightened, there is no danger.”
+These investigations were however very absorbing and excited far more
+interest in my mind than anything I learned at school; and I remember
+that they led me to think quite seriously about being a doctor (I
+suppose from some vague notion about the connection between chemicals
+and medicine)—a profession which my father was inclined to recommend to
+me, and which I have sometimes regretted that I did not adopt.
+
+Towards the later part of my time at Brighton the natural _épanchement_
+of youth led me often to seek consolation and an escape from the wounds
+of daily life in intercourse with Nature. The Brighton social life—with
+its greetings where no kindness is—was to me chilly in the extreme, and
+I often used in later years to feel that I “caught cold” (morally
+speaking) whenever I returned to it. The scenery and surroundings of
+Brighton are also bare and chilly enough; and trees, whose friendly
+covert I have always loved, do not exist there; but the place has two
+Nature-elements in it—and these two singularly wild and untampered—the
+Sea and the Downs. We lived within two hundred yards of the sea, and its
+voice was in our ears night and day. On terrific stormy nights it was a
+“grisly joy” to go down to the water’s edge at 10 or 11 p.m.—pitchy
+darkness—feeling one’s way with feet or hands, over the stony beach,
+hardly able to stand for the wind—and to watch the white breakers
+suddenly leap out of the gulf close upon one—the “scream of the madden’d
+beach dragged down by the wave,” the booming of the wind, like distant
+guns, and the occasional light of some vessel laboring for its life in
+the surge.
+
+But the Downs were my favorite refuge. On sunny days I would wander on
+over them for miles, not knowing very clearly where I was going—in a
+strange broody moony state—glad to find some hollow (like that described
+in Jefferies’ _Story of my Heart_) where one could lie secluded for any
+length of time and see only the clouds and the grasses and an occasional
+butterfly, or hear the distant bark of a dog or the far rumble of a
+railway train. The Downs twined themselves with all my thought and
+speculations of that time. Their chaste subdued gracious outlines and
+quiet colour have a peculiar charm. Their strongest line is generally
+some white edge of cliffs or curve of the shore itself, their deepest
+tint the blue of the sea or occasionally a field of red clover or one
+overgrown with charlock. For the rest they wear the faint blue-green
+colour of thin turf through which the chalk almost shows. Over the
+velvety sward and among the fine herbage cropped by plentiful sheep run
+innumerable tiny flowers dwarfed by salt wind and scanty soil—thistles,
+whose chins rest on the ground out of which they grow; patches of sweet
+thyme which the wild bees love, of pink centaury and thrift and madder
+and dwarf-broom, and that sweet yellow lotus or bird’s-foot trefoil,
+which runs all over the world, in Siberia and Alps and Himalayas the
+same, one of the commonest and friendliest of all the flowers that grow.
+Overhead the lark sings, the clouds drift through the untampered blue,
+the bee and the butterfly sweep past on the breeze. Three or four miles
+from Brighton, and one is in a world remote from man. Except an
+occasional shepherd there is hardly a human to be seen. Here and there
+in a hollow nestles the tiniest hamlet—an old farmhouse, one or two
+cottages, a dwarf church faced with rough work of flints, a few trees
+and a well. Taking its character from the sky—as all chalk and limestone
+countries largely do—this land has an ethereal beauty in summer weather;
+but on wintry and gray days it is monotonous and sad. The shepherd then
+huddles himself in his cloak in the lee of the gorse-bush, the cloudy
+rack drives over the backs of his sheep, line behind line the Downs
+stretch, colorless, unbroken by any hint of tree or habitation; the wind
+whistles among the thin grass stems with a peculiar shrill and mournful
+pipe, and in its pauses the sullen and distant roar of the sea is heard.
+
+How can I describe, how shall I not recall, the thoughts which came to
+me as I wandered, towards the close of my school time, over these same
+hills—the brooding ill-defined, half-shapen thoughts? The Downs were my
+escape; even in their most chill and lonely moods they were my escape
+from a worse coldness and loneliness, which, except for a few boyfriends
+at school, I somehow experienced during all that time. Nature was more
+to me, I believe, than any human attachment, and the Downs were my
+Nature. It was among them at a later time that I first began to write a
+few verses. But at the time I mention, and till quite the end of my
+school days, I never wrote anything at all. If the thought of writing
+had occurred to me I should have deemed it, in my then state of mind,
+monstrous presumption—but I doubt whether the thought ever did occur to
+me. I did not even read poetry. Mozart and Beethoven were familiar to
+me, but I must have been eighteen years old before I was roused to any
+interest in Tennyson (the poet of the day) by a lecture at school on “In
+Memoriam.” After that I read “In Memoriam” and loved it well. This was
+followed (at Cambridge) by Wordsworth; and then by Shelley, who excited
+in me the same passionate attachment that he has excited in so many
+others. After that Whitman dominated me. I do not think any others of
+the poets—unless Plato should bear that name—have deeply influenced me.
+
+As to friends—that absorbing subject—I can trace the desire for a
+passionate attachment in my earliest boyhood. But the desire had no
+expression, no chance of expression. Such things as affection were never
+spoken about either at home or at school, and I naturally concluded that
+there was no room for them in the scheme of creation! The glutinous
+boyfriendships that one formed in class-room or playground were of the
+usual type: they staved off a greater hunger, but they did not satisfy.
+On the other hand I worshipped the very ground on which some, generally
+elder, boys stood; they were heroes for whom I would have done anything.
+I dreamed about them at night, absorbed them with my eyes in the day,
+watched them at cricket, loved to press against them unnoticed in a
+football melly, or even to get accidentally hurt by one of them at
+hockey, was glad if they just spoke to me or smiled; but never got a
+word farther with it all. What could I say? Even to one of the masters,
+I remember, who was a little kind to me, I felt this unworded devotion;
+but he never helped me over the stile, and so I remained on the farther
+side.
+
+I often think what a fund of romance, and of intense feeling, there is
+in this direction latent in so many boys and capable even of heroic
+expression—and how much will have to be done some day in the matter of
+directing and giving a constructive outlet to it. Already however there
+is a great difference in the tone of the public schools themselves on
+this subject, from what there was twenty-five or thirty years ago. The
+trouble in schools from bad sexual habits and frivolities arises
+greatly—though of course not altogether—from the suppression and
+misdirection of the natural emotions of boy-attachment. I, as a day boy,
+and one who happened to be rather pure-minded than otherwise, grew up
+quite free from these evils: though possibly it would have been a good
+thing if I had had a little more experience of them than I had. As it
+was, no elder person _ever_ spoke to me about sexual matters—no mother,
+father, brother, monitor or master ever said a word. I picked up the
+usual information from the talk of my companions, and made up my own
+mind unbiased by any person or book. I suppose it was in consequence of
+this that I never saw anything repellent or shameful in sexual acts
+themselves. From the earliest time when I thought about these things
+they seemed to me natural—like digestion or any other function—and I
+remember wondering why people made such a fuss about the mention of
+them—why they told lies rather than speak the truth, why they were
+shocked, or why they giggled and stuffed handkerchiefs in their mouths.
+It was not till (at the age of twenty-five) I read Whitman—and then with
+a great leap of joy—that I met with the treatment of sex which accorded
+with my own sentiments.
+
+Nevertheless though these desires were never to me unclean, yet during
+all that time of later boyhood and early university life they were
+strangely discounted by that other desire of the heart. I could not
+think much of sex while the hunger of the heart was unsatisfied—and
+_that_ for the time being occupied all the foreground of my life. Indeed
+at times it threatened to paralyse my mental and physical faculties. It
+was like an open wound continually bleeding. I felt starved and unfed,
+and unable to rest in the chilling contacts of ordinary life. As to the
+usual attractions set before the eyes of middle-class youth, the
+hopeless, helpless young ladyisms, or the bolder beauties of the gutter,
+they were both a detestable boredom to me.
+
+For indeed the life, and with it the character, of the ordinary “young
+lady” of that period, and of the sixties generally, was tragic in its
+emptiness. The little household duties for women, encouraged in an
+earlier and simpler age, had now gone out of date, while the modern idea
+of work in the great world was not so much as thought of. In a place
+like Brighton there were hundreds, perhaps, of households, in which
+girls were growing up with but one idea in life, that of taking their
+“proper place in society.” A few meagre accomplishments—plentiful balls
+and dinner-parties, theatres and concerts—and to loaf up and down the
+parade, criticizing each other, were the means to bring about this
+desirable result! There was absolutely nothing else to do or live for.
+It is curious—but it shows the state of public opinion of that time—to
+think that my father, who was certainly quite advanced in his ideas,
+never for a moment contemplated that any of his daughters should learn
+professional work with a view to their living—and that in consequence he
+more than once drove himself quite ill with worry. Occasionally it
+happened that, after a restless night of anxiety over some failure among
+his investments, and of dread lest he should not be able at his death to
+leave the girls a competent income, he would come down to breakfast
+looking a picture of misery. After a time he would break out. “Ruin
+impended over the family,” securities were falling, dividends
+disappearing; there was only one conclusion—“the girls would have to go
+out as governesses.” Then silence and gloom would descend on the
+household. It was true; that was the only resource. There was only one
+profession possible for a middle-class woman—to be a governess—and to
+adopt that was to become a _pariah_. But in a little time affairs would
+brighten up again. Stocks went up, the domestic panic subsided; and
+dinner-parties and balls were resumed as usual.
+
+As time went by, and I gradually got to know what life really meant, and
+to realize the situation, it used to make me intensely miserable to
+return home and see what was going on there. My parents of course were
+fully occupied, but for the rest there were six or seven servants in the
+house, and my six sisters had absolutely nothing to do except dabble in
+paints and music as aforesaid, and wander aimlessly from room to room to
+see if by any chance “anything was going on.” Dusting, cooking, sewing,
+darning—all light household duties were already forestalled; there was
+no private garden, and if there had been it would have been “unladylike”
+to do anything in it; _every_ girl could not find an absorbing interest
+in sol-fa or water-colours; athletics were not invented; every
+aspiration and outlet, except in the direction of dress and dancing, was
+blocked; and marriage, with the growing scarcity of men, was becoming
+every day less likely, or easy to compass. More than once girls of whom
+I least expected it told me that their lives were miserable “with
+nothing on earth to do.” Multiply this picture by thousands and hundreds
+of thousands all over the country, and it is easy to see how, when the
+causes of the misery were understood, it led to the powerful growth of
+the modern “Women’s Movement.”
+
+During my school-days, however, this tragedy had, so far as our
+household was concerned, hardly developed itself, or at any rate become
+at all serious; and a charming recollection of that period is that of my
+companionship with two of my elder sisters. With one of these—my sister
+Ellen, afterwards Mrs. Hyett—I used to go long country walks. She had an
+eye for landscape and animal painting, and sometimes brought her
+sketch-book with her. Occasionally on hired hacks we rode together over
+the Downs. Her mind had an adventurous outdoor quality about it; and our
+conversation turned mainly on what we saw on our explorations, and on
+speculations about foreign lands. The other sister (Lizzie, afterwards
+Lady Daubeney) was never much of a walker; but she stayed at home and
+played Beethoven’s Sonatas, and these were a continual delight to me. I
+stood quietly by and turned over the pages by the hour. The “Sonata
+Appassionata” was a dream of wonder. This sister had a highly poetic,
+sensitive temperament. When the younger ones of the family were children
+she told us absorbing fairy-tales. At the time I speak of she was the
+one in the household who gave to the atmosphere a touch of sympathy,
+tenderness and romance; which was of priceless value. As my mind
+expanded we even talked a little poetic philosophy together, and
+discussed Tennyson and Shakespeare.
+
+My younger brother, Alfred, who was my schoolfellow at the Lycée at
+Versailles, went to the Brighton College with me (I joining for the
+second time) when the family returned to Brighton in 1858. But at an
+early age (fourteen) he joined the Navy, and after a preliminary year on
+board the _Britannia_ training-ship, went away to sea. Consequently he
+was not so much at home during those early years. The sea-life suited
+him, I think. With a rather dare-devil temperament as a boy he was
+always getting into scrapes at school. [Once, I remember, he had the
+brilliant idea of lighting a fire in his locker in the schoolroom, and
+then sitting, all innocence, on the seat—until the crackling of sticks
+and the curling smoke drew all eyes that way, and he was discovered like
+the phœnix in apparent peril of being consumed!] In the Navy, at an
+early period, he distinguished himself by saving life under risky
+circumstances. In one case a man had fallen overboard at night in the
+Tagus from another ship, and in the darkness was being swept by the
+current seawards past the _Warrior_, on which ship my brother was—when
+the latter, who was on deck at the time, jumped in to the rescue, at the
+same time calling to some of the bluejackets to man a boat and follow.
+Of course he and the drowning man were immediately lost to sight in the
+gloom, and when the boat did get under weigh it was only by his distant
+shouts that its crew could be guided. The two men had drifted half a
+mile or more before they were picked up; but it was not too late, and
+their rescue was safely effected. In another case off the Falkland Isles
+he swam to the rescue of an ordinary seaman under even more perilous
+conditions, and for this act gained the Albert medal—which may be called
+the V.C. of life-saving medals.
+
+At a later period [1875–76] my brother Alfred was lieutenant on board
+H.M.S. _Challenger_, and it was under his management that the deepest
+sounding effected up to that period was taken. He obtained 4,475
+fathoms, or nearly 27,000 feet in the vicinity of the Ladrone Islands.
+After the _Challenger_ he had several commands in China and elsewhere,
+including charge of the Marine Survey of India; and as commander of the
+_Investigator_ he spent several years surveying and making charts of the
+coasts of India and the Andaman Islands. In 1885, in connection with the
+Burmese expedition against King Thebaw, the important duty was assigned
+to him of leading the War Flotilla up the river Irrawaddy. As an officer
+he was well liked, being considerate of the men under him, but firm in
+their management, and in moments of danger plucky and reliable.[2]
+
+In later years he published not a few papers on nautical and
+astronomical matters, and in 1915 a more popular illustrated handbook
+for travellers, entitled _Nature Notes for Ocean Voyagers_ (Griffin,
+5s.).
+
+
+Such, roughly summed together, are the main outlines of my early
+days—full after all of tenderest recollections. A large family is a
+roughish training school, but it is a valuable one. Over-sensitive and
+of a clinging disposition by nature, I early learned the profound
+lessons of suffering and of self-dependence. My spirit concentrated
+itself, and partially overcame its inherent vagueness and weakness in
+years of silence. The tension of those early days, the unexpressed
+hatred which I felt, though I did not understand it, for the social
+conditions in which I was born, was destined, when its meaning gradually
+realized itself in my consciousness, to become one of the great
+directing forces of my after life.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+                               MY PARENTS
+
+
+My father (born in 1797) had a curious early life. He came of a family
+which had lived in Cornwall (Launceston) for some generations. He was
+the eldest son—though he had three sisters—of an Admiral in the Navy,
+and appears to have taken to his father’s profession, when a boy, as a
+matter of course. He was not, however, at all suited to it, for he was
+of a rather studious temperament, and the rough life of the Navy of
+those days was probably very distasteful to him. He was in one or two
+skirmishes with the French off the American coast, and I remember his
+telling me of the painful feeling which he experienced once when being
+in a small boat and coming across some French sailors in another small
+boat he had to take aim and fire at them. To his relief, however, no one
+was hurt!
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  MY FATHER: CHARLES CARPENTER.
+]
+
+When he was twenty-three or twenty-four my father began to learn German
+and read philosophy in his spare hours, which did not look as though he
+were destined to remain long on board ship! As a matter of fact he left
+the Navy when he was about twenty-five. The bad climate of Trincomalee,
+where he was stationed for two years, damaged his health. He came to
+London and set about reading for the Chancery Bar. In due course he was
+called and for some years practised with success—so much so indeed that
+on his retirement he was greatly complimented by the presiding judge. In
+1833 he married; and this it was which, curiously enough, led to his
+retirement from the Bar. For his father-in-law—Thomas Wilson—who had
+also been in the Navy, and who was then a widower, only consented to the
+marriage on condition that his daughter should remain at home, and that
+the married couple should therefore take up their abode at his house at
+Walthamstow. This they did, and the distance from London, a considerable
+matter in those days, combined perhaps with a little anxiety about my
+father’s health, which still remained unsatisfactory, brought about the
+abandonment of his profession—a great mistake as it appeared, for of
+course as soon as he lost his regular occupation he began to worry
+badly. Then, when Mr. Wilson died, in 1843, a move to Brighton (which
+just then was growing into importance, and yet retained some of its
+old-world character) was thought advisable, both for my father’s sake
+and for that of the little family which now had to be considered. But as
+far as my father was concerned this did not mend matters, and my mother
+has often told me that this was the worst period of their married life.
+
+He got more and more anxious and restless—to a degree which seemed
+almost a danger to his mind—till at last my mother induced him to let
+himself be appointed magistrate and take his seat on the Brighton bench;
+after which his serenity returned, and he remained one of the most
+active and probably the most public spirited of the members of the
+Brighton and afterwards of the Hove magistracy till a year or two before
+his death. The death of his own father in 1846 freed him from any real
+cause for pecuniary anxiety—though from time to time all through his
+later life he was liable to fits of considerable depression and
+nervousness about his monetary concerns. He settled down permanently at
+Brighton (No. 45 Brunswick Square) into the life of the respectable
+_rentier_, with its usual aims and ideals as far as his family was
+concerned, though for himself his aims were very different from those of
+the society round him, and his conception of life was as broad as it
+could well be upon the foundation of that particular social status to
+which he belonged.
+
+His early life in the Navy had given my father that honest, somewhat
+simple, cast of mind which belongs to sea-faring folk. He was always
+ready to be impressed by a tale of distress—especially if it came from
+the lips of one of the fair sex. At the same time his active brain had
+carried him far in most fields of thought. Though having a strong
+religious feeling, he soon emancipated himself from current orthodoxies
+in religion, and seldom in later life went to church—a fact which to the
+mild respectabilities around us was a sufficient justification for
+calling him an Atheist. For Frederick W. Robertson, who was then
+preaching at Brighton, and who not unfrequently came to our house, and
+for Frederick D. Maurice, however, he had a great admiration; and his
+own views were—as far as I remember what he said when I was a boy—a kind
+of Broad Church mysticism, derived at first from reading S. T. Coleridge
+(whom he had met occasionally in former years in London), and gradually
+broadening out under the influence of Eckhardt, Tauler, Kant, Fichte,
+Hegel and others into a religious and philosophic mysticism without much
+admixture of the Broad Church at all.
+
+In politics he was a strong Liberal—indeed in his most active period a
+philosophic Radical of the Mill school, and gave strong support to Henry
+Fawcett during the time when the latter represented Brighton. Though
+occasionally asked to stand himself he never as far as I know felt
+inclined to do so, and indeed a certain lack of glibness and difficulty
+of expression which he experienced always made him disinclined from
+taking part in any kind of public speechifying. In his quite latest
+years he veered round to the support of Beaconsfield’s Government; but
+this, if partly due to the reactionary tendency of old age, was also
+caused by his keen perception of the hypocrisy (unconscious or
+otherwise) of Gladstone, whom in the last few years of his life he never
+ceased to vilify.
+
+Almost all general literature interested my father—especially works on
+natural history, travels, and science of any kind; but art and music
+were never much in his line. Any tale of heroism, or prodigy of science
+would bring ready tears to his eyes; and his love of reading—as in the
+case of his own father—lasted to the latest years of his life; for when
+he was over eighty years of age he would not unfrequently sit up till
+one or two in the morning, conning the last new book or running over
+favorite passages of his philosophical authors.
+
+In a letter of his (written in ’73) I find the following passage:
+“Circumstances have been leading me to think a good deal lately about
+Instinct. I do not see how any distinction can be drawn between what we
+call Instinct in the lower animals—such as the insect when she deposits
+eggs and then brings to the place of deposit the food needful for the
+support of her offspring grub, and covering them up (eggs and food)
+together, flies away to perish—and that power in Plants that causes them
+to send forth their roots often to a great distance and in a special
+direction, in search of the material needful for their nutriment, the
+mineral perhaps without which they could not live. This can only be
+understood, as it seems to me, upon the assumption of there being a
+Life, an intelligent Life, in the Plant or Insect, of which they are
+unconscious. Think of the Swallow going to Egypt perhaps, and then at
+proper season returning to its old nest under the eaves of some cottage
+in England. The possession of sense-organs, therefore, does not expel
+from the Bird or Fish this Intelligent Life within them, which orders
+their migrations, etc., but of which they are unconscious. And why
+should it be otherwise with man? That he should be conscious of this
+life will one day be his highest blessing.”
+
+And in another letter (of 1876): “Surely the true meaning of Nirvana is
+that at some future stage of our being man will be so conscious of the
+indwelling and inworking of Deity, that he will ascribe every movement,
+whether of his body or mind, to the One Will, the One _Vernunft_, the
+One Life, and thus think of himself as swallowed up by and absorbed, as
+it were, in that Being.”
+
+These extracts will show what a priceless debt I owe to the early
+contact with his mind.
+
+
+How strange and far-back all that early life seems now—and yet so
+vivid—I can see it all in brightest detail! Of an evening, after dinner
+or supper, how we sat round the drawing-room table, or in scattered
+chairs, reading. My father would get out his Fichte or his Hartmann and
+soon become lost in their perusal. Occasionally he would, when he came
+to a striking passage, play a sort of devil’s tattoo with his fingers on
+the table, or, getting up, would walk to and fro quarter-deck fashion,
+with creaky boots, and reciting his authors to himself. Then my mother
+or perhaps my eldest sister would remonstrate, and after a time he would
+settle down again. Sometimes if he was very quiet one might look up from
+one’s book and see from his upturned eyes and half-open lips that he had
+lapsed into inner communion and meditation.
+
+His was a very religious nature, and it was his habit to think of the
+divinity as clearly present—as he would say: “When I am taking my bath
+or even when I am breathing I say to myself, ‘This is God working within
+and around me.’” In later years, however, his liability to extreme worry
+and anxiety would return; and there were times when even his books
+failed to save him from the sleepless nights and despondent days
+occasioned by the failure or possible failure of some Stock Exchange
+speculation. At such times reports of railway companies, maps,
+gazetteers, newspaper cuttings, etc., were got out and studied and
+restudied; I was called in to take part in the investigations (“put in
+the stocks” as I used to call it), and had to sit up till the small
+hours of the morning in attitudes of painful suspense and tension. The
+troubles, however, would pass away in due time, and on the whole my
+father was (owing chiefly to the care and thought he gave to them) very
+successful over his “investments.”
+
+The rest of the family spent the evening, as a rule, in reading—of which
+we were all fond. My sisters would play or sing a little; and when they
+ceased, the sound of the near sea would reassert itself, or the roaring
+of the wind in the chimney. My mother sat on a low chair, with a book on
+her knee and some knitting in her hands, but occasionally, tired with
+the work of the day, would drop asleep; at ten o’clock the servant
+brought up wine and biscuits, and shortly afterwards we would all—except
+my father—retire.
+
+Of my mother’s life how can I say anything? That which is so vital to
+one, so intimate, how can one disengage it from oneself? There was an
+unspoken tragedy in those beautiful gazelle-like eyes—the tragedy as of
+dumbness itself. The tender loving spirit which beamed forth from them
+never found direct utterance in this world. It was the look of a
+prisoner. Her mother was a Scotchwoman. A baneful parental
+influence—Scottish pride and puritanism—had rested on my mother’s young
+life, making all expression of tender feeling little short of a sin; and
+this reserve, inculcated in youth, became in later days involuntary and
+inevitable. My mother had a sister to whom she was much attached, but
+who had offended my grandmother by marrying a man who was considered
+undesirable. The sister was never forgiven, nor even acknowledged again.
+She died soon after her marriage; and her death, with all the
+accompanying circumstances, was a great blow to my mother; but of it—as
+of other things which touched her nearly—she would never speak.
+
+Her nature was not so much intellectual or imaginative as practical and
+prompt to act, with a kingly sense of duty and courage. Her life was one
+long self-sacrifice—first to her parents, then to her husband and
+children. All day and much of the night, without haste and without rest,
+she went about the house attending to our young wants, to my father’s
+comfort, and to the organization of a large household—wearing herself
+daily to a thinner and slighter frame, which even in age seemed by this
+means to maintain its activity—till at last when her children were grown
+up, and her husband’s growing infirmities demanded the services of a
+trained nurse, there came upon her the grievous sense—not the less
+grievous because wholly unwarranted—that she was “no longer of any use
+in the world.” Twice, I remember, she repeated these fatal words; and
+then, not long after, a brief attack of bronchitis parted easily the
+thread of life, already worn so fine. The manner of her death was as
+heroic as that of her life, with thought in lucid intervals for all
+around her, servants, and everybody in the house; and with closing
+smile, and words of calm, “All is as it should be.”
+
+When my mother died (in January 1881) my father—who had been for the
+most part absorbed in business or philosophic speculations, and who had
+given indeed too little time to personal matters—suddenly became aware
+of the greatness of the loss he had sustained. He woke up from dreamland
+when it was too late. My mother’s silent and untiring forethought had
+unconsciously to himself been the great support and directing power of
+his life; and now he ceased not to say, “The mainspring is broken, the
+mainspring is broken.” His infirmities, which at eighty-three years of
+age were the natural ills of senile decay, rapidly gained upon him, and
+a year afterwards, in April 1882, he died and was laid in the same grave
+with her—in Hove cemetery, between the sea and the Downs, close to the
+little church to which, years before, we as children had trudged with
+these our parents every Sunday by the fields and footpaths which then
+separated the village of Hove from the growing West of Brighton.
+
+My mother had very gracious manners, of gently-smiling dignity, yet her
+inflexible sense of truth and justice—inflexible especially as regards
+her own life and conduct—was easily apparent beneath the gentle
+exterior. Her ideas of social demarcation, etc., were of course of the
+old school; and she looked upon it quite as a duty to keep up a certain
+position in society—as the phrase is. Indeed, though much of the social
+life of Brighton was in reality irksome to her, I think that she never
+questioned the duty of conforming to it. But then—unlike many modern
+mistresses—she never questioned the duty of attending to the wants of
+dependents; and her care for the interests of the household servants,
+and others whom misfortune might bring to her door, was most unfailing
+and most sincere. The servants in fact were as a rule much devoted to
+her—though she was by no means lax in matters of discipline and daily
+superintendence.
+
+A great feature of my mother’s character was her love of animals,
+especially dogs and horses. Outdoor and garden occupations she was also
+fond of—and I believe her natural inclination would have led her to a
+rural life. But Brighton offered nothing in this direction—and here
+again the promptings of her nature were destined only to be thwarted.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  MY MOTHER: SOPHIA WILSON CARPENTER (ABOUT 1864).
+]
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+                               CAMBRIDGE
+
+
+Between school and College days I went to Germany for some months. I was
+already nineteen when I left school, full old enough to go to College,
+but it did not seem to be decided what was to become of me. I inclined
+to go into Orders. Possibly my father, dreading this, thought Heidelberg
+would be an antidote! At any rate I could learn German there. So off I
+went, lodged with a professor and his Frau for five months, wandered
+through the woods and over the hills of Heidelberg, heard Bunsen and
+Kirchhoff lecture on Physics and Chemistry, attended the English church
+on Sundays, and ate sausages with the Professor and his friends on
+weekdays. An odd secluded life, seeing but little of the Germans and
+less of the English, what I chiefly remember of it is those long moony
+rambles through the woods—not very clearly thinking about anything that
+I can make out, but wondering, and just waiting—and every now and then
+chancing in some secluded glade or gorgeous sunset scene upon something
+that caught my breath and held me still. Indeed on one occasion I
+perpetrated some rhymes in German about the Neckar—the first verses that
+I ever wrote. The Professor and his wife chaffed me about my odd ways. I
+even wore a tall hat to the English church on Sundays! He argued with me
+about the Bible and about the idiotic habits of my countrymen and women.
+I resisted his arguments, but secretly they touched me. Ultimately I
+gave up attending the church, and became so disgusted with my tall hat
+that when I returned to England I placed it in my carpet-bag! So I
+learned something besides German at Heidelberg.
+
+Then came Cambridge. When my father after some hesitation consented to
+let me go to Cambridge, and asked me which College I would prefer, I
+said “Trinity Hall,” and for my reason that it was a _gentlemanly_
+college. My father laughed, as he certainly was justified in doing—and I
+can only wonder now what sort of animal I was then. At any rate the
+answer shows that notwithstanding all my sufferings at Brighton I had
+not yet realized what was the true cause of them. There were however
+other reasons for my choice. One was that Romer, the last Senior
+Wrangler, was a “Hall” man; the other was that the same College was now
+Head of the River. Both events had brought Trinity Hall into notice.
+
+So thither I went, and found myself immediately in the thick of a
+boating set. The whole College was given up to boating. Not to row or
+help in the rowing in some way or other was rank apostasy. A few might
+read besides, and a few—a dozen or two at most—did so. I boated and
+talked boating slang; was made stroke of the second boat, and it went
+down several places; became Secretary of the Boat Club; and for two
+years wore out the seat of my breeches and the cuticle beneath with
+incessant aquatic service. At the end of that time I got sadly bored
+with the business, and gave it up. Indeed I was obliged to give it up;
+for reading pretty hard for my degree, as I was later on, the two
+strains together were too much, and my health was breaking down. But so
+far perhaps boating had not been a bad thing. It was healthy exercise,
+and brought me in with healthy muscular companions who bothered their
+heads about no abstruse problems, and for the most part rarely read a
+book. Fives and rackets too occupied some of my time; but in athletic
+sports I was not so successful as I had been at school. At Brighton I
+had been a good high-jumper, having cleared 5 ft. 3 or 4, a good height
+in those days—but at Cambridge, probably owing to the relaxing quality
+of the air, I failed to make any mark. Thus, with games and wine parties
+and boat suppers, life slid easily onward.
+
+Certainly nothing could be more unlike what I had expected. I had
+imagined a university where folk would talk Latin naturally and where I,
+lamely taught at school and late coming from loafing in Germany, would
+be an outcast and an object of contumely. I found myself at the end of
+the first term easily head of my year in the College examinations.
+Myself and another. He, Yate, was the son of a country doctor—keen on
+boating, but a fellow of some originality and thought as well and of
+singular gentleness and candour. A friendship sprang up between us; and
+for the next year or two we were always together. In examination honours
+(such as they were) we were quits, and it was sincerely I believe a
+matter of indifference to both of us which might win the prize. Then he
+fell ill of rheumatic fever, and ultimately died without taking his
+degree—my first experience of loss of this kind.
+
+Other friends of this period were Ernest Gray—a very dear and
+affectionate creature who afterwards became the Vicar and very fatherly
+pastor of a country parish; Harry Spedding, son of Anthony Spedding of
+Bassenthwaite, and nephew of James Spedding of Baconian fame; and
+Francis Hyett of Painswick, who afterwards became my brother-in-law.
+Harry Spedding was one of those extraordinary beings who though quite
+unable to row himself cherished an immense enthusiasm for boating. Long
+and thin and weak-chested, hard work in the boats would probably have
+been fatal to him, but on the banks, running beside the boats and
+cheering the crews in the races, his pluck and lively humour never
+failed. Hyett did not take to the river, but kept to racquets and his
+law-studies, and was really one of the few undergraduates who took any
+interest in political affairs. In later years he has done much
+administrative and literary work in connection with his own county.
+
+In coming up to Cambridge it had never occurred to me at the outset to
+go in for an honour degree; my opinion of the university was too high
+for that. But after a term or two the tutor to my surprise seriously
+recommended me to read for the mathematical tripos. I was of course
+frightfully behindhand in my subjects, but I took a private ‘coach,’
+went through the routine of cram, and ultimately obtained a fellowship.
+
+Mathematics interested me and I read them with a good deal of
+pleasure—but I have sometimes regretted that three years of my life
+should have been—as far as study was concerned—nearly entirely absorbed
+by so special and on the whole so unfruitful a subject. I think every
+boy (and girl) ought to learn some Geometry and Mechanics; without these
+the mind lacks form and definiteness, and its grip on the external world
+is not as strong as it should be; but the higher mathematics (certainly
+as they are read at Cambridge) are for the most part a mere gymnastic
+exercise unapplied to actual life and facts, and easily liable to become
+unhealthy, as all such exercises are.
+
+After my degree, though retaining a certain general interest in the
+subject, I never again opened a mathematical book with the intention of
+seriously pursuing its study. I worked however at one time on “Taylor’s
+theorem” in the Differential Calculus, with the object of finding a
+simpler and more direct proof than Homersham Cox’s (the one usually
+adopted). But not being able to complete the proof, I handed it over to
+my friend Robert Muirhead, who has adopted and worked it to its
+conclusion in a contribution to the Proceedings of the Edinburgh
+Mathematical Society (Vol. 12, Session 1893–4).
+
+It was just about this time of my degree (and curiously late) that my
+attention began to be turned towards literary production. I had won as
+an undergraduate—and to my surprise—two College prizes for English
+Essays (one, by the way, on Civilization); and shortly after my degree,
+in 1870, I was awarded a university prize (the Burney), £100, for an
+essay on “The Religious Influence of Art.” Meanwhile I kept scribbling,
+just for my own satisfaction, quantities of verse, very formless and
+incoherent—but which formed an outlet for my own feelings in the absence
+of any more tangible way of expressing them.
+
+How well I remember going down, as I so frequently did, alone to the
+riverside at night, amid the hushed reserve and quiet grace of the old
+College gardens, and pouring my little soul out to the silent trees and
+clouds and waters! I don’t know what kind of longing it was—something
+partly sexual, partly religious, and both, owing to my strangely
+slow-growing temperament, still very obscure and undefined; but anyhow
+it was something that brooded about and enveloped my life, and makes
+those hours still stand out for me as the most pregnant of my then
+existence.
+
+Here are some verses (written in ’68) which I give as a specimen of the
+kind of thought and the half-formed emotional atmosphere in which I
+brooded, as well as of their juvenile style.
+
+            O pale and wan with watching, starless night!
+                Far, far beyond thy cloudy banks
+                Pass and repass in serried ranks
+            The flaming watchfires of the infinite—
+            Gliding and streaming through the realm of space
+                In breathless adoration round
+                The burning throne whose base profound
+            Knoweth no resting-place.
+
+            To thy deep silence through the moving years
+                Cometh no cry of misery,
+                No sound of all the things that be,
+            Upborne from this dark field of feverish tears;
+            But all the myriad worlds thou dost enfold
+                Move on before their Monarch hushed,
+                And, looking forth, my soul is crushed
+            Beneath a weight untold.
+
+            O great Humanity, that liest spread
+                Beneath the gaze of the sleepless night,
+                Who is there who will dare to fight
+            To raise the tresses of thy drooping head?
+            Who cares through the immensity of suns?
+                Which of the angels shall arise?
+                Oh! heavy and dark the burden lies
+            On all thy noblest ones.
+
+            Far off the morning stars may shout and sing,
+                For there is Love and Joy and Peace,
+                And Life—true life that cannot cease—
+            But here the ghastly shuddering of Death’s wing.
+            And here faint whispers only come to die
+                Upon the threshold of our hearts,
+                Voices at which the sad soul starts
+            With a half-uttered sigh.
+
+            O hanging cloud, O scarcely stirring trees,
+                O velvet waters moved to sound
+                By the gliding fishes’ bound,
+            O Willow, whispering to the fitful breeze,
+            O gentle touch of the sweet summer air,
+                O solitary owl, alone,
+                Nursing thy joy in low weird tone
+            Within thy leafy lair!
+
+            O one and all, unveil! and let us see
+                The flaming soul of world-wide Love
+                Burning behind you, far above,
+            Beneath, deep-fountained life, strange mystery!
+            Unveil! O night that washest Earth’s dark shore,
+                O suns, through space that ever roll,
+                O Love, clasping us body and soul
+            For evermore!
+
+Curiously enough, as it happened, I was practically offered a Fellowship
+before I took my degree. The College was in want of an assistant
+Lecturer. There were three clerical Fellowships (the others being
+connected with the Bar as a profession), and one of these clerical
+Fellowships had lately become vacant by Leslie Stephen, who held it,
+relinquishing his Orders. It was understood that I was going into the
+Church; it seemed probable that I should take a fair degree; and for the
+rest, who could be found so suitable—so mild, so docile, so decently
+mannered and generally unaggressive—as the young man in question!
+Accordingly one day the tutor (Henry Latham) sounded me on the subject.
+I conveyed to him that I had not changed my intention of being ordained,
+and that I rather liked the prospect of staying on at Cambridge in
+connection with the College; and it became practically understood that
+if things turned out favorably that should be my destiny.
+
+And things turned out accordingly. In the Mathematical Tripos of 1868 I
+came out tenth wrangler, which was a sufficiently high degree to justify
+a Fellowship at a small College; and in the autumn of that year I came
+into residence at Trinity Hall as a Lecturer; shortly afterwards I was
+elected to a clerical Fellowship; and in June ’69 I was ordained Deacon
+by the Bishop of Ely.
+
+The story of my connection with the Church may be soon told. Brought up
+in the philosophical Broad Churchism of my father, with an
+ever-expanding horizon, my mind had at no time undergone any revulsion
+of feeling such as could be called a religious crisis; no sense of
+antagonism to the Church and its teachings had been developed. Though
+quite aware that my opinions were vastly different from those of the
+ordinary Churchman, I perhaps hardly appreciated _how_ far I had
+drifted; and with an easy faith in progress, such as I had, it seemed to
+me that anyhow in a few years the Church, widening and growing from
+within, would become adapted to the times, and be a perfectly habitable
+and a useful institution.
+
+As soon as I was ordained I had services in the College Chapel to read,
+and sermons to preach—with the usual accompaniment of winks and grins
+from the fellow-students, shufflings of hassocks, racings half-dressed
+through the prayers on winter mornings, with clicks of watches timing
+the performance, and all the gaping signs of unconcealed boredom; but I
+thought I would like to see something more satisfactory and more
+definite in the way of Church work than that, and accordingly took a
+curacy at St. Edward’s under a dry evangelical of the steel-knife and
+lemon-juice type, named Pearson.
+
+If I had nursed in my mind any sentiment of romance in connection with
+ecclesiastical affairs, it was soon expelled by these experiences. A
+peep behind the scenes was enough. The deadly Philistinism of a little
+provincial congregation; the tradesmen and shopkeepers in their sleek
+Sunday best; the petty vulgarities and hypocrisies; the discordant music
+of the choir; the ignoble scenes in the vestry and the resumed saintly
+expression on returning into the church; the hollow ring and the sour
+edge of the incumbent’s voice; and the fatuous faces upturned to receive
+the communion at the altar steps—all these were worse, considerably
+worse, than the undisguised heathenism of the chapel performance.
+
+It was not long before I began to have serious misgivings about the step
+I had taken. Still I did not torment myself; and when in the following
+June (1870) the time arrived for my ordination as a priest, I prepared
+myself quite philosophically to go through the ceremony.
+
+But here an interesting hitch occurred. In the Bishop’s examination
+preparatory to the ordination, the candidates had among other things to
+write a Life of Abraham; and such was my optimistic confidence in the
+breadth of the episcopal mind that I quite candidly and without any
+particular misgiving committed to paper the view which I had picked up,
+I think from Bunsen the historian, and which is also adopted by Dean
+Stanley in his _Jewish Church_—that Abraham’s intended immolation of
+Isaac was a relic of Moloch-worship, and of the old practice of human
+sacrifices, and that the “voice of God” which bade him substitute the
+ram did indeed figure the evolution of the human conscience to a higher
+ideal of worship than that in vogue among savage nations. This paper,
+containing so dreadful a heresy, I sent up without a qualm! But on
+arriving myself some days later at the Palace at Ely, the Bishop (Harold
+Browne) soon after the first greetings called me into his study and
+confronted me with the offending passage. At first I had some difficulty
+in understanding what the trouble was, but when the Bishop in grave
+tones began to remind me that the sacrifice of Isaac was a type—a type
+and a prefigurement of that greater sacrifice of Jesus, and that the
+whole Biblical scheme of salvation rested four-square upon this incident
+(not forgetting the ram), I immediately saw that the fat was in the
+fire, and that there was now no escaping a solemn discussion on the
+Atonement.
+
+And to that it came. Our conversation, interrupted by dinner, was
+resumed again late in the evening; and when all the other clerics and
+candidates had gone to bed the reverend Father-in-God and I sat up till
+past twelve discussing all the main and side issues of Theology! On the
+latter he was easy enough. I told him plainly that I did not believe in
+the historical accuracy of the Old Testament; and he admitted that there
+were gaps! Even the Thirty-nine Articles were to be swallowed in the
+lump, and not in detail, so to speak. But on the Atonement the
+discussion narrowed. Here was a vital point. My views were woolly in
+outline, sadly blurred by the Broad Church mysticism of F. D. Maurice,
+and I confess I had some difficulty in formulating them. The Bishop
+merely shook his head, asked me to “say that again,” and declared that
+he could not understand. It ended by his requesting me to _write out_ my
+doctrine; and going to bed himself he left me sitting up for a couple of
+hours more for this purpose! In the morning I handed him, before
+breakfast, my mystic script. After breakfast he once more called me into
+his study, said he had read the paper, that it was thoughtful and all
+that, but that he could not say that he really followed it, and that he
+was sure it was _not_ the doctrine of the Church of England.
+
+We were then within a few minutes of the commencement of the service. I
+took for granted that he would not ordain me; but after a pause he said
+“I cannot refuse to ordain you; but I do not think your views are those
+of the Church.” I think he hoped that _I_ should then retire of my own
+accord. However I said nothing but took it all as settled in my favour,
+and in less than an hour the apostolic hands were on my head.
+
+After luncheon the good old man, not without a certain anxiety and
+_épanchement_, put his arm in mine and walked with me round the garden.
+I remember there was a chaffinch hopping about, and a longish discourse
+followed on creation and suffering and vicarious sacrifice, which I
+listened to with due deference; but it did not seem to me to lead to any
+conclusion; and soon the time came for us to leave the palace, and I saw
+him no more.
+
+It may be imagined that I did not find my profession any more
+satisfactory after being made priest than before. He of the sour
+knife-edge, my superincumbent, left St. Edward’s, being translated into
+a canon of Carlisle, and was succeeded, curiously enough, by Maurice
+himself. That was I think early in 1871.
+
+Of this transaction, by which F. D. Maurice became incumbent of St.
+Edward’s, it may be worth while to say a few words. Maurice had lately
+come to Cambridge as Professor of Moral Philosophy. As far as his moral
+worth was concerned, the choice was a good one. There was an ineffable
+personal charm about him, of moral earnestness and deep feeling,
+connecting itself somehow with his lofty venerable head and
+extraordinary modesty. But of his philosophy perhaps the less said the
+better. He saw facts which doubtless it is impossible adequately to
+translate into language. Certainly it was impossible for him. To see him
+struggling with the root-ideas which he was always trying, and vainly,
+to express, to see him perspiring with effort, tapping his forehead with
+his fingers, shutting his eyes, and still only framing broken sentences,
+was really touching. The net result among the students was, as I have
+hinted, one of personal devotion to him, but of utter bafflement as to
+his teaching. It is said that one student hearing that the great man was
+giving a course of lectures on the “I” (as he was), made his way down to
+the _Physiological_ schools and after many inquiries finding that no
+lectures were being given on the _Eye_, came back again with the
+conclusion that the whole affair was a myth!
+
+Well, Maurice having expressed a wish to take some practical “duty” in
+Cambridge, and the living of St. Edward’s falling vacant at that time, a
+movement was got up in the College to offer the living to him. The
+living was in the gift of the Fellows of Trinity Hall, and most of the
+Fellows were favorable to the proposal. But an unexpected difficulty
+arose in the person of the Master (Dr. Geldart). Not that the Master
+himself (who was an old sporting man, more than anything else) cared a
+button about the matter, but because his wife, Mrs. Geldart, was
+accustomed to attend St. Edward’s and fuss round the parson there, and
+_she_ strongly disapproved of any one so heretical as Maurice occupying
+the pulpit!
+
+I was a Fellow of the College at the time, and the scenes round the
+table as we discussed the knotty question were most amusing. The obvious
+embarrassment of the old Master when the question arose as to _why_ he
+thought Maurice so dangerous; his mysterious references to the opinions
+of other people (his wife) and his candid disavowal of any knowledge on
+these subjects himself; the guffaws of Henry Fawcett (then Professor of
+Political Economy and afterwards Postmaster-General) as he called for
+his chop and settled himself down to enjoy a scene to which his
+blindness was little drawback; the quips of H. D. Warr, one of the
+Fellows; the muttered blasphemies of our Dean (Hopkins), who couldn’t
+think why we wasted time “over such blasted nonsense”; the ingenious
+surmises of the barrister fellows generally as to what Maurice’s
+opinions might conceivably be; and the politic expediencies of the Tutor
+(Latham) who at last silenced the Master and his Missus by producing a
+letter from the Bishop of Carlisle (Goodwin) endorsing Maurice with a
+friendly pat on the back: all this was as good as a play.
+
+Maurice was installed in the living early in 1871, and thenceforth read
+the services and prayed and preached, with that profundity of earnest
+innocence which was so characteristic of him, and which contrasted
+strangely with the manner of his election, and more strangely still with
+the cheap commercialism of his congregation.
+
+Maurice had no great ear for music. The organist and choir of
+flat-singing shop-girls revelled in florid hymns about the
+“blood-of-the-Lamb.” Maurice besought me to alter this and induce them
+to sing again those fine old hymns like the “Old Hundredth.” A nice task
+for an amiable curate!
+
+It was curious that after having been brought up in and adopted
+Maurice’s views, I should now, having become his curate, feel so
+uncomfortable as I did. But so it was. I had had experience in the short
+space of a year and a half, of three spiritual superiors—each in a sense
+more favorable than the last; and yet my sense of aggravation
+continually increased. I saw a good deal of Maurice. He was kindness
+itself. I opened out my difficulties to him; and he was I think troubled
+to find I could not reconcile myself to the position which _he_ occupied
+apparently without difficulty. But to me his attitude was a growing
+wonder. I could quite understand his historical-philosophical view of
+the Creeds and the Old Testament, and that he could read into them a
+deep and necessary meaning, satisfactory to his own mind; I had in fact
+been already, long before, initiated into this Broad Church attitude by
+my father. But when it came to standing up oneself in church and
+reciting these documents to a congregation who (as one knew perfectly
+well) did not understand a word of them, and practically received them
+in their grossest sense and in a spirit of mere superstition, then I
+felt it _was_ necessary to draw the line somewhere! It was not that I
+then, or at any time, made a trouble of the conformity of my own _views_
+with those of the Church; for I thought and I think now, that if a man
+feels he can do useful work, and congenial to himself, in that
+connection, he had better remain where he is until he is kicked out; and
+that seeing the variety of interpretations that Church doctrines are
+capable of, it is rather for the Church to decide whether _his_
+interpretations are within its pale, or not, than for him to do so. But
+the trouble to me was a practical one—namely the insuperable _feeling_
+of falsity and dislocation which I experienced, and which accompanied
+all my professional work from the reading of the services to the
+visiting of old women in their almshouses—who were, one could see,
+goaded on to hypocrisy by the position in which they were placed—and who
+would hastily shuffle a Bible or prayer-book on to the table, when they
+saw the parson coming. This sense of falsity grew on me more and more
+till I felt the situation to be intolerable.
+
+It is remarkable—certainly I have found it so in my own life—how little
+its greater changes are one’s own choice, and in a sense, how much they
+are forced upon one by necessity—sometimes by an outward necessity,
+sometimes by an inner and necessary, though perhaps unconscious
+evolution of one’s own nature. No doubt I _thought_ about this matter a
+great deal, argued to myself the question of my conformity to the
+Church, and the pros and cons of remaining in it—worried myself, passed
+sleepless nights—and felt generally unhinged over it; but all this
+conscious argument brought me no nearer to a decision. Deep below I felt
+that some sort of sheer necessity was driving me on. Sometimes when I
+was occupied with, and thinking about, quite other things, a kind of
+shiver would run down my back: “You’ve got to go, you’ve got to go,” and
+I felt as if I was being pushed to the edge of a steep place.
+
+For it was not altogether easy to face the situation. I was doing very
+well, in a pecuniary sense, at Cambridge, making with my Fellowship and
+small offices as lecturer, librarian, etc., £500 or £600 a year, and
+prospects good for the future; the abandonment of my Orders would
+probably mean the loss of my Fellowship, and possibly also that I should
+have to leave Cambridge altogether. And it did not seem quite reasonable
+to risk all this for what might after all be only a Quixotic fancy.
+
+But blessed is Necessity which cuts all arguments short! By the middle
+of May 1871 I felt so ill and wretched that I _could_ not stay on even a
+few weeks to the end of the term. I begged off my lectures, left Maurice
+to find another curate, and ran away!
+
+
+Meanwhile other threads and clues of life were developing. Up to my
+degree (January ’68) I had lived singularly apart from any intellectual
+or literary circles. As an undergraduate my companions had mostly been
+boating men. After my degree however I came naturally into a more
+literary society, consisting partly of the younger Fellows of Colleges
+and partly of the more go-ahead students who had not yet taken their
+degrees. One or two of the more thoughtful undergrads of my own College
+also leaned towards me. I belonged to one or two little societies which
+used to meet and discuss literary or other topics. To one of these,
+which W. K. Clifford organized, I used, after I became a curate, to rush
+round on Sunday evenings after church—in time to take part in the
+reading of Mazzini’s _Duty of Man_; illustrated by a plentiful
+accompaniment of claret-cup and smoke! Clifford was a kind of Socratic
+presiding genius at these meetings—with his Satyr-like face, tender
+heart, wonderfully suggestive, paradoxical manner of conversation, and
+blasphemous treatment of the existing gods. He invented just at that
+time a kind of inverted Doxology which ran:—
+
+                  O Father, Son and Holy Ghost—
+                  We wonder which we hate the most.
+                  Be Hell, which they prepared before,
+                  Their dwelling now and evermore!
+
+and his influence, combined with that of Mazzini, was certainly part of
+my education at that period. If it had by any chance come to the
+Bishop’s ears that I attended these meetings there is little wonder
+about his hesitation to ordain me!
+
+There was another Cambridge heretic with whom I not unfrequently
+consorted—Lock of King’s—who certainly by his attainments and ability
+ought to have been made a Fellow of his College, but his views and the
+audacity with which he ventilated them proved a fatal obstacle. Having
+to write a ’Varsity prize-poem he sat up all the preceding night to do
+it, worked himself up into a kind of prophetic frenzy and managed under
+cover of a forecast of republican utopianism to introduce the lines:—
+
+ Since they traded in holy things, and treated the people like beasts,
+ The priests shall be slain and the kings shall be drowned in the blood
+    of the priests.
+
+I don’t feel so certain of the exact words of the first line as I do of
+the second, but I hope the author of both (who was then, of course, an
+undergraduate) will forgive my quotation of them. It is hardly to be
+wondered at that in those days he was _not_ made a Fellow!
+
+One of the undergraduates of my own College with whom I made quite a
+friendship at this time was Edward Anthony Beck. He came up to
+Cambridge, a poor student from the country district of Castle Rising in
+Norfolk, on the shores of the Wash—he also with his head full of rhymes
+and verses, which he had written since he was a boy of eight or ten, to
+the wonderment and delight of his widower father, who prophesied in no
+uncertain tone, a nook in Westminster Abbey for his poet son. Beck was a
+bright, capable fellow, with a slight stoop, and a stammer, and a
+good-humoured way of laughing at his own oddities. He took the
+University by surprise by carrying off, in his first year, the prize
+poem on Dante—having been fain, it is said, to work up the subject by
+reading Cary’s translation (which he could not afford to buy) on the
+bookstalls. Then he wrote another prize poem on Runnymede, which
+delighted him chiefly I think on account of a misprint which occurred in
+the printed copy. There was an eloquent passage in the poem, describing
+the sunrise of freedom in England, and something about the clouds
+heralding the approach of morning:—
+
+                Streaks rosy-tinted vanward of the sun—
+
+which the printer, in a materialistic mood, altered into:—
+
+                _Steaks_ rosy-tinted vanward of the sun.
+
+These rosy-tinted steaks gave Beck, I believe, as much pleasure as he
+got from all the _kudos_ of his poetic success. He worked away at
+Classics, took a good first-class, and ultimately became a fellow and
+tutor of the College. But his vein of poetic feeling and romance,
+possibly too soon ripe, ran itself out, and he never carried on this
+line of production or published anything. His mind, perhaps from the
+same cause, took on a slightly cynical cast; he lapsed into the ordinary
+channels of lecturing and coaching, then married and had a large family,
+and so gave himself up to the work-a-day routine of College life.
+
+At the time I mention he and I chummed together a good deal—indeed there
+was a touch of romance in our attachment—we compared literary notes,
+went abroad together once or twice, and after he was made a Fellow, had
+rooms adjoining each other, and spent many and many an evening in
+common. He became a favorite in the general society of the younger dons
+and B.A.’s, on account of his brightness, naturalness and frankly avowed
+enjoyment of the good things of life.
+
+As for myself, for a couple of years or so after my degree I entered
+with great zest into this academically intellectual existence—these
+chit-chat societies, these little supper parties, these lingerings over
+the wine in combination-room after dinner—where every subject in Heaven
+and Earth was discussed, with the university man’s perfect freedom of
+thought and utterance, but also with his perfect absence of practical
+knowledge or of intention to apply his theories to any practical issue.
+It was helpful no doubt especially as a solvent of old ideas and
+prejudices; but after a time it began to pall upon me and bore me. There
+was a vein of what might be called painful earnestness in my character.
+These talking machines were, many of them, very obnoxious to me. And
+then of what avail was the brain, when the heart demanded so much, and
+demanding was still unsatisfied?
+
+Looking back, I think with regard to this last-mentioned matter, that
+the fault was probably a good deal on my own side. Strong as had been
+two or three attachments of this and my earlier undergraduate period,
+and deeply as they had moved me (to a degree indeed which I should be
+almost ashamed to confess); yet for the most part, owing to my reserved
+habits, and the self-repressive education I had received—combined with
+the fatuities of public opinion—I consumed my own smoke, and did not
+give myself the utterance I ought to have given. By concealing myself I
+was unfair to my friends, and at the same time suffered torments which I
+need not have suffered.
+
+As I have already said, during the time shortly after my degree I
+scribbled a great deal in verse form merely as an outlet to my own
+feelings, and without much attention to conventionalities of style and
+rhythms—though of course along the ordinary lines of versification. But
+now came my introduction to the poet who was destined so deeply to
+influence my life. It was in the summer of ’68, I believe (though it may
+have been ’69), that one day H. D. Warr—one of the Fellows of Trinity
+Hall, and a very brilliant and amusing man—came into my room with a
+blue-covered book in his hands (William Rossetti’s edition of Whitman’s
+poems) only lately published, and said:—
+
+“Carpenter, what do you think of this?”
+
+I took it from him, looked at it, was puzzled, and asked him what he
+thought of it.
+
+“Well,” he said, “I thought a good deal of it at first, but I don’t
+think I can stand any more of it.”
+
+With those words he left me; and I remember lying down then and there on
+the floor and for half an hour poring, pausing, wondering. I could not
+make the book out, but I knew at the end of that time that I intended to
+go on reading it. In a short time I bought a copy for myself, then I got
+_Democratic Vistas_, and later on (after three or four years) _Leaves of
+Grass_ complete.
+
+From that time forward a profound change set in within me. I remember
+the long and beautiful summer nights, sometimes in the College garden by
+the riverside, sometimes sitting at my own window which itself
+overlooked a little old-fashioned garden enclosed by grey and crumbling
+walls; sometimes watching the silent and untroubled dawn; and feeling
+all the time that my life deep down was flowing out and away from the
+surroundings and traditions amid which I lived—a current of sympathy
+carrying it westward, across the Atlantic. I wrote to Whitman, obtained
+his books from him, and occasional postcardial responses. But outwardly,
+and on the surface, my life went on as usual.
+
+What made me cling to the little blue book from the beginning was
+largely the poems which celebrate comradeship. That thought, so near and
+personal to me, I had never before seen or heard fairly expressed; even
+in Plato and the Greek authors there had been something wanting (so I
+thought). If there had only been those few poems they would have been
+sufficient to hold me; but there were other pieces: there was “Crossing
+Brooklyn Ferry,” “Out of the Rocked Cradle,” “President Lincoln’s
+Funeral Hymn,” and the prose Preface[3]—and then afterwards _Democratic
+Vistas_.
+
+On the whole at that time I thought most, I believe, of the prose
+writings. _Democratic Vistas_ was a mine of new thought. Both this and
+the little blue book I read over and over again, and still they were
+new. I had read a great deal of Wordsworth about the time of my degree;
+then Shelley captivated and held me for a long time; portions of Plato
+and of Shakespeare I had read repeatedly; but never had I found anything
+approaching these writings of Whitman’s for their inexhaustible quality
+and power of making one return to them.
+
+Yet all this time, or for three or four years, I believe my interest in
+them was mainly intellectual—that is, they were producing an
+intellectual ferment in me, but I had not distinctly come into touch
+with the dominant individuality behind them, nor felt that they were
+reshaping my moral and artistic ideals. This is partly shown by the fact
+that I continued all these years, and up to ’74 or so, writing verse
+along the usual lines and upon the usual subjects. Wordsworth’s “Tintern
+Abbey” and Shelley’s “Adonais” and “Prometheus” still ruled my artistic
+and emotional conceptions; and withal, living as I was in an atmosphere
+of literary criticism and finesse, mere academic technique seemed to me
+a great matter, and I made great struggles to attain to it.
+
+Though I was not particularly successful in these efforts towards the
+conventional in literature, yet I have no doubt they were very helpful
+in giving me some sort of training in the power of handling words and
+rhythmical forms—and it was a true instinct which led me through this
+instead of urging me to leap at once into the ocean of metrical freedom,
+so difficult to navigate with success. Anyhow so it was that while (in
+other things as well as in literature) my inner scarcely conscious
+nature was setting outwards in a swift current from the shores of
+conventionality, under the influence of its new genius, into deeps it
+little divined, my external self was still busy in a kind of backwater,
+and working hard if by any means it might attain to a creditable or even
+a possible existence in these channels!
+
+But by ’71 and ’72 I began to feel that continued existence in my
+surroundings was becoming impossible to me. The tension and dislocation
+of my life was increasing, and I became aware that a crisis was
+approaching. In May of the former year I had taken a holiday and got
+away from Cambridge. In October I returned to my lecturing and College
+work, but not to the church duties; and all ’72 I continued on, going
+through the daily round—but in a torpid, perfunctory manner—feeling
+probably that I ought to throw it all up, yet without the pluck to do so
+till I was fairly forced. By the end of ’72 I was obviously ill and
+incapacitated, and when I asked for leave of absence for a couple of
+terms it was readily granted—my own object in asking (so I put it to
+myself) being to get quite away and for long enough to be able to
+estimate my position and future action fairly and deliberately.
+
+The year ’73 was an important one for me. Feeling shattered and
+exhausted, and with a big holiday before me, I determined to go to
+Italy. It was a new life and I may almost say inspiration. I spent two
+months in Rome, a month in the Bay of Naples, and a month at Florence. I
+was alone, still alone; but the healing influences of the air and the
+sunshine were upon me. Amid the bright external life of the day, and the
+rich records and suggestions of the past, all the questions which had
+been tormenting me faded away. I _thought_ about them no more; but new
+elements came into my life which decided them for me.
+
+The Greek sculpture had a deep effect. The other things, pictures,
+architecture, etc., interested me much from an historical or æsthetic
+point of view; but this had something more, a germinative influence on
+my mind, which adding itself to and corroborating the effect of
+Whitman’s poetry, left with me as it were the seed of new conceptions of
+life. The marvellous beauty and cleanliness of the human body as
+presented by the Greek mind, the way in which the noblest passions of
+the soul—the tender pitying love of Diana for Endymion, the haughty
+inspiration of Juno, the heroic endurance of the fallen warrior, the
+childlike gladness of the faun—were united and blended with the
+corporeal form—or rather scarcely conceived of as separated from it; the
+emotional atmosphere which went with this, the Greek ideal of the free
+and gracious life of man at one with nature and the cosmos—so remote
+from the current ideals of commercialism and Christianity!—to become
+aware of all this in the midst of that “delicate air” and delightful
+landscape and climate of Italy, was indeed a new departure for me.
+
+There are magnificent fragments of Greek sculpture in the British
+Museum, not forgetting the priceless frieze of the Parthenon—things
+which to a skilled artistic eye are as suggestive as any that can be
+found—but to me the great range and completeness of the Italian
+galleries, the almost perfect Cupids, fauns, Venuses, athletes,
+warriors, youths, maidens, sages, gods, in unending procession under
+that southern sky, gave a poetic impulse which I could not, at any rate
+at that time, have surmised from a broken marble seen in a London fog!
+
+Nor must I omit, as part of the Greek impression, a visit to the Temples
+of Pæstum—which helped to give a habitation in the mind’s eye to those
+strings of sculptured figures, exiles in alien Rome, and to intensify
+the sense of harmonious life and divine proportion which they had
+excited.
+
+I stayed in Italy long enough to see, at Florence, the fireflies skim
+and flicker over the blossoming wheat-fields of May and June, and then
+returned home, to find that without worrying about it a change had taken
+place in my mental attitude which would make my return to the Cambridge
+life impossible.
+
+
+And here I must not omit to mention another influence which played a
+large part in the shaping of my life at this time. Most men own a deep
+debt to women’s influence in the ordering and guidance of their lives. I
+cannot say that I have felt this. With the exception of my mother and
+one other person, I cannot remember a single case in which a woman came
+to me as a strong motive-force or inspiration, or as a help or a guide
+in doubt or difficulty. Perhaps on the emotional side women did not
+supply what I needed; while on the intellectual side a woman with
+decisive, originative, authentic mind is certainly not often to be met
+with. Such a woman, however, of the latter type, was the person to whom
+I allude, and whom I may call Olivia (which indeed was one of her
+Christian names).
+
+She was a connection by marriage with one of my sisters, a woman about
+fifty, still retaining traces of an exceedingly handsome youth. Married,
+but separated from her husband; artistic to the finger-tips; brought up
+in Italy, and loving the South; hating everything British and Philistine
+and commercial; detesting the Bible and religion; she had fought her way
+through social odium and disability, and then through severe illness and
+suffering, till she was but the wreck (she used to say) of her former
+self. Nevertheless a remarkable fire and enthusiasm still survived in
+her, and though one of those natures who see everything rather violently
+black or white, yet the decisive artistic quality of her mind was most
+refreshing and inspiring. I have given some general account founded on
+her life and character in a separate sketch.[4] Sufficient to say here
+that her conversations on literature and art, her criticisms of art work
+(and of my own efforts), her views on marriage, on religion—though we
+disagreed a thousand times and often saw things from opposite
+points—were most helpful to me. They served to liberate my mind,
+corrected in many respects the native vagueness of my thought, and
+certainly helped me greatly on the road to choose my own way in life. I
+find a scrap of a letter from her, written during this period of my
+suffering and doubt as to my continuance at Cambridge and in the Church:
+“I ought not to write this morning, _caro mio_, I am too depressed. It
+is terrible to me to know how you suffer. Your letter last night made me
+cold to the finger-ends. One thing is clear anyhow, your present life is
+intolerable, _change it you must_.... When you get away from the
+depressing influence of your present life with all its worries you will
+breathe and clap your hands and thank God!” It is needless to say that
+my move to Italy and my preparations for abandoning Orders were things
+truly after her own heart.
+
+And now for the first time I seriously entertained the idea of taking to
+literature as a profession. I saw that my Cambridge career was at an
+end, and that I must do something else; and for a time (though only for
+a short time) it appeared to me that I might make a living by writing.
+
+I believe I felt that I really had something to write, that I must
+write, though certainly my mind and purpose was only vague as yet; and
+as to the professional side of the question, though I realized, I only
+partly realized, how difficult it would be to make writing of any kind
+‘pay.’ There were plenty of ‘candid friends’ however to impress _that_
+upon me, and I well remember the derisive chorus of the other Fellows
+which greeted (at some College meeting or other) the announcement of my
+intention! I stayed at home, at Brighton, during the summer and autumn
+and gathered my verses—those more careful and academic productions which
+I had perpetrated in the late years—together in a volume for
+publication. Of course no publisher would take the volume at his risk,
+and I was content, after a few efforts, to pay the piper myself for the
+pleasure of seeing the work in print, and on the chance of its leaping
+to a world-wide success! The book, under the title _Narcissus, and other
+Poems_, was published in November 1873, and needless to say fell
+practically dead—a few notices, mostly depreciatory, in the papers, a
+few copies bought by friends, and then it ceased to stir.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  MY SISTER LIZZIE.
+]
+
+Nor was there any reason why it should stir. There was nothing of any
+moment in the book; only a vague sentiment of Nature and humanity
+running through, not definite enough at any point to carry weight; and
+really not so much of the author’s own self in it, as of his effort to
+reach a certain literary standard. Perhaps one of the best of the
+pieces, both in form and intention, was “The Artist to his Lady”: which
+I remember expressed in its indefinite way the dominant feeling which I
+had those last years, of being drawn away from my surroundings by
+another ideal than that which I could realize at Cambridge. Of the other
+pieces, “The Carpenter and the King”—an extract from an unfinished
+revolutionary drama of which the scene was laid in Austria and Italy in
+1848—indicates a certain advance in political ideas and the germ of
+future developments; while “The Angel of Death and Life” contains in
+embryo some of the dominant conceptions of _Towards Democracy_.
+
+It so happened that at the time of publication of _Narcissus_, in
+November ’73, I was at Cannes, in the South of France, whither I had
+gone with my sister Lizzie (to whom I was much attached) on account of
+her illness. I stayed two or three weeks, and then it became necessary
+for me to return home, in order to make preparations for and be present
+at our College Fellows’ meeting at Christmas. It had of course become
+quite imperative that I should make some distinct announcement of my
+intentions with regard to the future; and for my part I had now quite
+decided that I would relinquish my Orders, and go through the legal
+formalities of unfrocking myself. Sincerely I hoped that this would lead
+to my disappearance from Cambridge. If, before, I had recoiled from such
+a thought, the torpor and misery I had experienced since then had quite
+altered my point of view.
+
+And in all this matter it was not by any means only the clerical
+difficulty that troubled me. As I have hinted before I had come to feel
+that the so-called intellectual life of the University was (to me at any
+rate) a fraud and a weariness. These everlasting discussions of theories
+which never came anywhere near actual life, this cheap philosophizing
+and ornamental cleverness, this endless book-learning, and the queer
+cynicism and boredom underlying—all impressed me with a sense of utter
+emptiness. The prospect of spending the rest of my life in that
+atmosphere terrified me; and as I had seemed to see already the vacuity
+and falsity of society life at Brighton, so in another form I seemed to
+see the same thing here.
+
+And now it dawned upon me that my abandonment of Orders, instead of
+being a thing to be dreaded, would be my veritable deliverance, and
+would provide just that valid excuse for breaking with my old life,
+which otherwise might prove hard to find. When friends, relations,
+Fellows of the College, and others, were all urging upon me the folly of
+committing professional suicide, I felt that the argument of
+_conscience_—though not really to myself the final and convincing thing
+(since that was Necessity)—was one which I could make use of, and which
+I should _have_ to make use of, since every one, whether I liked it or
+not, would credit me with it!
+
+I therefore, to avoid all possible lapses or failures that might ensue
+if I left the matter over to a personal explanation at the College
+meeting, _wrote_ beforehand to the Master of Trinity Hall, explaining
+that I had entirely made up my mind to formally relinquish my Orders,
+and placing my Fellowship in his hands, in accordance with what I
+supposed would be necessary under the circumstances. Then two or three
+weeks afterwards I followed in person to join in the Christmas
+festivities.
+
+At that time, every year at the Christmas season, not only did all the
+Fellows assemble for the transaction of College business at our
+meetings, but there was a week of dinner-parties, with often fifty or
+sixty guests each evening (no women) and very serious junketings! This
+was, of course, in Commemoration of the Founder of the College—and with
+money partly left for the purpose. We sat down to dinner, a most
+extensive one, at six o’clock, which lasted, with the passing of the
+loving-cup and the serving of wine and dessert, till about eight; then
+we adjourned to the combination-room to take coffee and to chat for an
+hour; after which the elder men generally resolved themselves into whist
+parties, while the younger would retire in batches to college rooms in
+order to smoke and drink brandies and soda. Soon after ten _supper_ was
+served; and returning to the combination-room one found a table spread
+with the traditional boar’s head, supplemented by oysters, game-pie, and
+other little delicacies. In order to stimulate the exhausted powers,
+bottled stout was found useful at this period. Some of the old hands did
+no scant justice to the supper; others remained at the whist tables.
+Finally and as the _coup de grâce_, about 11.30 hot milk punch and roast
+apples appeared!
+
+It was generally the duty of the younger Fellows to look after the
+ceremonies a little, to arrange the whist parties, invite the guests to
+supper, and ply them with meat and drink. I remember one evening,
+somewhat past midnight, finding the Mayor of Cambridge (who had been
+invited) by himself in a remote corner discussing a roast apple. I went
+and got a good big glass of milk-punch, and brought it him, saying,
+“Now, Mr. Mayor, I’m sure this will do you good”—but he waived it away,
+with a comical gesture, replying: “No, no more—I _can’t_ drink any more,
+thank you; but this apple is delicious!” Shortly afterwards, leaning on
+my arm, he was to be seen carefully descending the stairs to his
+carriage.
+
+My feelings at this particular Christmas were of rather a mixed kind. As
+to the Fellows they were berating me of one accord for my madness in
+writing to the Master and practically resigning my Fellowship before it
+was proved needful to do so; also for my supposed Quixotism in troubling
+about my Orders. As to the Dean, being of course in Orders himself he
+made short work of the difficulty: “It is all such tomfoolery,” he said,
+“that it doesn’t matter whether you say you believe in it, or whether
+you say you don’t. Look at my sermons in chapel now—are they not models
+of unaffected piety! You let the matter drop, and it will all blow
+over.”
+
+Among the Fellows and members of my own and other colleges with whom at
+that time I was often in contact were Henry Fawcett (afterwards
+Postmaster-General), Henry Latham (Tutor of Trinity Hall), Charles
+Wentworth Dilke, W. K. Clifford, George Darwin, Robert Romer (afterwards
+Lord Justice), Lumley Smith, Henry Fielding Dickens, Augustine Birrell,
+Edward Beck (present Master of Trinity Hall), and others of course. Most
+of these—though not all—did their best from their different points of
+view to dissuade me from the course I had embarked on; but I was not
+going to be dissuaded it was obvious to me that half-measures would be
+no good, and that if I wanted to make my escape from Cambridge I must
+throw the whole thing overboard; so underneath all the unpleasantness
+there was the secret satisfaction of feeling that unknown to everybody I
+was really going to gain a point instead of lose one!
+
+What kind of debates they had in College meeting over my case I don’t
+know, for of course I was not present, but it was conveyed to me that
+though there was a general wish that I should stay on as before, yet if
+I persisted in relinquishing my Orders, it would be doubtful if I could
+be asked to remain in the College—owing to the scandal of the thing! As
+to the question whether my relinquishment of Orders should involve the
+loss of my fellowship, that was adjourned for the present.
+
+So again next term I did not rejoin; but remained at home, at Brighton,
+occupied with another important literary project! _Moses_: a drama.
+Early one morning I had woken from sleep in the midst of a heavy
+thunderstorm, with an extraordinarily vivid conception (I don’t know how
+it came to be there) of Moses on the top of Sinai. Then and there I
+wrote out a long soliloquy (Act II. Sc. 1), which now insisted on
+expanding itself into a considerable poem in dramatic form—the ruling
+idea being to take the Bible story, treat it in a rationalistic way, as
+an obscure tradition of an actual event, and to show Moses as a noble
+but entirely human reformer, embarrassed in his great enterprise more by
+the apathy, stupidity and superstition of the people he desired to save
+than by anything else.[5]
+
+Meanwhile through solicitors I set the ecclesiastical law in operation
+with a view to my unfrockment. The process takes six months for its
+completion. It was not necessary for me to see my Bishop again; but I
+had one or two gravely regretful letters from him. I spent the ‘Long’ at
+Cambridge—July and August—the last ‘Long’ that I spent there; and during
+that time received the legal document which rendered me once again a
+layman.
+
+These summer vacations spent at Cambridge were the part of my university
+life that—even from my undergraduate days—I had most enjoyed. Chapels
+and lectures were in abeyance, the monotonous tyranny of
+boating-practice and training was unknown; a few students only were up,
+perhaps twenty or so at our College—but these would be the more
+intelligent and congenial spirits. During the long morning from nine to
+two one got through a lot of reading unhindered by lectures and other
+interruptions; then came afternoons canoeing up the river, two or three
+together, in the dreamy sheen of the water and the overhanging willows,
+or through beds of iris; or bathing; or playing fives or rackets; or
+walking the country lanes, or sitting long on some turfy bank with a
+friend. Sometimes we would make quite a party and go, a fleet of canoes,
+with provisions, far up the river and not return till dark. Then as a
+rule there were two or three hours more work in the evening, though
+sometimes this was broken through by some little entertainment.
+
+What a curious romance ran through all that life—and yet on the whole,
+with few exceptions, how strangely unspoken it was and unexpressed! This
+succession of athletic and even beautiful faces and figures, what a
+strange magnetism they had for me, and yet all the while how
+insurmountable for the most part was the barrier between! It was as if a
+magic flame dwelt within one, burning, burning, which one could not put
+out, and yet whose existence one might on no account reveal.[6] How the
+walks under the avenues of trees at night, and by the riversides, were
+haunted full of visionary forms for which in the actual daylight world
+there seemed no place!
+
+Yet as time went on I think it must have become clearer to me that
+Cambridge never would afford in this direction the actual that I wanted.
+Expectation grew dry at the fount, and torpor and distress in the last
+year or two took the place of the romance of the years before. Somehow I
+think I must have dimly understood that the trouble arose partly from a
+deep want of sympathy between myself and the whole mental attitude, mode
+of life, and ideals of the university, and of the gilded or silvered
+youth who lived and moved within it; for I remember that on the
+memorable journey from Cannes homewards, when I was revolving the whole
+situation—the abandonment of my Orders and Fellowship, the failure (as
+it already appeared) of my first literary venture, and the doubt of what
+I should or _could_ do in the future, it suddenly flashed upon me, with
+a vibration through my whole body, that I would and must somehow go and
+make my life with the mass of the people and the manual workers.
+
+It was in pursuance of this last idea that shortly after the eventful
+College meeting above mentioned I went to see James Stuart at Trinity,
+who was just then organizing the first outlines of the University
+Extension Lecturing Scheme, and asked him if he could find me a place on
+it. He agreed to do so; and suggested that I should take the subject of
+Astronomy. I consented, and shortly after was appointed to begin a
+course of Lectures (in October 1874) at Leeds, Halifax and Skipton.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  SELF, IN ABOUT 1875
+]
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+                UNIVERSITY EXTENSION AND NORTHERN TOWNS
+
+
+I sometimes think myself singularly fortunate in the way in which my
+dreams of life (the wildest and most unlikely) have from time to time
+been realized; but in this connection I have noticed two things that
+have generally happened—one is that the new life-purpose would come, to
+begin with, with great force, making me believe it was going to be
+realized at once, and that then it would seem to fail and almost be
+abandoned, and then again, some years after, it _would_ be realized. The
+second thing is (and this is in accordance with the general law of the
+“cussedness of things”) that just in the moment of the realization of
+the first endeavour, _another_ ideal would make itself felt, which would
+in some degree supersede the former.
+
+It had come on me with great force that I would go and throw in my lot
+with the mass-people and the manual workers. I took up the University
+Extension work perhaps chiefly because it seemed to promise this result.
+As a matter of fact it merely brought me into the life of the commercial
+classes; and for seven years I served—instead of the Rachel of my
+heart’s desire—a Leah to whom I was not greatly attached. Nevertheless
+this period was of interest and useful to me. I had never been in the
+Northern Towns. I was profoundly ignorant of commercial life. The
+manners, customs, ideas, ideals, the types of people, the trades,
+manufactures, the dominance of Dissent, the comparative weakness of the
+Established Church, the absence of art, literature and science, the dirt
+of the towns, the rough heartiness and hospitality—all formed a strange
+contrast to Cambridge and Brighton.
+
+I spent the two winters ’74–’75 and ’75–’76 at Leeds—lecturing there,
+and at Halifax and Skipton—living in Leeds, in lodgings—and seeing a
+good deal of the people (mostly ladies) who were actively engaged in
+promoting the Extension lectures. My subject was Astronomy. It was a
+curious subject for these towns where seldom a star could be seen. As
+far as the heavens were witness I might have told any fables. My own
+knowledge was derived almost entirely from books, and my pupils’
+knowledge was practically limited to books. Occasionally I used to drag
+an evening class onto Woodhouse Moor, at Leeds, to look at the actual
+subjects of our discussions, but the latter generally withdrew
+themselves from observation! I don’t know whether this kind of learning
+was of much use; but it was on the same lines as most modern learning. I
+think the study of books educates the constructive imagination—and
+teaches people to figure to themselves things and situations they have
+never seen. That is perhaps the chief use of it. The bulk of the pupils
+at this time and during my later connection with the University
+Extension were of the “young lady” class. These were the main support of
+the movement, and they might be said to fall into three groups—namely,
+the best scholars from girls’ schools, especially some very intelligent
+ones from the Friends’ Schools; girls living at home and having nothing
+particular to do; and elder women in the same plight. These formed the
+great majority of the afternoon classes, and a considerable fraction of
+the evening classes; the remainder being elderly clerks and a few
+extra-intelligent young men, and a very small sprinkling of manual
+workers.
+
+Though for the most part incapable of any mathematical processes, I
+found my students open to simple geometrical reasoning and consequently
+able to follow a great deal of formal Astronomy. They took a real
+interest in the work, which carried them on and which made the teaching
+a pleasure—a great pleasure in comparison with my experience of the
+tuition of “poll” men at Cambridge, whose dulness and distaste for their
+work were crushing.
+
+The modern Women’s Movement was just beginning to take shape at that
+time. And there was at Leeds three women—all remarkable characters in
+their way—who were very much in evidence in connection with the
+University Extension. They were Miss Lucy Wilson, Miss Heaton, and Miss
+Theodosia Marshall. Miss Wilson was Local Secretary to the University
+Extension; Miss Heaton and Miss Marshall both aspired after the dignity
+and influence of the position. As may be imagined there was no love lost
+between the three, and the cabals and conflicts were unending and most
+amusing. At one time there were two other lecturers from Cambridge
+living in Leeds besides myself, namely H. S. Foxwell (of St. John’s,
+Cambridge) and E. S. Thompson (of Christ’s). We used to meet every day
+for dinner at each other’s lodgings and had no end of fun comparing
+notes of local scandal. Coming from a distance and being in the position
+in which we were, we were naturally the recipients of confidences from
+all sides. The three ladies were constantly asking one or other of us
+out to _tête-à-tête_ breakfasts, lunches, or afternoon teas—pouring out
+their grievances against one another, and drawing us into deadly plots.
+These we duly compared—not without hatching comical counterplots of our
+own.
+
+But Miss Wilson was not to be dislodged; she was firm in her seat.
+Extremely good-looking and capable, and a good organizer, she yet had
+two defects. Like many “advanced” women she was very _doctrinaire_; and
+having swallowed a principle (like a poker) would remain absolutely
+unbending and unyielding; and, in the second place, she hated men. On
+one occasion she got up a “Women’s Rights” Meeting in Leeds. It was one
+of the first of these meetings—certainly the first I had been to. It was
+well attended—by women; Miss Wilson made a clever speech, full of keen
+thrusts at the male portion of mankind. I dare say it was well deserved.
+It was very slashing. There were a few of us “lower animals” huddled
+near the door. At some final witticism there was a yell of applause. We
+shut our eyes, assured that our last hour had come—but were ultimately
+spared for another day.
+
+On another occasion a rather amusing thing happened. One of the
+lecturers—not either of those already mentioned, but one living at
+Halifax though also lecturing in Leeds—got himself engaged to be
+married. This in itself was perhaps an offence to Miss Wilson. But what
+was worse—and certainly foolish of the young man—he went and fixed his
+wedding (in the South of England) for a date in the middle of the term,
+and then asked leave to miss a lecture in order to attend it! Of course
+Miss Wilson refused. Then in a day or two he wrote again. The affair was
+very pressing, he said, and he must go. Miss Wilson called her committee
+together. They were inclined to yield to the over-hasty marriage
+arrangement—foreseeing no doubt that it was inevitable. But Miss Wilson
+was absolute. _She_ would not yield—a great principle was at stake.
+“What if all lecturers,” etc. Of course her word prevailed, and a
+refusal was sent. Then the inevitable happened. The fellow went off
+without leave, only leaving _me_, poor unfortunate! to _read_ his
+lecture to his gently smiling class. After that there was a scene
+between me and Miss Wilson on which the curtain had better be drawn!
+“What business had I to give my services and help to the rebellious
+lecturer?” etc. Sufficient to say that we both survived it, and were
+quite good friends afterwards.
+
+On the whole it was an interesting time. It was at Leeds that I came to
+know the three sisters Ford of Adel Grange, whose friendship I have
+valued ever since; and it was at Leeds that I resumed acquaintance, to
+deepen into intimacy, with C. G. Oates, of Meanwood Side—a companion of
+Cambridge days. But my health was not of the best—a certain overstrain
+and tension of the nerves, dating from Cambridge worries, and carried on
+and increased by other causes, was continually pulling me down, and
+rendering my life at times quite painful. It was at this time too that
+my brother Charlie died in India (March 1876) quite suddenly, as I have
+already explained, through a fall from his horse. He was just, as it
+happened, on his way home on furlough after a long absence, and the
+shock to my mother and those at home was very great. And even I—though I
+had seen comparatively little of him—felt it a good deal.
+
+In September 1876 my lecturing beat was changed from the Leeds district
+to Nottingham, York and Hull. I lodged at Nottingham (with a fatuous
+landlady) for that term and rather enjoyed the brighter air of
+Nottingham and brighter spirits of the people, after Leeds. The Casey
+family with their simple rather foreign habits (Mrs. Casey half-English,
+half-German, Mr. Casey half-Irish, half-French) were my chief refuge
+during that and later visits to Nottingham. To my Astronomy course, I
+added Light and Sound. The limelight lantern became my companion, and
+experiments—though they increased the labour of preparation—made the
+lectures easier and more successful. By nature an abominably bad
+speaker, I had at first found lecturing extremely difficult and a great
+strain. My nervous disorganization increased the difficulty. Words would
+not come. I suffered; and if possible my audiences suffered more! But by
+degrees, by very slow degrees, I improved; practice and hard work over
+my notes in preparation made a vocabulary more ready to my tongue; and
+at last, by about the end of my seven years, I could get through an
+hour’s talk without absolutely disgracing myself!
+
+In this connection I may tell a story. One term (a little later on, I
+think) I was lecturing at Barnsley. The place was a little local
+theatre, unused at the time; but about the middle of the term it was
+taken by a traveling company, and we had to move into another building.
+The last evening of our occupation, some scenery was already up, and I,
+having affixed my star diagrams to the shifts and side-scenes, was
+lecturing from the stage when a belated stranger, a rough navvy or
+collier—no doubt attracted by the theatrical bills already out—came
+stumping down the middle gangway and ultimately dropped into a seat. He
+remained quiet for a good time; and then—his patience fairly giving
+out—he rose up and spoke. “Look ‘ere,” he said, “I’ve been sittin’ ‘ere
+’alf an hour—and I haven’t understood a _word_ of what you’ve been
+saying, _and I don’t believe you do neither_.”
+
+I felt for the poor man—I deeply sympathized. He had come in no doubt on
+the expectation of a theatrical treat—got in too without paying at the
+door, which was _nuts_, as they say—and now—what had he come to?
+
+There was a scene. Everybody jumped round on their seats. The local
+Secretary—a tiny little man, a Frenchman, a dentist—approached the bold
+stranger.
+
+“You must sit down,” he said.
+
+“_Shan’t_ sit down!”
+
+“Den you must go out of de room.”
+
+“_Shan’t_ go out of the room.”
+
+“Den I shall have to _make_ you.”
+
+The situation was too ludicrous—this tiny Gallic David and this huge and
+beery Goliath! What might have happened we know not. Fortunately the
+stranger took the better part, and said—
+
+“I’m sure I don’t want to stay ’ere any longer”—and left us with
+contempt to our Astronomy.
+
+In the Spring term, January to April, 1877, I lodged at York—again an
+improvement in climate. The lectures there were largely supported by
+Unitarian, Quaker, and other dissenting groups flourishing in the very
+shadow of the Cathedral. There were the Spences, the Smithsons, the
+Wilkinsons, and the excellent ‘Mount’ school (‘Friends’) managed by Miss
+Rous—whose girls were good pupils and great chums of mine.
+
+
+In the end of April that year I went out to America. This was the
+accomplishment of a long-slumbering intention. Ever since, in my rooms
+at Cambridge, I had read that little blue book of Whitman, his writings
+had been my companions, and had been working a revolution within me—at
+first an intellectual revolution merely—but by degrees the wonderful
+personality behind them, glowing through here and there, became more and
+more real and living, and suffusing itself throughout rendered them
+transparent to my understanding.
+
+I began in fact to realize that, above all else, I had come in contact
+with a great Man; not great thoughts, theories, views of life, but a
+great Individuality, a great Life. I began to see and realize
+correspondingly that ‘views’ and intellectual furniture generally were
+not the important thing I had before imagined; that character and the
+statement of Self, persistently, under diverse conditions were
+all-important; that the body in Man (and this the Greek statuary had
+helped me to realize), and the quality corresponding to body in all art
+and behaviour, was radiant in meaning and beautiful beyond words; and
+that the production of splendid men and women was the aim and only true
+aim of State-policy. By day and night the presence of this Friend,
+exhaled from his own book, had been with me—thus working, transforming,
+drawing me wonderfully to seek him. America too, the United States,
+began of necessity to compel my interest, and to form an additional
+attraction across the Atlantic. I wrote to Whitman more than once, and
+in 1876 obtained from him the complete (Centennial) Edition of his works
+published in that year. Indeed I made every preparation to go out to the
+States that summer, but circumstances rendered the voyage impossible.
+
+This year, however, 1877, gave me the long-desired opportunity. I have
+recorded in another place[7] the main outlines of my visit to Whitman on
+this occasion, so on that subject I need not say anything further here,
+except that Whitman as a concrete personality entirely filled out and
+corroborated the conception of him which one had derived from reading
+_Leaves of Grass_. The Rev. W. H. Channing, who was then acting as
+Unitarian Minister at Leeds, insisted on giving me letters of
+introduction to various friends of his on that side—Emerson, O. W.
+Holmes, Russell Lowell, Charles Norton of Harvard and others—of which I
+made use. Emerson was very charming and friendly. I stayed one night at
+his house and dined with him and his wife and his daughter Ellen. His
+failure of memory for names was considerable, and at times painful, and
+there was the fixed look of age often in his eye; but otherwise he was
+active in body and full of fun and enjoyment of intellectual life. His
+eyes greyish-blue, the corners of his lips often drawn upward—altogether
+a wonderful bird-like look about his face, enhanced by his way of
+jerking his head forward—the look sometimes very straight and intense,
+then followed by a charming placid smile like moonlight on the sea. His
+domestic life seemed admirable. I took a turn in the garden with him in
+the afternoon and a drive afterwards—saw the ‘Minute Man’ and the ‘old
+Manse’ where his grandfather lived. Then in his library he talked much
+about books and authors—handling his books in a caressing loving way—and
+showed me his Upanishad translations, and his verses “If the red slayer
+thinks he slays,” etc. He expressed his admiration for Carlyle and
+Tennyson; his want of the same for Matthew Arnold; and his plain
+contempt of Lewes’ Life of Goethe. His conversation generally seemed
+very _literary_ in character and I could not get him to express any
+views or ideas about America’s place and progress. When I spoke of Walt
+Whitman he made an odd whinnying sound: “Well, I thought he had some
+merit at one time: there was a good deal of promise in the first
+edition—_burt_ he is a wayward fanciful man. I saw him in New York and
+asked him to dine at my Hotel. He shouted for a ‘tin mug’ for his beer.
+Then he had a _noisy_ fire engine society. And he took me there and was
+like a boy over it, as if there had never been such a thing before.”
+Emerson also took exception to Whitman’s metre.
+
+O. W. Holmes did not please me so well—a good-natured little spiteful
+creature, one might say, with shovel underlip and bright grey-blue eyes
+under a low brow, a dapper active man of seventy—his vanity qualified by
+geniality and humour. No ideas whatever about America. “As to Whitman,
+well, Lord Napier said _He_ was the one thing that interested him in the
+States. And then Lord Houghton at dinner one day came plump out in his
+favour—but Willie Everett made such a fierce attack in reply that
+conversation was silenced.” And he knew that Rossetti and others in
+England thought much of him; but he could only say that in America he
+was not known. Then he told the story about him and Lowell and
+Longfellow sitting in judgment on Walt Whitman![8]
+
+One of the men who interested me most in Boston neighborhood was
+Professor Benjamin Pierce—Astronomical Professor at Harvard—a fine
+capable man. We had a long talk on Astronomy, very helpful, and he gave
+me a fine set of drawings published by the Observatory.
+
+One day at New York I met Bryant the poet. It was at his editorial
+office. Though eighty-four years old he was walking down there daily and
+getting through much work. He was infirm and aged-looking of course, but
+still wonderfully active; forehead narrowing above, and high like a sort
+of promontory, straight brow, and eyes sunken but opening out on you
+occasionally, straight nose inclining to a hook, and high bridge, white
+hair like a thin fall of spray over neck, ears and mouth. A very
+literary person—and manners extremely undemonstrative, even
+unsympathetic.
+
+But it was Whitman I came out to see, and he in interest and grandeur of
+personality out-towered them all.
+
+The other thing that fascinated me in America was Niagara. I stayed
+there four days all alone, looking at the Falls all the time, _feeling_
+their earth-shaking roar under my feet by day and in bed at night, and
+watching that strange calm sentinel, that column of white spray which,
+like a great spirit, exhales itself into the immense height of the sky
+over the roaring gulf, and which, rainbow-tinted in the sun, or
+glistening mysterious in the moon by night, seems to overlook the land
+for far and wide around. It was the only thing I saw which seemed quite
+to match Whitman in spirit.
+
+For the rest the broad, free life—Washington, New York, Philadelphia,
+Boston, Albany, and the rivers and steamboats—the rough freedom and ease
+and independence—rougher and better a good deal than exists now—the
+hearty welcomes and general friendliness were pleasant and inspiring.
+
+On my way down the Hudson I stopped at Esopus and stayed with John
+Burroughs a night or two. We took a long walk in the primitive woods
+back of his house, while he talked of Whitman and bird-lore—a tough
+reserved farmer-like exterior, some old root out of the woods one might
+say—obdurate to wind and weather—but a keen quick observer close to
+Nature and the human heart, and worth a good many Holmes and Lowells.
+
+I was alone all this time, and felt lonely, among all these people; but
+as it was the same in England there was nothing remarkable about it! I
+returned in July to my life of lodgings and lectures; and in September
+was put on another lecturing round—to Sheffield, Chesterfield, and part
+of the time York and Barnsley.
+
+
+This itinerant life in lodgings was a little dull and unfruitful it must
+be confessed; the only relief from the importunities of
+lodging-landladies being the futile hospitalities of commercial
+villa-dom. Both experiences however had their comic side. At Nottingham
+my landlady—a widow of course—used to aggravate me much, when I first
+came downstairs of a morning, by jumping out upon me from a side-door
+with “What’ll you have for dinner to-day?” This query, unannounced by
+any morning greeting or salutation, and flung at me _every day_ even
+before I had had breakfast, was a complete poser. If I suggested
+anything, the suggestion was met by insuperable difficulties. _She_ made
+no suggestions. And there we used to stand staring at each other in a
+kind of dismay which at that early hour in the morning was sadly
+demoralizing! On one occasion I wanted a box made—for some of my
+books—and I asked this foolish widow to recommend me a joiner for the
+purpose. She mentioned some man’s name; and I, to make sure, queried:
+“Is he a good workman? would he make a strong and serviceable article?”
+“He made my husband’s coffin, Sir,” she replied with an air of triumph!
+And once more I was completely silenced—for I really could not ask
+whether it had lasted well or otherwise.
+
+My first experiences of lodging in Sheffield were about equally bad. I
+took a lodging at the top end of Glossop Road. It was a good part of the
+town; but the weather was awful. For three successive days it rained
+blacks mingled with water! The sky was dark. Lamps had to be lighted
+indoors. Then my lodging-place people were most doleful—three timid
+little old maids, like bunnie-rabbits. No. 1, the youngest and most
+presentable, waited on me; No. 3 I never saw, she lived in the kitchen
+below; No. 2 haunted in the passage or on the stairs half-way between.
+No. 1 would come in and ask me what I would have for dinner. “Chop and
+potatoes,” I would say. Then she would put her head out of the door and
+say to the one in the passage “The gentleman says he will have chop and
+potatoes.” Then I could hear the one in the passage say to No. 3 in the
+kitchen “The gentleman says he will have chop and potatoes.” Then a sort
+of echo came up from below in a deep tone “Chop and potatoes.” Then No.
+1 would begin again with the second course. “Rice pudding.” “The
+gentleman says he will have rice pudding.” And so it went on, also for
+three days, everything that I said was circulated round the house and
+echoed back again from below! It was too much. If this was Sheffield I
+could stand it no longer—and I fled away and took rooms at
+Chesterfield—dullest alas! of earthly places, but with a rather better
+climate.
+
+Perhaps I rather liked the quietude of Chesterfield—where it was hardly
+necessary to know anybody. There were good country walks out towards the
+moors, and once or twice I got as far as Barlow, half-way to
+Millthorpe—of which place, needless to say, I had then never heard. I
+penetrated, during my stay in Chesterfield, into the cottage of a
+plasterer, a dear old man, S. Ashmore, and became familiar in his
+household—the only permanent alliance I made in Chesterfield.
+
+The next winter—1878–9—I really did manage to settle in Sheffield, in
+Holland Terrace, Highfields—three old maids again for landladies!—but
+rather better conditions generally. I lectured at Nottingham and Hull
+and Chesterfield, so had a good deal of traveling, and added a new
+course of lectures—“Pioneers of Science”—which was popular on account of
+its more discursive character: a brief history of scientific progress
+illustrated by biographies of the great men. The courses on “Sound” and
+“Light” went on as well; also that on “Astronomy”—which last was a
+popular subject in Sheffield. _Omne ignotum pro magnifico._ The evening
+students were very enthusiastic. Many of them bought telescopes, and we
+had outdoor meetings at night, with all sorts of optical gear, for the
+purpose of observing the heavenly bodies. One elderly enthusiast was
+quite sure he had discovered a comet, and was not satisfied till he had
+written to Greenwich Observatory, and even then (seeing that they could
+not find it) he was not satisfied. The Sheffield students too formed a
+Students’ Association, and discussed subjects among themselves,
+organized excursions, and hunted up fresh pupils—all very good. From the
+first I was taken with the Sheffield people. Rough in the extreme,
+twenty or thirty years in date behind other towns, and very uneducated,
+there was yet a heartiness about them, not without shrewdness, which
+attracted me. I felt more inclined to take root here than in any of the
+Northern towns where I had been.
+
+But during all this lecturing period my health had been bad, and getting
+worse instead of better; and now I was approaching a crisis in regard to
+it. The state of my nerves was awful; they were really in a quite
+shattered condition. My eyes, which even in Cambridge days had been
+weak, kept getting worse. There was no disease or defect—I had been to
+three first-rate oculists and they all agreed about that. It was simply
+extreme sensitiveness—probably the optic nerve itself. A strong light
+from a lamp or candle was quite painful. I could hardly read more than
+an hour a day—certainly not two hours. It caused a pain in the nerve,
+which seemed to mount to and disorganize the brain. I was conscious that
+the refusal of my eyes to read was in all probability a kindly
+indication that I would be much better without reading—but this would
+mean giving up the lectures—so here I was again!
+
+As long as the lectures went on I was in perpetual suffering with my
+eyes, and anxiety—sometimes being really unable to prepare the work
+before me. Then on this came the strain of lecturing—traveling to a
+place with a great box of apparatus, arriving there three or four hours
+before the time of the meeting, getting all one’s apparatus and
+experiments ready (in some wretched schoolroom with _no_ assistance),
+having often in those days to make my oxygen gas myself for the lantern;
+to rush out when all was ready for a cup of tea, to return in time to
+take an hour’s preliminary _class_, and then to give the lecture; all
+this was terribly exhausting. But it by no means ended there. After the
+lecture some local manufacturer and patron would carry one off to his
+residence for the night, there to meet a few friends at supper, and to
+talk and be talked to till the small hours of the morning. When one got
+to bed—a vibrating mass of nerves—sleep was out of the question. There
+were all the pupils and their faces, and their needs and their
+personalities; there were the tiresome patrons and committee people, in
+endless dance on my brain. Often and often I never slept a wink—only to
+get up the next day and go through a similar round. Often and often when
+I got back to my lodgings I had to lie on my back on the sofa for
+hours—not even then to sleep—but simply to rest and soothe the
+nerve-pain throughout my body. I felt my life was becoming wrecked and I
+remember at last swearing a great oath to myself that somehow or other I
+would get out of it and find my health again.
+
+And behind it all there was that other need—which I have already
+mentioned more than once—that of my affectional nature, that hunger
+which had indeed hunted me down since I was a child. I can hardly bear
+even now to think of my early life, and of the idiotic social reserve
+and Britannic pretence which prevailed over all that period, and still
+indeed to a large extent prevails—especially among the so-called
+well-to-do classes of this country—the denial and systematic ignoring of
+the obvious facts of the heart and of sex, and the consequent desolation
+and nerve-ruin of thousands and thousands of women, and even of a
+considerable number of men. I came home in the summer to Brighton to
+find my sisters, for the most part unmarried, wearing out their lives
+and their affectional capacities with nothing to do, and nothing to care
+for: a little music, a little painting, a walk up and down the
+Promenade; but the primal needs of life unspoken and unallowed;
+suffering (as one can now see all this commercial age has been doomed to
+suffer) from a state of society which has set up gold and gain in the
+high place of the human heart, and to make more room for these has
+disowned and dishonoured love. It is curious—and interesting in its
+queer way—to think that almost the central figure of the drawing-room in
+that later Victorian age (and one may see it illustrated in the pages of
+_Punch_ of that period) was a young or middle-aged woman lying supine on
+a couch—while round her, amiably conveying or consuming tea and coffee,
+stood a group of quasi-artistic or intellectual men. The conversation
+ranged, of course, over artistic and literary topics, and the lady did
+her best to rise to it; but the effort probably did her no good. For the
+real trouble lay far away. It was of the nature of _hysteria_—and its
+meaning is best understood by considering the derivation of that word. I
+had two sisters—who each of them for some twenty years led that supine,
+and one may say tragic, life; so I had good occasion—beside what may
+have lain within my own experience—to understand it pretty thoroughly.
+Certainly the disparity of the sexes and the absolute non-recognition of
+sexual needs—non-recognition either in life or in thought—weighed
+terribly hard upon the women of that period.[9]
+
+Another cause, increasing the hardship of disparity, was the growing
+disinclination of men (of the upper classes) to get married. Partly this
+arose, no doubt, from their growing realization of the perils and
+complications of matrimony; but partly also it arose from an increase in
+the number of men of what may be called an intermediate type, whose
+temperament did not lead them very decisively in the direction of
+marriage—or even led them away from it; men who did not feel the romance
+in that direction which alone can make marriage attractive, and perhaps
+justifiable. There have of course been, in all ages, thousands and
+thousands of women who have not felt that particular sort of romance and
+attraction towards men, but only to their own kind; and in all ages
+there have been thousands and thousands of men similarly constituted in
+the reverse way; but they have been, by the majority, little understood
+and recognized. Now however it is coming to be seen that they also—both
+classes—have their part to play in the world.
+
+For my part I have always had excellent and enduring alliances among
+women, and life would indeed be sadly wanting and impoverished without
+their friendship and society; but since the days when I sat a boy of
+nine or ten under the table, apparently playing with my marbles, while
+my elder sisters and their girl friends were talking freely and
+unconsciously with each other about some ball of the night before, and
+their partners in the dances, and their conversations—the workings of
+the feminine mind and nature have always been perfectly open and clear
+to me. By a sort of intuition (partly no doubt inborn) I never had any
+difficulty in following these workings. They enshrined no mystery for
+me. This fact has always caused me to find women’s society interesting;
+but naturally it did not conduce to headlong adorations and marriage!
+The romance of my life went elsewhere.
+
+Whether such a state of affairs may be desirable or undesirable, whether
+it may indicate a high moral nature or a low moral nature, and so forth,
+are questions which (in a land where _everything_ is either moral or
+immoral) are sure to be asked. But in a sense they are quite beside the
+mark. They do not alter the fact; and that has always been the same
+since my earliest days.[10] But it will be evident enough—to any one who
+takes the trouble to think what these things mean—that to a person of my
+emotional nature the conditions which brought about—to a comparatively
+late age—the absence of marriage, or its equivalent, were a fruitful
+source of trouble and nervous prostration. I realized in my own person
+some of the sufferings which are endured by an immense number of modern
+women, especially of the well-to-do classes, as well as by that large
+class of men of whom I have just spoken, and to whom the name of
+Uranians is often given.
+
+Certainly my isolation was in a sense my own fault—due partly to reserve
+and partly to ignorance. When at a later time I broke through this
+double veil, I soon discovered that others of like temperament to myself
+were abundant in all directions, and to be found in every class of
+society; and I need not say that from that time forward life was changed
+for me. I found sympathy, understanding, love, in a hundred unexpected
+forms, and my world of the heart became as rich in that which it needed
+as before it had seemed fruitless and barren.
+
+The Uranian temperament in Man closely resembles the normal temperament
+of Women in this respect, that in both Love—in some form or other—is the
+main object of life. In the normal Man, ambition, moneymaking, business,
+adventure, etc., play their part—love is as a rule a secondary matter.
+The majority of men (for whom the physical side of sex, if needed, is
+easily accessible) do not for a moment realize the griefs endured by
+thousands of girls and women—in the drying up of the well-springs of
+affection as well as in the crucifixion of their physical needs. But as
+these sufferings of women, of one kind or another, have been the great
+inspiring cause and impetus of the Women’s Movement—a movement which is
+already having a great influence in the reorganization of society; so I
+do not practically doubt that the similar sufferings of the Uranian
+class of men are destined in their turn to lead to another wide-reaching
+social organization and forward movement in the direction of Art and
+Human Compassion.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+                    BRADWAY AND _TOWARDS DEMOCRACY_
+
+
+Everything, one sometimes thinks, has its Compensation. The soul of man
+is so vast, so endless, that no matter on what side or sides it be
+hemmed in or thwarted, it will find its outlet in some fresh
+direction—all the more powerfully perhaps for its temporary and local
+obstruction. This is true of bodies of people, and it is true also of
+individuals.
+
+The sufferings of these years, the emotional distress and tension which
+I had experienced, poured themselves out in poetical effusions,
+outbursts, ejaculations—I know not what to call them. Sometimes lying
+full length in the train coming home at midnight from some lecture
+engagement, hardly able to move; sometimes in the morning with a sense
+of restoration, flying over the fields in the sunlight; sometimes in my
+little lodging; sometimes on a long country walk—I wrote just what the
+necessity of my feelings compelled—formless scraps, cries, prophetic
+assurances—in no available metre, or shape, just as they came. In no
+shape that they could be given to the world; but they were a relief to
+me, and a consolation.
+
+Afterwards, when I found as it were the keynote which harmonized these
+disjointed utterances, I made use of them; and they were mostly embodied
+and embedded and adapted into the structure of _Towards Democracy_.
+
+I say my nerves had come to such a pass of dislocation, that I was
+nearly breaking down; and I had sworn a great oath to myself to mend
+matters somehow. The year 1879 was in many ways the dim dawn or
+beginning of a new life to me.
+
+Early in that year I made my first valid essays in the direction of a
+reform in diet. I may have tentatively experimented in vegetarianism
+before that, but ineffectually and in ignorance. Once I remember boldly
+dining off nothing but a vegetable marrow. Of course, disastrous defeat
+and dismay immediately followed! Practically I had always lived along
+the usual régime, of plentiful meat, washed down with beer or wine; and
+probably the sick headaches and nervous tension of my early years were
+to a considerable extent due to this excess of stimulation. Now, the
+vegetarian ideal, for many reasons, began to commend itself to me; and
+though I did not abandon meat at once, I gradually pushed along this
+line—slowly as my way is, but steadily—so that after four or five years,
+that is, by ’83 or ’84, I practically was able to dispense with meat
+(and alcoholics) altogether—and did so dispense, often for months at a
+time.
+
+A word here about my vegetarian practice generally. I find now [1899]
+that though I have lived, as said, for months at a time without meat or
+fish of _any kind_, and have enjoyed in so doing infinitely better
+health than ever before—and though I feel as if I could continue in this
+diet indefinitely and much prefer it—I have yet never made any absolute
+rule against flesh-eating, and have as a matter of fact eaten a very
+little every now and then—just, as it were, to see how it tasted, or to
+avoid giving trouble in Philistine households, and so forth. Having a
+strong (perhaps a too strong) objection to _principles_ generally, I
+have disliked the idea of making any absolute rule in the matter.
+Briefly I find the vegetarian diet—fruit and grains and vegetables,
+nuts, eggs, and milk—pleasant, clean, healthful in every way, and
+grateful to one’s sense of decency and humanity. It is a real pleasure
+to live among those who adopt it. But having spent my time for the most
+part embedded among folk who favour meat, I have not always kept to my
+own choice, but have given in at times to a supposed convenience or
+necessity. Perhaps I should have done better, for myself and others, if
+I had been more resolute, but such are the facts.
+
+In the year 1879 also the absolute necessity for a more open-air life
+began to make itself felt. I had always lived in towns, and though fond
+of the country I looked on the town as my natural home. Now I began to
+long for a country home. I took long walks round Sheffield, and bitterly
+regretted having to come _back_ in the evening, instead of staying
+permanently outside. I began to revolve how a change might be possible.
+Manual work, too, in contradistinction to the mere ‘exercise’ (riding or
+cricket or athletics) which takes the place of work among the well-to-do
+classes, began to have a fascination for me. I think it was in this
+summer [1879] that being at Brighton, I worked for a couple of months in
+a joiner’s shop, regularly, from 6.30 to 8.30 every morning; I used to
+make panel doors, and got a good experience, so far, of the trade.
+
+Also as I continued to make Sheffield the headquarters of my lectures, I
+was taking definite root there, and reaching down partly through my
+classes, partly through explorations of my own, into the actual society
+of the manual workers; and beginning to knit up alliances more
+satisfactory to me than any I had before known. Railway men, porters,
+clerks, signalmen, ironworkers, coach-builders, Sheffield cutlers, and
+others came within my ken, and from the first I got on excellently and
+felt fully at home with them—and I believe, in most cases, they with me.
+I felt I had come into, or at least in sight of, the world to which I
+belonged, and to my natural _habitat_.
+
+It was about this time that I made the acquaintance of a man who for
+some years after was a good deal associated with me—Albert Fearnehough.
+He came up one evening after a lecture, and gave me his name (I remember
+thinking how strange it was) and address; and asked me if I would come
+and see him some time. Later, meeting me in the street, he renewed the
+request, telling me that his friend who came with him to the lectures
+was a young farmer who was well up in ‘book-learning’ (which he himself
+was not)—that they both lived in the country, he in a cottage on the
+farm of which Fox, his friend, was owner; and that they would both
+gladly entertain me any time that I cared for a country walk. Here was
+exactly my opportunity. I accepted the invitation, and not long
+afterwards went to visit the two friends at the little hamlet of
+Bradway, four or five miles from Sheffield, on the charming outskirts of
+Beauchief Abbey.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  ALBERT FEARNEHOUGH AND “BRUNO.”
+]
+
+Fearnehough was a scythe-maker, a riveter, a muscular, powerful man of
+about my age, quite ‘uneducated’ in the ordinary sense (since indeed at
+the age of nine he had pushed a handcart about the streets of Sheffield)
+but well-grown and finely built, with a good practical capacity though
+slow brain, and something of the latent fire and indomitableness of the
+iron-worker—a man whose ideal was the rude life of the backwoods, and
+who hated the shams of commercialism. Indeed he was always getting into
+coils with his employers because he would not scamp and hurry over his
+work, as occasion demanded; and with his workmates because he would not
+countenance their doing so. In many ways he was delightful to me, as the
+one ‘powerful uneducated’ and natural person I had as yet, in all my
+life, met with. Moreover there was a touch of pathos in his inarticulate
+ways and in his own sense of inability to compete with the cheapjack
+commercialism of the day. He lived in a tiny little cottage, on Fox’s
+farm as I have said, with his wife, a good patient worker, and two
+children. And many a Saturday or Sunday afternoon I came up there and
+had tea with them, or roamed about the fields.
+
+Charles Fox was a very singular character—a bachelor, with a good brain,
+curiously fond of mathematics in his boyhood, quite an original thinker
+in his way—yet to look at, a mere clodhopping farmer with inexpressive
+face, humped shoulders, and beetle-like gait. He was not ill-looking,
+but decidedly quaint, with his florid, shaven face, and only the sharp
+gleam of his eye to show you his shrewdness. Most of the country-folk
+thought him a little touched in the head, for his odd Socratic humour;
+and never fathomed in the least his real ability. He lived on the farm
+left him by his father, with an unmarried cousin of his, Miss Fox, for
+housekeeper, and with _her_ son Teddie for his farm-lad and helper; and
+with a brother, Owen, who certainly _was_ weak in the head and feeble,
+and of no practical use in the establishment. Between Teddie and his
+uncle quite an affection existed; but of the household, and especially
+of Charles Fox I have given some account in a separate paper, under the
+title of _Martin Turner_[11]; and what I have there said I need not
+repeat.
+
+My acquaintance with these two men had its inevitable effect on me. I
+saw at last my way of escape out of that dingy wilderness, that _selva
+oscura_, in which I had wandered lost, from childhood even down to the
+very middle of life’s journey. They represented at any rate for me a
+deliverance from the idiotic fatuous life I had been submerged in all my
+boyhood at Brighton, and more or less ever since. They represented, if
+nothing more, a life close to Nature and actual materials, shrewd,
+strong, manly, independent, not the least polite or proper, thoroughly
+human and kindly, and spent for the most part in the fields and under
+the open sky.
+
+My visits to little Bradway and the farm became more and more frequent.
+I was accepted cordially by both households. I joined in the farm work,
+and spent long evenings with the boy and his uncle in the cowhouse or
+with the two families round their kitchen fire—quaint scenes of fun and
+merriment which are graven on my mind, but which it would take too long
+to recount here. I soon formed a plan of coming to live if possible with
+these good people, and carrying on my lectures even from this distance
+out in the country.
+
+It took a little time to arrange anything, but after some months it was
+agreed that Fearnehough should move into another cottage a little
+distance off (since the one he occupied was so small) and that I should
+lodge with him for a time. Accordingly (in May 1880) he migrated with
+his family to the neighboring parish of Totley, and I joined them there;
+but in March of the following year, the adjacent cottage to the old one
+on Fox’s land having become vacant, and Fox having thrown the two into
+one, we returned to Bradway and resumed our old relations on the farm.
+
+I had managed to carry on my lectures from Totley—indeed I had added a
+new course, on the “History of Music,” and one that interested me much,
+to my former ones; but it was certainly inconvenient, carrying on the
+work from such a distance in the country; and new interests and forces
+were growing within me.
+
+The life, especially since our return to Bradway, was so different from
+anything to which I had before been accustomed, it was so congenial in
+many respects, so native, so unrestrained, it seemed to liberate the
+pent-up emotionality of years. All the feelings which had sought, in
+suffering and in distress, their stifled expression within me during the
+last seven or eight years, gathered themselves together to a new and
+more joyous utterance. My physical health was every day becoming better.
+There was a new beauty over the world. Everywhere I paused, in the lanes
+or the fields, or on my way to or from the station, to catch some magic
+sound, some intimation of a perpetual freedom and gladness such as earth
+and its inhabitants (it seemed to me) had hardly yet dreamed of. I
+remember that, all that time, I was haunted by an image, a vision within
+me, of something like the bulb and bud, with short green blades, of a
+huge hyacinth just appearing above the ground. I knew that it
+represented vigour and abounding life. But now I seem to see that, in
+the strange emblematic way in which the soul sometimes speaks, this
+image may have been a sign of the fact that my life had really at last
+taken root, and was beginning rapidly to grow.
+
+Another thing happened about this time. On the 25th January 1881 my
+mother died. Her death affected me profoundly. Though there had been (as
+I have explained elsewhere) so little in the way of spoken confidences
+between us, we were united by a strong invisible tie. For months, even
+years, after her death, I seemed to feel her, even see her, close to
+me—always figuring as a semi-luminous presence, very real, but faint in
+outline, larger than mortal. It was an inexpressibly tender and
+consoling relation. Gradually, in the course of years, the presence, or
+the sense of it, faded away, becoming less and less objective, into the
+background of my mind, where it remains now, more as it were an actual
+part of myself than it was then.
+
+Her death at this moment exercised perhaps a great etherealizing
+influence on my mind, exhaling the great mass of feelings, intuitions,
+conceptions, and views of life and the world which had formed within
+me, into another sphere. The _Bhagavat Gita_ about the same time
+falling into my hands gave me a keynote. And all at once I found
+myself in touch with a mood of exaltation and inspiration—a kind of
+super-consciousness—which passed all that I had experienced before,
+and which immediately harmonized all these other feelings, giving to
+them their place, their meaning and their outlet in expression.
+
+And so it was that _Towards Democracy_ came to birth. I was in fact
+completely taken captive by this new growth within me, and could hardly
+finish my course of lectures for the preoccupation. Already I was
+speculating how I could cut myself free. No sooner were the lectures
+over (about the end of April 1881) than I began writing _Towards
+Democracy_. It seemed all ready there. I never hesitated for a moment.
+Day by day it came along from point to point. I did not hurry: I
+expressed everything with slow care and to my best; I utilized former
+material which I had by me; but the one illuminating mood remained and
+everything fell into place under it; and rarely did I find it necessary
+to remodel, or rearrange to any great extent, anything that I had once
+written.
+
+I soon saw that the whole utterance would take a long time. I decided to
+give up my lecturing work so as to be quite unhampered. And I did so.
+What with my savings from Cambridge days, and a small income of fifty or
+sixty pounds a year springing from them, I knew I could live well enough
+for a few years—and so I felt supremely happy. It became necessary also
+to have some place in which to sit many hours a day writing—and so I
+knocked together a kind of wooden sentinel-box, placed it in a quiet
+corner of the garden, overlooking far fields, and thither resorted all
+through the summer, and into the autumn, and far away through the
+winter.
+
+What sweet times were those! all the summer to the hum of the bees in
+the leafage, the robins and chaffinches hopping around, an occasional
+large bird flying by, the men away at work in the fields, the consuming
+pressure of the work within me, the wonderment how it would turn out;
+the days there in the rain, or in the snow; nights sometimes, with
+moonlight or a little lamp to write by; far far away from anything
+polite or respectable, or any sign or symbol of my hated old life. Then
+the afternoons at work with my friends in the fields, hoeing and
+singling turnips or getting potatoes, or down in Sheffield on into the
+evenings with new companions among new modes of life and work—everything
+turning and shaping itself into material for my poem. There was a sense
+to me of inevitableness in it all, and of being borne along, which gave
+me good courage, notwithstanding occasional natural doubts; and a sense
+too of unspeakable relief and deliverance, after all those long years of
+gestation, as of a woman with her child.
+
+In about a year, that is, by early in 1882, _Towards Democracy_—that is
+the long first poem which bears that name—was completed except for some
+technical revisions. The child, conceived and carried in pain and
+anguish, was at last brought into the world.
+
+Some further details with regard to the genesis of _Towards Democracy_
+were given in a short paper in the _Labour Prophet_ for May 1894, and
+are now reprinted as a Note to the editions of _Towards Democracy_; and
+the history of its publication is given in Chapter XI below.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  E. C. (1887), AGE 43.
+]
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+                    MANUAL WORK AND MARKET-GARDENING
+
+
+In April 1882 my father died; and I was at once whirled out of my land
+of dreams into a very different sphere. It became necessary for me to
+return home, to Brighton, and handle, as executor, a considerable
+estate—divisible among ten children. The investments were chiefly in
+American securities—and they gave a lot of trouble! I stayed at Brighton
+four or five months, dealing with solicitors, brokers, officials,
+relatives—selling, negotiating, dividing, transferring without end—doing
+the work of a lawyer’s clerk in fact. Indeed our solicitor remarked one
+day, perhaps rather plaintively, that it was lucky I had had the time to
+spare, as it had saved the family no doubt some hundreds of pounds! Of
+course the work was not really finished for three or four years, but the
+thick of it was got through that summer, and after that I returned to my
+beloved Bradway.
+
+My forced stay at Brighton brought out into strong relief the contrast
+between the old life and the new. I felt more than ever the futility and
+irksomeness of the old order. I missed my companions of the North, I
+grieved more than ever over the wasted lives around me in the South—but
+it was with a new sense, the knowledge that there was something better.
+I employed my spare time in writing shorter pieces in the style of
+_Towards Democracy_ and revising what I had already written, using my
+new surroundings again as a point of view under the great light of my
+main inspiration. My unmarried sisters remained on for a few years at
+Brighton after my father’s death, keeping the house together much as of
+old. Then they removed to London, and at last (in 1886) the old house
+and furniture were sold and its doors closed on the family who had
+occupied it for forty years.
+
+At the end of the summer of which I am speaking—about September 1882—I
+returned to my home at Bradway. My father’s death had left me (more or
+less prospectively) possessor of about £6,000—which with my little
+savings of earlier years, seemed quite a large fortune—too large
+indeed—it rather weighed on my mind![12] My lectures were over and done
+with; some years of literary work were before me, but obviously not of a
+paying sort, either in the way of wages or fame. The question was What
+should I do?
+
+I might have simply settled down into an armchair literary life. I
+really don’t know exactly why I didn’t. But the fancy for manual work
+had seized me, and for some reason or other, nothing but a life of that
+kind would satisfy me—only it must be in the open air. No sooner had my
+father died than I made up my mind to buy a piece of land and work on it
+as a market-gardener.
+
+No doubt it was a healthy instinct. The motive was in the main a purely
+personal one. I felt (and rightly) the need of physical work, of
+open-air life and labour—something primitive to restore my overworn
+constitution. I felt the need directly and instinctively, not as a thing
+argued out and intellectually concluded. I have sometimes been credited
+with making this move onto the land in pursuance of some great theory or
+scheme of social salvation! But it was not so. There was no idea of this
+kind in it, or if there was, it was of a very secondary character. My
+thought was my own need. But I may have had some feeling that a life of
+this kind was more honest than the alternative, and I think also that I
+felt it would bring me more decisively into touch with the great body of
+the people (a strong motive at the time)—and so far I believe these two
+motives had some secondary play.
+
+At any rate I never felt much doubt about the move. I persuaded
+Fearnehough, after a little time, to join me if I should settle
+anywhere; and then I set looking out for a bit of land. But that was not
+easy to find. At intervals for many months I scoured the country in the
+neighborhood of Sheffield, but could find nothing there except the small
+holding at Millthorpe, which though good land and in a lovely situation,
+with water, etc., seemed too far from town to be available for market
+purposes. Then I went down into Worcestershire; but in truth the
+difficulty of finding a small freehold anywhere in England—especially
+with good soil and near a market—is great; and being no more successful
+in Worcestershire I returned to Sheffield. Ultimately and being (as
+usual in such things) more compelled by necessity than of my own choice,
+I fell back on the seven acres at Millthorpe which I now occupy. Of
+course I could not help rejoicing in the lovely necessity of living in
+such a place—the charming brook running at the foot of my three fields,
+the beautiful wooded valley, and the close proximity, a mile or so off,
+of the open moors. But I had some misgiving, not only about the market
+side of the question, but about living so completely gulfed in the
+country—eight or nine miles from a town centre—for I had never tried
+anything of the kind before.
+
+I spent the winter of ’82 and ’83 mostly at Bradway, continuing my
+writing and other life there, in the intervals of the search for land.
+About Easter ’83 I came to terms for the purchase of the three fields at
+Millthorpe, and soon after that I set to house-building. The house was
+finished by the end of the summer, and in October ’83 the Fearnehoughs
+and I moved in. About the same time I published through John Heywood of
+Manchester, my first poem _Towards Democracy_.
+
+It was a small thin volume of 110 pages, meant for the pocket. It was
+sent out to the Press, but excited very little comment, except as the
+ravings of some anonymous author. Yet after a time, faithful to its
+charge, it came back to me, bringing dear and true friends from all
+sorts of unlikely places and distant parts of the world; and has not
+ceased to do so since. Not long after its publication Havelock Ellis
+picked it up on a second-hand bookstall in London, and wrote to me; and
+he again brought me into communication with Olive Schreiner, whose
+_African Farm_ was then beginning to attract attention.
+
+That winter, of ’83–’84, was spent in hard work, getting the house and
+the yard and out-buildings in order, laying out the garden ground,
+digging up the grass-land, planting fruit and other trees, etc. And so
+were the summers and winters following, for four or five years.
+
+That strange œstrum of hard manual work, and digging down to the very
+roots of things, spurred me on. I hardly know how to account for it. It
+possessed me. Every habit, every custom or practice of daily
+life—house-arrangement, diet, dress, medicine, etc., was overhauled and
+rigorously scrutinized. I worked for hours and for whole days together
+out in the open field, or garden, or digging drains with pick and
+shovel, or carting along the roads; going into Chesterfield and loading
+and fetching manure, or to the coalpit for coal, grooming and bedding
+down the horse, or getting off to market at 6 a.m. with vegetables and
+fruit, and standing in the market behind a stall till 1 or 2 p.m.; I was
+not satisfied but I must do everything that was necessary to be done,
+myself.
+
+It was a considerable strain. With my somewhat vague aspiring mind, to
+be imprisoned in the rude details of a most material life was often
+irksome. Yet a consuming passion drove me on—a desire to know, to do
+something real, an evil conscience perhaps of the past unreality of my
+existence. I was compelled to eat it all out.
+
+I carried on, for those first three or four years, the superintendence
+(of course with the help of my friend and his wife) of house and garden,
+with their manifold points of detail. I went on with my writing—adding
+essays on social subjects (“England’s Ideal” and others) to my poems;
+and I started lecturing on similar topics.
+
+It was too much. I remember that period as a time of great strain. I
+felt indeed the isolation of the country—gulfed as I was among a
+perfectly illiterate unprogressive country population (much more so than
+at Bradway), with my friend and his family, who though good and true
+people were also quite limited to material interests. There was no one
+to whom I could talk, who could give me any help. My Sheffield friends
+were far away, only to be seen once a week or so, and (in the early
+years at any rate) visitors at Millthorpe were rare. It was too much,
+and my health suffered a little; and yet (as I have said) I was driven
+to it. It is strange how unaccounted impulses and instincts underlie the
+evolution of one’s life. Certainly during those years I (in some ways
+the most unlikely person to do so) bottomed out the whole of the
+material and mechanical ways of life—from the details of household life
+to the processes of agriculture and of a great number of other trades
+and industries. It was a training such as no university could give. And
+if my health suffered now and then from the strain, _on the whole_ it
+improved immensely during this period; so that after five or six years I
+threw off completely my nerve troubles, and became stronger than I had
+ever been before in my life.
+
+Two other things happened in 1883 besides my migration to Millthorpe,
+and publication of _Towards Democracy_—namely, my first acquaintance
+with the Socialist movement, and my reading of Thoreau’s _Walden_.
+
+
+Of course, in a vague form, my ideas had been taking a socialistic shape
+for many years; but they were lacking in definite outline—that
+definition which is so necessary for all action. That outline as regards
+the industrial situation was given me by reading Hyndman’s _England for
+All_. However open to criticism the Marxian theory of surplus-value may
+be (and _every_ theory must ultimately succumb to criticism), it
+certainly fulfilled a want for the time by giving a definite text for
+the social argument. The instant I read that chapter in _England for
+All_—the mass of floating impressions, sentiments, ideals, etc., in my
+mind fell into shape—and I had a clear line of social reconstruction
+before me.
+
+I gave my first semi-socialistic lecture (though I think this was before
+reading the above book)—on “Co-operative Production”—in that year; and
+later on in the same year I one evening looked in at a committee meeting
+of the Social Democratic Federation in Westminster Bridge Road. It was
+in the basement of one of those big buildings facing the Houses of
+Parliament that I found a group of conspirators sitting. There was
+Hyndman, occupying the chair, and with him round the table, William
+Morris, John Burns, H. H. Champion, J. L. Joynes, Herbert Burrows (I
+think) and others. After that, though I did not actually join the
+S.D.F., I kept in touch with them, and was able at a later time to
+render material help in the establishment of _Justice_ as their organ.
+
+From that time forward I worked definitely along the Socialist line:
+with a drift, as was natural, towards Anarchism. I do not know that at
+any time I looked upon the Socialist programme or doctrines as final,
+and it is certain that I never anticipated a cast-iron regulation of
+industry, but I saw that the current Socialism afforded an excellent
+text for an attack upon the existing competitive system, and a good
+means of rousing the slumbering consciences—especially of the rich; and
+in that view I have worked for it and the Anarchist ideal consistently.
+
+The other thing that happened in 1883 was my reading of Thoreau’s
+_Walden_. Just about the very day that I got into my new house and onto
+my plot of land—the realization of the plotting and scheming of some
+years—that book fell into my hands, which took the bottom completely out
+of my little bucket! Having just committed myself to all the
+exasperations of carrying on a house and market-garden and the petty but
+innumerable bothers of ‘trade,’ the charming ideal of a simplification
+of life below the level of all such things was opened out before me—and
+for the time I felt almost paralyzed.
+
+Whatever the practical value of the Walden experiment may be, there is
+no question that the book is one of the most vital and pithy ever
+written. Its ideal of life spent with Nature on the very ground-plane of
+simplicity (though probably only permanently realizable by a highly
+cultured humanity, having access to all the results of art and science,
+as Thoreau had at Concord) has yet shattered the conventional views of
+thousands of people. It helped, I must confess, to make me uncomfortable
+for some years. I felt that I had aimed at a natural life and completely
+failed—that I might somehow have escaped from this blessed civilization
+altogether—and now I was tied up worse than ever, on its commercial
+side.
+
+What sort of line my life would have taken if Thoreau had come to me a
+year earlier, I cannot tell. It is certain that there would have been a
+considerable difference. Perhaps it is lucky I was not drifted away by
+him and stranded, too far from the currents of ordinary life. At any
+rate I do not regret now that things happened as they did. Instead of
+escaping into solitude and the wilds of nature—which would have
+satisfied one side—but perhaps not the most persistent—of my character,
+I was tied to the traffic of ordinary life, and thrown inevitably into
+touch with all sorts of people.
+
+Early in 1883, as I have said, I gave my first lecture on social
+questions, and from that time forward I spoke on these subjects. In the
+summer of ’84 I went again to the United States, my chief object again
+being to see Whitman—though I had also friends to visit. I crossed the
+Atlantic as a steerage passenger—in a big Inman boat, the _City of
+Berlin_—with seven or eight hundred other steerage passengers. It was a
+great experience. I have described it in my poem “On an Atlantic
+Steamship.” The fact of my venturing it shows the determination with
+which I was working down into a knowledge of the life of the people.
+Besides, I had crossed as a _saloon_ passenger before, and I felt that
+_that_ was intolerable! The experience was not nearly so rude as I had
+expected. We had good weather, which of course is everything, and were
+on deck all day; the nationalities, Swedes, German, Irish, English,
+etc., were kept apart from each other below; I secured a cabin with a
+very decent set of young English fellows, and we got on first-rate. The
+food was quite clean and good. So well satisfied was I that I actually
+_returned_ (from Quebec) in the steerage section!
+
+I spent three or four days in Philadelphia and saw Whitman each day (of
+which I have given an account elsewhere[13]); and then went on to
+Massachusetts. The visit to Whitman did not help me so much as the first
+time. He was very friendly; he gave me introductions to Dr. Bucke in
+Canada, and to W. Sloane Kennedy, and was generally kind; but his
+self-centredness (arising no doubt largely from physical causes) had
+increased, and seemed difficult to overcome.
+
+In Massachusetts I stayed with my friends the Rileys, who had at one
+time been on St. George’s farm (Ruskin’s) near Sheffield. They were now
+on a farm near Townsend Centre, and I remained with them about three
+weeks, joining in the life, doing a bit on the farm with them, and
+seeing something of the neighbours. George Riley, the son, and I were
+chums, and spent some of the time walking together—on one occasion a two
+days ‘out’ to Wachusett, mountain and lake, a charming neighborhood.
+During the time I also visited Sloane Kennedy, at Belmont, and together
+we went to Walden pond, bathed in it, and added a stone to Thoreau’s
+cairn. Thence to Pennsylvania, beyond Pittsburg, to stay with Mrs. Hardy
+and her three daughters—also people I had known in Sheffield—who
+together were ‘running’ a big farm and making it pay well, an excellent
+example of female management. Thence, after a pleasant stay of four or
+five days, across Lake Erie to Toronto and so to London, to see Dr.
+Bucke. Dr. Bucke was acting as head and superintendent of a large Asylum
+for Insane folk—over a thousand patients—which he managed excellently. I
+found him very interesting. We had long talks about Whitman; he showed
+me his Whitman books, pictures, etc., and then after another four or
+five days I got the steamer at Toronto, and went down the St. Lawrence
+to Quebec. The Lake itself, the passages of the thousand islands and of
+the successive rapids, were a great delight. I had only an hour or two
+at Quebec, unfortunately—not time to see much of the town; and then I
+embarked on the _Parisian_ for home. Here again the lower reaches of
+this magnificent river, the coast of Gaspé, and of Labrador, the
+hundreds of icebergs we saw that day, becalmed in a glassy blue sea, and
+in blazing sunlight, were most interesting. We slipped through the
+straits of Belle-Isle and had an enjoyable passage to Liverpool.
+
+
+It was, I think, some little time before the events recorded in the
+first part of this chapter—though I cannot be quite sure about the
+date—that I had the signal experience of meeting with Edward J.
+Trelawny, the devoted friend of Shelley and the companion of Byron. For
+years and years—until indeed the star of Whitman rose in the
+West—Shelley had been my own ideal. To grasp Trelawny’s hand was to gain
+an unexpected link with a far remote past.
+
+Trelawny’s life had been one of extraordinary adventure. To understand
+even a part of it one must read his _Adventures of a Younger Son_
+(largely his own story), and his book _Records of Shelley, Byron, and
+the Author_ (1858 and 1878). Born in 1792 of a well-known Cornish family
+he joined the Navy as a mere boy, and then at an early age _deserted_
+and took up, according to his own account, with a pirate gang among the
+seas of Java and Borneo. After some amazing adventures, he returned in
+about 1813 to Europe; and soon after married an English lady. Of this
+period however, between 1813 and 1820, very little seems to be known,
+except that he himself says: “I became a shackled, careworn and
+spirit-broken married man of the civilized West!” It was in 1820 at
+Lausanne that a German bookseller chanced to show him _Queen Mab_; and a
+little later, at Geneva, that he met Thomas Medwin, Shelley’s cousin.
+The reading of the book and the conversations with Medwin convinced
+Trelawny that here was a man worth knowing; and he did not rest till a
+year or two later he went to Pisa and actually made Shelley’s
+acquaintance (early in 1822). The two were about the same age; and it
+shows something of what manner of man Trelawny was, that he so quickly
+recognized the quality of Shelley; and something of what Shelley was
+that he so soon commanded the admiration of this buccaneer and man of
+adventure. After Shelley’s death Trelawny was with Byron a great deal,
+both as Captain of Byron’s yacht and companion in his expedition to
+Greece; but he never expressed a great regard for Byron—perhaps indeed
+he hardly did the latter justice. Byron died at Missolonghi in 1824; but
+Trelawny stayed on in Greece, joined the Greek cause against the Turks,
+took to wife the sister of Ulysses, or Odysseus, a Greek chieftain,
+lived for some time with him and his guerilla band in a cave on Mount
+Parnassus, and was nearly killed there by a bullet from a spy. These and
+many other things are written in the _Records_ above mentioned.
+
+Later, after his return to England, and somewhere about 1840, Trelawny
+fell in love with a certain Lady Goring, and finally induced her to
+leave her husband and live with him. And it was this, curiously enough,
+which at a later period led to my acquaintance with him. Lady Goring’s
+son, by the old Sir Harry, married a cousin of mine, and when a boy of
+sixteen or seventeen I used occasionally to go and stay with the young
+pair at Highden near Worthing where they lived, and where I was
+initiated in the mysteries of coursing, ferreting, etc., which were very
+much in the order of the day there. Charles Goring, my cousin’s husband,
+was the very type of the “bold bad baronet” of the shilling novels—a
+type fairly common then, though almost extinct now—a rather handsome man
+with fierce twirlable moustache, and thoroughly bearish manners, given
+to swearing and drinking, and devoted to his dogs and guns. Whatever
+induced my cousin—who was the sweetest and gentlest of girls—to marry
+him I do not know. But that is always the way: the mild and forgiving
+women marry the wicked men, and of course make the latter all the
+wickeder by doing so! In course of time he grew a little tired of his
+wife (there were no children) and behaved badly towards her. Then his
+mother died—whom he had not seen since she ran away with Trelawny, some
+twenty-five or more years before; and so, seized with some sort of
+compunction after all this time, Charles Goring went on a pilgrimage to
+his mother’s adopted home; found there Trelawny _and_ his mother’s
+daughter by Trelawny—his own stepsister, by that time a rather beautiful
+girl or young woman.
+
+From all this complications arose, which I need not go into, but which
+ultimately in an indirect way led to a somewhat celebrated affair in the
+Divorce Courts—the Goring Case of the year 1878. Suffice it to say that
+soon after these unfortunate squabbles were over, Charles Goring had the
+grace to die, and my cousin (who had obtained a separation order) was
+left quite free. It was then that I asked her one day to give me an
+introduction to Edward Trelawny, which she willingly did.
+
+I found him at the house which he was then occupying in Pelham Crescent,
+S.W.—No. 7 I think—a quite old man of about eighty-seven or
+eighty-eight, rugged to a degree, with sunken eyes and projecting
+cheek-bones, but with a strange gleam of fire about him even at that
+age—not unlike some semi-extinct volcano—and the appearance of what had
+once been a rather massive and powerful frame. He was sitting in a high
+chair near the fire with a pile of books on the floor beside him. “You
+are interested in Shelley,” he said. And then without waiting for a
+reply: “He was our greatest poet since Shakespeare.” And then: “He
+couldn’t have been the poet he was if he had not been an Atheist.” That
+was a pretty good beginning; he rolled out the “Atheist” with evident
+satisfaction. He went on to express his contempt for the contemporary
+poets, like Tennyson and Browning; then returned to Shelley: “I am not
+sure he wasn’t the greatest man we have ever had: all these others just
+tinker with the surface; Shelley goes down to the roots.” We talked a
+little about individual poems, but I forget what. Then he took up one of
+the books beside him—a Godwin’s _Political Justice_, and read extracts
+from it—always with a choice which showed his hatred of modern
+Civilization. (And this was interesting from one who had seen so much of
+the world outside the bounds of our civilization.) Indeed there was
+something astonishing in this old man’s intensity of rebelliousness,
+which extreme age had apparently done nothing to reduce. He directed my
+attention to an oil-portrait over the mantelpiece: “Do you know who that
+is?” I guessed. It was a portrait—apparently not a very good one—of
+Mary, Percy Shelley’s wife[14]: the face rather milk-and-watery in
+expression. “She did him no good,” he said—“was always a drag on
+him—shackling him with jealousies and the conventions of social life.”
+[Trelawny was never quite fair to any one he did not like, and it was
+evident he did not like Mary—though in the earlier days of their
+acquaintance he had certainly been fond of her.] “Poets,” he continued,
+“ought never to marry. It’s the greatest mistake. A poet ought to be
+free as air—free to say and do what he pleases—and he cannot be free if
+he is married.” This was pretty good from a man who had been so very
+_much_ married as Trelawny!
+
+He had had four wives at least—no one knew how many more. His first wife
+(as appears also from _The Younger Son_) was a girl of Borneo. The
+second was the lady who filled somehow the gap between 1813 and 1820.
+The third, as we have seen, was a Greek, the sister of Odysseus; the
+fourth was the former Lady Goring. There were many stories about him in
+the family, mostly no doubt somewhat embellished. His second wife, it
+was said, was only a small woman, and when she was “naughty” he would
+dangle her by the scruff of her neck _out of the window_, until she was
+good again. He had various dried heads, of pirates and others, among his
+treasures; and swords and daggers stained with the blood of enemies! Our
+conversation rambled on, but at this distance of time I forget details.
+As I say, it gave me a strange thrill on leaving (and he died soon
+after) to grasp the hand of one who had been so near to Shelley, and
+whose character undoubtedly had a great fascination for the poet. In
+Shelley’s _Fragments of an Unfinished Drama_ (in which the Pirate on the
+Enchanted Isle is generally supposed to represent Trelawny), the poet
+says—
+
+               He was as is the sun in his fierce youth,
+               As terrible and lovely as a tempest.
+
+On the other hand Trelawny in the Preface to his _Records_ says of
+Shelley: “After glancing one day at an old Italian romance, in which a
+knight of Malta throws down the gauntlet defying all infidels, Shelley
+remarked: ‘_I_ should have picked it up. All our knowledge is derived
+from infidels.’” These two quotations give a good idea of the relation
+between the two men.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+                        SHEFFIELD AND SOCIALISM
+
+
+During my absence in the United States, my friend Harold Cox, who had
+just left Cambridge, came down to Millthorpe and spent a good part of
+the summer there—remaining a bit after my return home. He wanted to get
+manual and farm and garden experience, and that same autumn he plunged
+into farming—took a farm at Tilford in Surrey, and inducted a little
+colony into it. But the land was mere sand, and the experience of one
+winter and spring was enough! In less than a year he gave the place up,
+and went out, by way of a change, to India, to the Anglo-Mohammedan
+College at Futtehgur. While in India he went in ’85 or ’86 for a tour in
+Cashmere, and from Cashmere he sent me a pair of Indian sandals. I had
+asked him, before he went out, to send some likely pattern of sandals,
+as I felt anxious to try some myself. I soon found the joy of wearing
+them. And after a little time I set about making them. I got two or
+three lessons from W. Lill, a bootmaker friend in Sheffield, and soon
+succeeded in making a good many pairs for myself and various friends.
+Since then the trade has grown into quite a substantial one. G. Adams
+took it up at Millthorpe in 1889; making, I suppose, about a hundred or
+more pairs a year; and since his death it has been carried on at the
+Garden City, Letchworth.
+
+In 1885 I published the second edition of _Towards Democracy_—still
+through John Heywood; and early in ’86 quite an important local event
+occurred in the establishment of our Sheffield Socialist Society. One or
+two of us beat round the town and got together a few Socialists and
+advanced Radicals; we persuaded William Morris to come down (early in
+March)—and the result of that was the formation of the Society.
+
+At that time, William Morris, having with a few others parted from
+Hyndman and the S.D.F., had founded the Socialist League—branches of
+which were springing up merrily all over the country. And it was William
+Morris’s great hope, often expressed in the _Commonweal_ and elsewhere,
+that these branches growing and spreading, would before long “reach
+hands” to each other and form a network over the land—would constitute
+in fact “the New Society” within the framework of the old, and destined
+ere long to replace the old. No doubt the forces of reaction—the immense
+apathy of the masses, the immense resistance of the official and
+privileged classes, entrenched behind the Law and the State, and the
+immense and growing power of Money—were things not then fully realized
+and understood. There seemed a good hope for the realization of Morris’
+dream—and we most of us shared in it. But History is a difficult horse
+to drive. In this matter of the Socialist movement, as in other matters,
+it has always been liable to take the most unexpected turns; and the
+little League societies after flourishing gaily for a few years—suddenly
+began to wane and die out; I believe indeed that at this moment there is
+not one of them left. Morris saw with some sadness that his hope was not
+going to be fulfilled—and though I do not think that he altogether lost
+heart he was fain in his last years to bury his disappointment in a
+return to his art work, and even to favour as a forlorn hope the
+Parliamentary side in revolutionary politics! It is curious indeed in
+this matter to see how, of all the innumerable little societies—of the
+S.D.F., the League, the Fabians, the Christian Socialists, the
+Anarchists, the Freedom groups, the I.L.P., the Clarion societies, and
+local groups of various names—all supporting one side or another of the
+general Socialist movement—not one of them has grown to any great
+volume, or to commanding and permanent influence; and how yet, and at
+the same time, the general teaching and ideals of the movement have
+permeated society in the most remarkable way, and have deeply infected
+the views of all classes, as well as general literature and even
+municipal and imperial politics. Perhaps it is a matter for much
+congratulation that things have turned out so. If the movement had been
+pocketed by any one man or section it would have been inevitably
+narrowed down. As it is, it has taken on something of an oceanic
+character; and if by its very lack of narrowness it has lost a little in
+immediate results, its ultimate success we may think is all the more
+assured.
+
+The real value of the modern Socialist movement—it has always seemed to
+me—has not lain so much in its actual constructive programme as (1) in
+the fact that it has provided a text for a searching criticism of the
+old society and of the lives of the rich, and (2) the fact that it has
+enshrined a most glowing and vital enthusiasm towards the realization of
+a new society. It is these two points which have always drawn and
+attached me to it. The constructive details of the future are things
+about which there may and indeed must be different opinions. The
+necessity of organization in society, and of united action, the
+avoidance of officialism and bureaucracy, the handling of the land so as
+to afford the most general access to it, the barring of monopolies and
+of all industrial parasitism, the liberation of labour to dignity and
+self-reliance, the conduct of public ownership, the questions of
+taxation, representation, education, etc.—these are all most complex
+affairs whose united and detailed solution can only proceed step by
+step, by slow trial and experience. We must expect mistakes and
+differences of opinion here. Nevertheless I think we may say that in the
+broad lines of its constructive policy Socialism has taken the right
+course and the one which time will justify. It has laid down in fact
+once for all the principles that parasitism and monopoly must cease, and
+it has set before itself the ideal of a society which while it accords
+to every individual as full scope as possible for the exercise of his
+faculties and enjoyment of the fruits of his own labour, will in return
+expect from the individual his hearty contribution to the general
+well-being, and at least to claim nothing for his own which (or the
+value of which) he has not by his own effort produced. Towards the
+fulfilment of these aims Socialism has proposed a guarded public
+ownership of land and of some of the more important industries (guarded,
+that is, against the dangers of officialism), and it seems likely that
+this general programme is the one along which western society will work
+in the near future; that is, till such time as the State, quâ State, and
+all efficient Government, are superseded by the voluntary and
+instinctive consent and mutual helpfulness of the people—when of course
+the more especially Anarchist ideal would be realized.
+
+As I say, while there is practically no dissent about the future form of
+society as one which shall embody to the fullest extent the two opposite
+poles of Communism and Individualism in one vital unity, there may and
+naturally must be differences on the question of the detailed working
+out of the problem, and indeed it may well be that the solution will
+take somewhat different forms in different places and among different
+peoples.
+
+It has not been, I repeat, the belief in special constructive details as
+panaceas which has led me into the Socialist camp, so much as the fact
+that the movement has been a distinct challenge to the old order and a
+call to the rich and those in power to remodel society and their own
+lives; and that other fact that within the Socialist camp has burned
+that wonderful enthusiasm and belief in a new ideal of fraternity—which
+however crude and inexperienced it may at times appear is surely
+destined to conquer and rule the world at last.
+
+It is this latter side of the movement which by the outsider is so
+little known and understood. Those who stand outside a revolutionary
+agitation, or who look down on it from above, necessarily only see the
+defiant subversive elements of it, they do not guess the glowing heart
+within. To me, passing from time to time from one stratum of life to
+quite another, it was a strange experience and not without its comic
+side, to see the wildly different features which one and the same
+movement wore to those within and those without; to hear Socialism
+spoken of from above, as nothing but an envious shriek and a threat, a
+gospel of bread and butter, a grab, a “divide up all round”—the work of
+unscrupulous demagogues and tinsel politicians; and then the next moment
+to pass into the heart of the thing and to find oneself in an atmosphere
+of the most simple fraternity and idealism, where the coming of the
+kingdom of Heaven, a kingdom of social order and decency, was
+entertained with a childlike faith that might almost make one smile;
+where it seemed only necessary to go out into the streets and preach the
+better ideals for crowds to flock to the standard; and where, if a
+betterment of conditions was the main thing sought for, it was a
+betterment of social life and a satisfaction of the needs of the heart
+fully as much as an increased allowance of bread and butter. It was a
+strange experience to pass from cold to hot, and from hot to cold, as it
+were, and to realize how little those in the one current could
+understand what was going on in the other.
+
+Certainly from what experience I have had of a movement at one time
+thought very revolutionary, I am inclined to think that most revolutions
+must have been pretty well justified before they took place. One hears
+of dangerous mobs led by demagogues and fed on fancied wrongs; and of
+course there are such things in every movement as self-seeking
+blusterers, or designing misleaders; there is ignorance and
+non-reasoning exasperation; but my experience of the (British) masses is
+that instead of being too inflammable, they are surely only too _slow_
+to move, too slow to perceive the burdens which they bear, or to point
+out the cause of their own suffering; and—in the Socialist agitation—the
+number and influence of the blusterers and self-seekers compared with
+the genuine leaders has always been very small. No, revolutions do not
+take place without cause; and I doubt whether in any case the excesses
+accompanying a rising have exceeded the cruelties and injuries of the
+preceding tyranny. There is such a heart of tenderness and patient
+common sense in the mass of the people—everywhere I believe—as to
+convince one that, notwithstanding the slanders that have been heaped up
+by the armchair historian, they are really more inclined to endure than
+to accuse, more ready to forgive than retaliate. No—the general
+Socialist movement (including therein the Anarchist) has done and is
+still doing a great and necessary work—and I am proud to have belonged
+to it. It has defined a dream and an ideal, that of the common life
+conjoined to the free individuality, which somewhere and somewhen must
+be realized, because it springs from and is the expression of the very
+root-nature of Man.
+
+Our “Sheffield Socialists,” though common working men and women,
+understood well enough the broad outlines of this ideal. They hailed
+William Morris and his work with the most sincere appreciation. I found
+among them the most interesting personalities, saturated for the most
+part, as I have said, with the thought of fraternity and fellowship; and
+I made one or two lifelong friends.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  G. E. H.
+
+  (One of the first “Sheffield Socialists.”)
+]
+
+We organized lectures, addresses, pamphlets, with a street-corner
+propaganda which soon brought us in amusing and exciting incidents in
+the way of wrangles with the police and the town-crowds. At first an
+atmosphere of considerable suspicion rested upon the movement, and
+dynamite and daggers were assumed by outsiders to be indispensable parts
+of our equipment; but as time went on, and after a few years, this died
+away—and where there had been only jeers or taunts at first, crowds came
+to listen with serious and sympathetic mien. A dozen or twenty at most
+formed the moving and active element of our society—though its
+membership may have been a hundred or more; and these disposed
+themselves to their various functions. Mrs. Usher, large-bosomed and
+large-hearted, would move on the outskirts of our open-air meetings,
+armed with a bundle of literature. She was an excellent saleswoman and
+few could resist her hearty appeal “Buy this pamphlet, love, it will do
+you good!” Even in the streets or the tramcars the most solemn and
+substantial old gentlemen fell a prey to her. Her brothers, the two
+Binghams, were among our two speakers, and both of them pretty
+effective, the one in a logical, the other in a more oratorical way.
+They were provision merchants in the town; and their business suffered
+at first, but afterwards gained, by the connection. Then there was
+Shortland, handsome, fiery and athletic, an engine fitter, always ready
+for a row and to act as ‘chucker out’ if required. Or J. M. Brown, who
+took quite an opposite part. He (tailor by trade) the very picture of
+kindness and broad good-nature would move among the crowd as if he
+hardly belonged to us, and engaging persuasively in conversation, first
+with one and then with another, would draw many a doubter into the fold;
+or George E. Hukin, with his Dutch-featured face and Dutch build—no
+speaker, nor prominent in public—but though young an excellent help at
+our committee meetings, where his shrewd strong brain and tactful nature
+gave his counsels much weight; and always from the beginning a special
+ally of mine; or George Adams, afterwards associated with me at
+Millthorpe, with his amusing quips and sallies, and plucky antagonisms,
+a good friend and a good hater, and always ready for an adventurous
+bout; or Raymond Unwin, who would come over from Chesterfield to help
+us, a young man of cultured antecedents, of first-rate ability and good
+sense, healthy, democratic, vegetarian, and now I need not say a
+well-known architect and promoter of Garden Cities.
+
+Then at one time there was Fred Charles—who was afterwards accused of an
+anarchist plot and sentenced, most unfairly, to ten years’ hard labour.
+He was already leaning to the Anarchist side of the movement, but was
+ready to work with us; and certainly was one of the most devoted of
+workers. No surrender or sacrifice for the ‘cause’ was too great for
+him; and as to his own earnings (as clerk) or possessions, he
+practically gave them all away to tramps or the unemployed. The case was
+tried at Stafford in March ’92 by Justice Hawkins, and though the
+incriminating evidence was quite slender yet, there being a panic on at
+the time with regard to Anarchism, there was an obvious determination to
+convict. I appeared in the box to testify to Charles’ excellent
+character and public spirit, but needless to say without success. Or
+there was Burton, enginetenter, rather a type of the stout, somewhat
+self-satisfied and ignorant street-speaker, who would get us into
+trouble shouting “The land for the people!” or other cant phrases of the
+period, with really no clear idea of what they meant, and would have to
+be rescued when attacked or challenged by some keener critic among the
+audience; or again, Jonathan Taylor, the very opposite in type to these,
+tall, lean, logical and conclusive to the last degree; who with a kind
+of homely unconquerable humour, compelled his hearers from finger to
+finger, and from point to point, of his argument, and somehow always
+succeeded in holding the most restive crowd, and for any period. He had
+been on the school-board at one time, and was useful to us also by his
+knowledge of local and municipal expediencies. Or again, John Furniss:
+he was a remarkable man, and perhaps the very first to preach the modern
+Socialism in the streets of Sheffield. A quarryman by trade, keen and
+wiry both in body and in mind, a thorough-going _Christian_ Socialist,
+and originally I believe a bit of a local preacher; he had somehow at an
+early date got hold of the main ideas of the movement; and in the early
+’eighties used to stride in—he and his companion George Pearson—five or
+six miles over the Moors, to Sheffield in order to speak at the Pump or
+the Monolith; and then stride out again in the middle of the night. And
+this he kept up for years and years, and when later he migrated to
+another quarry about the same distance from Chesterfield did exactly the
+same thing there; for perhaps twenty years, with marvellous energy and
+perseverance, he must have kept up this propaganda; and the amount of
+effective influence he must have exercised would be hard to reckon.
+
+Such were some of the characters with whom I found myself associated,
+and for five or six years we carried on the Society with the utmost
+friendliness, accord and enthusiasm. It was a most interesting time. I
+knew all those mentioned and many others, very intimately, was familiar
+in their houses, stayed with them, knew all their goings-out and
+comings-in, and something of the details of their various trades.
+
+In 1887 we took a large house and shop in Scotland Street, a poor
+district of the town; and opened a café, using the large room above for
+a meeting and lecture room, and the house for a joint residence for some
+of us who were more immediately concerned in carrying on the business.
+We had all sorts of social gatherings, lectures, teas, entertainments in
+the Hall—the wives and sisters of the “comrades” helping, especially in
+the social work; we had Annie Besant, Charlotte Wilson, Kropotkin,
+Hyndman, and other notables down to speak for us; we gave teas to the
+slum-children who dwelt in the neighboring crofts and alleys (but these
+had at first to be given up on account of the poor little things tearing
+themselves and each other to pieces, perfect mobs of them, in their
+frantic attempts to gain admittance—a difficulty which no arrangement of
+tickets or of personal supervision seemed to obviate); and we organized
+excursions into municipal politics; and country propaganda. This last
+was often amusing as well as interesting. While, in the towns, as time
+went on, audiences grew in numbers and attentiveness, it still remained
+very difficult to capture the country districts. The miners would really
+not be uninterested, but in their sullen combative way they would take
+care not to show it. Many a time we have gone down to some mining
+village and taken up our stand on some heap of slag or broken wall, and
+the miners would come round and stand about or sit down deliberately
+_with their backs to the speaker_, and spit, and converse, as if quite
+heedless of the oration going on. But after a time, and as speaker
+succeeded speaker, one by one they would turn round—their lower jaws
+dropping—fairly captivated by the argument. It was much the same with
+the country rustics—but as a rule less successful. I remember on one
+occasion seven or eight of us, armed with literature, going for a long
+country walk to Hathersage in the Derbyshire dales. We had Tom Maguire
+with us, from Leeds, an excellent speaker, full of Irish wit and
+persuasiveness. We set him upon a stoneheap in the middle of the village
+and standing round him ourselves while he spoke, acted as decoy ducks to
+bring the villagers together. The latter full of curiosity came, in
+moderate numbers, but not one of them would approach nearer than a
+distance of twenty or thirty yards—just far enough to make the speaker
+despair of really reaching them. In vain we separated and going round
+tried to coax them to come nearer. In vain the speaker shouted himself
+hoarse and fired off his best jokes. Not a bit of it—they weren’t going
+to be fooled by us! and at last red in the face and out of breath and
+with a string of curses, Tom descended from his cairn, and we all,
+shaking the dust of the village off our feet, departed!
+
+I meanwhile and during these years, not only took part in our local
+work, but spoke and lectured in the Socialist connection all round the
+country—at Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Hull,
+Liverpool, Nottingham and other places—my subjects the failures of the
+present Commercial system, and the possible reorganization of the
+future. As to the Café, we were only able to hold to it for a year.
+Though quite a success from the propagandist point of view, financially
+it was a failure. The refreshment department was not patronized nearly
+enough to make it pay. The neighborhood was an exceedingly poor one. And
+so we were obliged to surrender the place, and retire to smaller
+quarters. During that year however I really lived most of the time at
+the Scotland Street place. I occupied a large attic at the top of the
+house, _almost_ high enough to escape the smells of the street below,
+but exposed to showers of blacks which fell from the innumerable
+chimneys around. In the early morning at 5 a.m. there was the strident
+sound of the ‘hummers’ and the clattering of innumerable clogs of men
+and girls going to their work, and on till late at night there were
+drunken cries and shouting. Far around stretched nothing but factory
+chimneys and foul courts inhabited by the wretched workers. It was, I
+must say, frightfully depressing; and all the more so because of tragic
+elements in my personal life at the time. Only the enthusiasm of our
+social work, and the abiding thoughts which had inspired _Towards
+Democracy_ kept me going. I spent my spare time during the year in
+arranging and editing the collection of songs and music called _Chants
+of Labour_—a thing which might have been much better done by some one
+else, but I could find no one to do it. And it was a queer experience,
+collecting these songs of hope and enthusiasm, and composing such
+answering tunes and harmonies as I could, in the midst of these gloomy
+and discordant conditions.
+
+As I say, we only stayed a year here, and as far as my health was
+concerned I don’t think I could have endured it much longer. I realized
+the terrible drawback to health and vitality consequent on living in
+these slums of manufacturing towns, and the way these conditions are
+inevitably sapping the strength of our populations.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+                          TRADE AND PHILOSOPHY
+
+
+In 1887 or 1888 I turned over the organization and commercial side of
+the garden at Millthorpe to my friend Albert Fearnehough. During the
+first four years or so I had taken the responsibility, and by many
+mistakes bought some valuable experience—but now I found that my
+literary and social work demanded so much time that I wanted my brain
+free from agricultural cares. So after this, while still contributing a
+fair amount of manual labour I left the organization alone.
+
+I cannot say that, adopting the commercial standard, the experiment at
+Millthorpe could at any time be called _paying_. At the same time it was
+never (to me) disheartening. Taking strawberries as our main crop, we
+found, with several years’ experience, that £40 per acre was a fair
+estimate of the gross produce. (And I do not think that this is
+excessive since I know that £60 or £70 is a not uncommon estimate.) If
+we had put, say, 5 acres out of our 7½ under strawberries, this would
+have yielded £200 a year, which, allowing for extra labour, manure,
+etc., would still have maintained a man and his family; 100 fowls would
+probably have paid the rent (if it had not been a freehold); and the 2½
+acres would have gone far to keep a horse or pony. But I had not the
+time to give to a complete organization, nor perhaps felt the necessary
+interest in it; and my friend had hardly the required energy; so we just
+paddled along, keeping two or three acres only under spade cultivation,
+and making a small sum, but not sufficient to meet expenses. I think, as
+I say, that the thing might have been made to pay in the commercial
+sense—but there is no doubt that under prevailing conditions and prices
+in England, agriculture of any kind requires pretty hard work and long
+hours to make it fairly successful. One of the reasons of this is the
+want of a prosperous country population and the local markets which this
+would afford. With industrial villages scattered over the land, eggs,
+fruits, vegetables would be in great demand—even in country
+districts—prices would be fair, the middleman would be dispensed with;
+even the horse and cart might not be needed. But it is quite a different
+matter when the stuff has to be sent to a distant market, there to be
+bought by hucksters, and to feed middlemen and railway shareholders,
+before it feeds either the producer or consumer. This trouble is really
+one of the great troubles of modern civilization—and while there is no
+doubt a certain advantage gained by division of labour among nations and
+provinces, and by the raising of products in the most suitable
+localities, it is a matter quite open to question whether the enormous
+expenses of the present world-wide exchange and the maintenance of these
+swarms of merchants, traders, shipping and railroad companies, with
+their innumerable shareholders and employees, does not quite obliterate
+or absorb the advantage so gained. Indeed when one thinks of the immense
+numbers of people in this way withdrawn from any direct service in
+production and made systematically dependent on the others, one may
+question whether the gain does not at times come very near a loss; and
+one ceases to wonder that the condition of the actual producers,
+agricultural and others, remains so poor and unimproved.
+
+In ’86 and ’87 I prepared for the Press and published the volume called
+_England’s Ideal_. The papers composing it had been written at different
+times during the two or three years preceding—some of them at Brighton,
+during intervals when family affairs had taken me back there for a time.
+Especially I remember writing _Desirable Mansions_ in this way in an
+interval when I was tangled in family business and the idiotic life of
+the place—and with a kind of savage glee as I sought to tear the whole
+sickly web to pieces. Descended from the transcendental generative
+thought of _Towards Democracy_ on the one hand, and my new-found
+acquaintance with intensely practical life on the other, these papers,
+though crude in some respects, bear I believe a certain impetus about
+them. Once or twice, by the violent opposition they have excited (always
+a reassuring thing for an author), I have had evidence of this. When
+_Desirable Mansions_ was first issued, as a separate pamphlet, I
+received a copy, anonymously sent and written all over with the most
+furious and scurrilous denials, challenges, abuse, etc.; and after the
+publication of _England’s Ideal_ as a volume, a friend of mine had a
+letter from a lady, in which she said that her husband had been reading
+the book, and that she had got hold of it and “poked it into the fire,
+as she found it was unsettling him so!” I have always regretted that I
+did not get hold of that letter, with leave to publish it. It would have
+made such a splendid advertisement.
+
+The influences of Ruskin, in style and moral bias, and of Marx in
+economics, are very apparent in the volume; and though I do not think
+that I ever gave myself ‘hand and foot’ to Marx in his views; yet I was
+very willing to adopt his theory of surplus value as a working
+hypothesis. The truth is that though no exact measure of ‘surplus value’
+or of the amount of which the workman is ‘defrauded’ by the capitalist,
+is possible—and though any theory which attempts to exactly define this
+amount is sure to be open to criticism[15]; yet, the general fact of
+surplus value, namely that the workman does _not_ get the full value of
+his labours, and that he is taken advantage of by the capitalist is
+obvious—and serious—enough. And it is on this general position that
+_England’s Ideal_—like the whole Socialist movement—is founded. The
+seriousness of the matter may be seen from the fact that from this
+original falsity (of the appropriation of other folks’ labour) are
+flowing to-day by a perfectly logical evolution two other great
+falsities or failures—Commercial Crises and shopkeeping
+Imperialism—which are now threatening ruin to all the Western
+Civilizations.
+
+Commercial Crises, as has been often explained (see _England’s Ideal_,
+pp. 42, 43) flow primarily from the fact that the working masses for
+their wages only receive a fraction of the value of the goods produced,
+and therefore can only _buy back_ a fractional part of the same, while
+the capitalist classes (though with their share of the swag they _could_
+buy back the remainder) do not want more than a part of the remainder.
+Consequently there occurs every year on the one hand an accumulation of
+goods unused and on the other an accumulation of capital waiting for
+reinvestment; and these two things from time to time clog the Commercial
+Machine so as to render it hardly workable, and will probably in the end
+bring it to a standstill. As to modern Imperialism it is a logical
+outcome of the last-mentioned item, the accumulation of capital waiting
+for reinvestment. For all the openings for capital in the mother country
+having been filled up there remains nothing but to invest it in
+manufactures abroad. And since other Western countries are similarly
+filled up, there further remains nothing but to go to savage and
+outlying nations and force _them_ to become our employees and our
+customers. But to do this with safety requires military occupation and
+the country’s flag. Hence in a nutshell the flag-waving and Imperialism
+of the day.
+
+In 1889 I got off _Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_—another series of
+reprints. And here too the philosophical position, though often crudely
+expressed, and with more attempt at _suggestion_ than finish, is I think
+in the main well-founded and valuable. The attacks on Civilization and
+on Modern Science were both wrung from me, as it were by some inner
+evolution or conviction and against my will; but in both cases the
+position once taken became to me fully justified. In neither case did I
+take any great precautions to guard against misunderstanding, and in
+consequence I have been freely accused of blinding myself—in respect of
+Civilization—to modern progress, and of desiring to return to the state
+of primitive man; and in respect to Science—of preferring ignorance to
+intelligence. But no careful reader would make these mistakes. The
+monumental, patient, one may almost say heroic, work which has been done
+by Science during the nineteenth century, in the way of exact
+observation, classification, and detailed practical application, can
+never be ignored and can hardly be over-estimated. None the less the
+very decided criticism in _Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_, of the
+limits of scientific theorizing and authority has been quite necessary;
+as well as the forcible insistence on the fact that Science only deals
+with the surface of life and not with its substance. As to Civilization
+the advances of Humanity during the Civilization period have been
+largely bound up with the advance of Science and have chiefly consisted
+perhaps in increase of technical mastery over Nature and materials. Like
+every increase of power this has led to greater opportunity of good and
+greater opportunity of evil. On the moral side however, we may believe
+that men’s sympathies _have_ broadened and widened during the
+civilization period—so that there is a larger and more general sense of
+Humanity. On the other hand during this period something of the
+intensity of the old tribal kinship and community of life has been lost,
+as well as something of the instinctive kinship of each individual to
+Nature. It is obvious enough that there can be no _return_ to
+pre-scientific or pre-civilization conditions—though it may be hoped
+that a later age may combine some of the virtues of the more primitive
+man with the powers that have been gained during civilization.
+
+In the year following [1890] something happened which in a curious vague
+way I had been expecting to happen for some time. It almost amounted to
+my making the acquaintance of a pre-civilization man of a very high
+type. I have mentioned how the _Bhagavat Gita_ falling into my hands at
+a certain date, gave the clue to and precipitated the crystallization of
+_Towards Democracy_. From that time of course I was intensely interested
+in the wise men of the East, and that germinal thought which in various
+ages of the world has become the nucleus and impulse of new movements.
+During the years ’80 to ’90 there was a great deal of Theosophy and
+Oriental philosophy of various sorts current in England, and much talk
+and speculation, sometimes very ill-founded, about ‘adepts,’ ‘mahatmas,’
+and ‘gurus.’ I too felt a great desire to see for myself one of these
+representatives of the ancient wisdom. But it did not seem very clear
+how the thing would come about. However at last there came a very
+pressing letter from my friend Arunáchalam in Ceylon (the very friend
+who had given me the _Bhagavat Gita_ at an earlier date), asking me to
+come out and meet a certain Gñani to whose discourses and teaching he
+was himself already deeply indebted, and who was willing to give some
+time to me if I should come. So the way was made plain, and I
+immediately made arrangements to go.
+
+I have given a careful account of this Gñani, his personality and
+teaching, in my book _Adam’s Peak to Elephanta_—and I need not repeat
+the material here. As I say, he was in some respects a high type of
+pre-civilization man. For, like most men of this class in India, he
+identified himself so closely with the ancient religious tradition that
+one could almost feel him to be one of the old Vedic race of two
+thousand or three thousand years back. His modes of thought, appearance,
+personality, all suggested this. And here in this man it was of
+absorbing interest to feel one came in contact with the root-thought of
+all existence—the intense _consciousness_ (not conviction merely) of the
+oneness of all life—the germinal idea which in one form or another has
+spread from nation to nation, and become the soul and impulse of
+religion after religion. However one might differ from him in points of
+detail, in matters of modern science or of politics, one felt that he,
+and his predecessors three thousand years ago, had seized the central
+stronghold, and were possessors of an outlook and of intuitions which
+the modern might truly envy. After seeing Whitman, the amazing
+representative of the same spirit in all its voluminous modern
+unfoldment—seven years before—this visit to the Eastern sage was like
+going back to the pure lucid intensely transparent source of some mighty
+and turbulent stream. It was a returning from West to East, and a
+completing of the circle of the Earth.
+
+It is curious that _his_ teacher (Tilleinathan Swamy) seems to have told
+this Gñani many years before that an Englishman or Englishmen would come
+to him. Probably he foresaw, from the growth of the English mind, that
+the time was not very far distant when the English would rise to an
+understanding of the great Indian tradition and would come over to study
+it.
+
+Looking back now [1901] after ten years, on my personal experiences of
+the Eastern teachings, I seem to realize more and more that the true
+line is that (first adequately pointed out by Whitman) which consists in
+combining and harmonizing _both_ body and soul, the outer and the inner.
+They are the eternal and needful complements of each other. The Eastern
+teaching has or has had a tendency to err on one side, the Western on
+the other. The Indian methods and attitude cause an ingathering and
+quiescence of the mind, accompanied often by great illumination; but if
+carried to excess they result in over-quiescence, and even torpor. The
+Western habits tend towards an over-activity and external distraction of
+the mind, which may result in disintegration. The true line (as in other
+cases) is not in mediocrity, but in a bold and sane acceptance of both
+sides, so as to make them offset and balance each other, and indeed so
+that each shall make the extension of the other more and more possible.
+Growth is the method and the solution. The soul goes out and returns,
+goes out and returns; and this is its daily, almost hourly, action—just
+as it is an epitome of the æonian life-history of every individual.
+
+This visit to the East in some sense completed the circle of my
+experiences. It took two or three years for its results to soak and
+settle into my mind; but by that time I felt that my general attitude
+towards the world was not likely to change much, and that it only
+remained to secure and define what I had got hold of, and to get it
+decently built out if possible into actual life and utterance.
+
+
+With regard to this process of “building out” into the actual world I
+should feel very ungrateful if I did not acknowledge my indebtedness to
+the Nature-conditions around me. For any sustained and more or less
+original work it seems almost necessary that one should have the
+quietude and strength of Nature at hand, like a great reservoir from
+which to draw. The open air, and the physical and mental health that
+goes with it, the sense of space and freedom in the Sky, the vitality
+and amplitude of the Earth—these are real things from which one can only
+cut oneself off at serious peril and risk to one’s immortal soul. And
+there is somewhat of the same potency and vitality in the very life of
+the mass-peoples who are in touch with these foundation-facts and
+outdoor occupations. It was a true instinct or a gracious Fate—and I
+realized this more and more—which had compelled me to locate myself in
+the midst of such surroundings.
+
+I should feel ungrateful too if I did not express my indebtedness to the
+lovely little stream which like a live thing ran night and day, winter
+and summer, full of grace and music at the foot of my garden. It entered
+into my life and became part of it.[16] The hut, which I had built at
+Bradway to write the earlier part of _Towards Democracy_ in, I
+transported with me to Millthorpe, and planked it down on the edge of
+the brook, facing the sun and the south; and thenceforth it served a
+double purpose—that of a study in which, a hundred yards away from the
+house, I could write in comparative safety from interruption; and that
+of a bathing shelter with its feet almost in the water. Here through
+uncounted hours I continued the production of _Towards Democracy_ and my
+other books, avoiding always the act of writing within the house except
+when absolutely forced to retire by stress of weather or other causes,
+and rejoicing always to get the sentiment of the open free world into my
+pages; and here I came, either alone or with friends, to rest from
+labour in the garden, or to bathe and be refreshed after the heat of the
+day.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  THE HUT AND THE BROOK.
+]
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+                     MILLTHORPE AND HOUSEHOLD LIFE
+
+
+It must be admitted, however, that the acclimatization to the new and
+somewhat limited and strenuous life at Millthorpe did not take place all
+at once; and perhaps the fact of my having burnt my boats, as it were,
+and committed myself as I had done, was after all a good thing. For some
+little time I felt restive and unsettled at the enchainment—partly, as I
+have said, because the Thoreau ideal, opening out _underneath_, took the
+bottom out of the commercial and rather materialistic life in the way of
+Trade in which I was embarking; and partly because anyhow the latter
+sort of life—though valuable as an experience—was not by its nature
+likely to hold my interest for long. The rustics too and farmfolk around
+me were on my first arrival a little strange, and inclined, as often
+happens in such cases, to hold off and be suspicious of a newcomer; my
+reputation as a Socialist alarmed them; there was none of the cordiality
+of little Bradway; the climate was damp and the winters were long; and I
+had occasional relapses of feeling about it all.
+
+Yet if I _had_ cut the painter and floated my little boat away onto the
+great deep I doubt whether the result would have been favorable. After
+all, all life means a denial of _part_ of oneself. It is obviously
+impossible to find a situation or conditions which will satisfy _all the
+demands_ of one’s nature—millionfold complex as they are. Some must be
+sacrificed. To moan over that necessity or to pose as a martyr is
+absurd. All one can reasonably do is to find a situation which will
+satisfy the _root_-demands, and the _rooting_ demands—those that have
+the power of growth in them. Then the seed, though it seem to die in its
+prison-house, will assuredly find its outlet and quicken into a new
+life.
+
+I could not complain in this case that the root-needs of my temperament
+were unsatisfied. Quite the contrary. I was plunged in the very heart of
+Nature—that Nature which for many years I had felt the need of—in a
+singularly beautiful Derbyshire valley with plentiful woods, streams and
+moors; I had already become familiar with the mass-folk of Sheffield,
+and found friends among the workers in many trades; and was beginning to
+know the rustics of my own neighborhood. I was leading an outdoor life,
+and my health was every day becoming firmer and more consolidated. I had
+escaped from the domination of Civilization in its two most fatal and
+much-detested forms, respectability and cheap intellectualism. In my
+happy valley there was no resident squire of any kind, nor even a single
+“villa,” while the church, more than a mile distant, was quite amiably
+remote! We were just a little population of manual workers, sincerely
+engrossed in our several occupations. And finally, and perhaps more than
+all, I had found a firm basis and secure vantage-ground for my literary
+and productive work.
+
+People have often asked me if I did not miss the life I had left behind.
+I cannot truly say that I ever did. At Brighton and at Cambridge and
+partly in London I had had my fill of balls and dinner-parties and the
+usual entertainments, and when at the close of those two dispensations
+(somewhere in the early ’eighties) _I gave my dress clothes away_, I did
+so without any misgiving and without any fear that I should need them
+again. The fact is that though it is perfectly true that by steadily and
+persistently going to evening parties and social functions one may come
+into touch with interesting or remarkable people of sorts, yet the game
+is hardly worth the candle. Through leagues of boredom, platitudes and
+general futility one occasionally has the satisfaction of exchanging a
+wink of recognition, so to speak, with some really congenial and
+original woman or man; but at all such functions the severe flow of
+amiable nonsense soon cuts any real conversation short, and if one wants
+to continue the latter the only way is to arrange a meeting quite
+outside and apart—which after all one might have done in other and
+simpler ways. As to the matter of dress, the adoption of a pleasant yet
+not strictly conventional evening garb of one’s own has the useful
+effect of automatically closing doors which are not “worth while” and
+opening those that _are_—so in that way it is much to be recommended!
+
+On the whole, though just the first few years at Millthorpe were
+somewhat isolated I believe my independent life there has really enabled
+me to see more of the great world than I should otherwise have done.
+Visitors from a distance have often many and intimate things to tell
+one, and questions can be discussed in a more leisurely way than in a
+great centre where every one stands watch in hand, counting the minutes.
+And on the other hand, by going myself to London for a fortnight or so
+three or four times a year, I found I could get into touch with all
+sorts of cliques and circles—such as I perhaps should not have cared to
+be involved in if I had been permanently living there! The country
+became a splendid basis for literary work, with the opportunity it
+afforded (so priceless to me) of writing in the open air and in close
+contact with the ordinary realities of life; it supplied a good basis
+for my lecturing and other excursions into the Northern Towns; and with
+its market-gardening and sandal trades kept my hands busy when my head
+required a rest.
+
+
+Of the many years mainly spent here at Millthorpe, the first
+fifteen—from 1883 to 1898—were somewhat handicapped for me by the
+presence of a small working-family in the house; first, for ten years,
+the Fearnehoughs of whom I have already spoken; and afterwards, for five
+years, the Adams’. No other arrangement was at that time possible. Both
+families were charming and interesting in their different ways; but
+necessarily they hampered my freedom a good deal. With children in the
+house (in both cases) the domestic arrangements had largely to be suited
+to their necessities and convenience, and my interests had to come very
+decidedly second. This did not so much matter at the beginning of the
+time, but later with the expansion of my own sphere of operations a
+different household arrangement became imperative.
+
+Fearnehough, as I have said, was of a “powerful uneducated” type—a good
+specimen of the British worker—a bit slow in brain, but exceedingly
+thorough and downright in all his dealings. His wife possessed the
+infinite patience and kindliness of the household guardian—going always
+about her work with untiring forethought and industry—even when, as
+often happened, she was silently suffering from bad headaches. There was
+a certain native grace about her, and dignity about him, which well
+became them. The two children, boy and girl of about nine and ten when
+they first arrived, were sensible and natural too. To have this family
+living with me—though it may have been hampering in some ways—was for
+some years very helpful. Whether at meals, or working in the fields, or
+sitting round the fire of an evening, to be in close touch with so sane
+and simple an outlook on life, and one so entirely different from that
+to which I had generally been accustomed, was in itself an education.
+The very downrightness of daily existence among those who live close
+upon absolute necessity is a thing hardly realized even by the most
+well-meaning of the well-to-do, unless they positively share that
+existence. Of course it cuts away a vast deal of sentimentalism,
+æstheticism, and all that. But on the whole it is rather healthy.
+
+I remember one day—in later years when Annie, the daughter, had gone
+away to work in Sheffield—speaking to her mother about the girl (whose
+absence I knew she felt) and saying rather sentimentally, “I expect you
+miss Annie a good deal nowadays.” The answer was characteristic, and in
+its way quite lovely: “_Yes, I do miss her—especially on washing days!_”
+It was not that Mrs. Fearnehough cared one whit less for her daughter
+than many a very cultured mother might, but simply that her answer
+allowed the bed-rock of human nature to be seen. At any rate it took the
+wind out of my sentimentality! Not long ago I was asking a neighboring
+farmer—whose son had just got married and migrated on to a little farm
+of his own—how the son “liked his new place.” “Like it?” said the old
+man with a dryish sort of laugh—“well, I guess he’ll like it if he can
+any way make a living out of it—and if he can’t he won’t; he’ll be
+better able to say in a year or two.” It is from answers like these that
+one perceives how close on the rocks the lives of the mass peoples are
+thrust—too close indeed to allow much scope for expression of their real
+life or liking.
+
+Fearnehough and I stumbled away at our market-gardening for a good many
+years. Being both to begin with quite ignorant of the trade we made our
+full complement of mistakes and purchased our experience sometimes
+dearly. Yet by degrees we got the land into good order. We dug it over,
+made drains to carry off the water, planted a hundred or two of fruit
+and forest trees, built bits of walls and fences, kept a horse, and
+fowls, and grew our crops, and took our produce into market—a strenuous
+time, but greatly interesting in its way. My commercial instinct was
+weak, but Albert’s was perhaps even weaker! With his real love of good
+work he would spend as much time preparing an onion-bed as could only be
+paid for by ten times the value of the crop; and at one period he
+insisted on rooting every bit of rock and stone out of the subsoil so
+persistently that I began to think the garden would be turned into a
+quarry! It was characteristic of him when I remonstrated, to say: “I
+can’t help it—if I didn’t do my work thorough when I’m at it, I should
+only keep awake at night thinking about it.” I have already given some
+of the general results and conclusions of our labours of that time. When
+the period of our experiment came to an end, Fearnehough returned again
+to his scythe-making trade in Sheffield, which he still carries on, hale
+and hearty, down to this day [1915].
+
+I cannot pass this period by without dwelling for a moment on another
+friend at that time a member of the household. I mean my dog
+Bruno[17]—so called not from his colour, for he was a very handsome
+black spaniel, but from some fanciful association with Giordano Bruno
+the Italian. That dog—like so many black animals, black horses, black
+cats, black poodles, black-plumaged birds, rooks, jackdaws, starlings,
+and so forth—had something _demonic_ about him. The tenderness and
+gentleness of his spirit, combined with a penetrative vision which
+searched one’s very soul, was almost superhuman. I came first to know
+him when he was merely a puppy at a friend’s house. We almost fell in
+love with each other then and there, and I was not altogether surprised
+when a few weeks afterwards he arrived at my door, sent on as a present
+from the said friends. He never doubted for a moment that he had come to
+his true home, and he settled down at once, a most loving member of the
+household. The Fearnehoughs took to him right cordially, and Albert
+himself a year or so later had the great satisfaction of saving him from
+a horrible death.
+
+I had been out somewhere on foot with Bruno and arriving back within a
+couple of hundred yards of my gate I perceived the local pack of
+foxhounds (the pests of this as of all countrysides!) scattered about
+the road between me and home—the huntsmen having gone into the
+public-house for a moment to have a drink. But that moment was more than
+sufficient—for hounds are dangerous things unless under severe control.
+Something occurred—I know not what. A hound gave cry; the others joined
+in; and in an instant, to my horror and despair, the whole pack was
+yelling in pursuit, and Bruno flying for his life—in the only direction
+he _could_ at the moment fly, away from home! The dog was swift and
+active, but what chance had he? I gave him up for lost. With
+extraordinary agility however and much presence of mind he doubled and,
+clearing ever so many garden walls and gates, dashed through the little
+hamlet back again, finally racing across one of my fields with the whole
+pack close behind and of course gaining on him. Most luckily Albert was
+in our yard at the moment, and hearing the hullabaloo rushed out with a
+pitchfork in his hand, just in time to check the ravening horde while
+Bruno rushed past him to safety. A moment more and the dog would have
+been torn to fragments.
+
+Bruno showed in high degree that curious quality resembling _conscience_
+in man, by which dogs, having contracted and adopted a new standard of
+life from their masters, betray an emotional conflict going on within
+them. Sometimes—as is often the case where fowls are kept—we would have
+a nest of newly-hatched chicks being kept warm and dry in a basket on
+the hearth. On such occasions Bruno was torn by conflicting passions.
+The very sight and smell of the chicks roused the old primitive hunting
+instinct, and he would creep nearer and nearer to the basket in a very
+ecstasy of excitement—his limbs trembling and his nose quivering as he
+sniffed the prey. Yet he knew perfectly well that he must not touch; and
+his fidelity was so absolute that I firmly believe he harboured no
+intention of doing so. But who can tell? We felt that possibly a sudden
+frenzy of the animal nature might overtake him; and we could not do
+otherwise than keep on the watch. As a matter of fact he never did do
+anything rash; but the tension on him, poor dog, was so great that
+sometimes for two or three days he would hardly touch his food, and he
+positively grew quite thin under the strain. It was really a relief for
+all of us when the hatching days were over.
+
+There is something strangely touching in the fact that dogs not only
+thus develop a conscience and a morality foreign to their canine nature,
+but that also from their intense devotion to their so-called ‘masters’
+they are severed and alienated to some degree from the natural loves of
+their race—at any rate on the affectional side. I think Bruno nourished
+in his heart a strange susceptibility to beauty. His amours with other
+dogs were only of the ordinary kind; but he cherished for a certain
+white kitten a positive adoration. The kitten was certainly
+beautiful—snow-white and graceful to a degree—and to Bruno obviously a
+goddess; but alas! like other goddesses only too fickle and even cruel.
+When Bruno arrived on the scene, the kitten would skip on to the
+vantage-ground of a chair-seat; and from thence torment the pathetic and
+pleading nose of the dog with naughty scratches. Again and again would
+Bruno—wounded in his heart as well as in his head—return to his
+ineffectual suit, only to have his advances rejected as before. At last
+he had to abandon this quest, but it was curious that a year or two
+later he fell in love with _another_ white kitten in much the same way
+and with much the same result.
+
+“Everything however comes to him who waits”; and the most curious and
+pathetic part of this story is its ending. For, a good many years
+afterwards when Bruno had become quite an old dog and had lost much of
+his activity, a _cat_ came and fell in love with him! This cat used to
+come from a neighboring farm and spend much of its time with the dog,
+and frequently at night would stay with him in the little outhouse which
+he used as a kennel, sleeping between the dog’s paws. Ultimately the cat
+was there when Bruno died.
+
+
+Fearnehough’s place, when he returned to Sheffield, was taken by George
+Adams, who (also with wife and two children) came to share the
+Millthorpe Cottage with me. Adams was in most ways the very reverse of
+Albert Fearnehough. Town bred, rather slight and thin, with a forward
+stoop and a shock of black hair, he was of an impetuous humorous and
+rather artistic temperament—not too exact or precise about details, but
+one who could cover a good deal of ground in a day. Born in the poorest
+slums of Sheffield he told me more than once how, after his mother died,
+he was left alone a mere urchin in a tiny lodging with his father. His
+father was a cobbler by trade rather given to drink, and in the habit of
+going out early of a morning to work as a wage-slave in some shop, and
+returning late. When he went out he left a _halfpenny_ on the table for
+the boy to find his food with during the day! Not a very good start in
+life. The boy roamed about, half-starved, cadging or ‘snaking’ what he
+could—but developed, perhaps in consequence, a singular resourcefulness.
+When about thirteen his father died, and he was left absolutely alone in
+the world. The neighbours may have been kind in their way, but he was
+alone and without refuge to flee to. Then something pathetic happened.
+An orphanage for little _girls_ had lately been opened in the
+neighborhood, and the boy knew one or two of these girls. One evening,
+at closing time, the matron discovered among her little flock this
+large-eyed, thin-legged almost rickety ragamuffin sitting! Asked what he
+was doing there he replied that he wanted to be taken in. “But the
+orphanage is for girls only,” said the matron, “and you are not a girl.”
+It was no use, he would not go; tears ran down his face; he told his
+plight; and they were fain to find him a bed in an attic for the night.
+Needless to say he remained a second and a third night. The pale mobile
+face made friends; and the end of it was that a boys’ _side_ was created
+in the orphanage and added to that of the girls!
+
+After remaining in the orphanage for a year or two a place was found for
+George Adams in the villa-residence of a Sheffield manufacturer, where
+he went first as knife and boot boy and afterwards as under-gardener.
+The good people of the villa discovered his taste for drawing and
+painting, and sent him to a School of Art for lessons; and so when at
+the age of twenty or so he left ‘service’ and started for himself as an
+insurance-collector (most depressing of occupations) he had a fair
+knowledge of gardening and a fair artistic ability at his command. He
+married, and joining the Socialist movement became one of our most
+lively and adventurous spirits. The departure of the Fearnehoughs gave
+me the opportunity of offering their place at Millthorpe to him (and his
+family)—which he accepted as a joyful exchange from the dismal trade of
+eternally dunning the needy denizens of mean streets for their funeral
+and coffin monies.
+
+With his arrival at Millthorpe things took on a more lively air there.
+His knowledge of gardening was a decided help, and the financial side of
+the venture—if not exactly a success from the purely commercial point of
+view—did certainly under the circumstances (absence of any rent, etc.)
+yield a small profit to the good. He took up cordially with the
+sandal-making, which I had at first carried on alone, and which came in
+useful in winter when the outdoor work was slack; and he added
+bee-keeping to our activities. My literary work and connections were
+increasing, and the place became more social, and more especially
+socialistic, than it had been before—so much so indeed that the country
+folk (or some of them at any rate) became a little alarmed!
+
+A year or two after George Adams’ arrival the Parish Councils Act came
+into operation, and the first election was the cause of much excitement
+in the villages. Adams and I—though knowing perfectly well that we had
+no chance of success—decided—chiefly for the fun of the thing—to come
+forward as candidates; and almost a panic ensued among the larger
+farmers and the parson as to what we might possibly do or propose.
+Strange stories were circulated of the Socialist programme, and of the
+expenses into which the community would certainly be plunged if it were
+adopted. But the finishing touch to our chances was given by an election
+address printed and circulated by one candidate of decidedly
+Conservative type, in which he did not hesitate to say that “it is
+reported publicly in Holmesfield that one of our opponents advocates the
+burning of the Bible, and also working on the Sabbath Day.” After that
+we had no prospect of success! _Which_ of us two was really pointed at
+in this accusation we never quite knew, though we entered into a sort of
+friendly rivalry for the honour. But the printed card containing the
+address I retain to this day, and it is a treasured possession.
+
+Adams was certainly not mealy-mouthed, and I am afraid he made very
+blasphemous remarks at times, but his intense sense of fun and his
+twinkling delight over ‘good stories’ quite redeemed any such
+deficiencies. His courageous humour was all the more remarkable because,
+poor thing, he was always suffering from ill-health. Dating from the
+early life which I have described, his internal arrangements, as can
+easily be imagined, never worked really properly; and at times he would
+suffer a lot of pain, and become seriously emaciated. How he managed to
+keep up his gardening and other activities in spite of frequent illness
+was always a wonder; but his vivid imagination carried him on, and if he
+were downcast at times, new plans and enterprises were sure to come in
+and disperse the pessimistic mood.
+
+The gardening work, however, at Millthorpe _was_ too much for his slight
+frame; and after some five years’ stay there he elected to retire with
+his family into a cottage not far off in the same parish and devote
+himself to the sandal-trade and to the occasional sale of his
+water-colour drawings. This he did; and after remaining for four or five
+years moved on to the Letchworth Garden City where his labours and his
+personality were much appreciated, and where he occupied a little home
+of his own until his death in 1910.
+
+The Adams’ left Millthorpe early in February ’98; and the next
+day—trundling with the help of two boys all his worldly goods in a
+handcart over the hills, and through a disheartening blizzard of
+snow—George Merrill arrived. This extraordinary being, in many ways so
+kindred a spirit to my own, had now been known to me for some years. I
+had met him first on the outskirts of Sheffield immediately after my
+return from India, and had recognized at once a peculiar intimacy and
+mutual understanding. Bred in the slums quite below civilization, but of
+healthy parentage of comparatively rustic origin, he had grown so to
+speak entirely out of his own roots; and a singularly affectionate,
+humorous, and swiftly intuitive nature had expanded along its own
+lines—subject of course to some of the surrounding conditions, but
+utterly untouched by the prevailing conventions and proprieties of the
+upper world. Always—even in utmost poverty—clean and sweet in person and
+neat in attire, he was attractive to most people; and children (of whom
+he was especially fond) would congregate round him. Yet being by
+temperament loving and even passionate—to a degree indeed which
+sometimes scandalized the “unco’ guid”—he was, it may safely be said,
+never ‘respectable.’ Fortunately he was either too careless or too
+unconscious of public opinion to trouble much about that; and despite
+the shafts of occasional criticism he remained always fairly assured of
+himself—with the same sort of unconscious assurance that a plant or an
+animal may have in its own nature. What struck me most, however, on my
+first meeting with him, was the pathetic look of wistfulness in his
+face. Whatever his experiences up to then may have been, it assured me
+that the desire of his _heart_ was still unsatisfied.
+
+To George Merrill the arrival at Millthorpe was the fulfilment of a
+dream; and a blizzard ten times as bad as the actual one would not I
+believe have daunted him. The departure of the Adams’ had left the house
+largely denuded of furniture, and for some days we bivouacked with a
+trestle table for meals and a sanded floor. By degrees we got things
+into order, acquired the necessaries of life and comfort; and started
+housekeeping on a new footing. For seven years the possibility of this
+arrangement had I believe wavered before George’s eyes, and it had
+certainly been considered by me. But we had hardly spoken about it. It
+was too remote. On my side other arrangements and engagements precluded
+the plan; on his, the various situations he had found—once in a
+newspaper office, once in an hotel, and lastly in an ironworks—were not
+to be lightly thrown aside. It was only now, when the Adams’ were
+leaving and George at the same time was out of work, that the Fates
+pointed favorably and the thing was done.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  GEORGE MERRILL.
+
+  (_Photo: Lena Connell._)
+]
+
+If the Fates pointed favorably I need hardly say that my friends (with a
+few exceptions) pointed the other way! I knew of course that George had
+an instinctive genius for housework, and that in all probability he
+would keep house better than most women would. But most of my friends
+thought otherwise. They drew sad pictures of the walls of my cottage
+hanging with cobwebs, and of the master unfed and neglected while his
+assistant amused himself elsewhere. They neither knew nor understood the
+facts of the case. Moreover they had sad misgivings about the moral
+situation. A youth who had spent much of his early time in the purlieus
+of public-houses and in society not too reputable would do me no credit,
+and would only by my adoption be confirmed in his own errant ways. Such
+was their verdict. For myself if I entertained any of these misgivings
+it was but very faintly. Of the fellow’s essential goodness I felt no
+doubt. What rather troubled me was the question whether _he_ would be
+able to endure the dulness and quiet of a country life.
+
+With a remarkably good ear for music, and a sympathetic baritone voice,
+he had a ready talent which would have taken him far on the music-hall
+stage. In fact I hardly know how it was that he did not find a vocation
+on that stage. Anyhow he was known in not a few circles for his musical
+quips and his comic or sentimental songs; and was pretty familiar with
+the doings and _personnel_ of the theatres. To take such an one away
+into the depths of rustic life might have been a great mistake. Probably
+if this had been the prevailing side of his character it _would_ have
+been a mistake. As it was the move proved a complete success. In a few
+months or a year my friend was quite acclimatized, and while enjoying
+(like myself) a day or two in town was always genuinely glad to get back
+again to our little home in Cordwell Valley.
+
+As I have said, the families I had with me before were both kindly and
+good sorts, and in their different ways helpful and useful. But a time
+had come with the growing expansion of my work when it became quite
+impossible to continue running things on the old footing, and quite
+necessary for me to have the house really at my own command. The arrival
+of George Merrill rendered this possible. And immediately a new order of
+things began. Merrill from the first developed quite a talent for
+housework. He soon picked up the necessary elements of cookery,
+vegetarian or otherwise; he carried on the arts of washing, baking and
+so forth with address and dispatch; he took pride in making the place
+look neat and clean, and insisted on decorating every room that was in
+use with flowers. I, for my part, finally gave up the market garden
+business and contracted the garden ground into merely sufficient to
+supply the needs of the house. This I cultivated partly myself and
+partly with the occasional help of an outsider; and in addition I made
+it a rule to dust my own study and light the fire in it every morning.
+These little garden and household works—if not amounting to much—I have
+still always found very helpful and rather pleasant—as giving the bodily
+side of life some decent expression, and at the same time rendering the
+mental perspective more just.
+
+Thus we settled down, two bachelors: keeping the mornings intact for
+pretty close and rigorous work; and the afternoons and evenings for more
+social recreation. As a rule I find the housekeeper who is a little
+particular and ‘house-proud’ is inclined, not unnaturally, to be
+somewhat set against visitors—especially those who may bring some amount
+of dirt and dishevelment with them. But George—though occasionally
+disposed that way—was so genuinely sociable and affectionate by nature
+that the latter tendency overcame the former. The only people he could
+not put up with were those whom he suspected (sometimes unjustly) of
+being pious or puritanical. For these he had as keen a _flair_ as the
+orthodox witch-finder used to have for heretics; and I am afraid he was
+sometimes rude to them. On one occasion he was standing at the door of
+our cottage, looking down the garden brilliant in the sun, when a
+missionary sort of man arrived with a tract and wanted to put it in his
+hand. “Keep your tract,” said George. “I don’t want it.” “But don’t you
+wish to know the way to heaven?” said the man. “No, I don’t,” was the
+reply, “can’t you see that _we’re in heaven here_—we don’t _want_ any
+better than this, so go away!” And the man turned and fled. Like the
+archdeacon in Eden Phillpotts’ _Human Boy_ “he flew and was never heard
+of again.”
+
+No doubt his objection to the pious and puritanical was returned with
+interest by their objection to him. Whatever faults or indiscretions he
+may have been guilty of, they were occasionally (in true provincial
+style) fastened on and magnified and circulated about as grave scandals.
+It was on such occasions however that the real affection of the country
+people for us showed itself, and they breathed slaughter against our
+assailants. George in fact was accepted and one may say beloved by both
+my manual worker friends and my more aristocratic friends. It was only
+the middling people who stumbled over him; and they did not so much
+matter! Anyhow our lives had become necessary to each other, so that
+what any one said was of little importance.
+
+It thus became possible to realize in some degree a dream which I had
+had in mind for some time—that of making Millthorpe a _rendezvous_ for
+all classes and conditions of society. I had by this time made
+acquaintances and friends among all the tribes and trades of manual
+workers, as well as among learned and warlike professions. Architects,
+railway clerks, engine-drivers, signalmen, naval and military officers,
+Cambridge and Oxford dons, students, advanced women, suffragettes,
+professors and provision-merchants, came into touch in my little house
+and garden; parsons and positivists, printers and authors, scythesmiths
+and surgeons, bank managers and quarrymen, met with each other. Young
+colliers from the neighboring mines put on the boxing-gloves with sprigs
+of aristocracy; learned professors sat down to table with farm-lads.
+Not, thank heaven! that this happened all in the lump; but little by
+little and year by year my friends of various degrees and shades got to
+know each other—and this was a real satisfaction to me. Many lady
+friends also came to stay with us—some of them unmarried (which may, who
+knows? have been a cause for scandal); and not a few married couples who
+liked our way of life and enjoyed talking over questions of household
+arrangement and simplification.
+
+Of course, after reading Thoreau’s _Walden_, whatever simplifications I
+may have effected in my own household management seemed very negligible
+and unimportant. Still I felt that some move in that direction, and some
+propaganda on the subject, was really needed. I tried hard to get some
+lady friend or other—who would probably understand household affairs
+much better than I—to write about the subject; but tried in vain. None
+would take it up. And so ultimately I was reduced to writing on the
+question myself—in _England’s Ideal_ and elsewhere.
+
+To-day I feel the importance of the subject as much as—perhaps more
+than—I did then. I certainly often wish that our household life, plain
+as it is, was even more plain. But I find that Time—mere Time—has a
+sinister effect in complicating life. Things arrive, and cannot so
+easily be got rid of again. Presents are made by well-meaning people,
+and cannot very well be returned to the donors; new habitudes of life
+are grafted on the old ones without actually displacing the latter; the
+wheel of life turns one way, like a ratchet, but will not turn back
+again; and so the complications grow and the embarrassments
+multiply—often to such a degree that they become almost unendurable; and
+one realizes at last why Death came into the world, and how necessary as
+a Deliverer of souls and a loosener of mortal knots he is. For myself I
+can truly say that the Waste Paper Basket stands as a signal of one of
+my greatest pleasures; and that when I feel depressed (which is not very
+often) I go about the house and hunt up things to destroy or give
+away—after which ritual act I feel ever so much better and happier.
+
+Simplicity and plainness of life are necessary, on account of the
+frightful waste of time and strength which the opposite policy entails—a
+waste which is obviously becoming daily worse and worse. Nor is it
+necessary to point out that if you employ _servants_ to keep all these
+beggarly elements of life in order for you, instead of looking after
+them yourself, you still only waste your time and strength in securing
+(or appropriating in some way) the money with which you pay those
+servants, as well as in the extra labour and anxiety of looking after
+the said servants—a state of affairs probably worse than the first.
+
+Plainness again is necessary from foundation considerations of humanity
+and democracy. To live in opulent and luxurious surroundings is to erect
+a fence between yourself and the mass-world which no selfrespecting
+manual worker will pass. It is consequently to stultify yourself and to
+lose some of the best that the world can give.
+
+Thirdly, from mere considerations of health the thing is necessary. My
+Japanese friend, Sanshiro Ishikawa, calls our houses _prisons_. Plain
+food, the open air, the hardiness of sun and wind, are things
+practically unobtainable in a complex ménage.
+
+And lastly, and most important, the complexity of material possessions
+and demands all around one almost inevitably has the effect of stifling
+the life of the heart and of the spirit. “The thorns sprang up and
+choked them.” The endless distraction of material cares, the endless
+temptation of material pleasures, inevitably has the effect of
+paralysing the great free life of the affections and of the soul. One
+loses the most precious thing the world can give—the great freedom and
+romance of finding expression and utterance for one’s most intimate self
+in the glorious presence of Nature and one’s fellows.
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+                             MILLTHORPIANA
+
+
+What I have just said might seem to suggest a sort of perpetual
+garden-party going on at Millthorpe. But this of course was by no means
+the case, and for weeks at a time we would often be quiet enough. A
+distance of four miles from the nearest railway-station is a good
+defence; especially in winter with snow on the ground; also the general
+rule of not seeing visitors till the afternoon. Still we were liable to
+incursions. To Job are ascribed the pregnant words (xxxi. 35) “O that
+mine adversary had written a book!” And I am afraid that I had in some
+such way laid myself open to attack. The ubiquitous American who (to
+adopt the style of Bernard Shaw) only stayed in England to visit
+Millthorpe and Stratford-on-Avon, was much in evidence. And faddists of
+all sorts and kinds considered me their special prey. I don’t know what
+I had done to deserve this—but so it was. Vegetarians, dress reformers,
+temperance orators, spiritualists, secularists, anti-vivisectionists,
+socialists, anarchists—and others of very serious mien and
+character—would call and insist in the most determined way on my joining
+their crusades—so that sometimes I had almost to barricade myself
+against them. A friend suggested (and the idea was not a bad one) that I
+should put up at the gate a board bearing the legend “To the Asylum” on
+it. Then the real lunatics would probably avoid the neighborhood.
+
+Nevertheless on the whole we got a good deal of fun out of these
+incursions, and occasionally some real and solid advance.
+
+On one occasion—it was when the Fearnehoughs were living with me—we were
+sitting quietly at our humble dinner of carrots or what-not, in the
+middle of the day, when I saw two young ladies pass the window. There
+came a knock at the door, and I opened it. There stood a very
+good-looking elegantly dressed girl of twenty-three or twenty-four, with
+terracotta frock and gainsborough hat, rather Londony in style; with a
+less showy companion beside her. Said number one: “Does Mr. Carp——” and
+then breaking off, “Oh! I see you are Mr. Carpenter. You know, I heard
+you once speak at the Fabian Society. I belong to the Fabian Society.
+And my cousin and I were near here, and thought perhaps we might call.”
+
+“Very glad to see you, I’m sure.”
+
+“And is this _really_ where you carry on your Simplification of Life?
+Oh! Madge! isn’t it interesting” (this last thrown in as an
+interjection).
+
+“I don’t know about that; but won’t you come in and sit down?”
+
+“Thank you so much, I should be glad of a rest.”
+
+“Will you have a bit of cake and a glass of milk?”
+
+“Oh no! but I _should_ like a piece of dry bread.”
+
+“Well, you need not ‘simplify’ so much as that.”
+
+“Oh! but I am so _fond_ of dry bread!”
+
+Then it came out that the Uncle and Aunt were waiting outside, so they
+had to be got in, and ultimately the party were all safely landed in my
+study—where after the simplification trouble had been got over, we made
+a reasonable acquaintance with each other.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  MILLTHORPE COTTAGE AND ORCHARD.
+
+  (Holmesfield on the hill above.)
+]
+
+But I never afterwards quite forgot that expression “Is this where you
+_carry on_ your?” etc.—as if one hung a flag out of the window.
+
+On another occasion, it being summer-time, a party of forty
+Spiritualists came over from Manchester to spend Sunday at a neighboring
+farmhouse, and with the intention of digging me out in the course of the
+afternoon. Providence however interposed and sent _pelting_ rain all
+day, and the poor things having to walk several miles from the station
+arrived at their farmhouse simply drenched; and when they had had their
+dinner, and partially dried their clothes, were naturally in no mood or
+condition to turn out again—with the exception of ten or twelve of the
+more heroic, who came on and called on me. What I had done to merit this
+honour I do not know, as I had had very little experience of
+Spiritualism; but they sat round and told me all sorts of wonderful
+stories. In the middle of it all, a plashing was heard outside in the
+rain, a knock at the door, and a young lady _sandal_-enthusiast arrived.
+She was a neatlooking well-made girl, in sandals, with bare,
+unstockinged feet, and she wore a simple navy blue serge dress; but of
+course she was wringing wet. We had not seen her before; her name was
+Swanhilda Something (somehow it sounded appropriate); she had set out to
+walk all the way from Sheffield (nine miles). On the way the rain had
+come on, and the sandals had nearly come off. She had no umbrella or
+waterproof; and she was decidedly more than damp. Mrs. Adams, who was
+then in charge of our ménage, took her upstairs and gave her a change,
+and she presently joined the Spiritualist party, looking it must be
+confessed somewhat like a ghost; but full of spirit and pluck. Her pluck
+(as I found afterwards) as a dress-reformer was really splendid. On this
+occasion, after tea, she refused all offers of a bed for the night,
+donned her still damp clothes and her sandals, and joining the forty
+Spiritualists, they all splashed back across the hills to the station.
+
+One of the pathetic things of the Socialist movement is the way in which
+it has caused not a few people of upper class birth and training to try
+and leave their own ranks and join those of the workers, when—by their
+very birth and training being unable to bridge the gulf—the result has
+been that they, belonging neither to one class nor the other, outcasts
+from one, and more or less pitied or ridiculed by the other, have fallen
+into a kind of limbo between. I have known several cases of young men of
+this kind. One of them I may describe under the name of ‘Bryan.’ His
+father, being a country squire, wanted Bryan to go into the army. The
+boy had ideas of his own about the matter, and simply refused.
+Differences ensued, and ultimately the father offered him £100 a year
+for three years, and told him to find his _own_ way into life. The youth
+drifted to London, fell in with the Socialists at a street corner,
+became inspired with their ‘cause,’ and sought to identify himself
+thenceforth with the working class. He came and spent a year or more in
+our neighborhood at Millthorpe. He was a good fellow—his heart, as they
+say, in the right place; but whether owing to the wretched character of
+his training, or to native want of skill or perseverance, he never could
+or would shape himself to do any solid work. He would dabble a little at
+the joiner’s bench, or in the garden, or with the woodmen in the
+woods—but only a little. When we urged him to learn some one trade
+thoroughly—if only cobbling or cabinet-making—he would always say “Ah!
+but things will be different when the Revolution comes—we shall all go
+barefoot, or these things will be done by machinery”; and so one got no
+nearer any practical result. On one occasion being in the neighborhood
+of his family home, I went and called on his father, thinking I might be
+of some use, but found him in a state of despair.
+
+“Oh, Bryan,” he said, “I don’t know what has taken the boy. Why the
+other day he came to see us in our London house, and the first thing he
+said was ‘Father, all these houses ought to be burnt down.’
+
+“‘Burnt down,’ I replied; ‘are you mad?’
+
+“‘Well, they _ought_ to be,’ he said, ‘and the people made to do some
+honest work instead of idling their lives away on other folk’s labour.’
+
+“‘And pray what sort of work would you set them to, young man?’
+
+“‘Oh, anything,’ he said, ‘any straightforward work like mending the
+roads or breaking stones.’
+
+“‘Then I suppose you Socialists would take an old man like me, seventy
+years of age, and turn me out of house and home, and set me to break
+stones on the roads—nice “saviours of society” you are!’
+
+“‘Well,’ he replied, ‘of course there would be exceptions—I daresay we
+should allow you a pension, say £100 a year, on account of your age and
+infirmity!’
+
+“Think of that, Mr. Carpenter, think of your own son offering you £100 a
+year, and in the name of these rascally Socialists!”
+
+Needless to say I deeply sympathized—(I don’t think in fact he suspected
+me of being a Socialist)—but I saw that nothing useful could be done,
+and at an early opportunity I retired.
+
+Bryan drifted out to Topolobampo, a socialist colony on the Gulf of
+California; and when that broke up he floated about the borders of
+Mexico and California, living on chance luck and occasional remittances
+until family changes brought him finally home.
+
+Another case of a somewhat similar kind was that of a young R.E.
+captain, Captain Peterson, let us call him, who had read Tolstoy and
+convinced himself that a military life was wrong, and that he must leave
+the Army. Being at the time Adjutant of Volunteers in a neighboring
+town, he used to come up to Millthorpe to discuss these questions and as
+to how he should ordain his life when once free. I admired his
+enthusiasm, but felt obliged to warn him not to be in too great a hurry;
+for it was easy to see that in practical matters he was a mere babe.
+Certainly the Army was not the place for him. Anything but ‘correct’ in
+dress, with generally a large gap between his waistcoat and his
+trousers, and again another between his trousers and his boots, with
+projecting schoolboy ears and red nose, he was just the man who would be
+unmercifully chaffed or even ‘ragged’ by his fellow-officers. But on the
+other hand his capacity for battling his way in the world, or for
+earning his own living, was evidently of the smallest; and his schemes
+for the future were of the most wild-cat kind. He was going to build a
+house—but as he would have no money to pay for it, he should get
+together a little group of workmen (who desired to improve their minds)
+on the condition that he should teach them elementary mathematics,
+surveying, etc., during one half of the day, while they should set
+bricks and mortar for him during the other half! (A charming scheme! but
+I think I see the British workman agreeing to it!) His house, according
+to the plan which he drew out of his pocket, was more like a greenhouse
+than anything else—with walls and roof largely glass; and when I
+suggested that it might prove rather hot in summer (!) he seemed to have
+no difficulty in imagining plentiful vines trailing overhead, with
+foliage and hanging bunches of grapes, to ward off the sun’s rays. For
+the floor of his room he had a device of which he was quite proud. “It
+is often convenient,” he said, “to have _two_ carpets—a rough one for
+ordinary use, and a better one for special occasions.”
+
+I assented to this rather dubious premise, for the sake of seeing what
+would follow!
+
+“Well” he continued “my idea is to sew these two carpets together like a
+roller towel, and have them passing over rollers at the two opposite
+ends of the room, so that one carpet should be _on_ the floor, and the
+other _underneath_. Then, you know, when you saw visitors coming, all
+you would have to do would be to turn the crank (suiting the action to
+the word), and you would have your best carpet on in a jiffey!”
+
+Too amazed and speechless to make any objection, I could only see with
+my mind’s eye, a cottage piano and a table and an armchair or two gaily
+sailing across the room, as the crank was being turned.
+
+“Meanwhile” he went on “as carpets are always wanting brushing I intend
+to have brushes _fixed_ underneath the floor, so that every time the
+carpet is changed it will be automatically brushed. Nothing could be
+simpler.”
+
+It would have been cruel to make further objections to schemes so indeed
+transparently simple. But they will give the reader an idea of the
+difficulties and dangers attending the metamorphosis from the condition
+of an army officer to that of a private in the peaceful regiments of
+humanity. What has become now of our friend Peterson I cannot certainly
+say. That he nobly and consistently abandoned his life in the army I
+know; but whether he succeeded in getting a house built on the
+Principles of Euclid is doubtful.
+
+Peterson was also connected with an occurrence which at the time was
+rather mysterious, and caused us some puzzlement. My friend George
+Merrill had come to live with me, and we two were occupying the house
+alone. One evening, late in the summer, we had just returned from
+Sheffield, and tired had thrown ourselves for a moment into chairs, when
+almost at once a knock came at the door—so soon indeed that we wondered
+how the visitor could have been so close behind. George went to the door
+and then turning to me said “A lady wants to see you.” At once a voice
+from outside said very distinctly, “A _woman_, if you please.” Roused to
+a sense of serious events impending, I went forward, and saw, as well as
+the falling dusk would allow, what appeared to be a fairly
+pleasant-looking woman of about thirty-five, but somewhat dishevelled
+and untidy in dress; and said—
+
+“Can I do anything for you?”
+
+“You can,” she replied, “I’m lost, I’m an outcast from the world, will
+you befriend me?”
+
+“I will if I can,” I said, “but tell me first about yourself—what is
+your name? do you come from Sheffield?”
+
+“You,” she exclaimed, “Mr. Carpenter, the author of _Towards
+Democracy_—and you won’t help me, till you know my name and all about
+me!”
+
+I looked at George with a wild surmise. “Certainly,” I said, “I can’t
+very well help you till I know what is the matter.”
+
+“I tell you,” she rejoined with increasing emphasis, “I’m lost, I’m an
+outcast, I can never go back to the world again. Ah!” (pointing to the
+garden and the rising moon) “if I could only live here in this beautiful
+scene, with you, far away from the town and all its belongings. Mr.
+Carpenter, will you befriend me?”
+
+What an appeal to a lone bachelor! Luckily I resisted the temptation to
+a too ready sympathy, and leaning forward said again, “But still you
+have not told me anything about yourself and your troubles.”
+
+As I did so I caught a distinct and strong waft of liquor.
+
+“Is it not enough that I am lost?” she replied.
+
+The situation was really embarrassing. At last I said:—
+
+“Well, you know, I and my friend have only just come back from
+Sheffield, and are very tired; will you come again to-morrow, or any day
+you like to name, when we shall have more time, and tell me your whole
+story.”
+
+At this she threw up her head with a kind of snort, and said: “And you
+are Mr. Carpenter! and you say come to-morrow—and to-morrow perhaps I
+shall be _dead_!” And thus saying she strode off to the gate with the
+air of a tragedy queen.
+
+Nevertheless for some days we could not help feeling a little
+uncomfortable. The people at the neighboring inn told us that she had
+come from the Sheffield direction during the afternoon, and had been
+hanging about waiting for our return for some hours, doubtless had been
+in the garden on our arrival—which accounted for her sudden
+appearance—but no one knew who she was; nor did tidings of her, or of
+any mischance to her, reach us for some weeks—till at last the memory of
+the incident died out.
+
+Then one afternoon, the said Captain Peterson having turned up and being
+engaged in expounding his theories over a cup of tea—my attention (which
+had quite wandered from his conversation) was suddenly caught by the
+words “and there’s that woman, she gets drunk, and then comes to my
+house, and won’t go away—it’s very awkward!—and she has read your
+_Towards Democracy_ too.”
+
+“That’s the woman,” I exclaimed, “tell me about her!” and a few
+explanations soon disclosed the fact that my mysterious visitor was the
+wife of Peterson’s colour-sergeant—a decent sort of body apparently, and
+all right except for occasional drinking-bouts, when she became liable
+to these vespertinal excursions!
+
+
+During the first year or so after Merrill’s arrival, and for a year or
+two before that, we had a young Russian, or Russian Jew, staying in the
+house. Invalided with consumption he had somehow taken refuge with us.
+He went by the name of Max Flint. He was of that fine and delicate type
+of Jew (somewhat perhaps like Mordecai in George Eliot’s _Daniel
+Deronda_) which one associates with Polish origin—a sensitive face with
+slender nose (not the Jewish proboscis), arched fine eyebrows and brown
+pensive eyes, well-formed features on the whole, and hands the
+same—something refined and almost womanly about him. He was handy in a
+house, and skilful with a needle; for indeed he was a tailor by trade.
+His history is worth relating if only because typical of hundreds and
+thousands of similar cases.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  G. M. FEEDING THE FOWLS.
+]
+
+His father, who was a Jewish butcher by trade, “very religious”
+according to Max “and always lending money and always losing it,” lived
+at Slobodka across the river from Kovno, and not far from the German
+frontier. Slobodka was the Jewish quarter and consisted of small wooden
+houses, two stories at most, but even so not unfrequently each occupied
+by more than one family. Noah Flynck however and his wife and the eight
+children were proud to have a house all to themselves. The mother died
+early but Max remembered her telling stories in which she recalled the
+subjugation of Poland. How Polish ‘gentlemen,’ landowners, took refuge
+in Slobodka, were hunted down by the Russian soldiers and _hanged_, and
+their lands appropriated—especially one well-known old story of a Polish
+noble who concealed himself in the interior of a haystack. The troops
+surrounded and searched his house and farmyard, but could not find him,
+till at last his little dog (who had smelt him out) was seen scratching
+and routing on the top of the stack, and he was betrayed!
+
+When Max was about sixteen or seventeen the terror of the Russian
+conscription came upon him. Few people realize what this nightmare is to
+the Russian peasantry. Even in the late Japanese war, villages were
+surrounded at midnight by Cossacks and police, houses if not opened
+immediately were broken into, men roused from sleep, and all between the
+ages of twenty-one and forty-three taken away, in most cases never to be
+heard of again! In Max’s time it was as bad, if not worse. The same
+thing went on. At any moment, at dead of night, the home might be broken
+into and plundered—the young men snatched away for ever. Bribes might
+defer your fate for a time—but only for a time. As to passports, you
+could not move without a passport—even to go from one village to
+another.
+
+Max determined—even against old Noah’s wish—to get away to England; and
+he managed to effect the escape. There are of course professional
+smugglers who undertake this business for you; and Max often told the
+story of how he paid three roubles to one of these for the job. He was
+instructed to be at a certain village close to the river Memel on a
+certain evening. He gave his family the slip, and arrived there to time;
+met the agent all right, and with twenty others bound on the same errand
+was packed in a stable for the night. Half of the company went off in
+the small hours of the morning, but Max and the remaining half had to
+remain there all the next day and night till 2 a.m., when the man came
+and gave them the signal to follow. They crept through the deserted
+street and along the road till they came to the bridge which alone
+divided them from Germany. But how to cross this in face of the Russian
+sentinel keeping watch at the near end? Needless to say it was a
+question of bribes. Of the three roubles the soldier was to have one.
+And Max with a kind of glee used to describe how he saw the man sitting
+there in his box as they crept by, and pretending to be asleep, yet
+visibly peeping with one eye through his fingers to see that _only the
+bargained number got through_. Once on the German side they were all
+right, and could breathe again freely. They met at an inn, counted up
+their remaining monies, and went on in parties together.
+
+Max came to Leeds. Of the hundreds of Russian Jews there he knew a
+little about some. He changed his name from Flynck to Flint, to suit the
+English ear, and soon settled down into sweated work in a Jewish
+tailors’ den.
+
+One must hope and suppose that the move was for the better; but what a
+long crucifixion is the life of the people! You escape from the horrors
+of the Russian army—from being preyed upon by human and insect vermin,
+as well as becoming food for powder—only to sit cross-legged for the
+rest of your life in a dirty, evil-smelling workshop, with gas flaring,
+stoves superheated (for making the irons hot), and windows all tightly
+shut—and that, in the heart of a sad-eyed smoke-ridden manufacturing
+town in the North of England. The wages I believe, in Max’s case, were
+not so bad as in some such dens, but the ‘drive’ and the pressure were
+incessant, the machine-work was exhausting, and the hours amounted to
+ten and a half per day. Little wonder that in a few years he developed
+the seeds of phthisis, and was practically marked down as its victim.
+
+Turning into a rebel and a hater of the present order (or disorder) of
+things, he joined the Socialist club in Leeds and became a worker in the
+cause. That led to his abandoning his own religion, lodging with
+Christians, and doing such outrageous things as poking the fire or
+preparing his own meals on the Sabbath Day—which in turn led to the
+Jewish community slandering and persecuting _him_! They threw mud and
+stones at him in the streets; and he became an outcast among his own
+people. The Jewish girl he was courting refused to consort with him any
+more and went off with another man, driving him so mad that (as Max told
+me himself) he on one occasion nearly killed her.
+
+It was somewhere about this time that, in connection with the said
+Socialist club, I happened to meet him. It was at the deathbed of
+another Socialist; and perceiving his distress and evident need of a
+change I asked him for a short holiday to Millthorpe. After that he came
+again, and again. There was something so gentle and helpful about him
+that he was always gratefully received by my friends; and the stories of
+his life and times were always interesting. Once or twice I wrote—in my
+best German—to his father[18]; and the innocent joy of the old man (in
+his replies) was touching. But naturally Max did not get stronger—and a
+time came when after being here a week or two he obviously could not go
+to work again and had to stay on rather indefinitely. The Adams’ and he
+became great friends, and he even helped a little in the sandalwork.
+Then later, when this was too laborious for him, he took up
+basket-making, and turned out quite a number of useful baskets; and as
+many of these were “waste-paper baskets,” one must feel that in this
+alone—in the providing receptacles for the printed rubbish of the day—he
+performed a useful service! Gradually however he got weaker, and had to
+give up all work. Then it became necessary for him to go to a
+convalescent Home at Bournemouth; and there after some months he died.
+
+It is often the case that invalids and old people feel themselves a
+burden on the household in which they live, think they are no good in
+the world, and wish themselves out of the way; and yet all the time the
+opposite may be the fact. Often they form a point of real interest in
+the house, they call out people’s sympathy and helpfulness, and their
+own pluck and sociability under failing health gives courage to others
+who are stronger. Something of this was true of Max. Though depressed at
+times his quaint and delicate humour was a joy to his friends and
+acquaintances. One event, which might have proved prematurely fatal to
+him, he would frequently recount with pleasure. It was one Christmas; a
+time when the Village Band is in the habit of coming round to each house
+in turn and playing its rather fearsome tunes! As it happened Max’s
+bedroom, being at one end of the house, was over a more or less open
+shed. It was evening and he was composing himself to sleep; when the
+band arrived. But, snow being on the ground, their footsteps were not
+heard; and the bandmen very naturally disposed themselves, for more
+shelter, inside the shed, quite unconscious of course that they were
+exactly underneath the bed on which an invalid was sleeping. All of a
+sudden they struck up with a tremendous blare “Christians, Awake!” or
+some such tune. It was like St. Jerome hearing the last Trump. Poor Max
+was nearly lifted out of bed by the shock. For a moment he did not know
+whether he was in this world or the next. When he concluded in favour of
+this one he found himself lying there in the old bedroom, but his heart
+palpitating so violently that, combined with the fit of laughter which
+also seized him, he was quite a wreck for some days after.
+
+There was something ironical in the idea of a Christian hymn proving so
+nearly fatal to a Jew; but a similar irony, curiously enough, pursued
+him to his end at Bournemouth. At the Home there—in order to avoid
+unpleasant questionings, and also because to him the matter was of no
+importance—he had said nothing about his Jewish connection but had
+declared himself a Christian, and had received in a friendly way the
+visits of the chaplain. When he died the Home made the usual
+arrangements for his interment in the Protestant Cemetery. But—and the
+story shows how the Jewish community hangs together—the Jews at Leeds
+and Manchester got to know somehow about it all, and telegraphed to the
+synagogue at Southampton to stop the infamy of Christian burial. A
+deputation came over from Southampton and arrived at the Bournemouth
+home only an hour or two before the funeral—to claim the body for
+removal to Southampton and burial with Jewish rites. I of course was on
+the spot; and a nice position I was in! The matron of the Home and the
+Chaplain on the one hand had “always understood” that he was a
+Christian; the Chief Rabbi and his friends insisted absolutely that he
+was a Jew; the funeral car was already waiting in the yard; and Max
+himself lay there in the mortuary chapel with his features in death
+finer and paler than ever, and wearing such an expression of high calm
+and indifference as might well represent his own actual feeling in the
+matter. I, of course, to all the parties concerned was obviously the
+“guilty” person—guilty of having got them into such a coil—and they
+looked at me with eyes of blame. But—though really just as indifferent
+as Max himself—I thought it best to ‘play the game’; and insisted that
+as he had openly declared himself a Christian he _was_ a Christian and
+should be buried as such. The Jewish party on its side brought arguments
+to show that a mere declaration on such a matter counted for nothing;
+and soon we plunged into a long discussion which I kept up for some time
+in order (partly) to hear what they would say. When I perceived however
+how tremendously seriously the Jews took the whole matter, and reflected
+also that Max’s father would be broken-hearted if he heard that his son
+had been put in a Christian grave, I thought it best to give way. The
+Chaplain and the matron agreed, and were indeed quite sensible about it
+all—and finally poor Max’s mortal remains were carried off in triumph by
+his own people.
+
+
+In conclusion of this chapter I may relate a curious story which perhaps
+helps to show how the elements of real inspiration and of mental
+aberration may sometimes get mixed up in the same person.
+
+I had received a letter from London from a man who described himself as
+a gold-miner from the Sierra Nevada, saying that he had just arrived in
+England, and was wishful to see me, as he had a message to deliver, and
+proposing to come on immediately to Millthorpe. As it happened I was
+just starting for Glasgow and Edinburgh on a lecturing tour. So I wrote
+at once telling him to wait a week for my return, and to employ his time
+meanwhile in sight-seeing. But on my return I found to my surprise that
+he had already been in the village some days, that he had taken a
+lodging, and was awaiting my arrival. The next day, November 21, 1910,
+he walked into my yard—obviously an American of a manual worker type,
+thin, sandy-haired and tall, with dark clothes and black slouch hat,
+somewhat horny-handed, but with a certain refinement of figure and
+physiognomy. Also there was a slightly “fallen in” and tired look about
+him which puzzled me at the moment, but was soon explained. He began
+almost immediately—as soon as we were sat down—telling me a long
+story—of which I can only give the outlines.
+
+It seemed that he had been working for a good many years in a gold-mine
+(probably as part-owner of it)—a mine up 10,000 feet in the Sierra
+Nevada. One day—six years before the events which he was about to
+narrate—a strange vision came to him. He had lost his way on the Nevada
+sandhills, and was searching about in some anxiety, when a sudden
+transformation of the landscape occurred, and he was transported into a
+new world, which he could only describe as ‘heaven.’ On several
+succeeding occasions the same vision came to him. Meanwhile, he said, he
+had been fighting hard against the three great temptations of a miner’s
+life—drink, tobacco, and an irascible temper. Each of these troubles in
+turn disappeared finally with a sudden deliverance and certain assurance
+of success. Then, only a couple of months before coming to England, more
+frequent visions came to him, accompanied by voices; and the affair
+culminated in his getting hold of Dr. Bucke’s book on _Cosmic
+Consciousness_ when he read the chapters about Buddha and Jesus. Then
+followed what he described as “seven days of ecstasy, agonizing
+ecstasy—tears of peace and joy streaming down my face—in which I saw
+_everything, everything_.” After that he read one day in the same book
+the chapter on E. C.
+
+Then one morning—as he was going up the mountain to his work from the
+camp below (Victor, Colorado), he heard the voices again shouting: “They
+came surging up close to my ears, and then faded away into the far
+distance, and then came close again—and two of the voices were God’s,
+and one was my own [!], and they were shouting _Edward Carpenter, Edward
+Carpenter, go and see E. C., go and see_, etc., etc. And I at the same
+time was shouting _Brother E. C.—God’s beloved Son, I am coming to
+you_.”
+
+[George and I looked at each other again with a wild surmise! Another
+case for the Asylum!]
+
+“And all this,” he continued, “kept being repeated as I walked up the
+hill, over and over again, till at last it faded away in the distance.
+And all the morning over my work I was in tears—tears of joy and
+pain—and had to conceal my face from my mates. But as I turned the
+crusher I felt enormous strength, and was quite unconscious of effort.”
+
+Then followed all sorts of stories about God telling him to do this and
+that, and the Devil telling him to do this and that, and of temptations
+and _tests_ to which he had been subjected. But in the end, he said, he
+had been impelled to come and see me, and he had come. One day he just
+threw down his tools and left them lying there, went and said good-bye
+to his mother (and she evidently did not want him to go) and set sail
+for England. And now we two (he and I) were to lead a mission round the
+world—he had some idea about a new Messiah—and to preach and convert the
+nations together.
+
+Things were evidently getting serious! Yet I hardly knew what to do. He
+was such a very decent fellow, quiet and kindly and essentially
+reasonable, and by no means a fanatic; and most obviously genuine and
+spontaneous. I hardly knew how to attack him.
+
+Then George Merrill saved the situation. He asked Grogan (C. E. Grogan
+was his name) to have some tea; and the answer gave the needed clue.
+
+“Tea? No, thank you, I haven’t taken tea or any food for three weeks.”
+[Afterwards on inquiry at his village-lodgings I found his landlady had
+been dreadfully disturbed at his not touching a crumb of anything all
+the time he was there.]
+
+“But if you won’t eat, you’ll have a cup of tea, or something to drink?”
+
+“No, nothing—except a glass of water—I haven’t eaten anything for three
+weeks, and I don’t think I shall ever eat again.”
+
+The cat was out; and the line of action was clear.
+
+“Look here!” I said, “I quite understand you, and sympathize with your
+experiences—and I think indeed you have had some very real experiences,
+and some realizations of another kind of consciousness; but you must be
+careful, and have some idea of what you are doing. There is no doubt
+that sometimes abstinence from food will help to develop internal
+faculties. On the other hand to go too far and to weaken the body,
+perhaps permanently, may be most foolish, and dangerous. The body is
+there to give expression to the soul, and if you have any important
+spiritual revelation to express you want all the faculties of your body
+in good order for the purpose. Starvation, it is well known, engenders
+visions and voices, often of a very delusive character. You must not
+give yourself away to all that. How do you know that what you say is of
+God is not of the Devil; and _vice versâ_? And how do _I_ know?”
+
+So I went on at him; making him plainly understand that I was not going
+to join in his crusade—whatever it was. “Besides,” I said, “I still do
+not see what made you come here. You say you have not read any of my
+writing—except what was contained in Dr. Bucke’s book. _What do you know
+about me?_”
+
+Then he leaped out again. “Oh, I know all about you. _I know that you
+will never die!_”
+
+“That is not a very cheerful prospect,” said I, gently laughing.
+
+“Oh, well,” he replied, “you will at any rate live four hundred years.
+It is like this: The earth and all that are in it, are from this day
+passing gradually into a new and higher plane of existence. That process
+will complete itself in four hundred years, and at the end of that time
+the earth will be absorbed into the Sun and the ethereal life. A
+wonderful period of new life will arrive; and all those who are living
+then will be transformed without passing through Death.”
+
+He spoke earnestly and with conviction. I did not oppose him; but warned
+him again about going too far with his abstinence, and advised
+deliberation in his conclusions. He did not seem inclined to give way
+about food—said he thought he should never require it again, and
+maintained that the internal breathing (_prana_) came to him with a
+wonderful sense of fragrance and refreshment.
+
+He was extraordinarily good; for though I had refused, almost rudely, to
+join in his schemes, he took no offence—simply said that he was
+satisfied now, that he had given the message he had been told to give,
+and would return to America “to-morrow.”
+
+Having then made my negative attitude quite clear, so that there should
+be no misunderstanding, I now adopted a positive line; and talked to him
+for some little time about experiences of the kind he had described.
+Then I went and fetched some books—the _Bhagavat Gita_, some of the
+Upanishads, and other works. He had never even heard their names. I
+opened the _Bhagavat Gita_, almost at random, and pointed him out a
+passage. He almost clapped his hands for joy. “Oh yes, that is exactly
+what I feel.” He seized the book, and turned over the pages, pouncing on
+passage after passage with delight. “Yes, yes, that is just it!” There
+was no doubt about his sincere and instant appreciation. Then I showed
+him the passage in the _Bhagavat Gita_ about moderation in eating and
+moderation in abstinence; but he did not seem inclined to agree. “I just
+do what God tells me.”
+
+Finally I _gave_ him the _Gita_, and some other books of similar
+character. And he on his side decided to return to America
+“to-morrow”—and insisted on my writing at once for a cab. I did not
+attempt to dissuade him—feeling that perhaps he was right—also that his
+friends in America would be more satisfied if he returned.
+
+Meanwhile he _looked_ ever so much better than when he came into the
+house—and evidently was so—“glad to have carried out what he had to do,”
+he said. I told him that on board ship his mind would settle itself; and
+he went off.
+
+He wrote from Liverpool next day, saying he was very happy; and a month
+or so later from Colorado—in which letter he said, “The _unseen force_
+which caused me to quit eating caused me to begin again (as suddenly as
+I quit). My fast was merely a part of the _lesson_ which is continually
+before me.” Since then I have heard from him from time to time. In one
+letter he says: “I am feeling fine, and slowly but surely am I (as a
+child) permitted to learn the _a, b, c_ of _real life_. It is my belief
+that we are all permitted to pierce the veil that conceals _real Life_
+from our view, only accordingly as our minds are ready to absorb the
+knowledge gained thereby. From a point of view of Cosmic Consciousness I
+am beginning my life all over again, and am only beginning in a small
+way to see and understand some of the simpler truths of the same; but I
+have lost much of that feeling of haste, and learning with the idea in
+mind that I have all eternity to learn in. My folk and relatives all
+glad that I am home and quit my wanderings for the present. I think I
+shall engage in mining again in a small way. This mining camp is about
+10,000 feet altitude, and the weather is beautiful, plenty sunshine, and
+not cold winter weather.”
+
+In his latest to me he says: “You will remember when I visited you I
+said you would never die. I still feel same way and see no chance of my
+dying, personally it is a matter of indifference whether I live or die.
+If I must die in order to live again, so be it, but may we not be
+permitted to enjoy eternal life here and now? I think so. I think the
+Harvest of the world is ripe, but such great changes are slow and almost
+unnoticeable and I think overlap each other, so that _harvest_ or death
+of one thing is the Birth of another, that is consciousness of Eternal
+Life becoming more general. Well, I think that I have written enough
+that you may see the drift of my mind, and I think that is what you
+want. Love to Mr. Merrill and yourself, yours truly, C. E. GROGAN.”
+
+To which words of Grogan’s I would only add: “No doubt we _are_
+permitted to enjoy eternal life here and now—even in this tiniest
+corner, wherever it may be, of space and time.”
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+                         THE STORY OF MY BOOKS
+
+
+The fate of my books has been interesting—at any rate to myself! Leaving
+aside _Narcissus and Other Poems_, and _Moses: a Drama_—which were
+written in early days at Cambridge, and were only, so to speak,
+exercises in literature and efforts to vie with then-accepted
+models—_Towards Democracy_, of course, has been the start-point and
+kernel of all my later work, the centre from which the other books have
+radiated. Whatever obvious weaknesses and defects it may present, I have
+still always been aware that it was written from a different _plane_
+from the other works, from some predominant mood or consciousness
+superseding the purely intellectual. Indeed, so strong has been this
+feeling that, though tempted once or twice to make alterations from the
+latter point of view, I have never really ventured to do so; and now,
+after more than thirty years since the inception of the book, I am
+entirely glad to think that I have not.
+
+It is a curious question—and one which literary criticism has never yet
+tackled—why it is that certain books, or certain passages in books, will
+bear reading over and over again without becoming stale; that you can
+return to them after months or years and find entirely new meanings in
+them which had escaped you on the first occasion; and that this can even
+go on happening time after time, while other books and passages are
+exhausted at the first reading and need never be looked at again. How is
+it possible that the same phrase or concatenation of words should bear
+within itself meaning behind meaning, horizon after horizon of
+significance and suggestion? Yet such undoubtedly is the case. Portions
+of the poetic and religious literature of most countries, and large
+portions of books like _Leaves of Grass_, the _Bhagavat Gita_, Plato’s
+_Banquet_, Dante’s _Divina Commedia_, have this inexhaustible
+germinative quality. One returns to them again and again, and
+continually finds fresh interpretations lurking beneath the old and
+familiar words.
+
+I imagine that the explanation is somewhat on this wise: That in the
+case of passages that are exhausted at a first reading (like statements
+say of Church doctrine or political or scientific theory) we are simply
+being presented with an intellectual ‘view’ of some fact; but that in
+the other cases in some mysterious way the words succeed in conveying
+the fact itself. It is like the difference between the actual solid
+shape of a mountain and the different views of the mountain obtainable
+from different sides. They are two things of a different order and
+dimension. It almost seems as if some mountain-facts of our experience
+_can_ be imaged forth by words in such a way that the phrases themselves
+retain this quality of solidity, and consequently their outlines of
+meaning vary according to the angle at which the reader approaches them
+and the variation of the reader’s mind. None of the outlines are final,
+and the solid content of the phrase remains behind and eludes them all.
+Anyhow the matter is a most mysterious one; but as a fact it remains,
+and demands explanation.
+
+I have felt somehow with regard to _Towards Democracy_ that—while my
+other books were merely subsidiary and mainly represented ‘views’ and
+‘aspects’—this one (with all its imperfections) had that central quality
+and kind of other-dimensional solidity to which I have been alluding.
+And my experiences in writing it have corroborated that feeling.
+
+I have spoken elsewhere about the considerable period of gestation and
+suffering which preceded the birth of this book; nor were its troubles
+over when it made its first appearance in the world. The first edition,
+printed and published by John Heywood of Manchester, at my own expense,
+fell quite flat. The infant showed hardly any signs of life. The Press
+ignored the book or jeered at it. I can only find one notice by a London
+paper of the first year of its publication, and that is by the old
+sixpenny _Graphic_ (of August 11, 1883), saying—not without a sort of
+pleasant humour—that the phrases are “suggestive of a lunatic Ollendorf,
+with stage directions,” and ending up with the admission that “the book
+is truly mystic, wonderful—like nothing so much as a nightmare after too
+earnest a study of the Koran!” The _Saturday Review_ got hold of the
+_second_ edition, and devoted a long article (March 27, 1886) to slating
+it and my socialist pamphlets (_Desirable Mansions_, etc.) as instances
+of “the kind of teaching which is now commonly set before the more
+ignorant classes, and which is probably accepted in good faith by not a
+few among them. A haphazard collection of fallacies, to which the
+semblance of a basis is given by half a dozen truisms, flavored by a
+little Carlylese, or by diluted extracts of Walt Whitman ... such is the
+compound which ‘cultivated’ Socialism offers as a new and saving faith
+to the working classes, and of which the works before us offer a good
+example.” Then follow severe comments on my absurd views about Usury and
+the manners and customs of the Rich, and finally a long quotation from
+_Towards Democracy_; of which book the writer says: “And this sort of
+thing goes on through two hundred and fifty pages, the blank monotony of
+which is only relieved here and there by a few passages which it would
+be undesirable to quote, and which it is not wholesome to read.”
+
+The London Press—when it did deign to notice my work—followed the same
+sort of lead; and it was left (as usual) to comparative outsiders to
+make any real discovery in the matter. Curiously enough, a very young
+man (George Moore-Smith) in a long article in the _Cambridge Review_ of
+November 14, 1883, led the way in drawing serious attention to the first
+edition. The _Indian Review_ (Wm. Digby) of May 1885 had a remarkably
+sympathetic and intelligent notice of the second edition, and I owe much
+to my friend W. P. Byles’ introduction of the book to Northern readers
+through the _Bradford Observer_ (of March 19, 1886); also to an article
+by H. Rowlandson in _The Dublin University Review_ for April, 1886.
+
+With the third edition (1892) a certain amount of timid acknowledgment
+set in. Notices in a few more or less well-known papers were friendly
+though brief and cautious, as with a scent of danger. The fourth and
+complete edition did not appear till ten years later (1902), and by that
+time the book had established itself. It had ceased to demand
+Press-appreciations, favorable or otherwise; and so the critics—_very
+luckily for themselves_—escaped, and have escaped, without ever having
+had to give any sort of full pronouncement or verdict on the book!
+
+To return to the first edition. I had only five hundred copies printed;
+but at the end of two years when I had gathered material enough for a
+second edition, there was still a hundred or so of these on hand. All
+the same I did not feel any serious misgiving. I caused a thousand
+copies to be printed of the second edition (260 pp.), sent them round to
+the Press again, and waited. This was in 1885. If anything the reception
+accorded was worse than before—in a sense worse—because there was more
+of it! By 1892—when I needed to print a third edition—only some seven
+hundred copies of the second edition had gone. Seven hundred in seven
+years! The prospects were not good, yet I did not feel depressed. I had
+certainly not expected any great sale; and there were even signs of
+improvement. My _other_ books were beginning to attract a little
+attention. It was obviously also hard on this book to have it published
+in Manchester. So I determined to go to London. There was no possible
+chance of getting a publisher there to take it as his own speculation;
+so I went to Mr. Fisher Unwin and asked him to print at my expense and
+sell it on commission—which he naturally was quite willing to do! The
+book had now grown to 368 pp., and its price had to be raised from 2s.
+6d. to 3s. 6d.; but its sales actually improved, and for two or three
+years ranged at about two hundred copies a year. I began to think it was
+just possible that my little bark would navigate itself, that it would
+float out on deeper waters and into the world-current; when something
+disastrous happened which left it in the shallows for quite a few years
+longer.
+
+That something was the Oscar Wilde trial or trials, which took place in
+the spring of 1895; but to understand how they affected _Towards
+Democracy_ I must go back a little. Early in 1894 I started writing a
+series of pamphlets on sex-questions—those questions which at that time
+were generally tabooed and practically not discussed at all, though they
+now have become almost an obsession of the public mind. As pamphlets of
+that kind would have no chance with the ordinary publishers, I got them
+printed and issued by the Manchester Labour Press—a little association
+for the spread of Socialist literature, on the committee of which I was.
+The pamphlets were _Sex-love_, _Woman_, and _Marriage_; and they sold
+pretty well—three or four thousand copies each. Encouraged by their
+success I began early in ’95 to put them together, and add fresh matter
+to them, till I had a book ready for publication—which I afterwards
+entitled _Love’s Coming-of-Age_. This book I offered to Fisher Unwin (as
+he was already selling _Towards Democracy_) and he accepted
+it—undertaking to produce the book himself and give me a fair Royalty.
+His Agreement was signed in June 1895.
+
+Meanwhile, in January 1895 (though dated 1894) I issued from the Labour
+Press, and in the same connection as the other pamphlets, a fourth one,
+entitled _Homogenic Love_—which I suppose was among the first attempts
+in this country to deal at all publicly with the problems of the
+Intermediate Sex. I placed “printed for private circulation only” on the
+Title-page, and had only a comparatively small number of copies struck
+off—which were not sold but sent round pretty freely to those who I
+thought would be interested in the subject or able to contribute views
+or information upon it. My object in fact was to get in touch with
+others and to obtain material for future study or publication. Even in
+this quiet way the pamphlet created some alarm—and in the dove-cotes of
+Fleet Street (as I heard) caused no little fluttering and agitation; but
+it is quite possible the matter would have ended there, if it had not
+been for the Oscar Wilde troubles. Wilde was arrested in April 1895 and
+from that moment a sheer panic prevailed over _all_ questions of sex,
+and especially of course questions of the Intermediate Sex.
+
+I did not include _Homogenic Love_ in my proposed new book, nor had I
+any intention of including it; but when the mere existence of the thing
+came to the knowledge of Fisher Unwin he was so perturbed that he
+actually cancelled his Agreement with me, with regard to the book
+_Love’s Coming-of-Age_, and broke loose from it. It was in vain that I
+tried to restrain him. He had got his leg over the trace, as it were,
+and was ‘off.’ Indeed, he was quite willing to sacrifice the expense he
+had already incurred (for the book was now partly set up) rather than go
+on with it. Under the circumstances I could not, of course, very well
+compel him to publish. Moreover I felt sorry for his perturbation, and
+quite understood some of its causes. The extent of it was finally shown
+by his going so far as to turn _Towards Democracy_ out of his shop, and
+refuse to publish _that_ any longer!
+
+Thus my two books _Love’s Coming-of-Age_ and _Towards Democracy_—like
+two poor little orphans—were both out on the wide world again.
+
+For the moment I will go on with _Love’s Coming-of-Age_. Being routed by
+Fisher Unwin, I went to Sonnenschein, Bertram Dobell, and
+others—altogether five or six publishers—but they all shook their heads.
+The Wilde trial had done its work; and silence must henceforth reign on
+sex-subjects.[19] There was nothing left for me but to return to my
+little Labour Press at Manchester, and get the book printed and
+published from there—which I did, the first edition being issued in
+1896.
+
+It is curious to think that that was not twenty years ago, and what a
+landslide has occurred since then! In ’96 no ‘respectable’ publisher
+would touch the volume, and yet to-day [1915] the tide of such
+literature has flowed so full and fast that my book has already become
+quite a little old-fashioned and demure! But the severe resistance and
+rigidity of public opinion at the time made the volume very difficult to
+write. The readiness, the absolute determination of people to
+_misunderstand_ if they possibly could, rendered it very difficult to
+guard against misunderstandings, and as a matter of fact nearly every
+chapter in the book was written four or five times over before I was
+satisfied with it.
+
+_Love’s Coming-of-Age_ ought of course (like some parts of _England’s
+Ideal_) to have been written by a woman; but, though I tried, I could
+not get any of my women-friends to take the subject up, and so had to
+deal with it myself. Ellen Key, in Sweden, began—I fancy about the same
+period—writing that fine series of books on _Love_, _Marriage_,
+_Childhood_, and so forth, which have done so much to illuminate the
+Western World; but at that time I knew nothing of her and her work.
+
+My book circulated almost immediately to some extent in the Socialistic
+world, where my name was fairly well known; but some time elapsed before
+it penetrated into more literary and more ‘respectable’ circles. One of
+the first signs of its succeeding in the latter direction took a rather
+amusing shape. I had, one day, to call upon a well-known London
+publisher (who was already publishing some of my books, though he had
+refused this particular one) on business, and having discussed the
+matters immediately in hand, he presently turned to me and inquired how
+my _Love’s Coming-of-Age_ was selling. I of course gave a fairly
+favorable account. “I think,” said he in a somewhat chastened tone “that
+perhaps we made rather a mistake in refusing some little time back to
+take it up. A Sunday or two ago I was at church [probably a
+Congregational or Unitarian Chapel], and the minister quoted a page or
+two from your book, and spoke very highly of it, and actually gave the
+published address and price, and all; and I saw quite a lot of people
+noting the references down.” He paused, and then added, “Quite a good
+advertisement—worth thirty or forty copies I daresay.” I could not help
+smiling. No wonder he was sorry! But the story gave promise of better
+things to come.
+
+In 1902 the said publishing firm was glad to tale the book up and
+publish it on commission for me—which they (and their successors) have
+done ever since. And its sale in England (though not phenomenal like
+that of the German translation) has, I must say, been very good.
+
+To return to _Towards Democracy_. Considering its expulsion from Mr.
+Fisher Unwin’s shop and the generally panicky condition of the book
+market in London, there seemed nothing to do but to return to Manchester
+and place it also in the hands of the little Labour Press for
+publication. The two thousand or so copies remaining in Unwin’s hands
+were my property, and I had only to remove them to Manchester, get a new
+title-page printed, and have them issued from there. This I accordingly
+did, and in ’96 the Labour Press edition appeared—368 pp., the same as
+Fisher Unwin’s. Naturally the Labour Press connection was not very
+favorable as regards circulation, and the price (3s. 6d.) was high for
+Socialist and Labour circles. The spread of the book remained
+slow—slower of course than it had been with Unwin, and hardly amounted
+to a hundred copies a year.
+
+This was bad; but worse remained behind. Somewhere early in 1901 the
+Labour Press—whose financial affairs had never been very
+satisfactory—went bankrupt! I knew of course what was pending; and as
+the stock of _Towards Democracy_ belonged to _me_, and I knew that if
+left at the Press it would be in danger of falling into the creditors’
+hands, there was nothing left but to smuggle it away as soon as I could
+into some place of safe keeping. Mr. James Johnston, City Councillor,
+always a good friend, came to the rescue and offered me storage room in
+his office. I hired a dray. And so one foggy day, with a good part of a
+ton of _Towards Democracy_ on board—which I helped to load and unload—I
+jogged with the drayman through the streets of Manchester amid the huge
+turmoil of the cotton goods and other traffic. A strange load—and I
+never before realized how heavy the book was!
+
+It lay there for some months, and then about July of the same year I
+made arrangements with Sonnenschein & Co. for them to sell the book on
+commission, and the stock was transferred into their hands. From that
+time its sales slowly went forward—from a hundred or a hundred and fifty
+per annum in 1902, to eight hundred or nine hundred in 1910, when the
+Sonnenschein business, and with it my book, passed into the hands of
+George Allen & Co. In 1902 the fourth part of _Towards Democracy_, i.e.
+“Who shall command the Heart” was published; and in 1905 this was
+incorporated with the three former parts in one complete volume. Later
+in the same year I succeeded (a long cherished project) in producing a
+pocket edition of the whole on India paper, which has ever since sold
+alongside and _pari passu_ with the Library edition. Thus after
+twenty-one years (in 1902) these writings (begun in 1881) came to an
+end; and three years later the book took its definite and permanent form
+in print and binding, and some sort of rather indefinite place in the
+world of letters.
+
+Talking about their place in the world of letters, some of my books
+have, I fear, puzzled the public by their titles. _Ioläus_ has been much
+of an offender in this way. The uncertainty as to who or what Ioläus
+might be, the difficulty of knowing how to spell the word, and the
+impossibility of pronouncing it, proved at one time such obstacles that
+they quite adversely affected the sales. On one occasion I received a
+telegram from a firm asking me to send at once two hundred Oil-cans. My
+puzzlement was great, as I had indeed never embarked in the oil trade,
+nor in my wildest dreams thought of doing so—till suddenly it flashed
+upon me that the message, having had to pass through a rustic
+post-office, had been transformed on the way, and that the romantic
+friend and companion of Hercules had been turned into a paraffin tin!
+After that I modified the title so as to avoid any such sacrilege in the
+future.
+
+Coming back to _Towards Democracy_ again, I do not know that I have ever
+seen a very serious estimate or criticism of that book in any well-known
+literary paper. Like others of my works it has come into the literary
+sheep-fold not through the accepted gate but “some other way, like a
+thief or a robber.” It has been generally ignored—as already
+explained—by the guardians of the gate, yet it has quietly and
+decisively established itself, and the ‘sheep’ somehow have taken kindly
+to the ‘robber.’ And perhaps the matter is best so. A book of that kind
+is not easy to criticize; it cannot be dispatched by a snap phrase; it
+does not belong to any distinct class or school; its form is open to
+question; its message is at once too simple and too intricate for public
+elucidation—even if really understood by the interpreter. That it should
+go its own way quietly, neither applauded by the crowd, nor barked at by
+the dogs, but knocking softly here and there at a door and finding
+friendly hospitality—is surely its most gracious and satisfying destiny.
+
+But though the ignoring by the critics of _Towards Democracy_ has seemed
+natural and proper, I confess I have been somewhat surprised by their
+non-recognition or non-discussion of the questions dealt with in the
+other books; because, as I have said these books are on a different
+plane from _Towards Democracy_. They deal with theories or views which
+flow (as I think) perfectly logically from the central idea of _Towards
+Democracy_—just as the different views or aspects of a mountain flow
+perfectly logically from the mountain-fact itself. We cannot discuss the
+central idea, but we can discuss the aspects, because they come within
+the range of intellectual apprehension and definition. If the world—it
+seems to me—should ever seize the central fact of such books as _Leaves
+of Grass_ and _Towards Democracy_, it must inevitably formulate new
+views of life on almost every conceivable subject: the aspects of all
+life will be changed. And the discussion and definition of these views
+ought to be extraordinarily interesting. It is therefore surprising I
+say that no serious discussion of the underlying or implicit assumptions
+of these two books has yet taken place. It is true, of course, that
+to-day the world is witnessing a strange change of attitude on almost
+all questions, and a vague feeling after the new aspects to which I am
+alluding; but it does not concatenate these views on to any central
+fact, and therefore cannot deal with them adequately or effectively. It
+is as if people, having taken drawings of a hitherto undiscovered
+mountain from many different sides, and comparing them together, should
+not realize that it is the _same_ mountain which they have been
+observing all the time, and that there _is_ a unity and a reality there
+which will explain and concatenate all the outlines. I say it is a
+little disappointing that this point has not yet been reached, because
+it would make the discussion and definition of the new views so
+wonderfully interesting. On the other hand it is obvious that in the
+midst of the enormous output and rush of modern literature, critics
+generally have thrown up the sponge, and are content to get through
+their work perfunctorily or as best they can, without the added labour
+of tackling, or attempting to tackle, a great new synthesis.
+
+The attempt made a quarter of a century ago—in _Civilization: its Cause
+and Cure_—to define the characteristics of (modern) civilization, and to
+show the civilization-period as a distinct stage in social evolution,
+destined to pass away and to be succeeded by a later stage—of which
+later stage even now some of the features may be indicated—has never as
+far as I know been seriously taken up and worked out. The Socialists of
+course have certain views on the subject, but they are limited to the
+economic field, and do not by any means cover the whole ground; and
+various doctrinaire sets and sects are nibbling at the problem from
+different sides; but a real statement and investigation of the whole
+question, and a linking of it up to deepest spiritual facts, would
+obviously be absorbingly interesting. I first read the paper which bears
+the above name at the Fabian Society (? in 1888), and, needless to say,
+it was jeered at on all sides; but since then, somehow, a change has
+come, and even Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw, who most attacked me at the
+time, have ceased to use the word ‘Civilization’ in its old optimistic
+and mid-Victorian sense. What we want now is a real summing-up and
+settling of what the word connotes—both from the historical point of
+view, and with regard to the future.
+
+Another paper in the same book, which shocked a good many of my
+Cambridge friends, was my “Criticism of Modern Science.” The Victorian
+age glorified modern Science—not only in respect of its patient and
+assiduous observation of facts, which every one allows, but also on
+account of the supposed Laws of Nature which it had discovered, and
+which were accounted immutable and everlasting. A light arising from
+some quite other source convinced me that this infallibility of the
+scientific “Laws” was an entire illusion. I had been brought up on
+mathematics and physical science. I had lectured for years on the
+latter. But now the reaction set in; and—rather rudely and crudely it
+must be confessed—I turned on my old teacher to rend her! I published in
+1885, and in Manchester, a shilling pamphlet called _Modern Science: A
+Criticism_, and sent it round to my mathematical and scientific friends.
+I think most of them thought I had gone daft! But, after all, the
+whirligig of Time has brought its revenge, and the inevitable evolution
+of human thought has done its work; and now, one may ask, where _are_
+the airy fairy laws and theories of the Science of the last century? The
+great stores of observations and facts are certainly there, and so are
+the marvellous applications of these things to practical life—but where
+are the immutable Laws?—where are the clean-cut systems of the families
+and species of plants and animals? where is Boyle’s law of gases? where
+the stability of the planetary orbits? where the permanence and
+indestructibility of the atom? where is the theory of gravitation, where
+the theory of light, the theory of electricity? the law of supply and
+demand in Political Economy, of Natural Selection in Biology? of the
+fixity of the Elements in Chemistry, or the succession of the strata in
+Geology? All gone into the melting-pot—and quickly losing their
+outlines!
+
+It is true that in the great brew which is being thus formed, rags and
+chunks of the old “Laws of Nature” are still discernible; but no one
+supposes they are there for long, and on all sides it is obvious that
+the scientific world is giving up the search for them, and the
+expectation (in the face of such things as radium, Hertzian waves,
+Karyokinesis and so forth) of ever reconstituting Science again on the
+old Victorian basis. These fixed ‘Laws,’ it is pretty evident, and their
+remaining débris, will melt away, till out of the seething brew
+something entirely different and unexpected emerges. And that will
+be?... Yes, what indeed out of such a Cauldron _might_ be expected to
+emerge—a strange and wonderful Figure, a living Form!
+
+Yet the curious thing is that while this process of the dissolution of
+scientific theory is going on before our eyes, and on all sides, no one
+seems to be aware of it—at any rate no one sums it up, gives it outline
+and definition, or tackles its meaning and result. Tolstoy was pleased
+with the attacks on Modern Science contained in _Civilization: its Cause
+and Cure_, wrote to me about it, and had the chapter printed in Russian,
+with a preface by himself. But his point of view was that Science being
+a serious enemy to Religion anything which bombarded and crippled
+Science would help to free Religion. That was not my point of view. I do
+not regard Science—or rather Intellectualism—as the foe of Religion, but
+more as a stage which _has to be passed through_ on the way to a higher
+order of perception or consciousness—which might possibly be termed
+Religion—only the word religion is too vague to be very applicable here.
+
+Another airy castle which is obviously fading away before our eyes
+is that of the “Laws” of Morality. The whole structure of
+civilization-morality is being rapidly undermined. The moral
+aspects of Property, Commerce, Class-relations, Sex-relations,
+Marriage, Patriotism, and so forth, are shifting like dissolving
+views. Nietzsche has scorched up the old Christian altruism;
+Bernard Shaw has burned the Decalogue. Yet (in this country and
+according to our custom) we jog along and pretend not to see what
+is happening. No body of people faces out the situation, or
+attempts to foretell its future. The Ethical society professes to
+substitute Ethics for Religion, as a basis of social life; yet
+never once has it informed us what it means by Ethics! The Law
+courts go mumbling on over ancient measures of right and wrong
+which the man in the street has long ago discarded. Much less has
+any group attempted to foreshadow the new Morality, and
+concatenate it on to the great root-fact of existence. In my
+“Defence of Criminals: a Criticism of Morality,”[20] I gave an
+outline and an indication of what was happening, and of the way
+out into the future; but that paper, as far as I know, has never
+been seriously discussed.
+
+Nevertheless under the surface new ideas are forming, the lines of the
+coming life are spreading. The book _Civilization_—first published by
+Sonnenschein, in 1889—has had a good circulation, and been translated
+into many languages. Though somewhat hastily and crudely put together,
+yet owing to a certain _élan_ about it, and probably largely owing to
+the fact that it gives expression to the main issues above-mentioned, it
+has been well received.
+
+One idea, which runs all through the book—namely, that of there being
+three great stages of Consciousness: the simple consciousness (of the
+animal or of primitive man), the self-consciousness (of the civilized or
+intellectual man), and the mass-consciousness or cosmic consciousness of
+the coming man, is only roughly sketched there, but is developed more
+fully in _The Art of Creation_. It is of course deeply germane to
+_Towards Democracy_. And though we may not yet be in a position to
+define the conception very exactly, still it is quite evident, I think,
+that some such evolution into a further order of consciousness is the
+key to the future, and that many æons to come (of human progress) will
+be ruled by it. Dr. Richard Bucke, by the publication (in 1901) of his
+book _Cosmic Consciousness_ made a great contribution to the cause of
+humanity. The book was a bit casual, hurried, doctrinaire, un-literary,
+and so forth, but it brought together a mass of material, and did the
+inestimable service of being the first to systematically consider and
+analyse the subject. Strangely here again we find that his book—though
+always spreading and circulating about the world, beneath the
+surface—has elicited no serious recognition or response from the
+accredited authorities, philosophers, psychologists, and so forth; and
+the subject with which it deals is in such circles practically
+ignored—though in comparatively unknown coteries it may be warmly
+discussed. So the world goes on—the real expanding vital forces being
+always beneath the surface and hidden, as in a bud, while the accepted
+forms and conclusions are little more than a vari-coloured husk, waiting
+to be thrown off.
+
+Relating itself closely and logically with the idea (1) of the three
+stages of Consciousness is that (2) of the Berkeleyan view of matter—the
+idea that matter in itself is an illusion, being only a film between
+soul and soul: _called_ matter when the film is opaque to the perceiving
+soul, but called mind when the latter sees through to the intelligence
+behind it. And these stages again relate logically to the idea (3) of
+the Universal or Omnipresent Self. The _Art of Creation_ was written to
+give expression to these three ideas and the natural deductions from
+them.
+
+The doctrine of the Universal Self is obviously fundamental; and it is
+clear that once taken hold of and adopted it must inevitably
+revolutionize all our views of Morality—since current morality is
+founded on the separation of self from self; and must revolutionize too
+all our views of Science. Such matters as the Transmutation of Chemical
+Elements, the variation of biological Species, the unity of Health, the
+unity of Disease, our views of Political Economy and Psychology;
+Production for Use instead of for Profit, Communism, Telepathy; the
+relation between Psychology and Physiology, and so forth, must take on
+quite a new complexion when the idea which lies at the root of them is
+seized. This idea must enable us to understand the continuity of Man
+with the Protozoa, the relation of the physiological centres, on the one
+hand to the individual Man and on the other to the Race from which he
+springs, the meaning of Reincarnation, and the physical conditions of
+its occurrence. It must have eminently practical applications; as in the
+bringing of the Races of the world together, the gradual evolution of a
+Non-governmental form of Society, the Communalization of Land and
+Capital, the freeing of Woman to equality with Man, the extension of the
+monogamic Marriage into some kind of group-alliance, the restoration and
+full recognition of the heroic friendships of Greek and primitive times;
+and again in the sturdy Simplification and debarrassment of daily life
+by the removal of those things which stand between us and Nature,
+between ourselves and our fellows—by plain living, friendship with the
+Animals, open-air habits, fruitarian food, and such degree of Nudity as
+we can reasonably attain to.
+
+These mental and social changes and movements and many others which are
+all around us waiting for recognition, will clearly, when they ripen,
+constitute a revolution in human life deeper and more far-reaching than
+any which we know of belonging to historical times. Even any _one_ of
+them, worked out practically, would be fatal to most of our existing
+institutions. Together they would form a revolution so great that to
+call it a mere extension or outgrowth of Civilization would be quite
+inadequate. Rather we must look upon them as the preparation for a stage
+entirely different from and beyond Civilization. To tackle these things
+in advance, to prepare for them, study them, understand them is clearly
+absolutely necessary. It is a duty which—however burked or ignored for a
+time—will soon be forced upon us by the march of events. And it is a
+duty which cannot effectively be fulfilled piecemeal, but only by
+regarding all these separate movements of the human mind, and of
+society, as part and parcel of one great underlying movement—one great
+new disclosure of the human Soul.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  Self in Porch
+
+  1905
+]
+
+My little covey of books, dating from _Towards Democracy_, has been
+hatched mainly for the purpose of giving expression to these and other
+various questions which—raised in my mind by the writing of _Towards
+Democracy_—demanded clearer statement than they could find there.
+_Towards Democracy_ came first, as a Vision, so to speak, and a
+revelation—as a great body of feeling and intuition which I _had_ to put
+into words as best I could. It carried with it—as a flood carries trees
+and rocks from the mountains where it originates—all sorts of
+assumptions and conclusions. Afterwards—for my own satisfaction as much
+as for the sake of others—I had to examine and define these assumptions
+and conclusions.
+
+That was the origin of my prose writings—most of them—of _England’s
+Ideal_, _Civilization_, _The Art of Creation_, _Love’s Coming-of-Age_,
+_The Intermediate Sex_, _The Drama of Love and Death_, _Angels’ Wings_,
+_Non-governmental Society_,[21] _A Visit to a Gñani_,[22] and so forth.
+They, like the questions they deal with, have led a curious underground
+life in the literary world, spreading widely as a matter of fact, yet
+not on the surface. Like old moles they have worked away unseen and
+unobserved, yet in such a manner as to throw up heaps here and there and
+in the most unlikely places, and bring back friends to me on all
+sides—lovely and beautiful friends for whom I cannot sufficiently thank
+them.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XII
+                            PERSONALITIES—I
+
+
+It is curious that, with my somewhat antinomian tendencies, I should
+have gone to Trinity Hall—which was, and is, before all a Law
+College—and should thus have been thrown into close touch with the
+_legal_ element in life. As an undergraduate, whose days were consumed
+in boating and mathematics, this was not noticeable; but it was not
+entirely after my heart when I became a Fellow, to find myself in a
+society which was almost wholly composed of barristers; and in after
+life to discover that my friends of early days had nearly all become
+eminent K.C.’s and Judges!
+
+Just before my entering Trinity Hall, an undergraduate of that College,
+Robert Romer, had become Senior Wrangler—and I really believe this had
+something to do with my selecting the College for myself. The ‘Hall’ men
+were hugely delighted, as this distinction in the Tripos had never come
+to the College before—the more so, because Romer was a boating man and
+rowed in the First Boat; and a myth grew up (possibly encouraged by the
+subject himself, and in order to show how easily a real boating man can
+do anything he turns himself to!) that he passed his examinations by the
+light of nature, and never needed to ‘swot’ like an ordinary mortal.
+Others however said—and this was a more likely explanation—that he used
+to sit at his study table with a pot of beer and a sporting journal
+before him, while in the open drawer of the table lay his mathematical
+books and papers. When a knock came at the door it was the simplest
+thing in the world to close the drawer, and be found consuming his ale!
+After his degree he remained at Cambridge for a time as mathematical
+coach, but was by no means a success in that line. He could not
+sympathize with a learner’s difficulties; and when a pupil came to him
+with a problem which he could not understand, Romer would say “What? You
+can’t understand that? You can’t understand that?—then God help you, I
+can’t!” Naturally he soon gave up teaching and took to the Bar. After
+_my_ degree—when we were Fellows of the College together—I saw quite a
+little of him: a rough, muscular-brained, “damn-your-eyes” type of man,
+and as may be imagined quite ignorant of art and literature, but
+good-natured and healthy. Later however the sheer physical force of his
+mentality took him to the highest reaches of the legal profession (Lord
+Justice of Appeal) and he passed out of my sphere.
+
+Another Senior Wrangler whom I knew fairly well, as he headed the Tripos
+in my own year (1868), and who afterwards became Lord Justice (in the
+Court of Patents) was J. Fletcher Moulton. He was one of those people
+who without any great depth of intellect or even of character possessed
+an extraordinary rapidity of mind. His information was encyclopædic, and
+in examinations he threw off his papers with the airy ease of a tree
+throwing off its dead leaves in autumn; to the wonderment indeed both of
+examiners and fellow-students. Yet I am not aware that he ever
+contributed anything very original in the study of mathematics or law—or
+in any other department of human thought.
+
+Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with
+originality of thought. W. K. Clifford who had undoubtedly one of the
+finest mathematical, scientific, and philosophical minds of the period
+of which I am speaking was only Second Wrangler; and my friend Robert F.
+Muirhead who, as Smith’s Prizeman and later, has contributed important
+papers on mathematical subjects, was nowhere to speak of in his Tripos.
+One could hardly of course expect that originality and the pigeon-hole
+mind should go together.
+
+To return to our Judges. That men like Romer and Moulton should attain
+the highest places in their profession is natural; but I confess I have
+been surprised (having known them so well in boating days) at the kind
+of men who are commonly made High Court or County Court Judges. I will
+not mention names (!)—but here is one, for instance, who was Captain of
+the boat-club in my time—a physically powerful, but mentally quite
+muddle-headed person; here is another, whose _forte_ was _boxing_ (no
+harm in that, but one might have wished that he had other interests
+besides)—a rather brutish and decidedly illiterate type; a third, whose
+constitution, both physical and mental, was feeble, but who had powerful
+relatives in the legal profession. All these were of the kind that have
+considerable difficulty in passing their elementary examinations. And
+there were many more of the same kind. Nevertheless, having once got
+their feet on the ladder, they have slowly and gradually—by family
+influence or sheer physical health (an important thing)—climbed nearly
+to the top. No blame to them, certainly; but one cannot help asking—and
+I put the question especially to Labour M.P.’s: Are these the sort of
+men we really require for such posts? Let alone their want of bookish
+culture—which perhaps does not so much matter—we cannot but ask: What do
+men of this class—who have been brought up at a public school, who have
+worked hard at boating or cricket at the University, who afterwards have
+buried themselves in law-chambers and the purlieus of the Courts—and
+whose acquaintance with manual workers is pretty well confined to
+‘scouts’ and ‘gyps’ and an occasional gamekeeper in the country—what do
+they know about the great mass-people on whom they have to sit in
+judgment, about the habits and temperament and customs of life of the
+latter? and how on earth are they qualified to bring order and good
+sense and real sympathy and understanding into that most important
+branch of public life—the administration of the law? These are indeed
+questions to which serious answers will have to be given ere long.
+
+I have already mentioned Henry Fawcett (afterwards Postmaster-General)
+who was a Fellow of Trinity Hall at the time of which I am speaking. The
+story of his blindness is well known. It was only just after his degree
+that he was out pheasant-shooting with his father. In a rather thick
+covert the father fired at a bird, unknowing that his son was standing
+in the line of fire. Two small shot struck the latter—one entering into
+each eye—a strange and fatal chance. It was the father, I think, who
+told me that as soon as Henry knew that he was permanently blinded he
+said “Well, it shan’t make any difference in my plans of life!” And
+certainly it made very little. As may be guessed from that, Fawcett was
+a man of astounding pluck and vitality—a vitality which would have been
+almost overbearing if it had not been tempered by extreme good
+nature—and his force of character, combined with very democratic
+sympathies, enabled him despite his blindness to do valuable work in
+Parliament and in connection with the Post Office. The adoring gratitude
+of the father at the public success of the son whom he had so badly
+crippled was most touching, and he would follow his son about the
+country and attend his public meetings for the mere pleasure of
+witnessing his success. As Fawcett was member for Brighton—and my father
+lent his support to his candidature—he, and Mrs. Fawcett, used
+frequently to dine with us at Brunswick Square, and I saw a good deal of
+them both at Brighton and at Cambridge. Fawcett’s pluck and vitality
+were however sometimes a trial to his friends. I have a rather _too_
+vivid recollection of riding with him, over the Brighton Downs or along
+the green lanes of Cambridgeshire. “Carpenter,” he would say, “this is a
+nice piece of grass, isn’t it? Let’s have a canter.” Then he would set
+off at an amazing rate, and I would have to keep close alongside of him,
+with a sharp look-out and warning for unexpected ditches and stoneheaps,
+and in momentary fear of a headlong fall—which for a man of his weight
+would have been a terrible thing! Or he would insist on my coming to
+skate with him, in winter, on the Cam. We would go five or six miles
+down the river, and back—he holding one end of a stick and I the other.
+That was all very well if the ice was sound, but every one knows what
+river ice is; and I have often skated with him when I, being a light
+weight, passed over easily, while he, holding on to the stick and a pace
+or two behind, was cracking through at every other step. The prospect of
+having to fish a public man, weighty in every sense, out of a flowing
+river was certainly not pleasant. However I am happy to say that I was
+not present with him at any disaster. Except once. That was at a public
+meeting when he was speaking, at Brighton. I was on the platform. A
+stone was thrown by some one at the back of the hall, which struck him
+on the forehead, causing blood to flow. Great sensation ensued. For the
+moment he felt a little faint and relapsed into a chair. Ladies rushed
+up on all sides with smelling salts. However in a few minutes he was all
+right, and resumed his speech. Afterwards he said to me “I didn’t mind
+the stone; but those scent-bottles made me sick!” So it will be seen
+that he and I had points in common! Since his death Mrs. Fawcett and I
+have still met not unfrequently—generally perhaps as joint speakers on
+some Women’s Suffrage platform.
+
+Charles Wentworth Dilke was a ‘Hall’ man. He had just taken his degree
+when I arrived as a ‘freshman’; but he stayed up in College for a year
+or so more on account of some law-examination or other. He never became
+a Fellow, but was an enthusiastic lover of his College; and was always
+very good to us undergraduates. I remember breakfasting with him at his
+rooms, and his showing me, pencilled on his door-jamb, the record of his
+hours of work, day by day, for the last year or so—_seventy hours per
+week_, as regular as clockwork! He was, then and afterwards, always an
+amazing worker—his room even in those youthful days pigeon-holed all
+over with notes and documents. He was also a man with a high sense of
+chivalry and honour, and I have no doubt that the _contretemps_ which
+threw him for a time out of public life—and which his chivalry forbade
+him to explain—weighed pretty heavily on him. His love of facts and
+statistics, so conspicuous throughout his political life, was shared by
+his brother Assheton; and it used to be said that the two brothers never
+enjoyed themselves more thoroughly than when sitting knee to knee they
+spent an hour or so in ‘imparting facts to each other’!
+
+Another politician of my time, though a little younger than myself, was
+Augustine Birrell. Even in those days he was chiefly known for his
+quaint humours and jokes—though the term ‘birrelling’ had not then been
+adopted. But being, as an undergraduate, somewhat interested in politics
+and not at all interested in rowing, he did not bulk largely in the eyes
+of his contemporaries, and I fear was a little neglected. In a late
+letter to me he chaffs me in his own native style on my academic and
+clerical past, saying “I have the most vivid recollection of you as
+Junior Tutor. The marvellous neatness of your now discarded _white tie_
+lives especially in my untidy mind!”
+
+
+Socialism and Millthorpe, I need hardly say, swept me out of these
+academic and semi-political surroundings into a different world—the
+world of a new society which was arising and forming within the
+structure of the old. William Morris represented this new society more
+effectively and vitally than any one else of that period; because away
+and beyond the scientific forecast he gave expression to the emotional
+presentment and ideal of a sensible free human brotherhood—as in _John
+Ball_, or _News from Nowhere_. His sturdy, brusque, sea-captain-like
+figure, with his fine-outlined face and tossing hair, his forcible
+unpolished speech, yet all so direct, sincere, enthusiastic—brought
+inspiration and confidence wherever he went; and for a time, as I have
+already said, there was a widespread belief that the Socialist League
+was going to knit up all the United Kingdom in one bond of new life.[23]
+Having set the “Sheffield Socialists” going in ’86, he came one day not
+long after to speak at Chesterfield, and stayed at Millthorpe a night or
+two. I remember his arriving from the train with Jefferies’ book _After
+London_ in his hands—which had just come out. The book delighted him
+with its prophecy of an utterly ruined and deserted London, gone down in
+swamps and malaria, with brambles and weeds spreading through slum
+streets and fashionable squares, and pet dogs reverting to wolfish and
+carrion-hunting lives. And he read page after page of it to us with glee
+that evening as we sat round the fire. He hated modern civilization, and
+London as its representative, with a fierce hatred—its shams, its
+hypocrisies, its stuffy indoor life, its cheapjack style, its mean and
+mongrel ideals; with a hatred indeed which, I cannot but think,
+thousands and hundreds of thousands following him will one day share.
+Once he said to me, talking about his own life: “I have spent, I know, a
+vast amount of time designing furniture and wall-papers, carpets and
+curtains; but after all I am inclined to think that sort of thing is
+mostly rubbish, and I would prefer for my part to live with the plainest
+whitewashed walls and wooden chairs and tables.” He certainly was no
+drawing-room sort of man. His immense energy did not run to small talk.
+As a rule in conversation, seized by his subject, and oblivious of the
+arguments of others, he would jump from his chair and stride up and down
+the room in ardent monologue—condemning the present or picturing the
+future or the past. I once asked his daughter, May, what he did in the
+way of recreation. “My father never takes any recreation,” she said, “he
+_merely changes his work_.” And so it was. When he had been toiling at
+Merton Abbey all day, and preaching Socialism at a street corner all the
+evening, then at night—sick of the ugly life around him—he would come
+home and dream himself away into the fourteenth century, and for his
+recreation produce a masterpiece like _John Ball_. Be it said,
+nevertheless, that he did sometimes relax, and that when in the humour,
+no one enjoyed a pipe and a glass and the jovial company of friends and
+the telling of good stories, more than William Morris.
+
+He certainly did not like anything resembling sentimentality. A friend
+tells me that he used to recite the following stanza, apparently
+delighting in its quaintness—but whether Morris composed it himself or
+had found it elsewhere he does not know:—
+
+                 I sits with my feet in a brook,
+                   And if any one asks me for why,
+                 I hits him a crack with my crock,
+                   For it’s sentiment kills me, says I.
+
+Among those who came from time to time to speak for our Socialist group
+in Sheffield or to stay at our “Commonwealth” Café were, besides William
+Morris, two notable personalities—Peter Kropotkin and Annie Besant.
+Their work and influence, both world-wide—the one in the Anarchist, and
+the other in the Theosophist, field—have been really important. Though
+never myself strictly identified with either of these movements I have
+been in touch with them, and consequently in more or less friendly
+relation with their two leading spirits during a long period—now nearly
+thirty years. Both characters are certainly remarkable for their vigour,
+their sincerity, their ability and devotion. Kropotkin at the age of
+seventy and after fifty years of passionate conflict with ‘government’
+and ‘authority’ still retains his sunny and almost childlike temperament
+and still believes in the speedy oncoming of an age of perfectly
+voluntary and harmonious co-operation in the human race. Indeed it is
+mainly due to him that this magnificent dream has spread so far and wide
+over the world, and has done so much as it has towards its own
+realization. The dramatic circumstances too of Kropotkin’s own life have
+greatly helped—his early escapes from prison and from death, his
+abandonment of a princely inheritance to become the companion and
+fellow-prisoner of criminals and outcasts, his later life spent in
+poverty and among obscure circles of enthusiasts—these things combined
+with encyclopædic knowledge and a high scientific reputation have
+compelled attention and respect. As in the case of many ardent social
+reformers, and certainly in the case of most notorious Anarchists, there
+is a charming naïveté about Kropotkin. It is so easy—if you believe that
+all human evil is summed up in the one fatal word ‘government’ (or it
+may be that the word is ‘white-slave-traffic,’ or ‘war,’ or ‘drink,’ or
+anything else)—to order your life and your theories accordingly.
+Everything is explained by its relation to one thing. It is easy, but it
+is misleading. And Kropotkin’s writings, despite their erudition, suffer
+from this naïveté. Whether it be History (his _French Revolution_), or
+Natural History (his _Mutual Aid_) or economic theory (his _Paroles d’un
+Revolté_) the reader finds one solution for everything, and the
+countervailing facts and principles consistently—though certainly not
+intentionally—ignored. This detracts from the value of the writings;
+though in justice it should be said that the principles on which
+Kropotkin so vigorously insists—i.e. individual liberty and free
+association—_are_ of foundational importance. In a country like
+Russia—obsessed by authority and officialism—it is not unnatural that
+its reformers, such as Tolstoy and Kropotkin, should be almost
+over-conscious of the governmental evil; and this fact rather encourages
+the hope that Russia may one day after all be the leader in the great
+European reaction towards a freer and more voluntary state of society.
+
+The naïveté of the social reformer explains too the common fact that the
+Anarchist who is in theory “thirsting for the blood of kings” and
+occasionally perhaps capable of perpetrating a deed of violence himself,
+is generally (like Kropotkin) the gentlest and mildest of men, who
+“would not hurt a fly.” It is only such men—having the love of humanity
+in their hearts—who are able to believe in the speedy realization of an
+era of universal goodwill; and again it is only such men—being innocent
+enough to believe that the only impediment to the realization of this
+era is a certain wicked person in ‘authority’—who can spur themselves on
+to the bloody dispatch of such person.
+
+If the career of Kropotkin has been romantically varied in one way, that
+of Mrs. Besant has been equally so in another. To begin as a curate’s
+wife, with a vivid strain of religious devotion; to break away into
+Broad Churchism and then into boundless disbelief; to become an ardent
+Secularist, companion of Bradlaugh and propagandist of antipopulation
+doctrines; to suffer imprisonment, persecution, and embitterment of
+spirit; to espouse the cause of Socialism and do battle in the ranks of
+Labour; to float into the haven of Theosophy and be made the mouthpiece
+of invisible Mahatmas and of the by no means invisible Mme. Blavatsky;
+and finally to complete this quaint circle by becoming the
+high-priestess of a religious movement and the guardian of the herald of
+the coming Christ—such a career ought to satisfy the most picturesque
+ambition. Yet it would be unfair to doubt Annie Besant’s sincerity.
+Having known her so long as I have I feel sure that she has been urged
+onward from point to point by a perfectly genuine mental evolution,
+largely directed no doubt at each turn of the road by some dominant mind
+whom she has met, and largely coloured by that naïveté of which we have
+already spoken—a naïveté indeed which has made it possible for her to
+take herself very seriously and to fulfil her adopted rôle always with a
+strong sense of duty and a comparatively weak perception of the humour
+of the situation.
+
+From the hour when, alone in the pulpit of her husband’s church, Annie
+Besant discovered her own great oratorical gift, her future career, one
+may say, was decided. With an excellent capacity for logical and clear
+statement she became the exponent in succession of large and important
+blocks of modern thought. She helped to batter down the ruins and
+remains of the stupefied old Anglican Church; she gave the general mind
+a wholesome shock on the Malthusian question; she dotted out clearly the
+main lines of the Socialist movement; she formed a new channel for
+religious thought by making the words ‘Karma’ and ‘re-incarnation’
+familiar; and she sought to bring the Western public into touch with the
+great age-long ideas and inspirations of the old Indian sages. In all
+these ways she has done splendid work, and helped vastly in the
+construction of that great twentieth century bridge which will in its
+due time lead us into another world. Only in the last item—her touch
+upon the ideas and inspirations of the ancient East—does she seem to me,
+curiously enough, to have failed. With all her enthusiasm for the
+subject, Mrs. Besant does not appear to have the intuitive perception,
+the mystic quality of mind, which should enable her to reach the very
+heart of the old Vedantic teaching. Her intellect, clear and systematic
+in its structure, has little of the poetic or original or inspirational
+in its composition, and it may be doubted whether it has ever quite
+fathomed the religious writings with which it has been so much occupied.
+Anyhow Mrs. Besant’s own writings on these subjects are—unlike her
+general lectures—dull to a degree. She analyses the composition of the
+human personality, or the order of general creation, or the various
+life-rounds of our mortal race; but in all she seems to be repeating or
+corroborating some pre-established formula, never to be describing
+something which she has herself perceived; system and formula prevail,
+unseen ‘authorities’ are hinted at, the pages bristle with sanskrit
+jargon, but no living or creative _idea_ moves among them, and the
+reader rises from their perusal void of inspiration or of any really
+vital impulse towards new fields of thought and life. Nevertheless,
+taking it all in all, and especially in her expositions of Socialism and
+Theosophy, Mrs. Besant has done, as I have said, a great work; and one
+cannot sufficiently admire the courage with which she has carried it
+through, as well as her kindliness and helpfulness towards others,
+and—in later years—her own inner mental calm, contrasting with the
+somewhat restless bitterness of an earlier time.
+
+
+In 1884 or so the founding of the _New Fellowship_ in London (from which
+afterwards the Fabian Society sprang) brought me into touch with
+Havelock Ellis and Olive Schreiner. As I think I have already said,
+Ellis discovered in the proverbial penny box of a second-hand publisher,
+and soon after its publication, the little first edition of my _Towards
+Democracy_; and rescuing it wrote to me. Thus began my friendship with
+him, and afterwards with the authoress of _The Story of An African
+Farm_. A prophet is seldom acclaimed in his own country; and the work
+which Ellis has done in that most important field of Sexual Psychology
+is even yet by no means recognized in England as it ought to be—even
+though the subject is becoming extremely ‘actual’ here in the present
+day, and though elsewhere over the world his pioneer work is most
+honorably received and respected. The six massive volumes of his
+_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_ form a masterpiece of large-minded
+and yet extremely detailed observation and generalization, and provide a
+survey of the most impartial character over this vast realm, and such as
+can be obtained nowhere else. For though the Germans have written
+extensively in this field their books—_more Teutonico_—are generally
+overladen with detail, huge jungles through which it is difficult to
+find one’s way. Ellis combines with the Englishman’s perspicacity and
+love of order a remarkable erudition and command of particulars. And at
+the present juncture when the world is waking up to the absolute
+necessity of a reasonable understanding and frank recognition of
+sex-things, the appearance of his book may almost be characterized as
+‘providential.’ This quality may indeed be suspected in the fact that
+the author began making notes for his _magnum opus_ at a very early age,
+driven thereto by some sort of instinct, nor finished his work till he
+was about fifty. I know of few things in literature more touching than
+the postscript to his last volume—the _Nunc Dimittis_ after some thirty
+years of toil: “It was perhaps fortunate for my peace that I failed at
+the outset to foresee all the perils that beset my path. I knew indeed
+that those who investigate sincerely and intimately any subject which
+men are accustomed to pass by on the other side lay themselves open to
+misunderstanding and even obloquy. But I supposed that a secluded
+student who approached vital social problems with precaution, making no
+direct appeal to the general public, but only to the public’s teachers,
+and who wrapped up the results of his inquiries in technically written
+volumes open to few—I supposed that such a student was at all events
+secure from any gross form of attack on the part of the police or the
+government under whose protection he imagined that he lived. That proved
+to be a mistake. When only one volume of these _Studies_ had been
+written and published in England, a prosecution instigated by the
+Government put an end to the sale of that volume in England, and led me
+to resolve that the subsequent volumes should not be published in my own
+country.[24] I do not complain. I am grateful for the early and generous
+sympathy with which my work was received in Germany and the United
+States, and I recognize that it has had a wider circulation, both in
+English and the other chief languages of the world, than would have been
+possible by the modest method of issue which the government of my own
+country induced me to abandon. Nor has the effort to crush my work
+resulted in any change in that work by so much as a single word. With
+help, or without it, I have followed my own path to the end.... He who
+follows in the steps of Nature after a law that was not made by man, and
+is above and beyond man, has time as well as eternity on his side, and
+can afford to be both patient and fearless. Men die, but the ideas they
+seek to kill _live_. Our books may be thrown to the flames, but in the
+next generation those flames become human souls.”
+
+The personality of Havelock Ellis is that of a student, thoughtful,
+preoccupied, bookish, deliberate; yet unlike most students he has a sort
+of grand air of Nature about him—a fine free head and figure as of some
+great god Pan, with distant relations among the Satyrs.
+
+Those early meetings of the New Fellowship were full of hopeful
+enthusiasms—life simplified, a humane diet and a rational dress, manual
+labour, democratic ideals, communal institutions. Indeed one or two
+little practical efforts towards colony groups were at that time
+made.[25] Herbert Rix, W. J. Jupp, Percival Chubb, Edith Lees
+(afterwards Mrs. Ellis), Mrs. Hinton, widow of James Hinton, Caroline
+Haddon, Ernest Rhys were among the early members.
+
+Edith Lees was one of the most active and vigorous of this group. She
+helped to organize and to carry on for some time a joint dwelling or
+co-operative boarding-house near Mecklenburgh Square, where eight or ten
+members of the Fellowship dwelt in a kind of communistic Utopia.
+Naturally the arrangement gave rise to some rather amusing and some
+almost tragic episodes, which she has recorded for us in a little story
+entitled _Attainment_. After her marriage she took a farm near St. Ives
+in Cornwall, which became a helpful retreat for her husband as well as
+herself from the strenuousness of London life. With her extraordinary
+energy and directness she plunged into and soon mastered all the details
+of cattle and pig breeding and farming; and I shall never forget the
+impression she produced on one occasion when staying with me at
+Millthorpe, when we took her round to the public-house in the evening.
+The delight and amazement of the farm men at finding some one more or
+less resembling a lady who really understood and would talk freely about
+such things, and her at-home-ness among that company were most
+refreshing. They were fascinated by the directness of her intense blue
+eyes, her sturdy figure, her vigorous gestures, and the evident equality
+of her comradeship with them. And to this day they not unfrequently ask
+us, “When is that little lady coming again, with that curly hair, like a
+lad’s, and them blue eyes, what talked about pigs and cows? I shall
+never forget her.”
+
+Edith Ellis not only became a help to her husband in his literary work,
+but herself spoke and wrote on subjects of Eugenics and Sex-psychology.
+Of late years she has made a considerable study of James Hinton, and has
+done me the honour to associate my name with his and with Nietzsche’s in
+a little book entitled _Three Modern Seers_.
+
+One evening as we sat round a table (in Rix’s rooms at Burlington House)
+I saw a charming girl-face, of _riant_ Italian type, smiling across to
+me. It was Olive Schreiner. She had arrived from South Africa only a few
+months before, had published her _African Farm_, and though only
+twenty-one or twenty-two years of age was already famous as its
+authoress. Juvenile in some ways as that book was, somewhat incoherent
+and disjointed in structure, written by a mere girl of eighteen or
+nineteen, and with a title which gave no idea of its real content, yet
+its intensity was such that it seized almost at once on the public mind.
+The African sun was in its veins—fire and sweetness, intense love of
+beauty, fierce rebellion against the things that be, passion and pity
+and the pride of Lucifer combined. These things too Olive Schreiner’s
+face and figure revealed—a wonderful beauty and vivacity, a
+lightning-quick mind, fine eyes, a resolute yet mobile mouth, a
+determined little square-set body. It was right—since alliances are so
+often knit by contrast—that she and Havelock Ellis should have become
+friends and maintained a close correspondence with each other for over
+thirty years; and it was a privilege to me to share in the friendship of
+them both.
+
+Naturally, with such gifts of body and mind the arrival of the authoress
+of the _African Farm_ excited almost a _furore_ of interest. Quite a
+procession of the young literary men of the day arrived in hansom-cabs
+at the door of her Bloomsbury lodgings to pay their homage to the new
+genius, and Olive herself often told me with considerable amusement of
+the dismay and severe disapproval of more than one of her landladies,
+who certainly were not inclined to believe that mere literary talent
+could cause so much attraction! Anyhow, at that time of day, before the
+suffragette had arrived, and when ‘ladies’ took the greatest care to
+bridle in their chins and speak in mincing accents, a young and pretty
+woman of apparently lady-like origin who did not wear a veil and seldom
+wore gloves, and who talked and laughed even in the streets quite
+naturally and unaffectedly, was an unclassifiable phenomenon, and laid
+herself open to the gravest suspicions! We may congratulate ourselves
+that the pioneer women of to-day have made a return to some of these
+inhumanities of the Victorian era impossible.
+
+During that Bloomsbury period and afterwards I saw Olive Schreiner
+fairly frequently—that is, when she was in England (or Europe). I saw
+her in Paris early in ’87, and at Todmorden and Whitby later in the same
+year; also at Alassio where she stayed for two or three months in ’88.
+Those two years ’87 and ’88 were a period of considerable suffering for
+her. In 1893 she was in England again, and spent three months during the
+summer in a little cottage in my valley. After ’93, what with her
+marriage to S. C. Cronwright, and what with the outbreak of the Boer War
+and all the tragedies attendant upon that, she did not come to England
+for a long period, and it was on the last day of 1913 that I saw her
+again, after a twenty years’ absence.
+
+Her father was a German Free Church Missionary—of the most tender
+self-forgetful type—the original doubtless of the German overseer in
+_The African Farm_. Olive herself has often told me how he would give
+away his last coin to any one he deemed to be in need. His wife would
+say to him:—
+
+“John, where is that best Sunday coat of yours?” And he would say:—
+
+“Is it not upstairs in the chest, as usual?”
+
+“No, John, I have been looking for it everywhere.”
+
+“How very strange” was the reply.
+
+“Now, John, I believe you have given it away!”
+
+“No, surely, my dear, I could not have given _that_ away—at least I
+think not.”
+
+“John! now tell me true, did you not give it to that _tramp_ that came
+yesterday?”
+
+“Well, my dear, now you mention it I think I _may_ have done so; it is
+just possible you are right, but I am sure I hardly remember.”
+
+“Oh John! John! you are indeed incorrigible.”
+
+That was the picture of the father—soft, pitiful and dreamy. The mother,
+Rebecca Lyndall by her maiden name, was of English descent, keen,
+intellectual, fine featured and somewhat self-willed. The two types were
+combined in their daughter; and she again in writing her novel divided
+them up. ‘Waldo’ represented one side of her own character, ‘Lyndall’
+the other.
+
+Perhaps there was a tragic element in the combination of two such
+different hereditary strains in the one person; perhaps there were other
+causes. Certain it is that beneath the mobile and almost merry-seeming
+exterior of Olive Schreiner there ran a vein of intense determination,
+and that this again was crossed and countered by an ineradicable
+pessimism. _The Story of an African Farm_, despite its magical and
+beautiful pictures, is painful to read; and the same may be said of her
+other books. They realize and force the reader to realize almost _too_
+keenly the pain and evil of the world—too keenly I mean for truth and
+fact. Yet what is fact but what we feel; and if Olive Schreiner _feels_
+things so, so far her presentment is true. I have seen her shake her
+little fist at the Lord in heaven, and curse him down from his throne,
+with a vibrating force and intensity which surely must have been felt
+(and surely also with healthy result) in the Highest Circles.
+
+A lady who had spent forty years of her life working in the Mission
+Schools of South Africa once said to me—and this was quite in her old
+age, when she was nearing eighty—“Ah!” she said, “the Kaffirs are the
+finest people on earth. You English think a lot about yourselves, but I
+tell you, you are not to be compared with the Kaffirs.” Olive Schreiner
+was born in Basuto Land. She grew up and spent her early life among the
+natives, and in many ways her verdict was the same as that just quoted.
+She loved the dark folk and their land, and she has never ceased to love
+them. It has been one of the tragedies of her life that she has been
+compelled to stand by and witness the crushing of this free and
+fine-souled people beneath the sordid heel of Western Commercialism—or
+let us say “the attempted crushing,” for indeed (thank heaven!) the
+process is not yet complete. It has been her agony to see them at every
+moment cajoled and betrayed of their lands, broken with labour in the
+mines, deceived with drink, and mowed down with machine-guns—and all
+this by the very Christian race that ought to have lent them a helping
+hand; and to have been able to do so little (as it would seem to her)
+for their salvation. But even though it would seem little, the fact that
+one woman in South Africa has thus prophet-like stood up and (much of
+the time) singly opposed Rhodes and the shoddy Imperialism of which he
+was the mouthpiece, _has_ had an influence deep and wide reaching and
+such as will be felt far down the years.
+
+Another thing that has formed almost a tragedy in Olive Schreiner’s life
+has been her dedication to the Cause of Women. No one can read her
+_Three Dreams in a Desert_ or her _Woman and Labour_ without feeling how
+in the consciousness of the sufferings of Woman the iron has entered
+into her soul. If she had only been content—like some of the wilder
+spirits of the movement—to unload on _men_ the vials of her wrath, and
+to saddle on _man_kind alone the responsibility for these sufferings,
+her strain in the cause would have had more of the delight of battle in
+it. But she was too large-minded not to see that if there is to be any
+blame in such a matter, the blame must be accepted by Woman herself just
+as much as by Man. The two sexes are joined together, and if Man has
+been unworthy has it not been because Woman his mother has made him so?
+If Woman has played the parasite has that not resulted in her injuring
+Man? Olive Schreiner’s perception of the slow inevitable strain and
+suffering inseparable from Evolution itself in this matter of the
+emancipation of women, has had a complexion of tragedy in it. She has
+seen her dearest friends, like Constance Lytton and others, crippled and
+broken for life by their heroic struggles and undaunted resolution in
+face of prison-horrors; and yet she has felt that the evil lay deeper
+than any accusation against men (taken by itself) could explain, or any
+mere reform of the suffrage could mend.
+
+
+It is curious how South Africa, to those who know the country well,
+carries with it a fascination and an attraction which time and again
+draws them back to its soil. A friend of mine who lived for some years
+around Lake Nyassa told me that after his return to England he
+frequently dreamt at night of all that wild region and its primitive
+animal life. On more than one occasion he dreamed that he was wrecked at
+sea, and swam desperately to the African coast, if only he might die as
+it were in the arms of his beloved; or he would make an imaginary
+pilgrimage from London to the very shores of the Lake, and there in a
+kind of ecstasy would take the water up in his palms and wash it over
+his face and head—only to wake up and find his features wet with his own
+tears.
+
+This was Henry B. Cotterill—a schoolfellow of mine at the Brighton
+College—where indeed his father was headmaster. About the time (1875 or
+so) when I was lecturing Astronomy at Leeds, Livingstone’s book came out
+exposing the horrors of the black slave traffic around Lakes Tanganyika
+and Nyassa—a region at that time entirely, except by Livingstone
+himself, unexplored by white men. The book bit deeply into Cotterill’s
+heart and soul. It said that the only cure for the Mahomedan or Arabian
+trade in slaves would be the introduction of a trade by white men in the
+legitimate articles of commerce; and from that moment Cotterill could
+not rest, goaded on by the thought that _he_ must undertake this work.
+At the time he was acting as an assistant master at Harrow School. He
+started lecturing there and at other places round the country on the
+subject. He collected a fund; the Harrow boys and masters gave him a
+steel launch or cutter which could be taken up country in sections and
+screwed together; he came to Leeds and spoke there, as well as at places
+like Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool; the fund grew; and I remember
+going with him to some African warehouse in London City, where he bought
+bales of cotton cloth, and hundredweights of beads, and quantities of
+scarlet shell-jackets (especially coveted by African chieftains as their
+sole garment) for purposes of barter up country. Thus off his own bat,
+as it were, he got up this strange mission, and leaving Harrow and
+pedagogy behind, embarked on a career of considerable adventure and
+danger. The mission succeeded, ordinary traders followed in his
+footsteps, and within a few years the slave-trade engineered by Moors
+and Arabs died out in the land. It was followed, it is true, by the
+almost equal horrors of that commercial civilization which has since
+been introduced by Europeans; but I suppose one must be thankful in the
+slow and age-long evolution of human affairs for even one small step
+towards better things.
+
+At a later time Cotterill returned to England, but unable, like many
+another traveler and lover of the wild, to endure the smug Philistinism
+of British life, he ultimately settled on the Continent—or rather led a
+somewhat roving life there, chiefly in France, Germany and
+Italy—supporting himself and a small family by the not too lucrative
+pursuits of literature and the teaching of languages. He has written and
+edited many books, to which his encyclopædic knowledge and command of
+six or seven languages have contributed; but undoubtedly his great and
+monumental work has been the translation of the Odyssey of Homer
+complete into English hexameters.[26] Daring is the man who ventures on
+that exceedingly boggy ground of the English hexameter, and many are
+those who have gone under and been gulfed in the attempt. By lightness
+and speed of movement only can one keep going; but in those qualities—so
+characteristic of the Greek—this translation is supremely successful;
+its verbal fidelity is amazing; its presentation of the old warrior and
+tribal life (made possible as he himself says by his intimate knowledge
+of African customs) is such as no armchair scholar could attain to; and
+the result is a gift to the whole English-speaking world—a rendering of
+the immortal classic that one may read with unflagging joy and zest from
+cover to cover.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIII
+                            PERSONALITIES—II
+
+
+The part that Olive Schreiner played in trying to avert the Boer War,
+and to expose the scoundrelly commercial machinations which led to it,
+is well known. Curiously enough, while England was being worked up by a
+lying Press into a fury of indignation against President Krüger I knew
+already early in 1899 about the real state of affairs and the plot of
+the financiers to force on a reckless and selfish war—not only from
+Olive Schreiner herself but from a man who came at that time to
+Millthorpe from Johannesburg.
+
+This was Lisle March-Phillipps—who afterwards wrote _With Rimington_ and
+other books about the war. He was a young man of about thirty, who after
+an upper-class education on the usual lines had had the good sense to go
+abroad and see a little of the world for himself; had drifted out to
+South Africa, and had actually worked in the mines and shared the life
+of the miners. Disgusted with what he saw of the Beit and Joel and
+Rhodes and Barney Barnato gang—their meanness to their employees, their
+slanders against Krüger, their nonsense lies about British “women and
+children,” and foreseeing the inevitable conflict, he hurried
+home—thinking doubtless also that he might do something to make the
+actual truth known in England. For some reason, not very clear to me as
+we had had no previous communication, he came straight to Millthorpe,
+and walking in one afternoon sat a long time telling me all about the
+affair. I saw at once that his errand was authentic and that he knew
+what he was talking about, and from that time did my best in my small
+way, at public meetings and lectures, to get the matter seen in its true
+light, and to check the rising war-tide. All of no use of course. The
+gulled sentimental sloppy British public poured itself out in a torrent
+of rubbish—as a broken reservoir might pour through the slums and alleys
+of a manufacturing town; and it was hopeless even to protest. It is one
+of the saddest things to find how easily the great majority of a nation
+may be caught and swept away by some trumped-up catchword, often of the
+most flimsy character. I wrote a warning leaflet entitled _Boer and
+Briton_ and circulated some twenty thousand copies of it. I spoke with
+L. H. Courtney (now Lord Courtney) and others at a public meeting at
+Bradford, and at various other meetings. Mr. W. T. Stead did his best to
+warn the nation as to what was happening; Cronwright-Schreiner came over
+from the Cape, and later H. W. Nevinson also, in a crusade through
+England and Scotland. To no purpose: they only got mobbed and insulted
+for their pains. Finally March-Phillipps, anxious to see at close
+quarters all that was going on and unable to get a billet as
+war-correspondent, went out again and joined Rimington’s Scouts; and
+after the war was over—returning to Millthorpe and taking a cottage
+there—remained near us a good part of the summer and wrote his very
+graphic and interesting account of the campaign as witnessed and taken
+part in by him.[27]
+
+It was at an early period of the Socialist movement—in 1884 I think—that
+I first came across Henry Salt and his gifted life-companion and wife,
+and it is to their initiative that I owe the gain of a close and
+long-enduring friendship. Salt and his brother-in-law, J. L. Joynes,
+were two young Eton masters who had in their time been collegers and
+scholars of Eton and afterwards graduates of King’s College, Cambridge.
+Carried along on the rising tide of Socialism they both (much to their
+credit) broke away from the highly respectable traditions of these
+foundations. Henry George of Land Tax fame was in the country, and
+Joynes actually associated himself with George, and went with him in
+1881 or ’82 on a propagandist campaign to Ireland. This might well have
+passed unobserved at Eton, had it not happened that at some obscure
+place he and George were both temporarily arrested and had to spend the
+night under lock and key. The notoriety this gave to Joynes was fatal to
+his career, and he had to resign his mastership. Henry Salt and his wife
+about the same time gave almost worse offence. They adopted
+vegetarianism—a thing almost unheard of at Eton except in the dubious
+connection of Shelley; they revolted in their personal habits from the
+luxury and indulgence of the life there; and they protested against the
+coursing of hares, and other inhumanities favored by both boys and
+masters. It soon became clear to them that they could not remain in
+surroundings so uncongenial, and that they too would have to sacrifice a
+professional career and comparative affluence for the greater blessings
+of liberty and a simple living; and it was at the time when they were
+revolving their schemes of liberation and of migration into other
+spheres of life that I came—through Jim Joynes—to know them.
+
+Joynes and his sister were singularly unlike externally, yet singularly
+alike in the depths of their hearts and in their devotion to each other.
+Both were tall and long-limbed: she dark, raven-haired, with large eyes
+and sensitive, somewhat sad, Dante-like profile; he red-haired, with
+high complexion, small bluish eyes, heavy features. She was intensely
+emotional, too emotional, but—as such people often are—highly musical;
+and her literary gift was certainly one of the most remarkable I have
+known—though unfortunately, except in her letters, rarely utilized. He
+was intensely logical, concentrated, determined—though underneath ran a
+strong current of poetic feeling—as witness his little book of excellent
+verses _On Lonely Shores_ (1892). Both of them did good work in
+connection with the Socialist and Labour movement, he more especially by
+lecturing and writing for the Social Democratic Federation and other
+such organizations; and she rather more by personal sympathy and helpful
+friendship towards the rank and file of the workers; both of them were
+devoted lovers of Nature, and of a natural plain way of life; and their
+devotion to each other only ended with his too early death in 1893.
+
+These two and Henry Salt were among the pioneers in the early eighties
+of the great Socialist and Humanitarian and Nature movements which are
+destined to play such an important part in the new Democracy. Henry
+Salt’s work in founding the Humanitarian League (in 1891) and presiding
+over its very various activities has been so really extensive and
+far-reaching that it is difficult to estimate—the more so because unlike
+so many leaders of movements he has always kept his own name
+consistently in the background. As a matter of fact he has not only been
+the main originator of the important work done, but has been the guiding
+hand and inspirer of the many committees which have had to be formed in
+order to deal with the various subjects—with Vivisection, Blood Sports,
+‘Murderous Millinery,’ Reform of the Prisons, the Game Laws,
+Slaughter-house Reform, Corporal Punishment, Diet Reform, Rights of
+Native Races, and so forth. Besides this the long list of his
+publications—on Shelley, on James Thomson (B.V.), on H. D. Thoreau,
+Richard Jefferies, Lucretius, etc., shows the trend of his mind and his
+liberating influence in the matters of religion and social freedom and a
+large-minded Nature-study.
+
+At one time he and I composed jointly “A Church Service for the use of
+the Respectable Classes”—which I am afraid however has never yet been
+properly published. It consisted of a Preface, in the manner of our
+Prayer-book Preface of 1661, of a sort of Athanasian Creed (on the
+Trinity of Land, Capital and Interest) called the creed of St.
+Avaritius, of a Litany (on the lines of salvation through dividends and
+social advancement), and a final Processional Hymn. Of this last, as it
+has already been printed among some of Salt’s verses, the two first
+stanzas may here be given:—
+
+           Respectables are we
+           And you presently will see
+         Why we confidently claim to be respected:
+           In well-ordered homes we dwell
+           And discharge our duties well—
+         Well dressed, well fed, well mannered, well connected.
+
+           We have heard the common cant
+           About poverty and want
+         And all that is distressing and unhealthy;
+           Some cases may be sad,
+           But the system can’t be bad
+         Which affords such satisfaction to the Wealthy.
+
+And so on.
+
+On one occasion a boy brought to Mrs. Salt a young rook which had been
+hurt (so he said) by falling out of its nest, and as she and her husband
+had been staying with us, the bird became for some time an inmate of our
+establishment. But though it became familiar, as was natural, with us,
+and would fly in and out of the door or window, and perch on hand or
+head quite freely, its devotion to Mrs. Salt was something almost
+uncanny. Indoors or outdoors it _would_ be with her; and if she went
+into town for a few hours, or anywhere that she could not take the bird,
+she had to escape by ruse, or by simply caging the creature first. When
+she sat on the lawn it would delight to play and dance around, and to
+pick daisies with its beak and place them in her lap, or bright and
+shining pebbles from the gravel walk. Anything more like an engaging
+human child it would be hard to imagine. And it certainly seemed to know
+by some intuition of her return after absence along the road, and if
+caged would become very restless, or if free would fly to meet her. Once
+after a long absence, when she appeared once more—in the midst, as it
+happened, of a small crowd of people—the bird with a loud cry suddenly
+flew down from a tall tree and alighted forthwith upon her shoulder—much
+to the astonishment of the onlookers. Later, and after some months of
+this kind of life, the bird one day disappeared; nor could we ever find
+out what had happened to it—whether an accident or the mere “call of the
+wild” back to rook-land. It was seen no more, alive or dead; and one
+human heart at any rate felt the loss very deeply.
+
+
+I have mentioned 1881 as the year in which _Towards Democracy_ ‘came to
+me,’ and insisted on being given form and expression. It is curious that
+the same year (or 1882) saw the inception of a number of new movements
+or enterprises tending towards the establishment of mystical ideas and a
+new social order. Mother Shipton’s prophecy with its strange
+prognostication of mechanically propelled cars and flying machines ended
+up with the words:—
+
+                  And the world to an end shall come
+                  In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.
+
+The world did not come to an end, but in a certain sense a new one
+began; and just in those two years quite a number of societies were
+started with objects of the kind indicated. Hyndman’s Democratic
+Federation, Edmund Gurney’s Society for Psychical Research, Mme.
+Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society, the Vegetarian Society, the
+Anti-vivisection movement, and many other associations of the same kind
+marked the coming of a great reaction from the smug commercialism and
+materialism of the mid-Victorian epoch, and a preparation for the new
+universe of the twentieth century. Amongst these was one which
+especially claimed to fulfil the prophecies of Mother Shipton and to be
+the herald of a New Age. This was the Hermetic Society. It consisted
+practically of two people—Edward Maitland and Anna Kingsford; for though
+there was a nominal membership I think it may be said that the other
+members had little or no voice in it. And its idea was to read into the
+stories of Jesus, and of Moses and Abraham and so forth, their inner
+significations, to interpret in fact much of the New and Old Testaments
+not as historical matter but rather as eternal truths, allegories and
+emblems of the drama of each human soul. Thus the miraculous birth of
+Jesus, his exile in Egypt, his temptation in the wilderness, his toils
+and sufferings, his Betrayal, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension
+were not external histories of a certain man, but inner histories of you
+and me and all mankind.
+
+This method of interpreting the myths of past days, which we now in the
+twentieth century so well understand, and which explains for us the
+origin of a vast number of legends and at the same time accounts for
+their popularity, was in 1881—except for some few previous hints by
+Swedenborg and others—quite unrecognized. And we owe much to Edward
+Maitland and Anna Kingsford that they gave it, as well as some valuable
+collateral matter, to the world. Of course they did not fully
+recognize—though they did in part—how much of the story of Jesus, for
+instance, _is_ purely legendary and mythical. But even if they had known
+it to be entirely legendary, that would not probably have greatly
+altered their views—though it would certainly have deprived their gospel
+of the supernatural halo with which they delighted to invest it.
+
+It was this affectation, if I may use the term, of a supernatural
+mission which rather spoilt the work of these two well-meaning people—as
+it has spoiled alas! the work of so many ‘prophets’ and teachers in the
+past. To the egotism of the human being there is no end; and if such an
+one can only persuade others that he has some supernatural source of
+knowledge and power, or persuade himself (or herself) of the same, there
+is no limit to the devilry or folly into which he will plunge—as witness
+the history of the priesthood all down the centuries. In the case of
+Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland it was not devilry which was the
+trouble, but the other thing! Having reached a certain insight or
+intuition, or whatever you may call it, into the inner meanings of life,
+they both became so inflated with heavenly conceit over their discovery
+that they really grew quite foolish and intolerable. As it happened I
+had known Maitland since I was a boy. When I was eighteen or twenty
+years of age he a grown man, and known in the literary world as the
+author of _The Pilgrim and the Shrine_, used sometimes to come to my
+father’s house at Brighton. He was an interesting talker, well up in
+literature and science, and always keen on some new idea or discovery;
+but even then somewhat egotistically absorbed in his own thoughts and
+conversation. When he met the lady, however, who became his great
+life-inspiration, it must be said that he submerged all his own claims
+to prophetic gifts in a whole-hearted recognition of hers. He laid his
+soul at her feet.
+
+Anna Kingsford was certainly a remarkable woman. As a young girl she had
+had strange visions. When Maitland met her (she being twenty-seven) she
+must from all descriptions have been singularly beautiful. He describes
+her as “tall, slender and graceful in form; fair and exquisite in
+complexion; bright and sunny in expression. The hair long and golden,
+but the brows and lashes dark, and the eyes deep-set and hazel, and by
+turns dreamy and penetrating. The mouth rich, full, and exquisitely
+formed.” While Mrs. Fenwick Miller says: “I thought her the most
+faultlessly beautiful woman I ever beheld; her hair is like the
+sunlight, her features are exquisite, and her complexion—I can use no
+other term than faultless—not a spot, not a flaw, not a shade.”
+
+Add to these natural gifts a good medical training in the Schools of
+Paris, a fair knowledge of Greek and Latin, considerable literary
+ability and a generous and undisguised use of cosmetics, and you have a
+strange but powerful combination. Edward Maitland met her in 1874 (he
+was then fifty and she twenty-eight), and practically thenceforward
+dedicated his life to her. (It must however be remembered that the
+intimacy caused no estrangement from Mr. Kingsford, the husband, who
+remained a close friend to them both.) The reinforcement of Anna
+Kingsford’s intuitive and prophetic gift by Maitland’s incisive and
+logical mentality certainly had a valuable result, and their combined
+work left a notable mark on the time. Jointly from 1881 (to 1888 when
+Anna Kingsford died) they carried on a strong Crusade against
+Vivisection—one of the earliest protests made; and they published
+besides a series of works—_The Perfect Way_, _Clothed with the Sun_,
+_The Virgin of the World_, etc.—bearing the esoteric and theosophic
+message to which I have already alluded. Of these _The Perfect Way_,
+which shows both the systematic clearness of the one mind and the
+inspiration of the other, is perhaps the most important. It embodies in
+fairly clear outline those ideas of Indian and Gnostic origin which were
+at that time curiously descending upon the Western world, and which no
+doubt quite independently began about the same time to be spread abroad
+by Mme. Blavatsky and the Theosophic Society. Portions of this book, and
+large portions of _Clothed with the Sun_ were apparently spoken by Mrs.
+Kingsford under trance conditions, and have a certain fine quality and
+atmosphere about them. They seem to indicate things actually seen in the
+inner world of being; but they suffer, as such communications must do,
+from the medium through which they come. Large portions of _The Perfect
+Way_ degenerate into mere drivel, and large portions of _Clothed with
+the Sun_ are offensive (as their authoress herself often personally was)
+with a kind of spiritual arrogance. It is curious that those two
+prophetesses Anna Kingsford and Sophie Blavatsky—though so very
+different in personal exterior—should have been so like each other in
+many respects. Both undoubtedly had access to trance-conditions and to
+some region of astral intelligence or earth memory; both (as happens in
+such cases) dug out for us some shining jewels of truth, but mixed at
+the same time with a huge mass of rubbish. (No words can describe the
+general rot and confusion of Blavatsky’s _Secret Doctrine_.) Both were
+emotional in their different ways to an abnormal degree; and both were,
+fortunately for themselves, associated with coadjutors of cool and
+intellectual temperament—Mrs. Kingsford with Maitland, and Blavatsky
+with Mrs. Besant. Both had really great and remarkable gifts; and both,
+notwithstanding their high calling, descended to strange and unworthy
+subterfuges—Blavatsky to common juggleries and Anna Kingsford to a most
+deliberate and disagreeable ‘pose.’ At the Hermetic Society’s meetings
+the latter would take the chair in state—after the style of the Great
+Panjandrum—and if any humble member of the audience asked a simple
+question like “Do you think, Mrs. Kingsford, that the soul survives
+after death?”—she would draw herself up, close her eyes, and say “_I
+know_,” and sit down again! On one celebrated occasion I remember that
+at the close of the meeting, Edward Maitland rose and referring to the
+epoch-making speech of the Lady-president on “The finding of the
+Christ,” pointed out that that very meeting was indeed a world-event.
+For just as the _Kings_ of the East came across the _ford_ of the Jordan
+to lay their treasures at the feet of the infant Saviour, so now the
+treasures of Eastern thought were being brought across the world for the
+birth of a new Redeemer in the West, and by one whose name was most
+appropriately and prophetically none other than _Kingsford_!! After that
+we could naturally do nothing but dissolve along our different lines—in
+tears, or laughter, or through the doorways and passages, as the case
+might be. We poor little mortals must be grateful for what illuminations
+we can get, however quaint or queer the mediating personalities may be.
+
+The years from 1881 onward were certainly a new era for me. They not
+only brought me _Towards Democracy_, but they marked the oncoming of a
+great new tide of human life over the Western World, and so—partly
+through the book itself—brought me into touch with a number of people
+and movements. It was a fascinating and enthusiastic period—preparatory,
+as we now see, to even greater developments in the twentieth century.
+The Socialist and Anarchist propaganda, the Feminist and Suffragist
+upheaval, the huge Trade-union growth, the Theosophic movement, the new
+currents in the Theatrical, Musical and Artistic worlds, the torrent
+even of change in the Religious world—all constituted so many streams
+and headwaters converging, as it were, to a great river. To be in fairly
+close touch, as time went on, with these movements and their (English)
+representatives—with men and women like John Burns, Cunninghame Graham,
+Mrs. Despard, H. M. Hyndman, Bernard Shaw, Keir Hardie, the Bruce
+Glasiers, Pete Curran, Ramsay Macdonald, Walter Crane, Sydney Olivier,
+H. W. Nevinson, H. G. Wells, Annie Besant, F. R. Benson, Granville
+Barker, Iden Payne, Mona Limerick, Isadora Duncan, Margaret Macmillan,
+Lowes Dickinson, G. P. Gooch, G. M. Trevelyan, Roger Fry, Rutland
+Boughton, Granville Bantock, Laurence Housman, William Rothenstein, R.
+J. Campbell, E. W. Lewis, the Sidney Webbs, Olive Schreiner, Isabel
+Margesson, Edith Ellis, Alfred Russel Wallace, Oliver Lodge, George
+Barnes of the A.S.E., C. T. Cramp of the A.S.R.S., Stephen Reynolds of
+the Fisheries, Raymond Unwin of Garden Suburbs, Cecil Reddie of
+Abbotsholme, James Devon of the Prisons Commission, Edward Westermarck,
+Havelock Ellis, and so forth—was indeed an extraordinary inspiration and
+encouragement. Practically all these (and I have not mentioned the
+foreign friends and coadjutors) were giving their lives to the
+furtherance of some tributary of the great movement, and each of them
+represented hundreds or perhaps thousands of others who were doing the
+same. One felt that something massive must surely emerge from it all.
+
+
+It was no wonder that Hyndman—whose name I have put near the beginning
+of this list—becoming conscious as early as 1881 of the new forces all
+around in the social world was filled with a kind of fervour of
+revolutionary anticipation. We used to chaff him because at every crisis
+in the industrial situation he was confident that the Millennium was at
+hand—that the S.D.F. would resolve itself into a Committee of Public
+Safety, and that it would be for him as Chairman of that body to guide
+the ship of the State into the calm haven of Socialism! The S.F.D. was
+constituted in the early eighties; when 1889 was impending it was
+obvious that that year, as centenary of the first outbreak of the French
+Revolution would be the fateful date. I remember his telling me, not
+without gleeful rubbing of hands, that the whole Society of London
+Stevedores (whom he had been addressing at the Docks) was behind him to
+a man, and would come without fail to his support. 1889 however passed,
+with nothing more effectual than the Socialist Congress at Paris—at
+which a great deal of dissension and difference of opinion was
+manifested. Then came ’99, the last year of the century and clearly big
+with destiny; and he piled his hopes upon that. But it alas! only gave
+birth to the Boer War—which put things back for many a year. And after
+that 1909 and other dates did but provide further material for
+disappointment. And yet all the time the Socialist clock was really
+going forward, and though there was no sudden revolution or conversion,
+the nation steadily and almost unconsciously became saturated with the
+new ideas. Hyndman—though no doubt disappointed from time to time—stuck
+gamely to his ‘cause’—and it was largely through his personal exertions
+that the educational work begun by him in ’81 was carried to such
+fruition that in 1914 with the German War the Government and the country
+suddenly adopted large sections of the Socialist programme (without
+calling them Socialist of course) as the most natural thing in the
+world!
+
+That neither Hyndman in his time, nor Morris in his, nor the Fabian
+Society in theirs, nor Keir Hardie, nor Kropotkin, nor Blatchford, nor
+any other individual or body, succeeded in capturing the social movement
+during these years and moulding it to his or their hearts’ desire, must
+always be matter for congratulation. For once pocketed by any clique it
+would have pined and dwindled into an insignificant thing; but, as I
+have just tried to show, the real movement of this period has been far
+too great for such a destiny. It is like a great river, fed by currents
+and streams flowing into it from the most various directions and
+gathering a force which no man can now control and a volume too great to
+be confined.
+
+One regrets that Hyndman’s efforts to get into Parliament have never
+been crowned with success. Not that he would have been any use in the
+House as a party-leader (Labour or Socialist). Much the reverse; for
+though personally the most good-natured man in the world he had an
+extraordinary gift for falling foul of all his friends in the political
+arena. But because it would have been a satisfaction—and there would
+have been a certain poetical justice in it—to see Hyndman face to face
+with the bogeys of his own propaganda, the representatives of the
+established order, and trouncing them to his heart’s content. With an
+excellent command of statistics and finance, a good knowledge of
+political conditions and the diplomatic _personnel_ over Europe, two
+great causes close to his heart in the championship of our colored
+subjects in India and our white wage-slaves at home, and with a vigorous
+and ready tongue, he would surely, off his own bat, have made the House
+sit up, and compelled its attention to some neglected things.
+Nevertheless he would never I think under any circumstances have been a
+great force in politics; for curiously enough notwithstanding his mental
+vigour and energy there was a certain want of _weight_ about his
+personality which prevented his influence carrying very far. On the
+platform, with his waving beard and flowing frock-coat, his high and
+spacious forehead and head somewhat low and weak behind, he gave one
+rather the impression of a shop whose goods are all in the front window;
+and though a good and incisive speaker his frequent gusts of invective
+seemed out of keeping with the obvious natural kindliness of the man and
+rather suggested the idea that he was lashing himself up with his own
+tail.
+
+The frock-coat and tall hat were always of course _de rigueur_ with
+him—not I imagine that they were particularly congenial to his Socialist
+ideals, but because they were a necessary part of his outfit and
+‘make-up’ on the stage of the Stock Exchange; for no doubt the Stock
+Exchange as the centre of our Commercial system will cling to these old
+symbols of the industrial capitalist era to the very last.
+
+A young friend of mine, who was at one time clerk to Albert Grant of
+City fame, told me the following story. One day while he was sitting in
+Grant’s office H. M. Hyndman was announced, and walked in, frock-coat
+and all. My friend left the room while the two conferred—the well-known
+Socialist with the even more well-known German Jew and Company-promoter.
+Grant’s reputation was not of the highest—or if it could be called
+“high” at all it was only in the sense in which game is sometimes so
+called. When the visitor was gone and my young friend returned to the
+room, Grant said, rubbing his hands “Do you know who that is? Do you
+know who that is? That is Mr. Hyndman, the great Socialist. You see, you
+see, with all their talk, even _they_ cannot get on without _me_.”
+
+I do not for a moment suppose that Hyndman’s dealings on this occasion
+were anything to be ashamed of; but Albert Grant’s transactions were
+commonly thought to be of a shady character. Perhaps to make up for
+that, he bought with some of his gains the site of Leicester Square,
+converted it into a public garden, and presented it to the public. In
+consideration of this, and possibly other things, he was made a
+Baron—Baron Grant. Whereupon some wag wrote the following distich:—
+
+             Princes can Rank confer, but Honour can’t;
+             Rank without honour is a barren (Baron) grant.
+
+I have mentioned Walt Whitman more than once in the foregoing pages, and
+I think I ought not to let this chapter pass without referring to the
+ardent little coterie at Bolton in Lancashire who for many years
+celebrated his birthday with songs and speeches and recitations, with
+decorations of lilac-boughs and blossoms and the passing of loving cups
+to his memory. J. W. Wallace was the president, and Dr. Johnston, Fred.
+Wild, J. W. Dixon, Charles F. Sixsmith, were some of the earlier members
+of this little club, which met quite frequently from 1885 onward for
+twenty years or more. If there was a somewhat Pickwickian note about its
+revels still no one could doubt the sincerity of its enthusiasm. It
+helped largely to spread the study and appreciation of Whitman’s work in
+the North of England; it welcomed Dr. Bucke on his arrival from Canada
+with congratulatory addresses and hymns of its own composing; some of
+its members (the two first-mentioned) crossed the Atlantic on a
+pilgrimage to the good grey poet; and Dr. Johnston wrote a quite
+excellent little book _A Visit to Walt Whitman_ descriptive of Whitman’s
+personality and surroundings, which I believe is now being reissued from
+the Press in conjunction with some Notes on the same subject by Wallace.
+In later years I have been able to count Dr. Johnston and Charlie
+Sixsmith among my own constant friends.
+
+
+I will conclude this chapter with a few brief notes on my almost
+lifelong friend Arunáchalam. I feel that I owe a great debt to him
+because long ago, in ’80 perhaps or ’81 he gave me a translation of a
+book, then little known in England, the _Bhagavat Gita_—the reading of
+which as I think I have said before, curiously liberated and set in
+movement the mass of material which had already formed within me, and
+which was then waiting to take shape as _Towards Democracy_. As when a
+ship is ready to launch, a very little thing, the mere knocking away of
+a prop, will set her going; so—though it was something more than
+that—did the push of the _Bhagavat Gita_ act on _Towards Democracy_. It
+gave me the needed cue, and concatenated my work to the Eastern
+tradition.
+
+I first came across Arunáchalam at a meeting of the _Chitchat_ or some
+such society at Cambridge, when he was an undergraduate of Christ’s and
+I a newly made Fellow of Trinity Hall. As in the case of other Hindus
+his extraordinary quickness and receptiveness of mind had very quickly
+rendered him _au fait_ in all our British ways and institutions. With
+engagingly good and natural manners, humorous and with some of the Tamil
+archness and bedevilment about him, he was already a favorite in his own
+college—and at that time these early comers to the Universities from
+India were certainly received by our students with more friendliness and
+sense of equality than they are to-day. His father having been a wealthy
+man and occupying a good position in Ceylon, Arunáchalam had received a
+good education and was fairly well up in Greek and Latin, French and
+German, and their literatures, besides his own Eastern languages, like
+Tamil and Sanskrit. Altogether he was a very taking, all-round sort of
+fellow, capable of talking on most subjects, and full of interested
+inquiry about all. Many were the afternoons or evenings we spent
+together—walking or boating or sitting by the fireside in College
+rooms—and I learned much from him about the literature of India and the
+manners and customs of the mainland and Ceylon. When he left Cambridge
+he went to London and studied Law for some years, and then going out to
+Ceylon joined the Civil Service there, and in due time became Judge,
+Registrar-General, and finally Member of the Legislative Council. In
+1890 he wrote to me about the Gñani Ramaswamy whose acquaintance he had
+made, and asked me to come out and meet him; and I gladly went—for it
+just chimed in with my wishes at the time; and, as I have told in my
+_Visit to a Gñani_ and elsewhere, for six weeks or so we called on the
+Guru every day and absorbed all he had to say on the traditional
+esoteric philosophy of India in general and of the Tamils in particular.
+After settling in Ceylon, Arunáchalam paid from time to time various
+visits to England, at one time to bring his wife over, at another to put
+his sons to College, and so on. The last occasion was in 1913 when he
+received a tardy recognition of his really important services to the
+Crown in the form of a knighthood.
+
+On these occasions, whether he was conversing with the humblest of my
+friends at Millthorpe or at Sheffield, or with high officials and “great
+ladies” in London his manners had always just the same charming
+frankness and grace about them, which established at once the _human_
+relation as the paramount thing. And yet this man, whose artistic
+culture and practical knowledge of the world was miles above most people
+he met, had often to suffer from the boorish rudeness of Anglo-Indians
+in his own land, or of belated Britishers on board ship. Alas, for the
+vulgarity of my countrymen!
+
+I cannot leave him without one little anecdote. Being a guest on some
+occasion at a Mansion House dinner he was duly of course introduced to
+the various bigwigs present, and took his seat with the rest; but
+immediately caused consternation (being a vegetarian) by refusing
+turtle-soup and other carnivorous dishes in favour of spinach, potatoes
+and the like, and finally nearly wrecked the whole show by asking for a
+glass of water! Such a thing had never been heard of before. Waiters
+hurried to and fro, but water could not be found; and at last, with many
+apologies, he was asked to put up with a bottle of Apollinaris
+(“Whiskey, sir, with it?” “No, thank you”)!
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIV
+                          LONDON AND LECTURES
+
+
+Having many friends in London, and a good many relations, I naturally,
+during all the years of my sojourn at Millthorpe, have been in the habit
+of paying fairly frequent visits to the big city. It is good to have
+one’s roots in the country, but it is also necessary to have one’s
+branches in the great towns where one can come into contact with the
+winds and storms of human life.
+
+A considerable social storm at which I was present was that of the
+so-called “Bloody Sunday” in November ’87. A socialist meeting had been
+announced for 3 p.m. in Trafalgar Square, to protest against the Irish
+policy of the Government, and the authorities (for conscience doth make
+cowards of us all) probably thinking Socialism a much greater ‘terror’
+than it really was, had vetoed the meeting and drawn a ring of police,
+two deep, all round the interior part of the Square. Of course the
+Socialists had to make an active protest, if only in order to bring the
+case into court; and three leading members of the S.D.F.—Hyndman, John
+Burns and Cunninghame Graham—agreed to march up arm-in-arm and force
+their way if possible into the charmed circle. Somehow Hyndman was lost
+in the crowd on the way to the battle, but Graham and Burns pushed their
+way through, challenged the forces of ‘Law and Order,’ came to blows,
+and were duly mauled by the police, arrested, and locked up.
+
+I was in the Square at the time, and like most of the crowd there more
+as a sightseer than anything else. Indeed, though a large crowd it was
+of a most good-humored and peaceable kind; but the way in which it was
+‘worked up,’ provoked and irritated by the authorities, was a caution;
+and gave me the strongest impression that this was done purposely, with
+the intention of leading to a collision. If this was not so the only
+explanation must be that abject _fear_, on the part of the authorities,
+was the moving cause. As I say, the crowd was a most good-humored,
+easy-going, smiling crowd; but presently it was transformed. A regiment
+of mounted police came cantering up. The order had gone forth that we
+were to be ‘kept moving.’ To keep a crowd moving is I believe a
+technical term for the process of riding roughshod in all directions,
+scattering, frightening and batoning the people—the idea no doubt being
+to prevent the formation of knots or the consolidation of organized
+bodies among the crowd. In this case there was really no sign of any
+organized movement on the part of the people against the police, nor had
+I heard of any plan to that effect, further than the march-up of the
+three leaders already mentioned. I was standing—with my friend Robert
+Muirhead, Cambridge mathematician and Smith’s Prizeman, two peaceable
+enough members of society as may be supposed—on an island-refuge just
+where the Strand debouches into Trafalgar Square, when we found
+ourselves violently pushed about by mounted and foot police and told to
+‘move on.’ Whether Muirhead did not move on fast enough, or what the
+trouble was, was never explained; but the next moment I saw him seized
+by the collar by a mounted man and dragged along, apparently towards a
+police-station, while a bobby on foot aided in the arrest. I jumped to
+the rescue and slanged the two constables, for which I got a whack on
+the cheekbone from a baton (which distressed the more respectable
+members of my family for some weeks after), but Muirhead was released,
+and we soon regained our footing on the refuge, from which for some time
+we watched the police continuing, at considerable risk to life and limb,
+to circle round and insult the ‘mob.’ I mention these little details
+just to show the kind of thing that happens. Purely as the result of
+this ill-timed action there were one or two ugly rushes I believe and a
+few broken heads; but the damage of ‘Bloody Sunday’ did not after all
+amount to much.
+
+The case came into Court afterwards, and Burns and Graham were sentenced
+to six weeks’ imprisonment each for “unlawful assembly.” I was asked to
+give evidence in favour of the defendants, and gladly consented—though I
+had not much to say, except to testify to the peaceable character of the
+crowd and the high-handed action of the police. In cross-examination I
+was asked whether I had not seen any rioting; and when I replied in a
+very pointed way “Not on the part of the _people_!” a large smile went
+round the Court, and I was not plied with any more questions.
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _MORNING LEADER_ CARTOON, 13 MARCH, 1906.
+
+  “If Society people had to make their own clothes there would be some
+    curious scenes in
+  the streets, and many would go about attired in simply an Indian
+    blanket.”—Mr. EDWD.
+  CARPENTER at the meeting of the Humanitarian League at Essex Hall.
+
+  (By courtesy of the _Daily News_.)
+]
+
+At an early period of my Millthorpe days (about 1885 I think) two young
+Cambridge men who had only just taken their degrees, Lowes Dickinson and
+Roger Fry, came down to see me—two gentle, humorous and charming
+creatures, who have since made their mark in Literature and Art, and
+whose friendship has remained with me, I am happy to say, all these
+years. Dickinson as a writer of pure English is I should say far ahead
+of any of his contemporaries. In contrast with the Meredithian, Henry
+Jamesian, Chestertonian, and other literary gymnastics of the day, his
+style flows along, pellucid with pure grace and purpose, saying exactly
+what is needed, no more and no less. It has the quality of ‘the absolute
+in style’—which is very different from, though sometimes mistaken for,
+absence of style. Nothing could be more charming and to the point than
+his _Letters of John Chinaman_ (or _From a Chinese Official_) and his
+_Greek View of Life_. With regard to the former he told me an amusing
+story about W. J. Bryan, candidate more than once for the Presidency of
+the United States. Being an American Mr. Bryan, perhaps naturally, did
+not perceive (the English being so perfect) that no Chinaman could
+possibly have written the book, and being also somewhat shocked at some
+of the remarks in it about the common infidelities of matrimonial life
+in England and America, he quite innocently published an article
+rebutting these charges and explaining that if the author (the supposed
+Chinese official) had had the advantage of being brought up in an
+Anglo-Saxon household he would never have made such mistakes! Dickinson
+had consequently to write to Mr. Bryan, and, breaking his incognito, to
+inform him that the author _had_ had the said advantage, and really knew
+what he was talking about!
+
+From 1885 onwards I lectured pretty frequently in London, Edinburgh,
+Glasgow, Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, Bradford, and so forth—chiefly at
+first in connection with the various Socialist societies and groups in
+those places. The subjects treated of were those which are now so well
+recognized and understood everywhere that there is no need to insist on
+them, though at that time they were only beginning to appear on the
+social horizon—the evils of Competition, Adulteration, Falsification of
+goods, Waste, the scramble for Dividends, the iron Law of Wages, and so
+forth. Afterwards the lectures branched out a little more widely into
+literary and philosophical subjects, and with more general audiences.
+
+In 1891, as I have already said, the Humanitarian League was founded.
+And later on I gave addresses on various occasions in connection with
+the League’s meetings; one at an early date (about ’92 or ’93) on
+Vivisection—in conjunction with Edward Maitland; another on the same
+subject some years later; one in ’97 on the Prisons; one in ’98 on what
+might be called “Humane Science”; and one in 1906 on “Simplification of
+Life,” and others. In the last-mentioned lecture I referred to the
+complexity of life among our well-to-do classes which arises from the
+fact of their being able to _pay_ servants for doing things for them,
+and pointed out (supposing the bottom ever fell out of the bucket of
+modern society, and these people really had to produce their own food,
+clothing, etc.) how _simple_ their lives would probably become—and how
+interesting it would be to see them going about barefoot and clothed in
+flour-sacks, rather than do the hard work of cobbling and tailoring for
+themselves.
+
+The _Morning Leader_ took the idea up, and brought out a Cartoon
+illustration of the lecture, showing the London Club men promenading in
+Hyde Park with only Indian blankets and flour-bags for covering, though
+still clinging religiously to their old umbrellas and tall hats!
+
+For the Theosophist societies I spoke occasionally, in Birmingham,
+Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, and elsewhere—weaving in some amount
+of Indian philosophy (the Upanishads, etc.) with talk on social
+subjects; also for the Ethical societies in much the same way; and for
+Charles Rowley’s Sunday afternoons at Ancoats, Manchester. In 1905 I
+took up the question of Small Holdings and the Co-operative Colonization
+of the Land—a question which had by that time become actual through the
+Small Holdings Acts of 1892 and 1907, and which will have to be still
+more seriously considered in the future; and spoke on the subject in
+Holmesfield and other villages in my neighborhood, as well as in Oxford,
+Glasgow and other large centres. Joseph Fels was very keen at that time
+on the subject; and I went with him to view his group of a dozen or so
+five-acre holdings at Maylands in Essex. Unfortunately the experiment
+did not turn out a success. He had bought some very heavy clay land at
+an absurdly low price, £7 an acre, and had spent £20 per acre on it in
+breaking up and burning the clay and heavily manuring, thus making the
+real initial cost of the land £27 per acre; and had then planted the
+ground with fruit-trees and had suitable cottages built on it. Reckoning
+up the total cost of each holding he offered them at a low rental, some
+3 per cent. or 4 per cent. on the capital invested, and took some care
+besides in the choice of tenants, feeling confident that with proper
+handling the places would prove remunerative. Unfortunately they did not
+do so. Probably it had been a mistake to speculate on such extremely
+poor land as this was to begin with. Anyhow it never yielded the crops
+expected; and one by one the tenants disheartened abandoned their
+holdings, and the whole scheme fell to the ground.
+
+Having always a good many friends among the Railway-men I was not
+unfrequently asked to speak at their clubs and branch meetings. On one
+occasion in November 1907, in conjunction with George Barnes, C. T.
+Cramp, Pete Curran and Victor Grayson, I addressed an A.S.R.S. meeting
+of over three thousand in the Sheffield Corn-Exchange. George Barnes
+always strikes me as a fine, solid and sensible man; Charlie Cramp the
+same; and indeed the railway-men generally—perhaps from their close and
+constant contact with the flow of humanity—have a discernment and
+reasonableness of outlook which is quite peculiar. Victor Grayson, the
+course of whose political career was so brief and so meteoric, was a
+most humorous creature. His fund of anecdotes was inexhaustible, and
+rarely could a supper party of which he was a member get to bed before
+three in the morning. On the platform for detailed or constructive
+argument he was no good, but for criticism of the enemy he was
+inimitable—the shafts of his wit played like lightning round him, and
+with his big mouth and flexible upper lip he seemed to be simply
+browsing off his opponents and eating them up. His disappearance from
+public life has been quite a loss.
+
+In some ways these large audiences are easier to speak to than small
+ones. Consciousness of personalities—either one’s own or of members of
+the audience—disappears; the great broad human interests come forward;
+finesse and detailed argument are of little account; the reverberation
+of emotion is great, and that carries the speaker on; but of course much
+depends on conditions. To hold a large audience in the open air is
+difficult work, but it is good practice. Concatenation and logical
+continuity are of no great importance, but every word must be distinct,
+every phrase must tell, every point be made clear and attractive, else
+the congregation will evaporate even while you talk to it, and condense
+again round the nearest coster’s barrow.
+
+In a closed room or hall you have your hearers more at command. They
+cannot easily escape, and you may become dull without knowing it! But
+here again much depends on circumstances. I find a room (of the common
+type) with level floor and high raised platform at one end rather
+trying. It is difficult to get _at_ an audience so much below you, and
+as the voice tends to rise the more _distant_ listeners seem
+unreachable. Worse still is a flat room where you stand on the floor
+without _any_ platform; for then you cannot see your flock, and you lose
+all command over it. Personally I like an amphitheatre lecture-hall with
+rising tiers of seats one behind the other; or best of all an ordinary
+theatre with pit and galleries, so that from the stage one is nearly on
+a level with the great bulk of those present. I have spoken (on _The
+Larger Socialism_ or cognate subjects) to audiences of two thousand or
+more at various theatres—the ‘Grand,’ Manchester (November 1908 and
+November 1909), the ‘Prince’s,’ Blackburn (October 1910), the
+‘Metropole,’ Glasgow (November 1910), and others, and with a
+satisfactory sense in general of being able to reach my hearers.
+
+On November 11, 1910, I gave an address to the Literary and
+Philosophical Society at Greenock on _State-Interference with Industry_,
+which was repeated afterwards at Cambridge, Oxford, and elsewhere. The
+subject was much to the fore at that time, and from opposite points of
+view, owing to prevalent strikes and lock-outs. The Clyde shipping
+strike was on, and there was a good deal of indignation expressed up and
+down the country at the conduct of the men in the shipyards, who had
+refused to take up their tools and go to work again, even after their
+leaders had counselled and urged them to do so. I was as much in the
+dark as most others about the cause of this strange refusal—until I
+reached Greenock; and then I soon heard from various quarters, both of
+men and masters, the real reason. It was not a question of wages or of
+hours. Those matters had so far been settled satisfactorily. The real
+grievance was a personal one. The men had been affronted by the
+overbearing conduct of the Chairman of the Employers’ Association, the
+insulting manner in which he had behaved to their representatives, and
+so forth; and they were not going to put up with this without a protest.
+They wanted to be treated in a gentlemanly way. It was encouraging and
+refreshing to find that this was so; and the fact that it was so lets a
+good deal of light into a frequent cause of labour troubles and
+dissensions. But of course in this case at Greenock, as in so many
+others, the Press all over the country had got on the wrong tack, and
+the public never knew the real rights of the matter.
+
+On October 24, 1908, the Women’s Suffrage party held a great
+demonstration in Manchester, which like others of their functions was a
+miracle of organization. There were to be ten platforms, and the mere
+getting together of ten distinct bodies of processionists at their
+respective starting-stations in the neighborhood of the Town Hall, and
+marching them off to the appointed time, was no light matter. However it
+was done; and with Mrs. Despard walking gallantly at the head, supported
+by Margaret Ashton, Miss Abadam, Dr. Helen Wilson, Isabella Ford, Mrs.
+Swanwick, Mrs. K. D. Courtney, Mrs. Billington Greig, Councillor James
+Johnston, Professor Chapman, Canon Hicks and myself, a solid phalanx
+nearly a mile long, with bands and banners complete, walked all the way
+to Alexandra Park, three miles out! The immense crowd which came forth
+to witness the demonstration, and which lined both sides of the road,
+did not say much; it did not cheer to any great extent, nor did it
+scoff; it was simply deeply impressed. A large part of it followed on
+the route and collected round the ten platforms—about a thousand
+listeners to each. Each platform dealt with a separate subject—mine, in
+conjunction with Mrs. Greig and Miss Margaret Robertson, took _Prison
+Reform_. A cornet finally gave the signal for a joint resolution to be
+proposed in favour of the Suffrage, which was of course carried by
+acclamation, and the crowd dispersed.
+
+Mrs. Despard’s work in the two related causes of Women and Labour has
+been splendid. Her ardour and indomitable resolution, despite the
+drawback of advancing years, have been almost miraculous, and I always
+see her in my mind’s eye marching gloriously to some encounter, and
+resembling the horse (in the words of the book of Job) “who saith among
+the trumpets Ha! ha! and sniffeth the battle from afar!” It has been an
+honour and a pleasure to me to speak on many a platform with Mrs.
+Despard—in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere. In October 1912 I took the
+chair at a meeting of the Sheffield Women’s Freedom League, when she
+lectured on the subject of Shelley’s _Prometheus Unbound_. It is
+characteristic of her that this poem was a favorite of hers from
+earliest girlhood; and in a sustained address that evening she quoted
+very large portions of it by heart, holding her audience for nearly two
+hours in rapt accord and attention. Mrs. Despard was, I need hardly say,
+like Shelley himself, an ardent vegetarian—though Shelley, owing to
+circumstances and conditions, often probably found it difficult to live
+quite up to the mark of his wishes in this respect.
+
+In October 1909 I was honoured by being made President of the Vegetarian
+Congress at Manchester for that year—notwithstanding my own occasional
+derelictions from the ideal standard—and I found myself in the chair at
+an interesting meeting supported by well-known pillars of the movement
+like Professor J. E. Mayor of Cambridge, Dr. E. A. Axon of Manchester,
+Dr. Lybeck of Helsingfors, and others. The thing that struck me most
+about the meeting was the extraordinary number of extremely ancient
+looking patriarchs present with long white hair and beards; and I very
+nearly disgraced myself in my opening speech by expressing a doubt
+whether in view of this result Vegetarianism was a thing really to be
+desired or recommended! Some kind presiding spirit however saved me from
+this ineptitude, and I reached the end of my discourse safely and
+without succumbing to the temptation.
+
+
+A subject on which I have often spoken—though always with the sense of
+only touching the fringe of it—is that of the connection between Sun
+worship and Christianity. The existing books on the subject are quite
+unsatisfactory, being very limited in their outlook. Some day it will
+have to be worked out more thoroughly. It is a most interesting subject,
+but as it involves a good deal of historical and antiquarian information
+and some technical knowledge of Astronomy besides reference to early
+sexual rites, it is not a very easy one to put before a general
+audience. I gave a lecture on it for the Sheffield Ethical Society in
+December 1908 and for J. R. Campbell’s “Progressive League” at the City
+Temple in November 1909, as well as in other places; but it really would
+require a series of lectures for anything like adequate presentment. The
+_continuity_ of Christianity with the religions of the old world and its
+ordered evolution from them is the idea which we now require to realize.
+We have had enough of its portrayal as a miraculous and exceptional
+stage in human development; and now that the world is coming round again
+to a concrete appreciation of the value and beauty of actual life, and
+to a sort of neo-Pagan point of view, it is above all important that we
+should understand the sources from which Christianity sprang in the
+past, and what germs of a world-religion it may bear within itself for
+the future, when it shall have cast off the crude and gothic elements of
+its mediæval development.
+
+My friend Edward Lewis, himself a writer on The New Paganism, was in
+1912 and 1913 minister of the King’s Weigh House Church, Duke Street,
+W., and he and R. J. Campbell not unfrequently interchanged pulpits at
+that time. Lewis persuaded me to speak at his church; and on two
+occasions (November 1912 and October 1913) I did so. His congregation,
+largely trained no doubt and educated by his discourses, was an
+intelligent and sympathetic one, and though I had some misgivings on my
+first visit in speaking on so abstruse a subject as “The Nature of the
+Self”—illustrated as it was by numerous quotations from the Upanishads
+and from _Towards Democracy_—I felt no misgiving on the second occasion,
+when my subject (similarly illustrated) was “Rest.” These lectures were
+repeated at the Lyceum (women’s) Club, Piccadilly, at Croydon,
+Eastbourne and elsewhere; and the fact that audiences like these, of a
+rather popular character, could listen with deep understanding and
+sympathy to the unfolding of innermost psychological teachings has
+convinced me that the germs of a new and democratic religion are only
+waiting among our mass-peoples for the day and the stimulus which will
+bring them to birth and development.
+
+Edward Lewis, being vigorous in heart and brain, and a real man,
+naturally could not continue very long in a profession like “the
+ministry” which entailed his ascending the pulpit three or four times a
+week and not only giving ‘edifying’ counsel to his congregation but
+confining his own life within a corresponding circle of inanity. Such a
+career would inevitably have sapped and ruined his manhood; and with
+true instinct he threw up his five or six hundred a year and retired
+into the wilderness. The members of his congregation were duly shocked
+and grieved in their different ways, according to the views they took of
+his lapse or lapses from holiness; but if, as is likely, the quondam
+Christian minister should become the missionary and apostle of a new and
+vital Paganism, the world will be very much the gainer.
+
+
+The War, now going on [1915] is not only acting already very directly on
+the industrial life of the nations concerned but is pointing pretty
+clearly towards a remodelling of our general conception of Industry for
+the future. It is fairly certain that somehow or other the gloomy and
+depressing wage-slavery of the present day—so intimately bound up with
+the Commercial régime—will have to give way; and productive work will
+have to regain the characters of spontaneity and gladness which surely
+are of the essence of its nature, and which are the necessary roots of
+all Art and of all Beauty and Joy in life. With that transformation of
+industry all life will be transformed, and the neo-Pagan ideal will
+become a thing possible of realization.
+
+For some years, from 1910 onwards I have spoken on this idea—entitling
+my lectures “Freedom in Industry,” “Beauty in Civic Life” and so forth,
+and delivering them before various bodies and in various places—as at
+Caxton Hall, London, for the Humanitarian League; at Crosby Hall,
+Chelsea, for the University Settlement there; for the Fabian Society at
+Oxford; for the Arts Club at Leeds; for the Progressive and
+Town-planning League at Bolton; for the N.U.T. Association at
+Chesterfield; and for many Adult Schools, I.L.P. Clubs and Ethical and
+Theosophist societies in different parts of the country.
+
+To produce for Use; that production should really take place for the
+benefit of the Consumer; to concentrate not on Profit to individuals,
+but on advantage and gain to the Community; to drop in one inspired
+moment the whole mad sequence of cut-throat Rivalry, insane Waste,
+disgusting Fraud, and inane Uselessness, which constitute modern
+Industry; all this would mean such an enormous liberation of Power, such
+an incalculable increase in general Wealth, that the spectre of poverty
+would be exorcised for ever, and the numbing anxiety which weighs so
+heavily now on the lives of millions would be lifted away like an evil
+cloud. Joy would descend upon life, and the ordinary occupations would
+become free, spontaneous and beautiful.
+
+Our powers of production to-day are so immense that even in the midst of
+the present frightful War we (on this little island) can spare millions
+of our best men for fighting, and millions more for the work of
+providing those fighters with engines of death and destruction, and
+_yet_ with the residue can calmly and easily keep the nation going. What
+our powers and our achievement might be if once those eight millions or
+so—whose work is now only destructive—were turned on to the great
+positive task of social reconstruction and sensible human emancipation,
+it really passes imagination to conceive. The age-long world-dream of
+Paradise Regained would at last be within our reach. We can see that the
+War is even now forcing the modern peoples to take stock of their
+boasted Civilization, to reckon up the gains to Humanity which it
+represents—and the losses; to find out and decide in what direction they
+are really moving, and in what direction they want to move. If an event
+so great, so colossal, as this does not shatter the old order of
+profit-grinding and wage-slavery and wake a new ideal of life in the
+heart of the nations, one would say there is little hope for the world.
+But surely it will do so.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XV
+                      TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
+
+
+Among the many good things in my life which I owe to my books by no
+means the least has been my introduction through them to dear and valued
+foreign friends.
+
+One day in March 1901 there called upon me a young Hungarian—Ervin
+Batthyány by name—a modest, sturdy and almost rustic-looking youth of
+about twenty-three. He proved to be a member of the well-known Batthyány
+family, whose influence in Hungarian politics, on the Liberal as well as
+on the Conservative side, has always been considerable; but he was by no
+means conservative in his outlook or ultra-aristocratic in his leanings.
+
+It happened at the moment of his appearance that I was doing some
+gardening and trundling about a wheelbarrow. “Oh,” he said at once, “do
+let me wheel that barrow for you; I do like so much to do that sort of
+work, but I have no chance at home—I am so _civilized_ you know.” For a
+moment I thought he was chaffing; then the next moment I saw he was
+quite sincere. I believe I let him trundle the barrow for a bit; then we
+sat down and talked.
+
+It turned out that he was expecting in the following year to come into
+large landed estates in Hungary; that he had studied and thought about
+Socialism to some extent; and that among other things he wanted to
+consult me about the administration of his property when he should have
+the management of it. It appeared that with the almost feudal system
+still prevailing in that part, the cottagers and labourers working on
+such estates were practically attached to the soil and frequently
+transferred with it from owner to owner; that they were employed by the
+farm-bailiffs in gangs for the benefit of the estate; that they received
+next to no monetary wages, but were paid in pork or flour or the poor
+tenements they inhabited—that is, they were paid by a small share of the
+wealth they had themselves created; that they had no means of earning
+anything independently; and that they had little or no education—the
+schools being all under the thumb of the Catholic priests.
+
+We talked over possible reforms—of a mild kind of course, as anything
+drastic would be out of the question; and when he went away he said with
+the same charming simplicity as before “The next time I see you I hope I
+shall not be so _civilized_.” The next time proved to be some three
+years later.
+
+He returned to Buda-Pesth shortly after his visit to Millthorpe; and
+took as it happened a copy of _Towards Democracy_ with him, which he
+gave to a lady friend there—a certain Madame Nadler—knowing that she was
+interested and indeed accomplished in English literature. Madame Nadler
+took warmly to the book, and before long it came about that she and the
+young Count, who was a frequent visitor at her house, spent a large part
+of their time together in reading and discussing it—with the not
+unnatural result that they became warmly interested in each other.
+
+Meanwhile he, the young man, plunged into the administration of his
+newly acquired estate, and in the course of two or three years made
+useful changes. He founded an undenominational school, with a workshop
+for instructing the peasants in various crafts, and a reading-room
+provided with more or less socialistic literature—an innocent enough
+proceeding as we should think, but it turned the whole Clerical party
+against him, and terrified the aristocratic landowners of the
+neighborhood out of their wits, as with the shadow of a coming
+revolution! All this, together with his journalistic work in connection
+with various anti-militarist and Anarchist papers brought him into
+conflict with his family and the authorities, with the result that a
+sequestration of his property took place, and for a couple of years he
+was subject to a good deal of annoyance. During that period, curiously
+enough, little Millthorpe became the chief means of communication
+between the two friends—for I was in touch with them both, while their
+local and more direct letters were liable to be intercepted. They were
+thus able to concert plans to frustrate the enemy, which they did with
+such success that at the end of the period mentioned Ervin resumed work
+on his estates—though not without some risk, as may be imagined, of
+renewed attacks.
+
+After these events _Towards Democracy_ became more than ever a link
+between the two friends. They determined to translate the book—not into
+Hungarian but into German (as being a more widely received language),
+and they set to work upon it in real earnest. Mme. Nadler’s competence
+for this labour was quite exceptional. With a great enthusiasm for the
+book and a quick appreciation of its meanings, she combined a very fine
+literary sense and aptness of phrase; while Ervin with his rather
+encyclopædic brain was able to interpret all sorts of references to
+trades and Nature-processes. In 1906 the translation of Part I was
+published in Berlin; and Parts II, III and IV followed in separate
+editions in the three following years, 1907, 1908, and 1909.
+
+But meanwhile (early I think in 1904) Mme. Nadler having decided to give
+her children the advantage of an English education, and at the same time
+to save them from the hatefulness of enforced military service, migrated
+to this country; and so it came to pass that I made the personal
+acquaintance of this remarkable and beautiful woman—an acquaintance
+which, I need not say, soon ripened into friendship. Ervin, too, finding
+his native land not very congenial came over to England; and thus it
+happened that after the lapse of three years he and I resumed the
+conversations which we had first begun over the wheelbarrow. I did not
+notice that he was notably less ‘civilized’ than before, but his
+experiences had very obviously altered his political and social outlook,
+and his general views were decidedly more anti-governmental than they
+had been at the earlier date.
+
+
+These translations by Madame Nadler were, however, by no means the first
+to be made into German. In 1901 or so Herr Karl Federn had come over
+from Vienna and spent a day or two at Millthorpe. In 1902 he placed his
+translation of _Love’s Coming-of-Age_ with a Leipzig publisher, and the
+book almost immediately had a good reception. It passed through several
+editions, and when a few years later, in 1912, the first German Women’s
+Congress was held in Berlin the book curiously enough became a sort of
+bone of contention, dividing the advanced party who took it as their
+text-book, from the more conservative party who anathematized it. In
+proportion as controversy raged around it the work became more
+notorious, a cheap edition was printed, and before the Great War broke
+out some fifty thousand copies had been sold.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  LILLY NADLER-NUELLENS WITH HER DAUGHTER.
+]
+
+Herr Federn was not very fortunate in his choice of a title. _Wenn die
+Menschen reif zur Liebe werden_ is only a rather heavy paraphrase of
+_Love’s Coming-of-Age_, and the text of the book itself suffers from a
+certain heaviness and diffuseness. Still to Herr Federn himself I feel I
+owe a considerable debt, not only for introducing my work to the German
+public, but for the general fidelity of his translations and the loyalty
+of his dealings on my account with the German publishers. In 1903 he
+published also in Leipzig his translation of _Civilization: its Cause
+and Cure_; and in 1905, in Jena, the translation of _The Art of
+Creation_ (_Die Schöpfung als Kunstwerk_). This last was issued in
+rather elaborate _format_ by the well-known firm, Eugen Diederichs, but
+has never reached the circulation of the other two.
+
+
+In the Spring of 1909 I was at Florence for some weeks; and
+there—largely through my friend Professor Herron—I came into touch with
+an interesting circle of young Italian _literati_ and artists;
+especially interesting to me because they represented a strong reaction
+away from the very bourgeois and commercialized Italian art-ideals of
+the later nineteenth century, and towards the ideals of John Ruskin and
+William Morris—ideals founded on the socialization of human activities
+and the intimate relationship of all true literary and artistic work to
+the actual life of the mass-peoples.
+
+The group included such men as Riccardo Nobili, probably the best living
+exponent of Fourteenth Century Italian art, whose charming little story
+_A Modern Antique_ delightfully exposes the fakes of Florentine
+art-dealers and the gorgeous gullibility of American globe-trotters;
+Roberto Assagioli, the young philosopher, editor of _Psiche_—a
+psychological Review—and author of an illuminating tract on the Talking
+Horses of Elberfeldt[28]; Guido Ferrando, author of a couple of tracts
+on _La Coscienza Universale_ and _La Nuova Psicologia_ (Florence
+1908)—who has done me the honour to translate my _Love’s Coming-of-Age_
+and my _Art of Creation_ into Italian; Count Auteri, the Sicilian
+architect and sculptor; Giuseppe Rambelli, the artist, and others.
+
+More or less associated with this group—and on a second visit—I made the
+acquaintance of Teresina Bagnoli, a gifted young woman who had already
+been in correspondence with me with regard to a translation of _T. D._
+(of which she sent me batches from time to time for criticism and
+revision). I found her swift and penetrating and original, and verging
+on Anarchism in her political and philosophic outlook; and I have to
+thank her for her excellent little volume _Verso la Democrazia_[29]
+which has brought me into touch with Italian readers in that intimate
+field.
+
+
+It is curious, but perhaps not unexpected, that my best translators have
+been women. To a third lady friend, Mademoiselle Senard, I owe a very
+excellent version of _Towards Democracy_ into French (Parts III and IV
+only). After some little preliminary correspondence Mlle. Senard came
+over from Paris in the summer of 1913 and spent a couple of months in
+the country in my neighborhood. Sprung from an old-fashioned and rather
+aristocratic family in Burgundy she had managed at a comparatively early
+age to emancipate herself from a convent school and education, and by
+her resolution had almost compelled her parents to find for her a way
+out into the great world. She had become a perfect linguist in English,
+German and Italian; and I found her a fine-looking and attractive person
+of thirty-five or so, always, like a true Frenchwoman, perfectly dressed
+and _chic_, yet simply dressed and absolutely natural in her
+conversation and movements. It was a pleasure to spend many a morning or
+afternoon with her, looking over her translation work or rambling
+through the garden and the fields.
+
+However well one may know a foreign language it is rarely possible to
+follow every _nuance_ of meaning or to succeed entirely in avoiding
+errors; and a foreigner dealing with English has perhaps all the more
+difficulty in that way on account of the idiomatic and irregular
+character of our language. I have not always cared so much about the
+other books, but with _Towards Democracy_ I have been very anxious that
+the renderings should be faithful; and it has been fortunate for me that
+in these three cases I have had such very competent translators, and
+been sufficiently versed myself in the languages concerned to be able to
+assist them in doubtful places.
+
+Marcelle Senard wrote also a little brochure of her own on _Edward
+Carpenter et sa Philosophie_,[30] which shows the clearness and
+penetration of a well-balanced French mind. Then, on the outbreak of the
+War in 1914 she took up Nursing work, and with extraordinary energy and
+devotion organized and helped to equip a new Hospital for the Wounded at
+Nevers, south of Paris, where she remained for a year as Manageress and
+Secretary, till exhausted with the incessant labour she was at last
+compelled to relinquish the post.
+
+In connection with French translations I must not forget to mention my
+friend Paul Le Rouge who is now assistant judge in French Morocco, and
+who translated and published my _Prisons, Police and Punishment_ in
+Paris some ten years ago. I am sorry to say I have not found an English
+judge or police-magistrate who has taken an equal interest in the
+original book!
+
+
+Early in 1910 I received one or two letters from a young Japanese
+illustrating the sad state of commercial slavery and militarism into
+which Japan had fallen since the Russo-Japanese War. Women and children
+as well as men were being worked twelve hours or more a day in the
+factories which were springing up on all sides, and for a miserable
+pittance; there were no regulations to curb the greed of employers; and
+any public protest was treated as anti-governmental Socialism, with the
+result that papers were suppressed in the most arbitrary way, and
+speakers committed to prison. A Japanese lady, Mme. Fukuda, had been
+imprisoned for five years for thus voicing the wrongs of the workers;
+and my correspondent, Sanshiro Ishikawa, was awaiting trial on a similar
+charge. He had, being a fair English scholar, been interested in my work
+for some time; and told me (what I had heard before) that a translation
+of my Civilization book had circulated pretty widely in his country at a
+quite early date. That translation, however, had gone out of print, and
+he, Ishikawa, was preparing a new one for the press, when—the Japanese
+Censor interfered and forbade its publication!
+
+This shows up pretty clearly the state of darkness which had descended
+on the land of the Rising Sun! It was not of course on account of his
+interest in my book that he had been arrested, but on account of his
+general work in the cause of Labour.
+
+The result of his trial was that he was sent to prison for three months,
+and that on his emergence he had to keep rather quiet on account of the
+attentions of the Police. He retained however his interest in my
+writings, made translations of portions of them, and embodied these
+together with some biographical matter in a book of some three hundred
+pages beautifully printed in Japanese characters and published in Tokyo
+in 1912; but of course for the most part a sealed book to me. Some small
+portions, however, are printed in our language and characters, including
+a letter from myself written to him while he was in prison—which I may
+as well reproduce here as it serves to throw light on the situation:—
+
+  DEAR FRIEND ISHIKAWA SANSHIRO,
+
+  Just a line to cheer you in prison—though you will be nearly coming
+  out when this reaches you. I received your letter of March 27 with
+  much pleasure. You were to go to prison next day. They seem to be very
+  severe and despotic in Japan, when one cannot even publish
+  _Civilization: its Cause and Cure_ there. But your countrymen are too
+  sensible to bear this sort of treatment for very long. I suppose it is
+  _patriotism_ which is so very strong in the nation just now, and which
+  forms an excuse for anti-socialism. King Edward VII’s death is causing
+  a great wave of patriotism here; yet the future of mankind is leading
+  us beyond patriotism to _humanity_.
+
+  I cannot write much now, but thought I would send you a few lines. I
+  believe I did send you my photograph. If it did not reach you let me
+  know, and I will send another.
+
+  With hearty greetings and thanks to you for what you have done in the
+  great Cause.
+
+                                                Yours very truly,
+                                                        EDWD. CARPENTER.
+
+  _21 May, 1910._
+
+After a time—I hardly know whether on account of troubles in Japan or of
+attractions towards Europe—Sanshiro determined to come to these Western
+lands; and one day in the autumn of 1913, as I happened to be in London,
+he came to call on me there. Anything less dangerous-looking as a
+revolutionary it would be hard to imagine. Small in stature, timid in
+manner, and with a very gentle voice, he seemed the embodiment of
+quietude and sympathy. It was not difficult however in his case, as in
+that of many Japanese, to discern, beneath that composed exterior, a
+strong undercurrent of resolution and courage.
+
+He read English with ease, but spoke it rather slowly and with
+difficulty, was intelligent, and like many Orientals skilful with his
+fingers and apt at housework. We tried to find him employment and a
+means of living in our neighborhood or in Sheffield or Manchester, but
+without success, and after similar efforts in London he migrated to
+Brussels where he knew of a friend in Paul Reclus, son of Elie and
+nephew of Elisée Reclus, and where he obtained occupation in decorative
+painting. This was early in 1914. In August, of course, the War broke
+out, and a few weeks later the Germans entered Brussels. The Reclus
+family—before their entry I imagine—retired to Paris; but Sanshiro
+remained in Brussels—I believe as caretaker of their apartments. It was
+a somewhat risky position. The Germans drew a cordon round the city, and
+ruled severely within it. Once or twice only he got messages through to
+me.
+
+But as the weeks went by he began to feel that he must escape at all
+costs; and in the end he succeeded in doing so—by representations I
+believe to the Japanese Government, which led to his liberty being
+granted in exchange for a German prisoner taken at Kiao-chow; but of
+this I am not certain. I have not seen him since, but anyhow he got to
+Liancourt (near Paris) where he now is [1915].
+
+Another Japanese friend, Mr. Saikwa Tomita, the youthful author of _The
+Matanjitenshô_ or _Psalm of the Last Day_, has translated and published
+large portions of _Towards Democracy_ in current Japanese magazines, and
+intends apparently to bring the whole out in book form—as well as
+versions of _The Art of Creation_ and some of my other works. Speaking
+(in a letter) of the present War, he says: “Japan is at her crisis as
+well as Europe is. Here in this country, as you well know, he who is for
+the lower classes and vagabonds, or who is for [the] cosmopolitanism, is
+treated by the authorities under the name of ill-fame and has to suffer
+from a bitter experience.” And Sanshiro Ishikawa above-mentioned speaks
+likewise: “Is not this a terrible epoch, that the violent force only
+holds the supreme power in this world, and humanity has no influence, at
+least in [the] international affairs. The present situation of Japan is
+in most dangerous step [stage]; many peoples are becoming admirers of
+militarism. Commercialism is already too powerful; and I feel a duty
+that I must fight with full-hearted spirit against them.”
+
+Let us pray that these true-hearted fighters for Internationalism may
+prevail—all over the world, and among all nations!
+
+I am proud to find that among the Bulgarians—who are supposed just now
+to be our enemies—I have many friends. Messrs. Vaptzaroff and Dosseff,
+editors of the magazine called _Renaissans_ at Burgas and Tchirpan,
+published in it shortly before the War various chapters of
+_Civilization_, including “The Defence of Criminals,” “Custom,” “Modern
+Science,” etc., and later the whole of that book, and of _England’s
+Ideal_. With the outbreak of the war however they retired to Maikop in
+the Kuban Territory (east of the Black Sea), being in touch there with
+another friend of mine, the Russian novelist and mystic, Ivan Najívin.
+M. Najívin, who makes his home apparently in the country near
+Novorossisk on the shores of the Euxine—working there among his bees,
+and in his vineyard and vegetable garden—has written to me for some
+years, chiefly about Cosmic Consciousness and Sandals! He is, as may be
+imagined, particularly interested in the Indian Sannyasis and mystics,
+and was lately much surprised to find that some of the Russian peasant
+sects (notably the _Stranniks_) among whom he had lived so long were all
+the time unbeknown to him holding views and favouring practices very
+similar to those of the Hindu mystics. “Bientôt je vous écrirai des
+choses extraordinaires à propos du _gñanam_ et _samadhi_, etc. Tout cela
+existe parmi le bas peuple et les moines Russes!” (letter of May 1913).
+He has translated my _Visit to a Gñani_ into Russian under the title _I
+Am_, also large portions of _Towards Democracy_ and the whole of
+_Civilization_. Besides M. Najívin I am indebted to M. Sergius Orlovski
+and M. G. Rapoport and others for introductions to the Russian public.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  MARCELLE SENARD.
+
+  (_Photo: L. Fréon, Neuilly, Paris._)
+]
+
+To my young friend Illit Gröndahl of Kloften, Norway, I owe the
+circulation of my works in Norway, especially in Bergen. In Amsterdam a
+translation of _Civilization_ (_De Beschaving: hare oorzaak en hare
+Genesing_) was issued as long ago as 1899—with Preface by Leo Tolstoy
+(the same preface which Tolstoy wrote to the chapter on Modern
+Science[31]); and in the same city a translation of _Love’s
+Coming-of-Age_ (_Liefde’s Meerderjarigheid_) was issued in 1904.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVI
+                            RURAL CONDITIONS
+
+
+In contrast with the Artisans and Town-workers whom I had got to know so
+well, the farm-populations and rustics among whom I found myself
+embedded when I settled at Millthorpe were decidedly interesting. In the
+working masses of the towns—at any rate of the Northern towns—what
+attracted one was the ferment of the New Life coming on: the social
+dreams of a better future; the efforts to realize such dreams, even in a
+small way; the push towards independence; the greater alertness and
+education; the busy hum and activity of Trades Unions and all manner of
+Labour Associations. What interested me in the country was something
+quite different. It was in fact the Old Life—the old immemorial rustic
+existence still going on, still there though giving signs of passing of
+course. As it happened, I could hardly have found a more old-world,
+purely agricultural parish, if I had searched for it—certainly not in
+the North of England—than Holmesfield when I first came there. (Now—oh,
+irony!—it is already beginning to be civilized!) It was all in the old
+rural style—the leisurely long day with its varied occupations and
+interests, the life of the open air and the fields, the cattle and the
+crops, the barn and the public-house; the absolute acceptance of things
+as they are, complete non-interest in reform, positive indifference to
+anything not patently visible to the eye, or to abstractions of any
+kind. The good folk would talk about a particular field—and really with
+amazing detail about its history, its climate, its soil, its suitability
+for such and such crops, and so forth; but if you broached any phase of
+the Land Question (however really important to them)—their eyes would
+soon glaze and their conversation revert to their pigs or potatoes.
+
+A few years after my arrival at Millthorpe, having found out some facts
+about the Commons Enclosures in the neighborhood, I wrote a four-page
+tract entitled _Our Parish and our Duke_—giving some account of the
+circumstances under which our common lands were eaten up by our local
+landlords early last century—and circulated it around. It was printed in
+the London _Star_ (July 8, 1889) and quoted and commented on in other
+papers; and it sold and circulated in leaflet form some twenty thousand
+or more copies; but in the Parish itself it elicited no response! One
+old farmer whom I knew pretty well said “It’s very well put together,
+Mister, and it’s just exactly true”—and that was all the backing I got.
+Probably if there were others that approved they did not dare to say so.
+The fact that it challenged a Duke gave them pause! The tract, somewhat
+enlarged and altered and under the title _The Village and the Landlord_,
+is now published by the Fabian Society (Tract No. 136, 1d.).[32]
+
+Thus, as I think I have said before, on first coming to Millthorpe I
+experienced a certain sense of isolation among the people there. Whereas
+in Sheffield and even at little Bradway I was received as a friend and
+commonly called by my christian name, at Millthorpe I was a stranger—and
+like all strangers an object of suspicion—and was addressed as “Mister.”
+It was a curious situation, and I found myself leading a double and
+divided life. How I came in the end to bridge the gulf and (so far) to
+overpass it I hardly know; but Time does wonders, and by slow degrees
+the rustics have accepted me almost as one of themselves and given me,
+some of them, their warm friendship. I am indeed bound to say that
+despite the great differences between them and the town-workers, and the
+greater general intelligence and alertness of the latter, I admire the
+character of the country-folk most—their extraordinary serenity and good
+humour, their tenacity, sincerity, and real affectionateness. Even their
+silent ways—though irritating at times—are a relief from the eternal
+gabble of the cities. Said a farmer youth to me one day—after we had
+been listening for some time to the rather cheap talk of an elderly and
+radical “citizen”—“They do talk, those townsfolk,” he said; and then
+after a pause—“them as talks so much _they must tell a lot o’ lies_.”
+And I entirely agreed with him.
+
+
+Talking about the gulf fixed between the Old and the New, and especially
+between the mentality of the downright manual worker and that of the
+artist—at one time we had an artist friend staying with us who was
+rather down on his luck and making only a poor living. He was working on
+a landscape picture, and every morning used to sit in one of my fields
+and close to the wall which divided it from the high-road. An old
+road-mender (the same who had told me years before how he remembered the
+Commons “going in” i.e. being enclosed)—a good old man but bowed with
+age and labour—used to come that way every morning to his work; and
+every morning, as sure as Fate, made some patronizing remark to the
+painter, which at last enraged the latter beyond endurance. “That’s a
+nice pastime for you, young man.” And then the next morning, “I see
+you’re amusin’ yoursen again, young man”; and so on. (“Pastime, indeed!
+amusing myself! I wish the old fool had to do it instead of me. But I’ll
+be even with him yet!”) So the next morning the artist inveigled the old
+man into conversation, and after submitting meekly to more patronage,
+said: “Well you see I have to do this for my living.”
+
+“Do it for your livin’, do ye?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Do you sell them paintin’s, then?”
+
+“Of course I do.”
+
+_Old Man_ (a little taken aback): “And how much might you get for a
+thing like that?”
+
+_Artist_ (stretching a point): “Well I might get ten pounds.”
+
+_Old Man_ (astonished): “Ten pun! well I never!”
+
+_Artist_ (following up): “Or I might get more of course.”
+
+_Old Man_ (thoughtfully and with deep respect): “Ten pun! Well, I
+never—_and sittin’ down to it too_!”
+
+
+But Hodge is passing away. The old agricultural population (farmer and
+labourer) is changing under the pressure of modern life; and soon—for
+good or evil—will be a thing of the past. The motor-car and the cycle,
+the telephone and the daily paper, are ploughing up the country
+districts, torrents of townsfolk pour over the land on holidays, and the
+seeds of new ideas are being sown. Already I can see, even in this
+little corner of the land, a new type of native arising.
+
+The great drawback of the country folk in England (worse here no doubt
+than in Ireland) is their want of initiative. Centuries of smothered
+life under the incubus of the Landlord and the Parson have had their
+inevitable effect. They never _will_ speak their minds, or commit
+themselves to any action which is not entirely customary and approved by
+the powers that be. It may be different in other parts of the country,
+but here the one answer to any question of importance (especially if put
+by a stranger) is “I don’t know—I don’t know.” So fearful have they been
+for generations lest their words should be by chance reported in ruling
+quarters that the habit of concealment has at last got into their blood.
+One sees from this how paralysing our land system is towards all manhood
+and resourceful initiative in the country.
+
+Nor is the matter much different in many other lands. When in Sicily (in
+1909) we found that among the peasants the children were systematically
+taught to _lie_, and punished by their parents for truth-speaking. And
+for a very simple reason. For if a stranger came along and asked
+questions of a child—“How much land has your father?”—“How many goats
+does he keep?”—ten to one that stranger was an emissary of the Church
+(the chief landlord of the old days), or a taxgatherer, and so an
+emissary of the State; and the truth would mean more rent or more taxes.
+Thus deceit was the only salvation, and lying the chief foundation of
+“Morality.” Here in England the parson and the landlord have a similar
+paralysing influence; and whether they actively and consciously are
+conspiring against the people, or whether their questionings (as
+sometimes may happen) are inspired by pure kindness, the result is the
+same—namely the corruption of the people; and perhaps a worse corruption
+in the second case than in the first.
+
+Still the new life must come, and has to come, and is coming. Small
+Holdings—either freehold or with a secure tenancy under a public
+body—give perhaps the best chance of breeding a spirit of independence
+in the people. Co-operation trains them in adaptability and resource.
+
+At one time—seeing the waste of energy resulting from the twenty or so
+small farmers in our valley each making their separate few pats of
+butter weekly (and bad butter at that!) I got a dozen or more of them
+together and put the case for co-operative milk-selling before them.
+They all agreed that it was the right thing to do, that milk-selling
+paid much better than butter-making and that the cost of transit to town
+(by motor-car or country cart) could be recouped with profit. We went
+into the figures and were satisfied. But when it came to actual
+operations the paralysis of lack of initiative was on them, and no one
+would stir a finger! If _I_ had arranged a whole scheme and set it in
+operation I have no doubt they would have fallen in with it. But, as I
+said, I had my own work to do, and had no intention of giving up a large
+part of the day to their affairs. The only one who volunteered to do
+anything practically—and this illustrates the difference between the
+agricultural and the other workers—was curiously enough a _navvy_. He
+had only a very small farm which he carried on side by side with his
+navvy work, but he immediately took practical steps and would I believe
+have carried a scheme through but for an illness which just then
+overtook him.
+
+A supply of Small Holdings (holdings say up to thirty acres in size[33])
+on a really secure basis would do an immense work in liberating the
+social life of the rural workers. For the first time in his history one
+of the most important types of man in the country would be able to hold
+up his head, face his ‘superiors,’ and give some kind of utterance and
+expression to his own ideals. At present agricultural life is hugely
+dull from its mere uniformity and want of variety under the
+all-pervading foot-rule of the landowner and his faithful servant the
+parson. A greater supply of small holdings would also, I need hardly
+say, be valuable from the economic point of view, and the greater
+variety it would encourage in the culture of the soil.
+
+Of course what we now especially want, and what happily people are
+beginning to _feel_ the want of, is the establishment of large
+co-operative farms over the face of the land—somewhat on the model of
+the Danish farms. When it is remembered what the Danes have done, with
+an originally quite poor soil, by their organized co-operative
+methods—how they have renewed the prosperity of their own country and
+created a new invasion of Britain by their agricultural products—it
+seems astonishing that we over here still remain in the muddy ruts of
+our old ways. Supposing for example that by co-operative or governmental
+purchase, or even (if it can be imagined) by gift from a large
+landowner, an extensive farm of some two thousand acres were acquired;
+supposing that suitable portions of the farm were broken up into twenty
+small holdings of ten or twenty acres each; and that the remaining body
+of the land were farmed in thorough style under a skilled manager—the
+workers on the central farm being the small holders themselves, who
+would thus work partly for themselves on an individualistic basis and
+partly collectively for wages; supposing that the manager was given by
+the co-operators a certain amount of authority for the purposes of work
+and organization, and that on the other hand he was there to _advise_
+the small holders to a certain extent as to their work and crops;
+supposing that he organized co-operative arrangements for the members of
+the society, both for the purchase of necessary materials and the sale
+of their products; suppose that a joint council arranged the matters of
+wages and dividends, and the establishment of creameries, cheese and
+butter-making apparatus, egg-collecting systems, and so forth; surely it
+is not very difficult to see that in some such roughly indicated way a
+great new departure might be made in the agricultural development of the
+United Kingdom. If a thousandth, if a twenty thousandth part of what is
+spent in the mad destruction of a great war were spent on some such
+constructive work, ten times the number of people now employed in
+agriculture might be placed productively on the land, and the output of
+wealth and home-grown food (so important to our island) might be
+enormously increased.
+
+
+About nine years ago—in 1906—I began to pull the farm lads and men
+together to form a little Club at Millthorpe. For some years we had a
+difficulty in finding a place for it, and had to be content with a very
+small room in a cottage. But here came in the advantage of the small
+holder. A silversmith who lives in the locality—the only man beside
+myself who has two or three acres of freehold and who is not tied to a
+landlord—having joined the Club, and seeing our difficulty, offered a
+fine and large barn belonging to him for our use. If it had not been for
+him we should have had to go, cap in hand, to some local owner or cleric
+and could never have developed freely. As it is, the place has been a
+great success. Managed in an easy-going sort of way by the men
+themselves (and I am happy to say that my share now of the management is
+very small) the Club has taken its own lines quite naturally. In order
+to avoid ill-feeling and competition with the public-house—which is
+close at hand—we have no drink, except tea and coffee. Whist, lectures,
+readings, whist drives, dances, socials, billiards, are the chief
+amusements, and the place serves occasionally for discussion of local
+affairs. Theatricals, in a small way, now and then. And the balance of
+our weekly subscriptions goes in winter to a Christmas supper, and in
+summer to an excursion by rail or brake.
+
+With small people secure in their tenure, such Clubs would grow up
+pretty abundantly and would become the start-points of co-operative
+movements, creameries, agricultural Banks, and so forth. The great thing
+is that they should _not_ be managed by benevolent superiors, for the
+management of their own concerns is after all the chief and most
+important item of a people’s education. There is however a place in our
+countrysides—and a need—for people of a rather wider knowledge and
+outlook than the general rustics to come and live among them simply as
+friends (and not as benefactors). People of this kind can certainly
+contribute _something_—even though their ‘wider knowledge’ be as a rule
+rather vague and bookish. They have information about what is going on
+elsewhere, and they often are good at organizing. A new _kind_ of
+parson, democratic-minded and really in touch with the people, and not
+attached to any ‘church,’ and a man with a _little_ leisure at his
+command, might be greatly helpful. Why do not the thousands of young men
+(or women) who are thus qualified rush in to fill this void?
+
+
+At one time, as I think I have already mentioned, I was a member of the
+Parish Council, but the hopelessness of getting any result therefrom,
+combined with the waste of time connected with it, caused me after a few
+years to abandon the position. The four or five farmers, all in terror
+of their landlords, and the parson (bound by golden chains to the Lord
+of the Manor) formed a solid phalanx against any progressive proposal.
+Perhaps I ought to have fought things out a little more, but wrangling
+is an occupation which I detest, and to fight questions to a practical
+finish always means the expenditure of much time—time which I with my
+agricultural, literary and other labours could ill afford. The one
+prevailing idea with the Council was not to spend _any_ money if
+possible; and even the few shillings necessary for the repair of a small
+length of public footpath would be debated over with a tenacity and
+miserliness of outlook which made one despair; while the Vicar (not
+without laudable presence of mind) would resign himself to slumber in
+the Chair!
+
+About the only thing of use I was able to do was to save from loss or
+destruction the Award Book—that is the book which records the enclosure,
+early last century, of the Common Lands of Holmesfield Parish, and
+specifies the details of their assignment to the various proprietors
+then holding land in the parish. And this I only did with difficulty and
+after the labours of many months. When the Award was completed (in 1820)
+the said Award Book naturally and rightly was handed over, not to the
+Church or the Squire, but to one of the Trustees who represented the
+Parish generally—a farmer, who of course kept the book at his farm under
+lock and key, but with permission to the parishioners to inspect it at
+convenient seasons. In course of time the farmer died, and his son
+following in the same farm, became custodian of the book. Later on and
+after many years, the son died, and the son’s widow became custodian. By
+that time most people in the parish had forgotten, or were utterly
+ignorant of the existence of such a book. It might easily have happened
+that the widow or _her_ son, migrating to another part of the country,
+should have taken the book with them among their household goods—in
+which case it might have been lost for ever to our Parish. Such or
+something similar _has_ happened frequently of course. It happened to
+the Minute Book of the Courts Baron of Holmesfield—a manuscript record
+of the meetings of the said Court all the way from 1588 to 1800, and a
+most valuable and interesting document. In some unknown way the book
+disappeared; but by a piece of good luck, it has now come into the
+possession of the Free Library at Sheffield, where it can easily be
+inspected, and where it is safer perhaps than it would have been in the
+village to which it refers.
+
+To return to our Award Book, the Parish Councils Acts very wisely gave
+all such documents into the custody of the Parish Council to be kept in
+a Parish room or Chest. But the difficulty was to make our Council take
+any active interest in the fate of the book. Moreover it possessed no
+Parish Room or Parish chest, and when the question came before it of
+having a chest made, even that appeared to some of the members a serious
+and unnecessary expense. Questions of the dimensions of the chest, the
+material of which it should be constructed, the number of locks it
+should carry, the selection of the joiner who should be entrusted with
+the precious work and so forth, were endlessly debated; the Council
+meetings took place only at long intervals and it seemed at last as if
+the chest never _would_ get made. I mention these details merely to show
+the kind of thing that happens in country villages. Meanwhile the Vicar
+went to the said widow and (not without remonstrance from her) succeeded
+in obtaining the Award Book; and placed it in the _Vestry_. A faction
+then arose in the Council who maintained that the book was quite secure
+in the Vestry safe; and that no Parish Chest was needed! It had then to
+be pointed out that the Act did not _allow_ such books to be kept in the
+Vestry, and that the Council would be responsible if it did not keep the
+thing in its own custody. And so the game went on. Ultimately after a
+full year of similar imbecility, the chest really got itself made; the
+Award Book and some other documents were placed within, and now repose
+there in waiting for the Day of Judgment. Exhausted by the labours
+connected with the affair, and hopeless of ever getting any useful
+activity out of the P.C., I shortly afterwards retired from it.
+
+Of course these conditions are not the same in all parishes. Where there
+are mining or artisan populations there is often a good deal of
+briskness and movement; but in the agricultural regions and the South of
+England affairs are somewhat as I have described. The District Councils
+are a shade better than the Parish Councils; but the membership of them
+falls largely into the hands of small shopkeepers and a middling class
+of folk who are very philistine and wanting in æsthetic perception, and
+as a rule rather ignorant except in matters of business. They make hard
+and fast rules and regulations—often suggested by the conditions
+existing in the jerry-built slum-areas of the smaller towns—and by
+enforcing these regulations in country districts where they are not
+needed do seriously hamper the expansion of rural life. Such are some of
+the regulations about the height and cubic space of rooms, which
+desirable though they be in slum-tenements are quite out of place and
+the cause of needlessly high rents in country cottages; such also the
+barring of wooden dwellings, on account of fire, in many rural and even
+isolated regions where there is no public danger from this cause; and
+again the vexatious restrictions set upon the use of vans and tents. In
+these respects the work of the District Councils is really helping
+towards the increase of an existing evil, the depopulation of the
+countrysides.
+
+On the other hand the composition of these Councils makes them absurdly
+deferent to big commercial and aristocratic interests, and the money of
+the ratepayers gets poured out like water on schemes in which under
+cover of public works private interests are largely concerned. As I have
+had occasion to explain in the Fabian Tract above-mentioned—_The Village
+and the Landlord_—our local District Council, having decided that a
+reservoir was needed, applied to the then Duke of Rutland for the
+purchase of a suitable area on the moors above us. The land in question
+had before 1820 been part of the Common Lands of the parish, and was
+now, as the ducal private property, paying rates on an _estimated
+rental_ of less than 2s. 6d. per acre. It could not therefore be
+supposed to be worth much more than £3 per acre, capital value; and it
+might _almost_ have been expected that in consideration of the history
+of the Enclosure transactions, and of the additional fact that the land
+was wanted for an important public purpose (water supply), the area
+necessary for the reservoir would have been granted free. Far from that
+happening, as a matter of fact the amount actually charged was at a rate
+of about £150 per acre! The sad thing about such a levy on the public
+purse is not only that the ducal people should have charged it, but that
+the District Council should have paid it! If the latter had had the
+gumption to offer a bold resistance, to decide for themselves what was a
+reasonable payment, and to bring the whole matter before the public, the
+case for the former would probably have collapsed. But there’s the
+rub—the want of spirit and pluck in these public bodies; and considering
+these and similar things one seems to see very plainly that what really
+matters in the life of a nation is not so much the exact form of its
+institutions as the general level of education, alertness, and public
+spirit among its people. With these latter advantages defective
+institutions may still be made to serve; without them the best will soon
+become corrupt. It may however be said that some institutions are
+naturally more favorable than others to the growth of public spirit, and
+that is a consideration worth remembering.
+
+One of the few native institutions of long standing in this locality is
+the Well-dressing—which takes place in some of the neighboring villages
+once a year, during the feast-week of the village, and is accompanied
+with dancing and other festivities. The village fountain or spring is
+decorated with flowers—sometimes in quite elaborate and ornamental
+designs—and the festival evidently dates from very early or
+pre-Christian times when the divinities of the streams and water-sources
+were recognized and worshipped. When I first came, in 1883, into these
+parts, there were along all the lane sides numbers of the most charming
+stone cisterns and water-troughs bubbling with clean water and overhung
+with maiden-hair ferns; and it was part of the habits of the
+country-folk to keep these places in order—a joy to human beings and to
+animals. Now we have a reservoir as above-mentioned. The Well-dressings
+truly remain as a yearly function; but the divinities whom they used to
+celebrate have fled. The cisterns and troughs all over the country are
+neglected. They are cracked and dried up and full of potsherds and
+salmon-tins; wayfaring men and animals go thirsty; and the public spirit
+and service of the water-gods has vanished. We are told that water
+conducted through miles of iron tubes and lengths of lead piping is much
+more ‘sanitary’ than the water from field springs and wells. It may be.
+But I prefer the latter. At one time there were so many cases of
+lead-poisoning in the Sheffield district, traceable to lead connections,
+that the matter excited serious attention. It was decided that the
+trouble was due to a certain acid in the moor water, which dissolved the
+lead, and consequently large filter-beds charged with chalk and lime
+were made in connection with the reservoirs, which neutralized the acid.
+The water was freed from this danger, but it became saturated with lime;
+and the people died from stone in the bladder instead of lead-poisoning!
+Personally I would prefer to take my risk of a microbe in a flowing
+cistern. And with an alert country-population, assisted by an occasional
+inspector, such a risk would certainly be small.
+
+But we are told that public spirit ought to make us join these reservoir
+schemes; and pressure is put on us by the ‘authorities’ to do so. I do
+not by any means agree. Though no doubt there are cases in which local
+storage is advisable or necessary, the unbridled transfer of water over
+immense distances is attended by serious evils. The beautiful Thirlmere
+is turned into a mere water-tank in order to supply Manchester; the
+lovely dales of Derbyshire are disfigured beyond recognition so that
+they may quench the thirst of Birmingham. In other words, in order to
+encourage the growth of a hideous and dirty city with an unclean and
+poverty-stricken population a tract of clean and gracious land a hundred
+miles off is cleared of _its_ population and also rendered hideous! And
+all this at a huge and incalculable expense. We do not want these great
+congested and unhealthy centres, and we do want our streams and springs
+and the gods who dwell among them. Let the people come out for the water
+if they want it; but let them come with forethought and reverence.
+
+Another native institution managed, like the well-dressing, by the
+people themselves is the Ploughing Match. There _is_ a Farmers’
+Association which of course ought to be a kind of Trade-union for the
+promotion and protection of farming interests. Perhaps once it was
+alive; but now and ever since I have known anything about the matter it
+has become hopelessly futile and decadent. It has a dinner at some
+public-house once a year and gets thoroughly drunk—and that is about all
+it does! But the Ploughing-Match Association, which was originally I
+suppose an offshoot of the Farmers’ Association, _is_ alive—possibly
+because it has nothing whatever to do with politics. The farmers and
+their sons and the small holders (such as there are) join in and
+organize the affair; and it is a pretty sight to see in two adjacent
+fields perhaps twenty teams of men or boys with their shining ploughs
+and their beribboned horses going to and fro each on their appointed
+strip of land; the turning of the animals at the extremities; the clicks
+and calls; the marvellous accuracy of the furrows; the groups of critics
+and the judges. Going among them all one perceives what splendid
+material there is here among the English countrysides; and also one
+grieves to think how it is paralysed from development and expansion by
+our absurd land-system and generally apathetic way of conducting
+ourselves towards the most important of all industries. We have at
+Holmesfield the champion ploughman of the neighborhood, who takes the
+prizes at the village matches for many miles round. He is a great friend
+of mine. And I am also proud to say that at our Association Committee
+meetings my professional opinion is sometimes consulted, and I may
+occasionally be seen amid the fumes of smoke and beer occupying the
+Chair and keeping a dozen or twenty farmers in order, or bringing them
+back to the practical point of discussion when (as they generally do)
+they wander afar from it—a sufficiently humorous situation for a
+so-called “poet and prophet”!
+
+
+But the most important village institution after all—and more important
+perhaps than the Church—is the Public-house. Here is the natural centre
+of the Village life, and here the village Opinion—if there is any—is
+collected and consolidated. It is a great pleasure to me to sit
+occasionally in our “Royal Oak” among the rustics whom I know so well.
+Their quaint humour, their shrewd judgments, their shy silences, their
+naughty stories, are a continual recreation. Unfortunately, like so much
+else in rural life, the Pub. has in general been allowed to go to decay;
+and instead of being the village meeting-place and centre of sociability
+it has too often become a mere resort of drink and imbecility. “Tied” to
+a Brewery, and at an exorbitant rent, the Publican has no alternative
+but to sell as much as he can of the vile decoction supplied to him. He
+encourages booze but does not encourage sociable converse. The Brewer
+rises to wealth and obtains a seat in the House of Lords; the villager
+sinks slowly but surely poisoned in body and atrophied in mind, and dies
+in a ditch.
+
+One of the very first things to be done for the restoration of the rural
+life is the reorganization of the Public-house—or rather its liberation.
+The clutch of the Brewers upon the drink trade should be cut off
+decisively and finally. The manufacture of beer ought either to be a
+State monopoly or it ought to be absolutely free, without licence, and
+subject only to a severe inspection. There has been a great deal of talk
+lately about the intemperance of the workers, and the abolition or
+serious restriction of the drink traffic; but the real root of the evil
+(certainly as regards beer) is the badness and poisonous character of
+the liquor supplied. See to it that that is clean and wholesome—that the
+lager-beers, small beers, teas and temperance drinks are not
+sophisticated with harmful chemicals—and for the rest leave the houses
+free. Leave the publican to use his good sense and authority, and make
+him responsible for not keeping order. If that policy is carried out
+there will not be much to complain of. The sale of actual _spirits_ in
+drinking shops is another question, and that might well be restricted or
+abolished.
+
+The village pub. ought to be a place where pleasant and decent
+refreshment of various kinds is provided—especially of drink which is a
+first necessity for tired workers. It ought to be clean and fairly
+comfortable and provided with games, papers, and similar means of
+recreation. On the other hand it should have no suspicion of genteel or
+missionary purpose about it. If the manual worker cannot talk freely and
+feel himself at home in the place he decidedly will not come to it; and
+it is certainly better that he should be a bit rough and rowdy than that
+he should feel that he is being ‘improved.’ What the rural worker wants
+above all—and what it is very necessary that he should have—is a place
+where he can be at ease, converse freely, exchange ideas, and _develop
+out of his own roots_. The town worker has now, in his trade unions, his
+various clubs and societies, got something of the kind. The rural worker
+is a poor lost thing; he has no centre of growth. The Church is
+absolutely of no use to him in that respect; for the Parson practically
+paralyses his flock. The Chapel is better, for there the Chapel-folk
+organize themselves and carry out in an authentic way many a little
+scheme for their own satisfaction or entertainment. The Village Club and
+the Village Co-operative society are just beginning in many places to
+show an independent and progressive life; but after all the Village Pub.
+strikes its roots deepest and widest, and if on a healthy basis is the
+natural meeting-place where all these other movements germinate and from
+whence they spring.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVII
+                     HOW THE WORLD LOOKS AT SEVENTY
+
+
+I remember having often wondered, in earlier days, what would be the
+answer to this question. And now I have the privilege of myself standing
+on the pinnacle of age—and of being in the position where some kind of
+verdict may be given.
+
+There are two verses about David and Solomon—whose origin I have not
+been able to trace, but which run as follows:—
+
+                    King David and King Solomon
+                      Led very merry lives
+                    With many many concubines
+                      And many many wives.
+
+                    But when old age came on them
+                      With many many qualms,
+                    King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
+                      And David wrote the Psalms.
+
+Perhaps this gives the most general and accepted view on the subject—a
+view of old age as something a little dull, a little ineffectual,
+consoling itself with verses and good advice and other second-hand joys.
+On the whole perhaps a fairly correct view; and yet I cannot but think
+that it misses something very important, something which in earlier days
+one does not associate with old age—the sense of adventure. Youth is
+full of acknowledged adventure; the campaigns of Love and of War are
+thrilling and absorbing; but youth does not know—or at any rate only
+faintly surmises—how absorbing may be the great adventure of Death.
+
+On the whole I am struck by the singularly _little_ difference I feel in
+myself, as I realize it now, from what I was when a boy—say of eighteen
+or twenty. In the deeps of course. Superficially there are plenty of
+differences, but they relate mostly to superficial things like success
+in games, examinations and so forth. I used to go and sit on the beach
+at Brighton and dream, and now I sit on the shore of human life and
+dream practically the same dreams. I remember about the time that I
+mention—or it may have been a trifle later—coming to the distinct
+conclusion that there were only two things really worth living for—the
+glory and beauty of Nature, and the glory and beauty of human love and
+friendship. And to-day I still feel the same. What else indeed _is_
+there? All the nonsense about riches, fame, distinction, ease, luxury
+and so forth—how little does it amount to! It really is not worth
+wasting time over. These things are so obviously second-hand affairs,
+useful only and in so far as they may lead to the first two, and short
+of their doing that liable to become odious and harmful. To become
+united and in line with the beauty and vitality of Nature (but, Lord
+help us! we are far enough off from that at present), and to become
+united with those we love—what other ultimate object in life _is_ there?
+Surely all these other things—these games and examinations, these
+churches and chapels, these district councils and money markets, these
+top-hats and telephones and even the general necessity of earning one’s
+living—if they are not ultimately for that, _what are they for_?
+
+At any rate that is how I feel about it now. I feel that the object of
+life at seventy is practically the same as it was at twenty. Only one
+thing has been added. One thing. Beneath the surface waves and storms of
+youth, beneath the backward and forward fluctuations, deep down, there
+has been added the calm of inner realization and union. I know now that
+these two primordial and foundational things (or perhaps they are one)
+_are_ there. Our union with Nature and humanity is a _fact_,
+which—whether we recognize it or not—is at the base of our lives;
+slumbering, yet ready to wake in our consciousness when the due time
+arrives.
+
+With this assurance one certainly discovers that life—even in old
+age—may be delightful. What one loses in the keenness and passion of
+sensual and external things one gains in the inward world—in calm and
+strength and the deep certainties of life. One can hardly expect to have
+it both ways. We may concentrate mainly (though not exclusively) on the
+outer life, or we may concentrate mainly on the inner life, but hardly
+on both at the same time. And the latter alternative has its advantages.
+Socrates, in reply to a friend who condoled with him on the waning of
+his sexual passion, asked whether he would not consider a man happy who
+had escaped from the clutches of a fierce tiger. “Certainly I should,”
+answered the friend. “Then why,” retorted Socrates, “do you not
+congratulate instead of commiserating _me_?”
+
+
+I find there are compensations and consolations in old age. People feel
+kindly towards you—partly because they consider you harmless and not
+likely to injure them, partly because they are not envious of your
+condition. They pity you a little in fact—which pleases them and does no
+harm to you. I find I am a little hard of hearing, and people are good
+enough—in fact they are compelled—to speak up and speak distinctly. They
+have the pleasure of helping me over my deafness, and I have the
+satisfaction of getting them out of their mumbling habits of
+conversation—a satisfaction so great that were I really not a bit deaf I
+feel that I should have to pretend to be! As I think I have said
+before[34] old people and infirm folk and chronic invalids and the like
+often get needlessly depressed over the impression that they are a
+burden and an affliction to their friends, whereas in very truth by
+calling out the sympathies, the energy, the resource and the
+consideration of those around them they are really conferring the
+greatest of benefits; and many a household is really supported and held
+together by the one who to all outward appearance seems to be the most
+frail and useless member of it. As Lâo-tsze says “The thirty spokes of a
+carriage-wheel uniting at the nave are made useful by the hole in the
+centre,[35] where nothing exists,” and “To teach without words and to be
+useful without action, few among men are capable of this.”
+
+
+After the fuss and flurry of all the good folk who go about “doing
+good,” to find that you can perhaps be most useful by being a “hole in
+the centre” is very refreshing.
+
+Unfortunately the world is very unwilling to allow this privilege, and
+as a rule in a quite automatic way accords to the aged a good deal of
+respect and influence, pushing them up into positions of power and
+notoriety. This is all right if you are quite worthy of it, but
+dangerous if you are not. And naturally if you _desire_ power (and
+notoriety) you are not likely to be worthy of it.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  E. C. (1910), AGE 66.
+
+  (_Photo: Elliott & Fry._)
+]
+
+On August 29, 1914, being my seventieth birthday, some of my friends
+were good enough to present me with a congratulatory Address couched in
+very friendly and affectionate terms. Though I cannot say that I desired
+the thing beforehand—seeing that there is always something painful in
+the very idea of being singled out in any such way—yet I must confess
+that, being done, it was a consolation and a pleasure to me.[36]
+
+
+There is one thing however that I think I have not sufficiently dwelt on
+as a valid and permanent object of Life—though perhaps in some subtle
+way it may be implied in what I have said before. I mean
+Self-Expression. Constructive expression of oneself is one of the
+greatest joys, and one of the greatest _needs_ of life; and as long as
+one’s Life exists—in this or any other sphere—so long I imagine will
+that need be present, and the joy in its fulfilment. It is a
+foundation-urge of all Creation. At first sight this seems contrary, and
+indeed hostile, to the hole-in-the-centre theory; but probably it will
+be found not to be so. Probably it is only a question of the _depth_ at
+which the Self is functioning. Near the surface the self is very
+definite and constructive in _this_ or _that_ direction; it is limited
+in its aims and operations, and so far its activity seems to be at
+variance with other aims and operations. At the centre it is neither
+this nor that, because it is All. It vanishes from sight because it has
+become the Whole.
+
+Most healthy work is generated from a desire for, or an effort towards,
+self-expression. If one’s feet suffer from cold and exposure to injury
+one makes boots to protect and cover them. If boots prove painful and
+confining one designs sandals in order to free them. Having made these
+for oneself first, other people desire them and adopt the same devices.
+One’s work, begun for a private purpose and to satisfy one’s own wants,
+is continued for public ends and becomes a kind of extended selfishness.
+It is the same with the institutions of society. Finding that they maim
+and confine you personally, the best thing you can do is to liberate
+yourself by reshaping them. In reshaping them you liberate others, and
+are accounted a reformer and general benefactor. But I imagine that no
+one is really a useful reformer who does not begin the work from his own
+private need, since that is the only way in which he can understand the
+true inwardness of the work to be done. And the accusation of
+selfishness, which may be preferred against him, saves him from the
+awful danger of becoming, or posing as, a public benefactor.
+
+It is truly wonderful to see what activity, what enthusiasm, vast
+numbers of people throw into public work of one kind or another. Let us
+hope they all do so from the underlying ground of some personal need
+which makes them unhappy in the existing conditions and impels them for
+their own personal satisfaction to alter those conditions. If so their
+work will probably be healthful and successful. It will not wait on
+results but will bring its own results with it. Still there is a paradox
+in all such action. I cannot personally be comfortable in a society
+which makes a fetish, say, of what H. G. Wells calls The Misery of
+Boots. Therefore I work for a future society where people shall go
+barefoot or freely wear such footgear as suits them. But by the time
+such state of society arrives, where shall “I” be? That is the question.
+What is the good of my working for a state of things which will
+certainly not come in my lifetime? What is the impelling force which
+_causes_ me so to work when it would be so much easier not to work, and
+merely to let things slide? If, as one must suppose, it is something
+organic in Nature, it must be that I “myself” _will_ be there. I, the
+superficial one, am working now for the other “I,” the deeper one—who is
+also really present even at this moment (although he lies low and says
+nothing about it) and who in due time will consume the fruits which he
+is now preparing.
+
+I find at the age of seventy that I am getting nearer to that place in
+the centre where nothing exists and yet all is done—and _that_ I suppose
+is satisfactory. A very simple round of life contents me. As long as I
+can have my friend (or friends) and my little corner of Nature, and my
+little pastime of constructive work, I really do not know what to wish
+for more. (And surely every one ought to be able to command these.)
+
+
+We are up—my friend and I—at about 7 a.m. in summer, about 8.0 in
+winter. In summer a wash and a sunbath on the lawn, for half an hour,
+are very much in the order of the day. Then, for me, there is my study
+to tidy up and dust and (in winter) my fire to light; there is the front
+of the house to sweep, wood to chop, and so forth. George has his
+kitchen to attend to, coals to get in, the chickens to feed, and
+preparations to make for the work of the day—baking or washing or
+whatever it may be. I remember the time when I used to think that to get
+up early, perhaps by candlelight, go down into a dishevelled
+sitting-room, clean out the grate and light up the fire would surely be
+the most dismal of occupations; as a matter of fact I find these little
+preliminary duties quite interesting. They stir one’s limbs and one’s
+interest in the world, and help to peel off the thin but clinging veil
+of sleep.
+
+By 8.30 I find I can settle down to work, either in my study or, if the
+weather allows, outside in my little veranda or porch. I thus get a
+couple of hours fairly undisturbed. At 10.30 we have breakfast—or what
+is called ‘brunch,’ a combination of breakfast and lunch—a good meal of
+coffee and milk, oatmeal porridge, an omelet, stewed fruit, or similar
+provender, and which one enjoys all the more for its being the first in
+the day. Brunch and reading the daily paper occupy an hour; and at 11.30
+I am able to start work again and go on to 1.30 or 2.0. I thus get a
+good four hours or more in the morning for solid literary work, to some
+extent broken into at times by mere business matters and correspondence,
+but generally the most satisfactory period of work in the day.
+
+At two or so one goes easy. By the ruse of ‘brunch’ one has avoided that
+deadly snare, the midday meal. Is it not Thoreau who says that one
+should pass by the one o’clock dinner “tied to the mast, like Ulysses,
+and deaf to the voice of the Siren”? Certainly George and I never cease
+to congratulate ourselves on this arrangement by which the painful
+density and lethargy of that period is escaped. It seems to place the
+day in its proper order and perspective; and we only regret that most
+people owing to professional hours and public duties are not able to
+conform to it. From 2.0 or 2.30 to 5.0 one can make a change. There are
+oddments of work to do in the garden, there are little outdoor renewals
+and repairs round the house, there are visitors and casual guests; at
+4.0 or so there is the sociability of afternoon tea. At 5.0 there are
+letters to get ready for the post, which goes at 6.30. At 7.0 there is
+supper, which is generally a rather more substantial meal than brunch.
+Sometimes tea and supper are combined in one intermediate meal, which of
+course goes by the name of ‘tupper.’ In the evening there are friends to
+see, books to read, notes to make; there is the public-house, which is
+an unfailing joy, and the farm-lads’ Club, which is always homely and
+cheering. What can one wish for more? It is hard to say.
+
+
+Yet I ought to say—and it would be less than candid not to say—that
+there have been times all through my life when the necessity of escaping
+into an altogether bigger world than that provided by my native land has
+come upon me with a kind of Berserker rage. As I think I have said, I
+come of Cornish ancestry—and my private opinion is that I was left on
+the coast of Cornwall some three thousand years ago by a Phœnician
+trader. At any rate the leaden skies of England, and something (if I may
+say so) rather grey and leaden about the _people_, have since early days
+had the effect of making me feel not quite at home in my own country. I
+longed for more sunshine, and for something corresponding to sunshine in
+human nature—more gaiety, vivacity of heart and openness to ideas. But
+everything has its compensation, and the result of being pinned down so
+much to a limited and local life on the land has been that every three
+or four years I have been able to ‘stick it’ no longer, and have been
+compelled in the intervals of my work to make a dash for some warmer and
+brighter climate. In this way it has come about that I have seen quite a
+little of other lands—not only of the usual resorts in Switzerland and
+Italy, but of places like Morocco, Sicily, Corsica, Spain, besides (as
+already mentioned) the United States and Ceylon and India. Having a
+talent for economical travel I have been able to do this at singularly
+small expense. And my knowledge of agriculture and of the working life
+of the people at home has in such cases opened up a world of interest in
+the comparison of these with the corresponding things abroad—a world
+which as a rule is a sealed book to the ordinary tourist. In many cases
+my companions have themselves been manual workers, and I have found the
+vivacity of their interest in foreign fields and crops or in town-trades
+and workshops both encouraging and amazing.
+
+At the age of seventy one does not bother so much about the exceptional
+feats, about great exploits, the climbing of the highest mountains. The
+ordinary levels of life seem sufficient. I confess that excessive
+cleverness and all that sort of thing bores me rather than otherwise. I
+seem to see in the general average of human life, in the ordinary daily
+needs, a steady force pushing mankind onwards, or rather, gradually
+unfolding through mankind—the liberation of a core of goodness and worth
+which is undeniable, impossible to ignore, and daily coming more and
+more into evidence. I say this deliberately and with full recognition
+all the time of the vast masses of cheap and nasty people as well as of
+cheap and nasty things which are washed up in the ordinary current of
+this our modern life, and with recognition also of the huge whirlpools
+of popular madness which occasionally arise, and which accompany crises
+like that from which we are now suffering [1915]. Perhaps the madness
+and the blind passion—the loosening of the torrents of hate and revenge,
+and of the pent-up waters of prejudice and ignorance—are, after all,
+better than the dreary stagnation of the cheap and nasty. The whole
+commercial period through which we, here in the West, have been passing
+for the last hundred years has undoubtedly bred, both in men and goods,
+a lamentable commonplaceness and cheapness—a low level and a paltry
+standard of human value. Perhaps even the madness of warfare is better
+than that.
+
+It is curious that for the last twenty years or more there has been a
+general feeling—especially among the Socialists and Internationalists of
+the various countries—that society was approaching a critical period of
+transformation. It had become obvious that the existing order of
+things—in Government, Law, Finance, Industry, Commerce, Morality,
+Religion, the Capitalist Wage system, the Rivalry of nation with nation,
+the administration and cultivation of the Land, and so forth—could not
+continue much longer. In each one and all of these matters we have been
+heading towards an _impasse_, a block, a point at which further progress
+in the old direction must cease, and a new departure begin. We have seen
+this; and yet we have been unable to say, for the most part, or even
+surmise, _how_ the change would come, what catastrophe would upset the
+balance of our highly artificial Commercial Civilization, or in what way
+a new order of life, and a more human and rational order, might begin to
+establish itself. The Catastrophe has come. We are already in the welter
+of a World-war which in magnitude exceeds anything that has ever
+occurred in the past, or even been imagined. The nations are in the
+melting-pot; the institutions of society are threatened in every
+direction. But at present we are still unable to see the outcome, or
+even to guess what it will be. The lineaments of the new world are
+hidden from us. That the outcome will be far, far greater and grander
+than we now suppose, I do not doubt—also that it will take far longer
+than we generally think to define itself.
+
+Beneath all the madness of the present conflict—the raging passions, the
+insane folly, the frantic delusions, the devilish concentration of all
+the wit and ingenuity of man towards purposes of death and torture,
+there is, I firmly believe, a method and a meaning. A new life is
+preparing to show itself—coming to the surface of society, as it were,
+out of the deeps, showing indeed the strangest and most violent
+agitation of that surface just before its appearance. Having lived so
+long as I have done among the downright manual workers of our towns and
+the agricultural rustics—primitives as they are in many ways and
+belonging to a period “before civilization”—I do not feel at all
+alarmed. I know that the lives of these good solid folk, founded as they
+are upon the primal facts of Nature, will not in any case suffer a very
+great change. If the whole of our Banking and Financial system collapsed
+and fell in, if world-wide Commerce came to a standstill, if the Capital
+necessary for huge armaments and general ironworks was not forthcoming,
+if Law and Government were paralysed, old-age insurances ceased to be
+paid, and Landlords were unable to collect their rents—if all this and
+much more happened, my friend who ploughs the fields near my cottage
+would go out next morning with his team to his usual work, and scarcely
+know the difference. _If anything he would decidedly feel more cheerful
+and hopeful._ Some other friend who forges and tempers table-knives by
+the score would continue to forge and temper them. The knives would
+still be wanted, the power to make them would still be there. And if at
+any point combined labour were needed, as to build a workshop or carry
+through a steel-making process, the men who do these things now in
+forced and servile toil under the Capitalist system would do them ten
+times better and more heartily in free co-operation.
+
+No, if all this jerry-built cheapjack Commercial Civilization collapsed
+it would not much matter. The longer I live the more I am convinced of
+its essential pettiness and unimportance. The great foundational types,
+the real workers of the world—whether in England or Germany or France,
+or Turkey or Bulgaria or Egypt—will remain, and indeed must remain
+because the primal facts of Nature, the sun and the earth and the needs
+of human life, continually generate them. They will remain and, once
+freed (as one may hope) from the burden of the futile and idiotic
+superstructure which they have to support, will rise to a far finer
+standard of being than they can now realize. The cheap and aimless types
+belonging to the mercantile and middle classes will disappear with the
+world to which they belong.
+
+Let me say however, for the consolation of some, that it is not
+necessary to suppose that the transformation of Civilization of which I
+speak—and which is even now preparing—must necessarily mean that all Law
+and Government, and world-wide Commerce and Finance and huge
+organization of Industry, and even present-day Art and Morality and
+Religion, will collapse and become non-existent. In a sense they will do
+so, and in a sense they will not. “In the twinkling of an eye they will
+be changed.” In some sense the outer forms of these things will remain;
+but the Spirit will be changed; and so greatly changed that their shapes
+also will be profoundly modified. When Industry exists really for the
+supply of good and useful things and not for the manufacture of profit;
+when High Finance is not for gambling, but for the insurance and
+security of everybody; when Courts of Law are for the uplifting and not
+for the downcasting of criminals, and so on; then the forms of these
+institutions will be as different from what they are now as the organs
+of a Dragonfly are different from those of the Waterbeetle from which it
+sprang.
+
+But before this great and wonderful Transformation takes place, there
+must—it is abundantly evident—be great sacrifices. No such huge change
+could happen without. Some of the functions and activities of the
+present Society must perish; and with them must perish those who are
+engaged in these functions. Thousands and millions of individuals must
+die in the mere effort to create and establish a new collective order.
+Heroisms, exceeding those of the past, will be needed and will be
+supplied. We need not fear. We know the great heart of humanity.
+
+It is amazing to see, in the present war, the high spirits, the courage,
+the devotion, the loyalty to each other of the combatants in each
+nation; and these things would be utterly unintelligible were it not for
+the fact that each people (and we need make no exception) thinks and
+believes in some obscure way that the cause for which it is fighting is
+a noble and an honorable one. Terrible as war is, and terrible the
+apparent folly of mankind which allows it to continue, still it is to my
+mind obvious that those engaged in it could not give their lives, as
+they so constantly do, not only with conscious devotion to some high
+purpose, but even with an instinctive exultation and savage joy in the
+very act of death, if they were not impelled to do so by the insurgence
+of a greater life within—a life within each one more vivid and even more
+tremendous than that which he throws away. The willing sacrifice of
+life, and the ecstasy of it, would be unintelligible if Death did not
+indeed mean Transformation.
+
+In my little individual way I experience something of the same kind. I
+feel a curious sense of joy in observing—as at my age one is sometimes
+compelled to do—the natural and inevitable decadence of some portion of
+the bodily organism, the failures of sight and hearing, the weakening of
+muscles, the aberrations even of memory—a curious sense of liberation
+and of obstacles removed. I acknowledge that the experience—the
+satisfaction and the queer sense of elation—seems utterly unreasonable,
+and not to be explained by any of the ordinary theories of life; but it
+is there, and it may, after all, have some meaning.
+
+
+
+
+                               APPENDICES
+
+
+                         CONGRATULATORY LETTER
+
+                          (_August 29, 1914_).
+
+In offering you our congratulations on the completion of your seventieth
+year, we would express to you (and we speak, we are sure, the thoughts
+of a very large number of other readers and friends) the feelings of
+admiration and gratitude with which we regard your life-work.
+
+Your books, with no aid but that of their own originality and power,
+have found their way among all classes of people in our own and many
+other lands, and they have everywhere brought with them a message of
+fellowship and gladness. At a time when society is confused and
+overburdened by its own restlessness and artificiality, your writings
+have called us back to the vital facts of Nature, to the need of
+simplicity and calmness; of just dealing between man and man; of free
+and equal citizenship; of love, beauty, and humanity in our daily life.
+
+We thank you for the genius with which you have interpreted great
+spiritual truths; for the deep conviction underlying all your teaching
+that wisdom must be sought not only in the study of external nature, but
+also in a fuller knowledge of the human heart; for your insistence upon
+the truth that there can be no real wealth or happiness for the
+individual apart from the welfare of his fellows; for your fidelity and
+countless services to the cause of the poor and friendless; for the
+light you have thrown on so many social problems; and for the equal
+courage, delicacy, and directness with which you have discussed various
+questions of sex, the study of which is essential to a right
+understanding of human nature.
+
+We have spoken of your many readers and friends, but in your case, to a
+degree seldom attained by writers, your readers are your friends, for
+your works have that rare quality which reveals “the man behind the
+book,” and that personal attraction which results only from the widest
+sympathy and fellow-feeling. For this, most of all, we thank you—the
+spirit of comradeship which has endeared your name to all who know you,
+and to many who to yourself are unknown.
+
+
+                                 REPLY
+
+                                  MILLTHORPE, HOLMESFIELD,
+                                            DERBYSHIRE,
+                                                  _1st September, 1914_.
+
+In thanking my friends on the occasion of my seventieth birthday (29th
+August) for the many hearty letters of congratulation I have received,
+and in particular for the widely signed and very friendly Address which
+on the same occasion has been presented to me, I should like to say a
+few words.
+
+At a moment like this when Europe is plunged in a monstrous war one
+naturally does not wish to dwell on one’s own affairs. Yet some of us
+who have worked for thirty years or more in connection with the great
+Labour Movement at home and abroad may perhaps be excused if we cannot
+help looking on the strange events of the last few weeks in a somewhat
+personal light. For those events surely connect themselves by a kind of
+logical fatality with that very Labour Movement. They seem to point to
+the break-up all over Europe of the old framework of society, and (like
+the Napoleonic wars of a century ago) to bear within themselves the
+seeds of a new order of things.
+
+Insane commercial and capitalistic rivalry, the piling up of power in
+the hands of mere speculators and financiers, and the actual trading for
+dividends in the engines of death—all these inevitable results of our
+present industrial system—have now for years been leading up to this
+war; and in that sense indeed all the nations concerned are responsible
+for it—England no less than the others. But the mad vanity of the
+Prussian military clique, and its brutal eagerness for imperial
+expansion at all costs, have precipitated the fatal move. The German
+Government is now involved in a conflict which the more socialistic
+section of its population absolutely detests, and for which its masses
+have little desire or enthusiasm; it is alienating from itself the
+loyalty of the warm-hearted and very human and brotherly folk whom it
+professes to represent; and is sowing the seed of its own destruction.
+Curiously enough too, by supplying the Russian Autocracy with an excuse
+for gratifying _its_ lust of conquest (an excuse which is welcome no
+doubt as a means of discounting the revolutionary movement at home) this
+action of Germany is destined to lead to a disorganization of Russia
+similar to that which awaits herself.
+
+On the other hand, the same action has already caused an extraordinary
+and astounding development of solidarity and enthusiasm among the more
+pacific peoples of Western Europe—this partly no doubt in sheer
+self-defence, but even more, I think, as an expression of their hatred
+of militarism and bullying Imperialism. The enormous growth during the
+past few years of democratic and communal thought and organization on
+the Continent generally is well known; and the events of which we are
+speaking have suddenly crystallized that into definite consciousness and
+into a fresh resolve for the future—the resolve that never again shall
+the peoples be plunged in the senseless bloodshed of war to suit the
+ambition or the private interests of ruling classes. Furthermore, in
+Britain, where, for so long, the forward movement has seemed to hang
+fire and fail to define itself, we have developed—most swiftly and in
+almost miraculous fashion—a whole programme of socialist institutions,
+and (what is more important) a powerful and democratic sentiment of
+public honour and duty.
+
+In view of all this it is impossible, as I have said, not to hope for a
+great move forward—when this present nightmare madness is over—among the
+Western States of Europe towards the consolidation of their respective
+democracies and the establishment of a great Federation on a Labour
+basis among them; as well as to expect a sturdy reaction, perhaps
+amounting to revolution, among the Central and Eastern peoples against
+the military despotism and bureaucracy from which they have so long
+suffered. In both these directions, in aiding the Federation of the
+democracies of the West and in hastening the disruption of the military
+bureaucracies of the East, England—if she rises to her true genius, and
+to a far grander conception of foreign policy than she has of late years
+favoured—will have a great work to do. Nor is it possible to doubt that
+the new order thus arriving will largely be the outcome of those years
+of work all over Europe in which the ideal of a generous Common Life has
+been preached and propagated as against the sordid and self-seeking
+Commercialism of the era that is passing away.
+
+If in my small way I have done anything towards the social evolution of
+which I speak, it is I think chiefly due to the fact that I was born in
+the midst of that Commercial Era, and that consequently my early days
+were days of considerable suffering. The iron of it, I suppose, entered
+into my soul. Coming to my first consciousness, as it were, of the world
+at the age of sixteen (at Brighton in 1860) I found myself—and without
+knowing where I was—in the middle of that strange period of human
+evolution the Victorian Age, which in some respects, one now thinks,
+marked the lowest ebb of modern civilized society: a period in which not
+only commercialism in public life, but cant in religion, pure
+materialism in science, futility in social conventions, the worship of
+stocks and shares, the starving of the human heart, the denial of the
+human body and its needs, the huddling concealment of the body in
+clothes, the “impure hush” on matters of sex, class-division, contempt
+of manual labour, and the cruel barring of women from every natural and
+useful expression of their lives, were carried to an extremity of folly
+difficult for us now to realize.
+
+As I say, I did not know where I was. I had no certain tidings of any
+other feasible state of society than that which loafed along the
+Brighton parade or tittle-tattled in drawing-rooms. I only knew I hated
+my surroundings. I even sometimes, out of the midst of that absurd life,
+looked with envy I remember on the men with pick and shovel in the
+roadway and wished to join in their labour; but between of course was a
+great and impassable gulf fixed, and before I could cross that I had to
+pass through many stages. I only remember how the tension and pressure
+of those years grew and increased—as it might do in an old boiler when
+the steamports are closed and the safety-valve shut down; till at last,
+and when the time came that I could bear it no longer, I was propelled
+with a kind of explosive force, and with considerable velocity, right
+out of the middle of the nineteenth century and far on into the
+twentieth!
+
+My friends speak of gratitude, and I am touched by these expressions,
+because I do indeed think the genuine feeling of gratitude is a very
+human and lovable thing—blessing in a sense both him that gives and him
+that takes. Yet I confess that somehow, when directed towards myself, I
+find the feeling difficult to realize. After all, what a man does he
+does out of the necessity of his nature: one can claim no credit for it,
+for one could hardly do otherwise. I have sometimes, for instance, been
+accused of taking to a rather plain and Bohemian kind of life, of
+associating with manual workers, of speaking at street corners, of
+growing fruit, making sandals, writing verses, or what not, as at great
+cost to my own comfort, and with some ulterior or artificial purpose—as
+of reforming the world. But I can safely say that in any such case I
+have done the thing primarily and simply because of the joy I had in
+doing it, and to please myself. If the world or any part of it should in
+consequence insist on being reformed, that is not my fault. And this
+perhaps after all is a good general rule: namely that people should
+endeavour (more than they do) to express or liberate their _own_ real
+and deep-rooted needs and feelings. Then in doing so they will probably
+liberate and aid the expression of the lives of thousands of others; and
+so will have the pleasure of helping, without the unpleasant sense of
+laying any one under an obligation.
+
+And here I think I ought to say (lest by concealing the fact I should
+seem to be laying my friends under an obligation and obtaining their
+seventieth-birthday congratulations under false pretences) that only two
+or three years ago a horny-handed son of toil—a gold-miner from the
+wilds of South Nevada—came all the way direct to Millthorpe on purpose
+to tell me that I should yet live for four hundred years! He stayed,
+curiously enough, but a very few days in this country, and having
+delivered his message set sail again the next morning but one for his
+gold-mines and his quartz-crushing. The prophecy I confess was one of
+rather doubtful comfort either to myself or my friends, but in order to
+avoid disappointment in case of its fulfilment I think perhaps I ought
+to mention it.
+
+Anyhow, referring back to those early Victorian days, I now seem plainly
+to see that if what was working then in my little soul could have been
+realized in society at large there would have been no need for you to
+address me the special letter or letters which I have just
+received—pleasant though they are to me—because you would have
+understood that in all reason letters equally grateful and full of
+recognition ought to be addressed to the joiner, the farm-labourer, the
+dairy-maid, and the washerwoman of your village, or to the soldier
+fighting now in the ranks. You would have realized that the lives of all
+of us are so built and founded one on the work of another that it is
+impossible to assign any credit to one whose name happens to be known,
+which is not equally due to the thousands or millions of nameless and
+unknown ones who really have contributed to his work. We literary folk,
+I need hardly say, think a great deal too much about ourselves and our
+importance.
+
+This is of course so very obvious that I am persuaded that most of the
+signatories on this occasion will understand the matter so. And on that
+understanding I may say to my friends: I accept your expressions with
+the greatest pleasure. I appreciate the extraordinarily tender and
+gracious wording of the Address, and I thank you from my heart.
+
+                                                       EDWARD CARPENTER.
+
+
+
+
+                              APPENDIX II
+
+
+                              BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+  =The Religious Influence of Art=: being the Burney Prize Essay for
+        1869. Cambridge, Deighton, Bell & Co., 1870.      [_Out of
+        print._
+
+  =Narcissus and other Poems.= London, Henry S. King & Co., 1873.
+        [_o. p._
+
+  =Moses: A Drama in Five Acts.= London, E. Moxon, 1875.      [_o. p._
+
+    THE SAME. Reprinted with alterations and republished as _The
+          Promised Land_. Sonnenschein, 1910. George Allen & Unwin,
+          1916.
+
+  =Syllabuses of University Extension Lectures.= (Astronomy, Sound,
+        Light, Pioneers of Science, Science and History of Music, &c.)
+        1874–1881.
+
+  =Towards Democracy= (Part I). First edition. John Heywood, Manchester,
+        1883.
+
+    THE SAME (including Parts I and II). John Heywood, Manchester, 1885.
+
+    THE SAME (including Parts I, II, and III). Fisher Unwin, London,
+          1892.
+
+    THE SAME (with new Title-page). The Labour Press, Manchester, 1896.
+
+    THE SAME (Part IV only, “Who Shall Command the Heart”). London, Swan
+          Sonnenschein; Manchester, S. Clarke, 1902.
+
+    THE SAME (Four Parts complete in one vol.). London and Manchester,
+          Sonnenschein and S. Clarke, 1905.
+
+    THE SAME. Complete Library Edition, with two portraits. Same
+          publishers, 1908.
+
+    THE SAME, on India paper (pocket edition), without portraits, but
+          with Note at end, 1909.
+
+      Later issues the same as the last two. Sixteenth Thousand, 1916.
+
+      American Edition: T.D. complete. New York, Mitchell Kennerley,
+            1912.
+
+  =England’s Ideal= and other Papers on Social Subjects. London, Swan
+        Sonnenschein (Social Science Series). First edition, 1887.
+
+    THE SAME. Thirteenth Thousand. Published by George Allen and Unwin,
+          London, 1916; New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons.
+
+  =Civilization: its Cause and Cure.= And other Essays. London, Swan
+        Sonnenschein (Social Science Series). First edition, 1889.
+
+    THE SAME. Fourteenth Thousand. London, George Allen & Unwin, 1916;
+          New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons.
+
+  =Chants of Labour.= Edited by Edward Carpenter. With music; and
+        Frontispiece by Walter Crane. First edition. London, Swan
+        Sonnenschein, 1888.
+
+    THE SAME. Seventh Thousand. London, George Allen & Unwin, 1916.
+
+  =From Adam’s Peak to Elephanta=: being Sketches in Ceylon and India.
+        With illustrations. First edition, London, Sonnenschein, 1892;
+        New York, Macmillan Co.
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition, enlarged, 1903.
+
+    THE SAME. Third edition, revised, 1910.
+
+  =A Visit to a Gn̄ani=: being four chapters from the above, in separate
+        volume, with two photogravure portraits. George Allen & Co.,
+        1911.
+
+    THE SAME. Authorized American edition. Published by A. B. Stockham &
+          Co., Chicago, 1900.
+
+    THE SAME. Pirated and mutilated. Published by the Yogi Publication
+          Society, Masonic Temple, Chicago, 1905.
+
+  =Love’s Coming-of-Age=: a Series of Papers on the Relations of the
+        Sexes. First edition, The Labour Press, Manchester, 1896.
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition, 1897.
+
+    THE SAME. Third edition. Swan Sonnenschein, London; S. Clarke,
+          Manchester, 1902.
+
+    THE SAME. Fifth edition, enlarged, 1906.
+
+    THE SAME. Fourteenth Thousand. London, George Allen & Unwin, 1916.
+
+    THE SAME. Note on Preventive Checks omitted. London, Methuen.
+          Shilling edition, 1914.
+
+    THE SAME. American edition. Stockham Publishing Company, Chicago,
+          1902.      [_Out of print._
+
+    THE SAME. Published by Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1911.
+
+  =Forecasts of the Coming Century=: by Alfred Russel Wallace, Tom Mann,
+        H. Russell Smart, William Morris, H. S. Salt, Enid Stacy,
+        Margaret McMillan, Grant Allen, Bernard Shaw and Edward
+        Carpenter. Edited by E. C., and published by the Labour Press,
+        Manchester, 1897.
+
+  =The Story of Eros and Psyche from Apuleius=, and the first book of
+        the Iliad of Homer, done into English by Edward Carpenter.
+        London, Sonnenschein, 1900.      [_Out of print._
+
+  =Angels’ Wings=: Essays on Art and its Relation to Life. With nine
+        full-page Plates and Appendix. First edition. London,
+        Sonnenschein, 1898; New York, Macmillan Co.
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition, 1899.
+
+    THE SAME. Third edition, 1908.
+
+  =Ioläus=: an Anthology of Friendship, in old Caslon type, with red
+        initials and side-notes. First edition. London, Sonnenschein,
+        1902; Boston, U.S.A., Ch. A. Goodspeed.
+
+    THE SAME. Author’s edition, 1902, bound in white and blue calf; 150
+          copies only.      [_Out of print._
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition, enlarged. Forty pages added; black
+          initials and notes. Sonnenschein, 1906.
+
+    THE SAME. Third edition. Title changed to =Anthology of Friendship
+          (Ioläus)=. Published by George Allen & Unwin, 1915.
+
+  =The Art of Creation=: Essays on the Self and its Powers. First
+        edition. London, George Allen, 1904.
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition, enlarged, 1907.
+
+    THE SAME. Third edition. George Allen & Unwin, 1916.
+
+  =Prisons, Police, and Punishment=: an Inquiry into the Causes and
+        Treatment of Crime and Criminals. London, Fifield, 1905.
+        [_Out of print._
+
+  =The Simplification of Life=: being selections from the writings of E.
+        C. by Harry Roberts. Published by Anthony Treherne, London,
+        1905.
+
+    Second edition. George Allen & Unwin, January 1915.
+
+  =Days with Walt Whitman=: with some Notes on his Life and Work, and
+        three Portraits. London, George Allen, 1906.
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition, 1906.
+
+  =Sketches from Life in Town and Country=: Some Verses, and a Portrait
+        of the Author. London, George Allen, 1908.      [_Out of print._
+
+  =The Intermediate Sex=: a Study of some Transitional Types of Men and
+        Women. First edition. London, Sonnenschein; Manchester, Clarke,
+        1908.
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition, 1909.
+
+    THE SAME. Third edition. George Allen & Co., 1912.
+
+    THE SAME. Fourth edition. London, George Allen & Unwin, 1916.
+
+    THE SAME. American edition. Published by Mitchell Kennerley, New
+          York, 1912.
+
+  =The Drama of Love and Death=: a Study of Human Evolution and
+        Transfiguration. London, George Allen & Co., April 1912.
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition, August 1912.
+
+    THE SAME. American edition. New York, Mitchell Kennerley, 1912.
+
+  =Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk=: a Study in Social
+        Evolution. London, George Allen, 1914.
+
+    THE SAME. American edition. New York, Mitchell Kennerley, 1914.
+
+  =The Healing of Nations=: and the Hidden Sources of their Strife.
+        First edition. London, George Allen & Unwin, March 1915.
+        Reprinted April and October 1915.
+
+  =The Story of My Books.= London, George Allen & Unwin, March 1916.
+
+  =My Days and Dreams=: being Autobiographical Notes by Edward
+        Carpenter. With Seventeen Portraits and Illustrations. George
+        Allen & Unwin, May 1916.
+
+
+                                   PAMPHLETS.
+
+  =Modern Science=: a Criticism. Pp. 75. John Heywood, Manchester and
+        London, 1885.      [_o. p._
+
+  =Co-operative Production=: with reference to the experiment of
+        Leclaire. A lecture given at the Hall of Science, Sheffield,
+        1883. Published by John Heywood, Manchester, 1883. Pp. 16.
+        [_o. p._
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition. The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row,
+          London, 1886.      [_o. p._
+
+  =England’s Ideal.= A Tract reprinted from _To-day_, May 1884. Pp. 22.
+        John Heywood, Manchester and London, 1885.      [_o. p._
+
+  =Modern Moneylending=, and the Meaning of Dividends. John Heywood,
+        1883.
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition, 1885. Pp. 28.      [_o. p._
+
+  =Desirable Mansions.= A Tract reprinted from _Progress_, June 1883.
+        Pp. 16, John Heywood, 1883.
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition. The Modern Press, London, 1886.
+
+    Third edition, 1887.      [_o. p._
+
+  =Social Progress and Individual Effort.= Reprinted from _To-day_,
+        February 1885. Pp. 13. The Modern Press, London, 1886.      [_o.
+        p._
+
+  =The Enchanted Thicket=: an Appeal to the “Well-to-do,” by Edward
+        Carpenter, late Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge: being a
+        reprint by permission from the book _England’s Ideal_. For
+        private circulation, 1889. Pp. 12.
+
+  =Civilization, Exfoliation, and Custom.= Published by Humboldt Library
+        of Science, New York, 1891. Pirated from _Civilization: its
+        Cause and Cure_. Pp. 65.
+
+  =Modern Science and Defence of Criminals.= Humboldt Library, 1891.
+        Also pirated from _Civilization: its Cause and Cure_. Pp. 53.
+
+  =Our Parish and our Duke=: a Letter to the Parishioners of
+        Holmesfield, in Derbyshire. Four-page leaflet, published by the
+        author, 1889. (Two editions about 10,000 each.) Also printed in
+        full in the London _Star_, July 8, 1889.      [_o. p._
+
+  =The Village and the Landlord.= An adaptation of the foregoing.
+        Published by the Fabian Society (Tract No. 136). London, 1907.
+
+  =A Letter Relating to the Case of the Walsall Anarchists.= Four-page
+        leaflet. Reprinted from _Freedom_, December 1892.      [_o. p._
+
+  =Intorno alla Protezione degli animali= (four-page leaflet). Reprinted
+        from _Il Lavoro_ (Genoa) of May 18, 1906.
+
+  =Empire: in India and Elsewhere.= Pp. 20. London, A. C. Fifield, 1900.
+
+    THE SAME. New edition, 1906. Published by Fifield, for the
+          Humanitarian League.
+
+  =A Letter to the Employees of the Midland and other Railway
+        Companies.= Four-page leaflet. Fillingham, Sheffield. Signed “E.
+        C., on behalf of the Sheffield Socialist Society, Commonwealth
+        Café,” November 1886.      [_o. p._
+
+  =Boer and Briton.= Four-page leaflet. Labour Press, Manchester,
+        January 7, 1900. (? Two editions 5,000 each.)      [_o. p._
+
+  =Proof of Taylor’s Theorem in the Differential Calculus.= By Edward
+        Carpenter and R. F. Muirhead. Four-page pamphlet, with orange
+        cover. Extracted from the Proceedings of the Edinburgh
+        Mathematical Society, vol. xii. Session 1893–4.
+
+  =Sex-love: and its Place in a Free Society.= Pp. 24. Labour Press,
+        Manchester, 1894. Second edition, 1894.      [_o. p._
+
+  =Woman: and her Place in a Free Society.= Pp. 40. Labour Press,
+        Manchester, 1894.      [_o. p._
+
+  =Marriage in Free Society.= Pp. 48 (5,000 copies). Labour Press,
+        Manchester, 1894.      [_o. p._
+
+  =Homogenic Love: and its Place in a Free Society.= (Printed for
+        private circulation only.) Pp. 52. Manchester, 1894.      [_o.
+        p._
+
+  =An Unknown People.= Reprinted from the _Reformer_. Pp. 37. London, A.
+        and H. B. Bonner, 1897. (Brown and gold cover.)
+
+    THE SAME. Second edition, 1905. (Plain brown cover.)      [_o. p._
+
+  =Fly, Messenger! Fly=: being a reprint (8 pages) from _Towards
+        Democracy_, by permission. For private circulation only. Tring,
+        1894.
+
+  =The Wreck of Modern Industry: and its Reorganization.= Pamphlet, pp.
+        16. National Labour Press, Manchester, 1909.
+
+  =Non-Governmental Society.= Originally a chapter in _Forecasts of the
+        Coming Century_, 1897; afterwards in _Prisons, Police, and
+        Punishment_. Pp. 32. Reprinted separately, and published by A.
+        C. Fifield, London, 1911.
+
+  =Vivisection.= By Edward Carpenter and Edward Maitland. Two Addresses
+        given before the Humanitarian League. Fifty-four page pamphlet.
+        London, W. Reeves, 1893.
+
+  =Vivisection.= By Edward Carpenter. Pp. 12. Another Address given
+        before the Humanitarian League. Published at 53, Chancery Lane,
+        London, 1904.
+
+  =Vivisection.= Two Addresses by Edward Carpenter (being the above two
+        Addresses). Revised edition. London, Fifield, 1905.
+
+  =The Art of Creation.= Being the second Anniversary Lecture of the
+        Larmer Sugden Memorial, delivered at the William Morris Labour
+        Church, at Leek, by Edward Carpenter, and printed at Hanley, in
+        Staffordshire, 1903.
+
+  =The Inner Self.= Report of a lecture given at King’s Weigh House
+        Church, London, November 7, 1912, and published (pp. 8) by the
+        Christian Commonwealth Company, 1912.
+
+  =St. George and the Dragon=: a Play in Three Acts for children and
+        young folk. Dedicated to the I.L.P. clubs. Labour Press,
+        Manchester, 1895. Second edition, 1908. =The Need of a Rational
+        and Humane Science=: a lecture given before the Humanitarian
+        League. Published at 53, Chancery Lane, London, 1896. Pp. 33.
+
+    THE SAME. Reprinted as a chapter in _Humane Science Lectures_ by
+          various authors. London, George Bell, 1897, and incorporated
+          in _Civilisation: its Cause and Cure_, edition 1906.
+
+  =British Aristocracy and the House of Lords.= Pp. 36. Reprinted from
+        the _Albany Review_ of April, 1908. London, Fifield, 1908.
+
+  =The Smoke-Nuisance and Smoke-Preventing Appliances.= Pp. 8. Being
+        report of a lecture given at the Firth College, Sheffield,
+        October 27, 1889. Publishers, Leader & Sons, Sheffield.
+
+
+                             SOME MAGAZINE ARTICLES.
+
+            (_Not_ including those already [1916] republished in book
+                                     form.)
+
+  =The Value of the Value-Theory.= _To-day_, June 1889.
+
+  =On High Street, Kensington=, in the _Commonweal_, April 26, 1890.
+
+  =Lawrence Oliphant=, critique in the _Scottish Art Review_, February
+        1889.
+
+  =November Boughs=, critique in same Review, April 1889.
+
+  =The Smoke-Plague and its Remedy.= _Macmillan’s Magazine_, July 1890.
+
+  =Love’s Coming-of-Age=: a Reply to Mr. Rockell. The _Free Review_
+        (Sonnenschein), October 1896.
+
+  =Two Gifts=: a Poem. The _Adult_, February 1898.
+
+  =On English Hexameter Verse.= Two articles in the _Cambridge Review_,
+        February 22 and March 1, 1900.
+
+  =An Open-Air Gymnasium=, _Sandow’s Magazine_, January 1900.
+
+  =The Awakening of China.= In the _Co-operative Wholesale Society’s
+        Annual_, Manchester, 1907.
+
+  =Morality under Socialism.= The _Albany Review_, September 1907.
+
+  Four Articles, =Sketches in Morocco=. The _New Age_, November 1906,
+        and May, June, and July 1907.
+
+  =The Taboos of the British Museum.= By E. S. P. Haynes (and E. C.) in
+        _English Review_, December 1913.
+
+  =The Meaning of Pain.= _English Review_, July 1914.
+
+  =Does Pain on one Plane mean Pleasure on another?= The _Epoch_, July
+        1914.
+
+  =The Great Kinship.= Translated from the French of Elisée Reclus (“La
+        Grande Famille”) by E. C. The _Humane Review_, January 1906.
+
+  =Sport and Agriculture.= In the _Humanitarian_, November 1913.
+
+  =Conscription and National Service.= Letter to the _Daily Chronicle_,
+        London, August 12, 1915.
+
+  Two articles on =The Music Drama of the Future=. The _New Age_, August
+        15 and 22, 1908.
+
+  Two articles on =The New South African Union=. The _New Age_, August
+        27 and September 3, 1909.
+
+  Two articles on =The Minimum Wage=. The _New Age_, December 21 and 23,
+        1907.
+
+  =Drawing-room Table Literature.= Article in the _New Age_, March 17,
+        1910.
+
+  =Le Philosophe Meh-ti.= Book-review in the _New Age_, February 1,
+        1908.
+
+  =Beauty in Civic Life=: report of a lecture. The _Humanitarian_,
+        January 1912.
+
+
+                                 TRANSLATIONS.
+
+
+                                    GERMAN.
+
+  =Wenn die Menschen reif zur Liebe Werden= (_Love’s Coming-of-Age_).
+        Translated by Karl Federn; published by Hermann Seemann,
+        Leipzig, 1902.
+
+  =Die Civilisation: ihre Ursachen und ihre Heilung.= Translated by K.
+        Federn; published by H. Seemann, Leipzig, 1903.
+
+  =Towards Democracy.= Translated by Lilly Nadler-Nuellens and Ervin
+        Batthyány.
+
+    (Part I), “Demokratie,” published by H. Seemann, Leipzig, 1903;
+          Berlin, 1906.
+
+    (Part II), “Freiheit,” same publishers, 1907.
+
+    (Part III), “Der Freiheit Entgegen,” published by Freier
+          Literarischer Verlag, Berlin, Tempelhof, 1908.
+
+    (Part IV), same title and publishers, 1909.
+
+  =Die Schöpfung als Kunstwerk= (_The Art of Creation_). Translated by
+        K. Federn, published by Eugen Diederichs, Jena, 1905.
+
+  =Das Mittelgeschlecht= (_The Intermediate Sex_). Translated by L.
+        Bergfeld, published by Seitz und Schauer, München, 1907;
+        afterwards, Reinhard, München.
+
+  =England’s Ideal.= Translated by Sophie von Harbon; published by
+        Wilhelm Borngräber, Berlin, 1912.
+
+
+                           _Articles and Pamphlets._
+
+  =Die Homogene Liebe.= Pamphlet. Translated by H. B. Fischer, published
+        by Max Spohr, Leipzig, 1894.
+
+  Three separate pamphlets, “Die Geschlechstliebe,” “Das Weib,” and “Die
+        Ehe,” all published in 1895. Same translator and publisher as
+        above.
+
+  Article “Ueber die Beziehungen zwischen Homosexualität und
+        Prophetentum” in the _Vierteljahrs-berichts des
+        Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitees_, July 1911, published by
+        Hirschfeld, Berlin.
+
+  Pamphlet =Die Gesellschaft ohne Regierung= (_Non-governmental
+        Society_). Translated by Pierre Ramus, published by W.
+        Schouteten, Brüssel, 1910.
+
+
+                                    ITALIAN.
+
+  =L’amore diventa maggiorenne= (_Love’s Coming-of-Age_). Translated by
+        Guido Ferrando; published by frat. Bocca, Torino, Roma, etc.,
+        1909.
+
+  =L’Arte della Creazione.= Translated by G. Ferrando; published by
+        Enrico Voghera, Roma, 1909.
+
+  =Verso la Democrazia= (Part I). With biographical notice and note from
+        _Labour Prophet_. Translated by Teresina Campani-Bagnoli;
+        published by R. Carabba, Lanciano, 1912.
+
+
+                                    FRENCH.
+
+  =Prisons, Police, et Châtiments.= Traduit et annoté par Paul Le Rouge
+        et Alain Garnier, avocats à la Cour d’Appel de Paris. Published
+        by Schleicher Frères, Paris, 1907.
+
+  =Vivisection.= Par E. C. Traduit de l’anglais par E. F. Satchell;
+        published by St. Catherine’s Press, Bruges, 1910.
+
+  =L’Amour Homogénique et sa Place dans une Société libre.= Published in
+        _La Société Nouvelle_, Brussels and Paris, September 1896.
+
+  =Vers l’Affranchissement= (being Parts III and IV of _Towards
+        Democracy_). Translated by Marcelle Senard. Published by the
+        Librairie de l’Art Indépendant, 81 rue Dareau, Paris, 1914.
+
+  _Also_ =E. C. et sa Philosophie=. Par M. Senard. Published same year
+        and place.
+
+  =La Régénération des Peuples= (_The Healing of Nations_). Translated
+        by M. Senard; published by....
+
+
+                                     DUTCH.
+
+  =Liefde’s Meerderjarigheid= (_Love’s Coming-of-Age_). Translated by
+        Meezenbrock; published by Holkema, Amsterdam, 1904.
+
+  =Die Beschaving: hare Oorzaak en hare Genezing= (_Civilization: its
+        Cause and Cure_). Translated by P. H.; published by Elsevier,
+        Amsterdam, 1899.
+
+
+                                    RUSSIAN.
+
+  =Civilization: its Cause and Cure.= Translated by Ivan Najívin, with
+        biographical Note, and Portrait, Moscow, 1906.
+
+  =Modern Science: a Criticism.= With Introductory Note by Leo Tolstoy,
+        1904.
+
+  =Prisons, Police, and Punishment.= Translated by A. M. (without
+        Appendix). Large 8vo, light green cover. Moscow, 1907.
+
+  =A Visit to a Gn̄ani= (four chapters) entitled _I Am_. Translated by
+        Ivan Najívin, Moscow, 1907.
+
+  =Towards Democracy= (_I arise out of the Night_). Being selections
+        from T. D., with Note on E. C. by Sergius Orlovski. Moscow.
+
+  =Love and Death.= Translated by P. D. Ouspenski. With Introduction.
+        Petrograd, 1915.
+
+  =The Intermediate Sex.= Translated by P. D. Ouspenski. Petrograd,
+        1915.
+
+  _See also_ article on E. C. by S. E. Rapoport in _Russian Thought_ for
+        January or February 1914. Petrograd.
+
+
+                                   BULGARIAN.
+
+  =Modern Science: a Criticism.= With Introduction by Leo Tolstoy.
+        Translated from the Russian by D. Jethkoff and Chr. Dossieff.
+        Burgas, 1908.
+
+  _Also_ =Civilization= and =England’s Ideal=. Translated by D.
+        Vaptzaroff, Burgas, 1908.
+
+  Articles in _Renaissans_ (Burgas):—
+
+  =On Rational and Humane Science.= 1909.
+
+  =England’s Ideal.= 1910.
+
+  =Defence of Criminals.= (2 numbers.) 1914.
+
+
+                                    SPANISH.
+
+  =Defensa de los Criminales.= Critica de la Moralidad. Translated by
+        Julio Molina y Vedia; published by P. Tonini, Buenos Aires,
+        1901.
+
+  =El Matorral Encantado= (_The Enchanted Thicket_). Translated by Peter
+        Godoi Perez, por el Grupo “Los Precursores.” Santiago, 1911.
+
+
+                                   JAPANESE.
+
+  Sections I to XIX of =Towards Democracy= by Saikwa Tomita in _Tokyo
+        Magazine_ of July 1915.
+
+  _Also_ =After Long Ages= and many shorter poems.
+
+  _See also_ =E. C.: Poet and Prophet=. By Ishikawa Sanshiro: being a
+        series of chapters on E. C. with long quotations from his works,
+        also portrait and letter from E. C. Yokohama, 1912.
+
+
+                                     MUSIC.
+
+  _See_ =Chants of Labour=. Edited by E. C. First edition 1888.
+
+  _Also_ =Three Songs= (“Men of England,” by Shelley, “The People to
+        their Land,” and “England, Arise”). Set to music by E. C.
+        Published by the Labour Press, Manchester, 1896.
+
+  =England, Arise.= Arranged by John Curwen as four-part song for male
+        voices. Staff and sol-fa notation. Published by J. Curwen and
+        Sons, Berners St. London, W., 1906.
+
+  =The City of the Sun.= Words and music by E. C. Published by the
+        Labour Press, Manchester, (?) 1908.
+
+  =Die Stadt der Sonne.= Worte und Musik von E. C., “dem Kämpfenden
+        Proletariat gewidmet.” Verlag “Wohlstand für Alle.” Vienna XII.
+        Herthorgasse, 12, (?) 1909.
+
+
+                     SOME BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ARTICLES, ETC.
+
+  =E. C.: The Man and his Message.= Pp. 40. With two portraits. By Tom
+        Swan. Manchester, 1901. Second edition, 1902.
+
+    THE SAME. Third Edition. London, Fifield, 1905. Fourth edition,
+          1910.
+
+  =E. C.: Poet and Prophet.= By Ernest Crosby. 50 pp. Second edition,
+        Fifield, 1905.
+
+  =The Gospel according to E. C.= By G. H. Perris. In two chapters.
+        Article in the _New Age_, April 23 and 30, 1896.
+
+  =Three Modern Seers= (Hinton, Nietzsche, and E. C.). With Portraits.
+        Pp. 228. By Mrs. Havelock Ellis. London, Stanley Paul, 1910.
+
+  =E. C.: Poet and Prophet.= Expositions of and quotations from his
+        works. Pp. 300. In Japanese script. By Ishikawa Sanshiro.
+        Yokohama, 1912.
+
+  =E. C.: an Exposition and an Appreciation.= By Edward Lewis. Pp. 310.
+        With Portrait. London, Methuen, 1915.
+
+  =Modern Science.= A reprint in English of Leo Tolstoy’s Introduction
+        to that Essay. Published by Wm. Reeves, Charing Cross Road,
+        London.
+
+  =E. C. and his Message.= By Leonard D. Abbott in the _International
+        Socialist Review_, Chicago, November 1, 1900.
+
+  =E. C. ein Sänger der Freiheit und des Volkes.= Von Pierre Ramus,
+        verlag Schouteten. Brussels, 1910.
+
+  =E. C. et sa Philosophie.= Par M. Senard. Libr. de l’Art Indépendant,
+        Paris, 1914.
+
+  Chapter on E. C. in _All Manner of Folk_. By Holbrook Jackson. London,
+        Grant Richards, 1912.
+
+  And various articles:—
+
+    See the _Dublin University Review_, April, 1886; _Seed-time_,
+    London, April, 1893; the _Friend_, January 4, 1895; the _Twentieth
+    Century_, New York, June 25, 1898; the _Inquirer_, London, May 13,
+    1899; the _Westminster Review_, December, 1901; the _Pioneer_,
+    London, January, 1901; the _Humane Review_, July, 1903; the
+    _Literary Digest_, New York, February 25, 1905; the _Craftsman_, New
+    York, October, 1906; the _Millgate Monthly_, Manchester, April 1907;
+    the _Forum_, New York, August 1910; the _Christian Commonwealth_,
+    London, December 11, 1912; _Bibby’s Annual_, 1913; the _Bystander_,
+    March 18, 1914; the _Epoch_, November 1915; the _Herald of the
+    Star_, August 11, 1915; etc.
+
+
+
+
+                                 INDEX
+
+
+ Adams, George, 124, 131, 150;
+   story of his life, 156 ff.;
+   at Millthorpe, 157–159
+
+ _Adam’s Peak to Elephanta_, 143
+
+ Africa, South, fascination of, 231
+
+ _African Farm, Story of_, 112, 226
+
+ After Civilization, 208
+
+ Age, its compensations, 304
+
+ Alfred, my brother, at school and in the Navy, 33, 34;
+   his son, 34 (note)
+
+ Anarchism, 115, 127, 130, 132, 219
+
+ Ancestry, my, Cornish, Scotch (? and Phœnician), 42, 309
+
+ Anecdotes of Millthorpe, ch. x.
+
+ _Angels’ Wings_, 209
+
+ _Anthology of Friendship_, 200
+
+ Anti-vivisection, 240
+
+ _Art of Creation, The_, 206, 207, 209;
+   translations of, 273, 274
+
+ Arunáchalam, P., of Colombo, Ceylon, 143;
+   his career, 250–253
+
+ Ashton, Margaret, 263
+
+ Assagioli, Roberto, 274
+
+ _Astronomy_, lectures, 78, 80, 92
+
+ Audiences, indoors and open-air, etc., 260, 261
+
+ Auteri, Count, 274
+
+
+ Bagnoli, Teresina, 274
+
+ Bantock, Granville, 246
+
+ Barker, Granville, 245
+
+ Barnes, George N., of the A.S.E., 246, 260
+
+ Batthyány, Ervin, at Millthorpe, 269;
+   life at Buda-Pesth, 270 ff.
+
+ Beck, E, A., of Trinity Hall, 61, 74
+
+ Benson, F. R., 245
+
+ Berkeleyan view of Matter, 207
+
+ Besant, Annie, 134, 218, 220–222, 245
+
+ _Bhagavat Gita_, 106, 142, 187
+
+ Bingham, brothers, of Sheffield, 131
+
+ Birrell, Augustine, 75, 216
+
+ Blavatsky, Mme., 240, 243, 244
+
+ “Bloody Sunday” in Trafalgar Square, 254
+
+ Boating life at Cambridge, 46, 210
+
+ _Boer and Briton_, a leaflet, 235
+
+ Boer War, the, 234, 235
+
+ Bolton, Whitman Club at, 250
+
+ Boughton, Rutland, 246
+
+ Boyhood and Age, little difference, 302
+
+ Bradway, life at, 102 ff., 110, 112
+
+ Brighton, futile life of, 31, 32, 94, 95;
+   work at, 101, 109;
+   the family leaves, 110
+
+ Brighton College, 17 ff.
+
+ Brown, J. M., 131
+
+ “Bruno,” the story of, 153–155
+
+ “Bryan,” story of, 170–172
+
+ Bryant, W., the poet, 88
+
+ Bucke, Dr. Richard, of Canada, 117, 118, 186, 206
+
+ Bulgarian translations, 280
+
+ Burney Prize, the, 49
+
+ Burns, John, 115, 254, 256
+
+ Burroughs, John, the friend of Whitman, 89
+
+ Burrows, Herbert, 115
+
+ Byron, 120
+
+
+ Cambridge, 46 ff.
+
+ Campbell, R. J., 246, 265
+
+ Ceylon, visit to, 143
+
+ Champion, H. H., early member of the S.D.F., 115
+
+ Channing, Rev. W. H., 87
+
+ _Chants of Labour_, 136
+
+ Charles, my brother, 16, 17, 83
+
+ Charles, Fredk., anarchist, 132
+
+ “Cheap and nasty” things and people, 310
+
+ Chemistry, 25
+
+ Chesterfield, life at, 91, 113
+
+ Christian legend, the, allegorical, 241
+
+ Civilization, modern, its meaning and future, 142, 311–315;
+   escape from, 148;
+   its paltriness, 311;
+   and unimportance, 312, 313;
+   after-stage to follow, 208, 314
+
+ _Civilization: its Cause and Cure_, 141, 205, 209;
+   translations of, 273, 280, etc.;
+   subject never seriously tackled by critics, 202
+
+ Clifford, W. K., 60, 74, 212
+
+ College Feasts at Cambridge, 73, 74
+
+ Commercial crises, 140
+
+ _Commonweal, The_, organ of the Socialist League, 125
+
+ “Commonwealth” Café opened in Sheffield, 133, 135
+
+ Commons Award Book of Holmesfield, 291–293
+
+ Compensations in Age and Infirmity, 180, 304
+
+ Consciousness, three stages of, 206
+
+ Co-operation, lectures on, 115;
+   agricultural, 287–289
+
+ Cosmic Consciousness, 143–145, 188, 201
+
+ Cotterill, Henry B., his work in S. Africa, 232;
+   his translation of Homer’s _Odyssey_, 233
+
+ Court Baron of Holmesfield, 292
+
+ Cox, Harold, 124
+
+ Cramp, C. T., of the A.S.R.S., 246, 260
+
+ Crane, Walter, 245
+
+ _Crib_, use of, at school, 20
+
+ Cronwright-Schreiner, 235
+
+ Curate, life as, 52 ff.
+
+ Curran, Pete, 245, 260
+
+
+ Danish agriculture, 289
+
+ Darwin, George, 74
+
+ David and Solomon, 301
+
+ Death, the adventure of, 302
+
+ _Defence of Criminals_, 205
+
+ _Desirable Mansions_, 139, 192
+
+ Despard, Mrs., 245, 263
+
+ Devon, James, Prisons Commissioner, 246
+
+ Dickens, H. F., 74
+
+ Dickinson, Lowes, 245, 256;
+   his books, 257
+
+ Dilke, Charles Wentworth, 74, 215
+
+ District Councils, their character, 294, 295
+
+ Downs, the Sussex, 26
+
+ _Drama of Love and Death, The_, 209
+
+ Duncan, Isadora, 245
+
+
+ Early days, 13–16
+
+ Early verses, 28, 45, 50, 63, 71
+
+ Ellis, Edith (_née_ Lees), 225, 226
+
+ Ellis, Havelock, 97, 112;
+   his great work on _Psychology of Sex_, 223, 224;
+   his personality, 225
+
+ Emerson, R. W., 87, 88
+
+ Enclosure of Commons, 283
+
+ _England’s Ideal_, 113, 139, 209
+
+ Ethical Societies, the, 205;
+   lectures for, 259, 264, 267
+
+ Executor, work as, 109
+
+ Expression, one of the great objects of Life, 305–307;
+   ever-unfolding, 310
+
+
+ Fabian Societies, lectures for, 267
+
+ Faddists invade Millthorpe, 167 ff.
+
+ Father, my, 36 ff.;
+   his death, 109
+
+ Fawcett, Henry, 38, 57, 74;
+   story of his blindness, 213–215
+
+ Fearnehough, Albert, 102–104, 111, 137, 150 ff.
+
+ Federn, Karl, translates _Love’s Coming-of-Age_, etc., 272, 273
+
+ Fellowship, elected to, 51, 52;
+   relinquished, 72, 73
+
+ Feminist Movement, The, 245, 262, 263
+
+ Ferrando, Guido, 274
+
+ Finance, 110
+
+ Florence, 46, 67, 68;
+   Italian literary circle at, 273
+
+ Ford, the sisters, of Leeds, 83, 263
+
+ Foreign travel, 310
+
+ Fox, Charles, of Bradway, 103
+
+ Foxwell, H. S., of St. John’s, Cambridge, 81
+
+ Friendships, early, 28
+
+ Fry, Roger, 246, 256
+
+ Furniss, John, quarryman and Socialist, 133
+
+
+ Geldart, Dr., Master of Trin. Hall, 56
+
+ George, Henry, Land Tax campaign, 236
+
+ Glasier, Bruce and Katharine, 245
+
+ Gn̄aniani, or Wise Man of the East, 143, 144;
+   visit to, 209
+
+ Gold-miner from Nevada, 183, 322;
+   his visions, 184–187;
+   and intuitions, 187–189
+
+ Gooch, G. P., 245
+
+ Goring, Sir Charles, 120
+
+ Graham, Cunninghame, 245, 254, 256
+
+ Grant, Albert, financier, 249;
+   made Baron, 250
+
+ Gray, Ernest A., 47
+
+ Grayson, Victor, 260
+
+ Greek sculpture, 67, 68
+
+ Greenock, shipping strike at, in 1910, 262
+
+ Greig, Mrs. Billington, 263
+
+ Griffith, Dr., Headmaster of Brighton College, 19
+
+ Gröndahl, Illit, translations into Norwegian, 280
+
+
+ Hardie, Keir, 245
+
+ Hardy, Mrs., visit to, near Pittsburg, 118
+
+ Hawkins, E. C., Form Master at Brighton College, 20
+
+ Health, my, 93, 100, 114
+
+ Heidelberg, life at, 45
+
+ “Hole in the Centre,” the, 304, 305
+
+ Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 87, 88
+
+ Hopkins, F. L., Dean of Trin. Hall, 57
+
+ Housman, Laurence, 246
+
+ Hukin, G. E., 131
+
+ Humanitarian League, the, 237;
+   lectures for, 267
+
+ Hut, or garden-shelter, 107, 146
+
+ Hyacinth, vision of, 105
+
+ Hyett, F. A., 46
+
+ Hyndman, his _England for All_, 114;
+   chairman of S.D.F., 115, 134, 245;
+   his career, 246–249, 254
+
+
+ _Impasse_ of the old order of Society, 311
+
+ Imperialism, shopkeeping, 140, 230
+
+ “Indulgences” at French school, 22
+
+ _Intermediate Sex, The_, 209
+
+ Invalid woman, the, of the Victorian drawing-rooms, 95
+
+ _Ioläus_, Anthology of Friendship, 200
+
+ Ishikawa, Sanshiro, Japanese friend, calls our houses “prisons,” 166;
+   himself imprisoned in Japan, 277;
+   comes to England, Belgium, France, 278, 279
+
+
+ Japan, Labour troubles in, 276;
+   translations of _Civilization_, _Toward Democracy_, etc., 276–278
+
+ Japanese verdicts on the War, 279
+
+ Johnston, Councillor James, of Manchester, 263
+
+ Johnston, Dr. J., of Bolton, his _Visit to Walt Whitman_, 250
+
+ Joynes, James L., 236, 237
+
+ Judges, High Court and others, their fitness for the post, 212, 213
+
+ _Justice_, organ of the S.D.F., 115
+
+
+ Kaffirs, the, 229
+
+ Key, Ellen, her works, 197
+
+ Kingsford, Anna, and the Hermetic Society, 240–245
+
+ Kropotkin, Peter, 134, 218–220
+
+
+ _Labour, Chants of_, 136
+
+ Labour Press, Manchester, publishes my books, 195, 198;
+   goes bankrupt, 199
+
+ _Labour Prophet, The_, 108
+
+ Landladies, joys of, 90, 91
+
+ Latham, Henry, Tutor of Trin. Hall, 51, 57, 74
+
+ “Laws of Morality,” 205
+
+ “Laws of Nature,” 204
+
+ _Leaves of Grass_, 64, 201
+
+ Lectures, University Extension, Leeds, Halifax, Skipton, 78 ff.;
+   Nottingham, York, Hull, Barnsley, 83 ff.;
+   Sheffield and Chesterfield, 90 ff.;
+   on Astronomy, 78, 80, 92;
+   on Light and Sound, 84;
+   on Pioneers of Science, 92;
+   on Music, 105;
+   on Socialism, etc., 115, 257, 258 ff.;
+   at Greenock, 262;
+   in London and elsewhere, ch. xiv.
+
+ Le Rouge, Paul, translation of _Prisons_ book, 276
+
+ Lewis, Edward, 97, 246, 265, 266
+
+ Life, uses of, 302–307;
+   daily life at seventy, 307–309
+
+ _Light and Sound_, lectures on, 84
+
+ Limerick, Mona, 245
+
+ Literary beginnings, 28, 49
+
+ Lock, Fossett, 61
+
+ Lodge, Oliver, 246
+
+ _Love’s Coming-of-Age_, 195 ff., 209;
+   translations of, 272
+
+ Lowell, Russell, 87
+
+ Lytton, Constance, 231
+
+
+ Macdonald, Ramsay, 245
+
+ Macmillan, Margaret, 245
+
+ Maguire, Tom, 134
+
+ Maitland, Edward, and the Hermetic Society, 240–245
+
+ Manual work, need of, 101, 110, 112, 114;
+   manual workers, solidity of their lives, 312;
+   friends among, 102, 112
+
+ March-Phillipps, Lisle, and the Boer War, 234;
+   _With Rimington_, 235
+
+ Margesson, Lady Isabel, 246
+
+ Market-gardening, 110, 137, 138
+
+ Marriage, decline of, 96
+
+ Marx, his theory of _Surplus-value_, 114, 140
+
+ Mathematics, reading for Tripos, 48;
+   proof of _Taylor’s Theorem_, 49;
+   place in Tripos, 52
+
+ Maurice, Fredk. D., 38;
+   incumbent of St. Edward’s, 55–58
+
+ Max Flint, 176;
+   story of his life, 176–182;
+   at Millthorpe, 180, 181;
+   Christian or Jew? 182
+
+ Merrill, George, arrival at Millthorpe, 159 ff.;
+   early life, 160;
+   talent for housework, etc., 162
+
+ Millthorpe, 91, 111;
+   migration to, 112, 113;
+   life at, 137, 147, 149, 157, 167, 282;
+   _rendezvous_ of all classes, 164
+
+ Morris, William, 115, 125;
+   his temperament, 216;
+   visit to Millthorpe, 217
+
+ _Moses: a drama_, 75, 190
+
+ Mother, my, 41 ff.;
+   death of, 106
+
+ Moulton, Fletcher, Senior Wrangler, 211
+
+ Muirhead, Robert F., 49, 212, 255
+
+ Music, piano and composition, 24;
+   Beethoven, 33;
+   lectures on, 105
+
+
+ Nadler-Nuellens, Lilly, 270–272;
+   translates _Towards Democracy_, 272;
+   comes to England, 272
+
+ Najívin, Ivan, novelist and mystic; translations into Russian, 280
+
+ _Narcissus and other Poems_, 71, 190
+
+ Neo-Paganism, 265;
+   lectures on, 267, 268
+
+ Nevinson, H. W., 235, 245
+
+ “New Fellowship, The,” 222;
+   its early members, 225
+
+ New Movements in 1881, 240, 245
+
+ Newton, “Sir Isaac,” 18
+
+ Niagara, 89
+
+ Nietzsche, 205
+
+ Nobili, Riccardo, art-critic, 273
+
+ _Non-governmental Society_, 209
+
+ Northern Towns, 80, ch. iv.
+
+ Norton, Charles, of Harvard, 87
+
+
+ Oates, C. G., of Leeds, 83
+
+ “Olivia,” 69
+
+ Olivier, Sydney, 245
+
+ Open-air life, 101, 145
+
+ Ordination, 52;
+   difficulties with the Bishop, 53–55;
+   abandonment of Orders, 58 ff., 72 ff.
+
+
+ Pamphlets on Sex and Marriage, 195
+
+ Parish Council, contest, 158;
+   work on, 291–293
+
+ Parson, a new kind of, wanted, 291
+
+ Payne, Iden, 245
+
+ _Perfect Way, The_, 241
+
+ Personal reform first, 321
+
+ Peterson, Captain R. E., Tolstoyan, 172;
+   Utopian, 173 ff.;
+   his colour-sergeant’s wife, 174–176
+
+ Pierce, Prof. Benjamin, of Harvard, 88
+
+ _Pioneers of Science_, lectures, 92
+
+ Ploughing matches, 297, 298
+
+ Prize-poems, 61
+
+ _Promised Land, The_, 76
+
+ Psychical Research Society, 240
+
+ Public-house, the, natural centre of village life, 298;
+   necessity of reorganization, 299, 300
+
+ Publishers, timidity of, 196, 198
+
+
+ Rambelli, Giuseppe, artist, 274
+
+ Reclus, Elie, Elisée, and Paul, 278
+
+ Reddie, Cecil, of Abbotsholme School, 246
+
+ Reservoir schemes, 297
+
+ Reynolds, Stephen, of the Fisheries, 246
+
+ Rileys, the, in Massachusetts, 117
+
+ Robertson, F. W., of Brighton, 38
+
+ Rome, liberating influence of stay in, 67, 68
+
+ Romer, Robert, Senior Wrangler, 46, 74, 210, 211
+
+ Rossetti, William, his edition of _Leaves of Grass_, 64
+
+ Rothenstein, William, 246
+
+ Rustics, their character, and anecdotes, 284–287
+
+
+ St. Lawrence, the river, 118
+
+ Salt, Catherine L., 237, 239
+
+ Salt, Henry, 218, 236–238;
+   work in Humanitarian and Nature movements, 237;
+   writings, 238
+
+ Sandals, making of, 124, 157, 159, 321;
+   wearing of, 169
+
+ “Sanitary” pipes _versus_ natural water-courses and springs, 296
+
+ School-life, 16 ff.
+
+ Schreiner, Olive, 112, 222, 226–231
+
+ _Science, Modern_, 141, 142;
+   _Criticism_ of, 203;
+   never seriously tackled, 204;
+   Tolstoy on, 205
+
+ _Seed-time_, 225 (note)
+
+ Senard, Marcelle, 274–276;
+   translation of _Towards Democracy_, 274;
+   brochure on E. C., 275;
+   hospital work, 276
+
+ Senior Wranglers, 210, 211
+
+ Sex-troubles at schools, 29
+
+ Shaw, Bernard, 167, 205, 245
+
+ Sheffield, beauties of, 91, 92;
+   the people, 92
+
+ Sheffield Socialist Society, 125, 130 ff.
+
+ Shelley, Mary, 122
+
+ Shelley, Percy, 28, 66, 119, 121, 122
+
+ Shortland, J. W., 131
+
+ Sicily, lying encouraged among the peasant children, 286
+
+ Simplification of Life, story of, 168;
+   lecture on, 258
+
+ Sisters, my, 32, 71, 110
+
+ Sixsmith, Charles F., 250
+
+ Sloane Kennedy, 117, 118
+
+ Small Holdings, lectures on, 259;
+   visit to Maylands, Essex, 259;
+   need of, 287–289
+
+ Smith, George Moore-, 193
+
+ Social Democratic Federation, the, 115, 240
+
+ Socialism, its value, 115, 126, 127;
+   its inner meaning, 128–130;
+   propaganda of, 135;
+   humours of, 134
+
+ “Society” not worth while, 149
+
+ Socrates and the tiger, 303
+
+ Solidarity of human life, 322
+
+ Spedding, Harry, 47
+
+ Spiritualists, forty! 169
+
+ Steerage passenger, experiences as, 117
+
+ Stuart, James, of Trinity College, 78
+
+ _Sun-worship and Christianity_, lectures on, 264, 265
+
+ _Surplus-value_, theory of, 114, 140
+
+
+ Taylor, Jonathan, of Sheffield, 132
+
+ Theosophical Societies, 240;
+   lectures for, 259, 267
+
+ Thompson, E. S., of Christ’s College, 81
+
+ Thoreau, H. D., 114, 308;
+   his _Walden_, 115, 116;
+   his ideal, 147, 165, 166
+
+ Tolstoy on my _Civilization_ and _Modern Science_, 205, 281
+
+ Tomita, Saikwa, translates portions of _Towards Democracy_ and _The Art
+    of Creation_ into Japanese, 279
+
+ _Towards Democracy_, 71, 99;
+   its inception, 106, and birth, 108;
+   continuation, 109, 146;
+   publication, 112, 125, 142, 190 ff.;
+   early criticisms of, 192, 193;
+   early editions, 194 ff.;
+   wanders from publisher to publisher, 198–200;
+   pocket edition, 200;
+   ignored by the Press, 201;
+   its meanings, 201;
+   relation to the other books, 209;
+   translations of, into German, 272;
+   Italian, 274;
+   French, 274;
+   Japanese, 279;
+   Russian, 280
+
+ Transformation, of “Civilization,” impending, 311–314;
+   of the Individual, 315
+
+ Trelawny, Edward J., his life, 119–121;
+   visit to, 121–123;
+   his four wives, 123
+
+ Trevelyan, G. M., 246
+
+ Trinity Hall, 46, 210
+
+
+ United States, first visit to, 85 ff.;
+   second visit, 116
+
+ Universal Self, the, key to all morality and science, 207, 208
+
+ Unwin, Raymond, 131, 246
+
+ _Upanishads, The_, lectures on, 266
+
+ Uranian temperament, the, 97, 98
+
+ Usher, Mrs., of the “Sheffield Socialists,” 131
+
+
+ Vacation, the Long, at Cambridge, 76
+
+ Vegetarian habits, 100;
+   Society, 240;
+   Congress at Manchester, 204;
+   at Mansion House dinner, 253
+
+ Versailles, life at, 21
+
+ Verses, early, 28, 45, 50, 63, 71
+
+ Victorian Age, the, 95, 321
+
+ _Village and Landlord, The_, a Fabian Tract, 283, 294
+
+ Village clubs, 289, 290, 300;
+   Chapel and Co-operative Society, 300
+
+ _Visit to a Gñani_, 209, 280
+
+
+ Wallace, Alfred Russel, 246
+
+ Wallace, J. W., of Bolton, 250
+
+ War, the Great, 266, 267, 311, 314, 319, 320
+
+ Warr, H. D., Fellow of Trinity Hall, 64
+
+ Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, 246
+
+ “Well-dressing,” a village institution, 295, 296
+
+ Wells, H. G., 245, 306
+
+ Westermarck, Prof. Edward, 246
+
+ Whitman, Walt, 28, 30;
+   first introduction to, 64;
+   visit to, 86, 87;
+   Emerson’s opinion of, 88;
+   second visit to, 117;
+   contrast to Eastern Sage, 144;
+   Whitman Club at Bolton, 250
+
+ _Who shall command the Heart_, Part IV of _Towards Democracy_, 199
+
+ Wilde, Oscar, troubles, 196
+
+ Wilson, Charlotte, 134
+
+ Wilson, Dr. Helen, of Sheffield, 263
+
+ Wilson, Miss Lucy, of Leeds, 81, 82
+
+ Women’s Movement, its beginning, 32;
+   Suffrage Demonstration, Manchester, 262
+
+ Wordsworth, 28, 66
+
+
+ Yate, C. F., of Trinity Hall, 47
+
+ “Young Ladies,” the, of 1860, 30
+
+
+                     _Printed in Great Britain by_
+      UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED THE GRESHAM PRESS WOKING AND LONDON
+
+-----
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  In India he rose rapidly through the early grades of the Service. The
+  Mutiny of 1857 was just over, and administration was being reorganized
+  in various directions. He was stationed at Futtehpore, Saharanpore and
+  various places in the N.W. Provinces; and then at Allahabad, where he
+  became Settlement Officer and something of an authority on Land and
+  Irrigation questions. Afterwards he was transferred to the Central
+  Provinces and made full Commissioner first at Jubbulpore and then at
+  Nagpore. It was at the last-named place that a fatal accident overtook
+  him while riding in a steeple-chase; and a career of great promise was
+  cut short. This was in March 1876. The _Pioneer_ of the 7th of March
+  said: “His public career, though now but commencing, was full of the
+  highest promise. Sound, cool, and cautious in deliberation, he carried
+  into action the promptness and decision which are born of
+  self-reliance and of a healthy vigorous _physique_. His was
+  emphatically _mens sana in corpore sano_; and he himself an officer of
+  rare judgment and of most sterling merit.”
+
+  See _A Memoir of C. W. C._: a little brochure (privately printed)
+  written by my eldest sister after his death.
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+  His son, Francis, followed my brother into the Navy, thus representing
+  a fourth generation of Carpenters in a direct line in the same
+  profession, He is now [1915], though still young, occupying a high
+  position in the North Sea Fleet, and has distinguished himself not
+  only like his father by saving life, but also by bringing out
+  important inventions which have been taken up by the Admiralty.
+
+Footnote 3:
+
+  It is curious how æsthetic in style this Preface is, though written in
+  1855, rather before the English æsthetic movement, and how, perhaps on
+  account of its slight affectation of manner, it was abandoned by
+  Whitman afterwards.
+
+Footnote 4:
+
+  “Francesca,” in _Sketches from Life_.
+
+Footnote 5:
+
+  The drama is now [1911] republished under the title _The Promised
+  Land_, and the soliloquy in question is given in the first part of Act
+  II. Sc. 1. As a reflection of the thoughts which were, I suppose,
+  occupying my mind at that time, it may have some slight interest.
+
+Footnote 6:
+
+  This of course would all be very different now [1915].
+
+Footnote 7:
+
+  _Days with Walt Whitman_ (George Allen and Unwin, 1906).
+
+Footnote 8:
+
+  See _Days with Walt Whitman_, by E. Carpenter, p. 30.
+
+Footnote 9:
+
+  This is a subject which through the Freudian psycho-analysis has come
+  now [1915] to be much better understood.
+
+Footnote 10:
+
+  Many examples of this kind of temperament are given in Vol. II of Dr.
+  Havelock Ellis’ classical work _Studies in the Psychology of
+  Sex_—Philadelphia, 1901 and 1915. (See history VII, beginning “My
+  parentage is very sound”, history XVII, etc.) And I will say that in
+  my case the temperament has always been quite natural and associated
+  with perfect healthiness of habit and general freedom from morbidity;
+  and that it has been absolutely inborn, and not induced by any outside
+  example or teaching. It is therefore a part of my nature, and a most
+  intimate and organic part. And I have to thank Mr. Edward Lewis that
+  in his _Exposition and Appreciation of E. C._ (Methuen, 1915, pp. 200,
+  299, etc.) he has so clearly and firmly indicated this.
+
+Footnote 11:
+
+  See _Sketches from Life in Town and Country_ (George Allen and Unwin),
+  by E. Carpenter.
+
+Footnote 12:
+
+  However, I happily managed in the next few years to get rid of a good
+  portion of this!
+
+Footnote 13:
+
+  See _Days with Walt Whitman_ (George Allen and Unwin, 1906), by E.
+  Carpenter.
+
+Footnote 14:
+
+  Perhaps the portrait by Edward Williams, but I cannot say.
+
+Footnote 15:
+
+  See “The Value of the Value-theory,” an article by myself in the
+  little magazine _To-day_ for June 1889 (published by W. Reeves).
+
+Footnote 16:
+
+  See the last poem but one in _Towards Democracy_, p. 502.
+
+Footnote 17:
+
+  Shown in the illustration facing page 103.
+
+Footnote 18:
+
+  At Kovno or Slobodka, now alas! ravaged by the German invasion [1915].
+
+Footnote 19:
+
+  I may say here that I never happened to meet Oscar Wilde personally.
+
+Footnote 20:
+
+  One of the chapters in _Civilization: its Cause and Cure_.
+
+Footnote 21:
+
+  A chapter in _Prisons, Police, and Punishment_.
+
+Footnote 22:
+
+  In _Adam’s Peak to Elephanta_.
+
+Footnote 23:
+
+  See p. 125, _supra_ (Ch. VII).
+
+Footnote 24:
+
+  They are published now in Philadelphia by the F. A. Davis Company
+  there.
+
+Footnote 25:
+
+  See _Seed-time_, a quarterly journal issued by the Fellowship; which
+  however was not started till 1890 and ceased publication in 1898.
+  Editor, Maurice Adams, one of the earliest members.
+
+Footnote 26:
+
+  Published by George Harrap, 1912.
+
+Footnote 27:
+
+  _With Rimington_, by L. March-Phillipps (Arnold, 1901).
+
+Footnote 28:
+
+  Entitled _I Cavalli pensanti di Elberfeldt_ (Florence, 1912).
+
+Footnote 29:
+
+  Part I only, published by Lanciani, 1912.
+
+Footnote 30:
+
+  Published by the _Libr. de l’Art indépendant_, 81 rue Dareau, Paris.
+
+Footnote 31:
+
+  But not of course to _Civilization_ itself. M. Najívin, writing to me,
+  says: “A propos de la ‘Civilization’ Tolstoy n’a pas écrit un
+  préface—seulement il a beaucoup loué ce livre dans deux lettres à moi,
+  et j’ai fait des extraits de ces lettres et je les ai publiés maintes
+  fois.... L’exemplaire de la ‘Civilization’ _avec des notes de Tolstoy_
+  est envoyé au Musée de Tolstoy à St. Petersbourg.”
+
+Footnote 32:
+
+  There is also a little book called _Some Forgotten Facts in the
+  History of Sheffield_ (Independent Press, Sheffield, 2s. 6d.) which
+  gives valuable information about the enclosures in that district.
+
+Footnote 33:
+
+  The Small Holdings Act of 1907 defines anything up to fifty acres as a
+  small holding.
+
+Footnote 34:
+
+  Chap. X, p. 180.
+
+Footnote 35:
+
+  By means of which, of course, the wheel turns on its axle.
+
+Footnote 36:
+
+  The Address together with my Reply is printed in an Appendix at the
+  end of this book.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                        Edward Carpenter’s Works
+
+
+  TOWARDS DEMOCRACY. Library Edition. _4s. 6d. net._ Pocket Edition,
+    _3s. 6d. net_.
+
+  ENGLAND’S IDEAL. 12th Thousand. _2s. 6d. and 1s. net._
+
+  CIVILIZATION: ITS CAUSE AND CURE. Essays on Modern Science. 13th
+    Thousand. _2s. 6d. and 1s. net._
+
+  LOVE’S COMING OF AGE: On the Relations of the Sexes. 12th Thousand.
+    _3s. 6d. net._
+
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+    Third Edition.
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+    _4s. 6d._
+
+  A VISIT TO A GÑANI. Four Chapters reprinted from _Adam’s Peak to
+    Elephanta_. With New Preface, and 2 Photogravures, La. Cr. 8vo,
+    ½clo., _1s. 6d. net_.
+
+  IOLÄUS: An Anthology of Friendship. _2s. 6d. net._ New and Enlarged
+    Edition.
+
+  CHANTS OF LABOUR: A Songbook for the People, with frontispiece and
+    cover by WALTER CRANE, _1s._ 7th Thousand.
+
+  THE ART OF CREATION: Essays on the Self and its Powers. _3s. 6d. net._
+    Second Edition.
+
+  DAYS WITH WALT WHITMAN. _3s. 6d. net._
+
+  THE INTERMEDIATE SEX: A Study of some Transitional Types of Men and
+    Women. _3s. 6d. net._ Third Edition.
+
+  THE DRAMA OF LOVE AND DEATH: A Story of Human Evolution and
+    Transfiguration. _5s. net._ Second Edition.
+
+  INTERMEDIATE TYPES AMONG PRIMITIVE FOLK: A Study in Social Evolution.
+    _4s. 6d. net._
+
+  THE HEALING OF NATIONS. Crown 8vo. Cloth, _2s. 6d. net_. Paper, _2s.
+    net_. Third Edition.
+
+  THE SIMPLIFICATION OF LIFE. From the Writings of EDWARD CARPENTER.
+    Crown 8vo. New Edition. _2s. net._
+
+
+
+
+                         Social Science Series
+
+
+         Cloth, 2_s._ 6_d._                         Double Volumes 3_s._
+                                                                   6_d._
+       * Also in Limp Cloth                                 1_s._ _net_.
+      ** Paper Covers                                              1_s._
+     *2. =CIVILISATION: ITS CAUSE AND CURE.=           EDWARD CARPENTER.
+     *3. =QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIALISM.=                      Dr. SCHÄFFLE.
+      4. =DARWINISM AND POLITICS.=                   D. G. RITCHIE, M.A.
+                                                                (Oxon.).
+       New Edition, with two additional Essays on HUMAN EVOLUTION.
+     *5. =RELIGION OF SOCIALISM.=                        E. BELFORT BAX.
+     *6. =ETHICS OF SOCIALISM.=                          E. BELFORT BAX.
+      7. =THE DRINK QUESTION.=                        Dr. KATE MITCHELL.
+      8. =PROMOTION OF GENERAL HAPPINESS.=           Prof. M. MACMILLAN.
+     *9. =ENGLAND’S IDEAL, &c.=                        EDWARD CARPENTER.
+     10. =SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND.=                      SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.
+     11. _Out of print._
+     12. _Out of print._
+   **13. =THE STORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.=           E. BELFORT BAX.
+     14. =THE CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH.=             LAURENCE GRONLUND.
+     15. =ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES.=                 BERNARD BOSANQUET, M.A.
+                                                                (Oxon.).
+     16. =CHARITY ORGANISATION.=                C. S. LOCH, Secretary to
+                                                    Charity Organisation
+                                                                Society.
+     17. =THOREAU’S ANTI-SLAVERY AND REFORM        Edited by H. S. SALT.
+           PAPERS.=
+     18. =SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.=                G. J. HOLYOAKE.
+ 19, 20. _Out of print._
+     21. =THE UNEARNED INCREMENT.=                         W. H. DAWSON.
+ 22, 23. _Out of print._
+    *24. =LUXURY.=                                    EMILE DE LAVELEYE.
+   **25. =THE LAND AND THE LABOURERS.=                      Dean STUBBS.
+     26. =THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY.=                     PAUL LAFARGUE.
+     27. =CRIME AND ITS CAUSES.=                    W. DOUGLAS MORRISON.
+    *28. =PRINCIPLES OF STATE INTERFERENCE.=         D. G. RITCHIE, M.A.
+ 29, 30. _Out of print._
+     31. =ORIGIN OF PROPERTY IN LAND.=              FUSTEL DE COULANGES.
+ Edited, with an Introductory Chapter on the English Manor, by Prof. W.
+                             J. ASHLEY, M.A.
+     32. _Out of print._
+     33. =THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT.=                   BEATRICE POTTER.
+     34. _Out of print._
+     35. =MODERN HUMANISTS.=                            J. M. ROBERTSON.
+   **36. =OUTLOOKS FROM THE NEW STANDPOINT.=             E. BELFORT BAX.
+     37. =DISTRIBUTING CO-OPERATIVE               Dr. LUIGI PIZZAMIGLIO.
+           SOCIETIES.=                            Edited by F. J. SNELL.
+     38. _Out of print._
+     39. =THE LONDON PROGRAMME.=                      SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.
+     40. _Out of print._
+     42. _Out of print._
+    *43. =THE STUDENT’S MARX.=                     EDWARD AVELING, D.Sc.
+     44. _Out of print._
+     45. =POVERTY: ITS GENESIS AND EXODUS.=                J. G. GODARD.
+     46. _Out of print._
+     47. =THE DAWN OF RADICALISM.=                     J. B. DALY, LL.D.
+     48. =THE DESTITUTE ALIEN IN GREAT            ARNOLD WHITE; MONTAGUE
+           BRITAIN.=                             CRACKANTHORPE, Q.C.; W.
+                                                  A. M‘ARTHUR, M.P., &c.
+     49. =ILLEGITIMACY AND THE INFLUENCE OF     ALBERT LEFFINGWELL, M.D.
+           SEASONS ON CONDUCT.=
+     50. =COMMERCIAL CRISES OF THE NINETEENTH             H. M. HYNDMAN.
+           CENTURY.=
+     51. =THE STATE AND PENSIONS IN OLD AGE.=   J. A. SPENDER and ARTHUR
+                                                            ACLAND, M.P.
+     52. =THE FALLACY OF SAVING.=                     JOHN M. ROBERTSON.
+     53. =THE IRISH PEASANT.=                                      ANON.
+    *54. =THE EFFECTS OF MACHINERY ON WAGES.=     Prof. J. S. NICHOLSON,
+                                                                   D.Sc.
+   **55. =THE SOCIAL HORIZON.=                                     ANON.
+     56. =SOCIALISM, UTOPIAN AND SCIENTIFIC.=          FREDERICK ENGELS.
+   **57. =LAND NATIONALISATION.=                          A. R. WALLACE.
+     58. =THE ETHIC OF USURY AND INTEREST.=            Rev. W. BLISSARD.
+    *59. =THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN.=                      ADELE CREPAZ.
+     60. =THE EIGHT HOURS’ QUESTION.=                 JOHN M. ROBERTSON.
+     61. =DRUNKENNESS.=                           GEORGE R. WILSON, M.B.
+     62. =THE NEW REFORMATION.=                       RAMSDEN BALMFORTH.
+    *63. =THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.=                      T. E. KEBBEL.
+     64. _Out of print._
+     65. =ENGLAND’S FOREIGN TRADE IN XIXTH                 A. L. BOWLEY.
+           CENTURY.=
+     66. =THEORY AND POLICY OF LABOUR                      DR. SCHÄFFLE.
+           PROTECTION.=
+     67. =HISTORY OF ROCHDALE PIONEERS.=                 G. J. HOLYOAKE.
+     68. =RIGHTS OF WOMEN.=                              M. OSTRAGORSKI.
+     69. =DWELLINGS OF THE PEOPLE.=                   LOCKE WORTHINGTON.
+  70–75. _Out of print._
+     76. =BRITISH FREEWOMEN.=                              C. M. STOPES.
+ 77, 78. _Out of print._
+     79. =THREE MONTHS IN A WORKSHOP.=         P. GÖHRE, with Preface by
+                                                              Prof. ELY.
+     80. =DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS.=            Prof. J. B. HAYCRAFT.
+     81. =LOCAL TAXATION AND FINANCE.=                    G. H. BLUNDEN.
+     82. =PERILS TO BRITISH TRADE.=                           E. BURGIS.
+     83. =THE SOCIAL CONTRACT.=                J. J. ROUSSEAU. Edited by
+                                                            H. J. TOZER.
+     84. =LABOUR UPON THE LAND.=                 Edited by J. A. HOBSON,
+                                                                    M.A.
+     85. =MORAL PATHOLOGY.=                       ARTHUR E. GILES, M.D.,
+                                                                   B.Sc.
+     86. =PARASITISM, ORGANIC AND SOCIAL.=      MASSART and VANDERVELDE.
+    *87. =ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS.=                   J. L. GREEN.
+    *88. =MONEY AND ITS RELATIONS TO PRICES.=               L. L. PRICE.
+     89. =SOBER BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.=                  F. A. MACKENZIE.
+     90. =WORKERS ON THEIR INDUSTRIES.=                    F. W. GALTON.
+     91. =REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION.=                 KARL MARX.
+     92. =OVER-PRODUCTION AND CRISES.=                     K. RODBERTUS.
+     93. =LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND STATE AID.=                S. J. CHAPMAN.
+     94. =VILLAGE COMMUNITIES IN INDIA.=       B. H. BADEN-POWELL, M.A.,
+                                                                  C.I.E.
+     95. =ANGLO-AMERICAN TRADE.=                          S. J. CHAPMAN.
+     96. _Out of print._
+     97. =COMMERCIAL FEDERATION & COLONIAL            J. DAVIDSON, M.A.,
+           TRADE POLICY.=                                        Phil.D.
+     98. =SELECTIONS FROM FOURIER.=             C. GIDE and J. FRANKLIN.
+     99. =PUBLIC-HOUSE REFORM.=                           A. N. CUMMING.
+    100. =THE VILLAGE PROBLEM.=                            G. F. MILLIN.
+    101. =TOWARD THE LIGHT.=                               L. H. BERENS.
+    102. =CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND.=              A. V. WOODWORTH.
+    103. _Out of print._
+    104. =THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CORN         Prof. J. S. NICHOLSON,
+           LAWS.=                                                   M.A.
+    105. =THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS.=           CHARLES H. HARVEY.
+   *106. =RATES AND TAXES AS AFFECTING            Prof. J. S. NICHOLSON,
+           AGRICULTURE.=                                            M.A.
+    107. =A PRACTICAL PROGRAMME FOR WORKING                        ANON.
+           MEN.=
+    108. =JOHN THELWALL.=                          CHAS. CESTRE, Litt.D.
+   *109. =RENT, WAGES AND PROFITS IN              Prof. J. S. NICHOLSON.
+           AGRICULTURE.=
+    110. =ECONOMIC PREJUDICES.=                              YVES GUYOT.
+    111. =CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL PROBLEMS.=                  ACHILLE LORIA.
+   *112. =WHO PAYS? THE REAL INCIDENCE OF                  ROBERT HENRY.
+           TAXATION.=
+
+
+                         DOUBLE VOLUMES, 3s. 6d.
+
+      1. =LIFE OF ROBERT OWEN.=                             LLOYD JONES.
+      2. =THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SOCIAL                   Dr. A. SCHÄFFLE.
+           DEMOCRACY=: a Second Part      of
+           “The Quintessence of Socialism.”
+      3. =CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS IN            FREDERICK ENGELS.
+           ENGLAND IN 1844.=
+      4. =THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL ECONOMY.=                 YVES GUYOT.
+      5. =SOCIAL PEACE.=                                          G. VON
+                                                    SCHULTZE-GARVERNITZ.
+      6. =A HANDBOOK OF SOCIALISM.=                      W. D. P. BLISS.
+      7. =SOCIALISM: ITS GROWTH AND OUTCOME.=   W. MORRIS and E. B. BAX.
+      8. =ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY.=                    A. LORIA.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Renumbered footnotes and moved them all to the end of the final
+     chapter.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ ● Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78612 ***
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+  <body>   
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78612 ***</div>
+
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter ph1'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>MY DAYS AND DREAMS</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div id='Frontispiece' class='c002 figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i_frontis.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>E. C. (1857), AGE THIRTEEN.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='titlepage'>
+
+<div>
+  <h1 class='c003'>MY DAYS AND DREAMS<br> <span class='large'>BEING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES</span></h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div>BY</div>
+    <div class='c004'><span class='xlarge'>EDWARD CARPENTER</span></div>
+    <div class='c004'><span class='small'><i>Author of “Towards Democracy” “Civilization: its Cause and Cure,” &#38;c.</i></span></div>
+    <div class='c004'>WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_title.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div><span class='large'>LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN &#38; UNWIN LTD.</span></div>
+    <div>RUSKIN HOUSE&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; 40 MUSEUM STREET W.C.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c002'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span class='small'><i>First published June 1916</i></span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span class='small'><i>Second Edition October 1916</i></span></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div><span class='small'>(<i>All rights reserved</i>)</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>PREFACE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>Old St. Pancras Churchyard even now, though
+dominated by the huge gasometers of Wharf Road
+and backed against the roaring traffic of the Midland
+Railway, preserves something of the sylvan beauty
+which a hundred years ago made it the frequent
+trysting-place of Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin.
+As it happened, in the summer of 1890, when staying
+in London, I used to make the garden my resort for
+writing purposes; and one day in July of that year
+I started some autobiographical notes. In a very
+casual way, and with long intervals between, the
+notes have been continued down to the present time.
+The volume therefore to which this is the Preface
+has been composed in somewhat disjointed fashion;
+and the discerning reader will probably perceive
+slight differences of style and outlook in its different
+portions, and perhaps also experience some uncertainty
+as to the proper chronology of the events which
+it records. In order to mitigate the latter trouble
+I have from time to time inserted in square brackets
+the date of the year in which the corresponding
+portion was written.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i009.jpg' alt='Edward Carpenter signature' class='ig001'>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'><i>May 1916</i></p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c008'>CHAPTER</th>
+    <th class='c009'>&#160;</th>
+    <th class='c010'>PAGE</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Preface</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_7'>7</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>I.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Brighton</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_13'>13</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>II.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>My Parents</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_36'>36</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>III.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Cambridge</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_45'>45</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>IV.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>University Extension and Northern Towns</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_79'>79</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>V.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Bradway and “Towards Democracy”</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_99'>99</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>VI.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Manual Work and Market-Gardening</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_109'>109</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>VII.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Sheffield and Socialism</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_124'>124</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>VIII.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Trade and Philosophy</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_137'>137</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>IX.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Millthorpe and Household Life</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_147'>147</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>X.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Millthorpiana</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_167'>167</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>XI.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Story of My Books</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_190'>190</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>XII.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Personalities—I.</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_210'>210</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>XIII.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Personalities—II.</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_234'>234</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>XIV.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>London and Lectures</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_254'>254</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>XV.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Translations and Translators</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_269'>269</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>XVI.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Rural Conditions</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_282'>282</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>XVII.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>How the World Looks at Seventy</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_301'>301</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Appendix I. Congratulatory Letter and Reply</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_318'>318</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Appendix II. Bibliography</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_323'>323</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Index</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_333'>333</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>E. C. (1857), Age Thirteen</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><i><a href='#Frontispiece'>Frontispiece</a></i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c009'></th>
+    <th class='c010'>FACING PAGE</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>My Father, Charles Carpenter</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i039'>36</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>My Mother, Sophia Wilson Carpenter</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i049'>44</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>My Sister Lizzie</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i078'>71</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Self, in about 1875</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i079'>79</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Albert Fearnehough and “Bruno”</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i112'>103</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>E. C. (1887), Age Forty-three</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i120'>109</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>G. E. H.—One of the First “Sheffield Socialists”</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i144'>131</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Hut and The Brook</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i161'>146</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>George Merrill</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i178'>161</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Millthorpe Cottage and Orchard</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i187'>168</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>G. M. Feeding the Fowls</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i197'>176</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Self in Porch</span> (1905). (<i>Photogravure</i>)</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i231'>208</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Cartoon, “Simplification of Life”</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i282'>257</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Lilly Nadler-Nuellens with Her Daughter</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i299'>272</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Marcelle Senard</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i310'>280</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>E. C. (1910), Age Sixty-six</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#i335'>304</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='chapter ph1'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>MY DAYS AND DREAMS</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>I<br> BRIGHTON</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>My life hitherto [7th July 1890] divides into four
+pretty distinct periods—first, my early life up to the
+age of twenty, during which time I lived mainly at
+Brighton, embedded in a would-be fashionable world
+which I hated; secondly, the period from ’64 to
+about ’74, during which time I was mostly at Cambridge,
+in a more or less intellectual atmosphere;
+thirdly, from ’74 to ’81, when I carried on the Extension
+lectures and made acquaintance with the manufacturing
+centres and commercial society of the North
+of England; and fourthly, for the ten years from
+’80 and ’81 down to the present time, when I have
+lived almost entirely among the working masses, and
+been largely engaged in manual labour.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It may seem ungrateful to say so, but my abiding
+recollection of early days is one of discomfort. Not
+but that I had on the whole good times at school,
+in the classes and in the games; not but that at
+home I was lapped in the ease and attentive service
+of a well-to-do household, and had a hundred advantages
+denied to an ordinary child of the people; but
+that after all at home I never felt really at home.
+Perhaps I was unduly sensitive; anyhow I felt
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>myself an alien, an outcast, a failure, and an object
+of ridicule.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The social life which encircled us at Brighton was
+artificial enough; but it was the standard which we
+children had to live to. My parents were the best
+people in the world, but they could not fly out of the
+conditions in which they belonged. I hated the life,
+was miserable in it—the heartless conventionalities,
+silly proprieties—but I never imagined, it never
+occurred to me, that there <i>was</i> any other life. To
+be pursued by the dread of appearances—what people
+would say about one’s clothes or one’s speech—to
+be always in fear of committing unconscious trespasses
+of invisible rules—this seemed in my childhood
+the normal condition of existence; so much
+so that I never dreamed of escaping from it. I only
+prayed for a time when grace might be given me
+to pass by without reproach. I was never a daring
+or rumbustious child. Timid and sensitive, my spirit
+was sadly lacking in the inestimable virtue of revolt.
+I suffered and was stupid enough to think myself
+in the wrong.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>There was a curate at one of the churches to which
+we used to go—a smooth-haired, carefully shaven,
+meek young man, probably of feeble mind; but
+all I knew was that people praised him: such a
+good-looking, well-mannered fellow he was, and
+preached such nice sermons! “Happy Mr.
+Cass,” I used to think, for even now I remember
+his name—“Oh, happy Mr. Cass, if only I could
+be like <i>you</i> when I grow up.” I was then about
+fourteen, and I fancy that the mere sight of Cass in
+his spotless surplice must have worked upon me,
+for it was about that time or a little later that I began
+to make up my mind to take Orders. No doubt
+from the first there was a fatal bias towards religion.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>I remember distinctly—and it must have been about
+the same period—thinking as I lay awake in bed
+at night that if the house were on fire I would save
+my <i>prayer-book</i>! I saw myself in my mind’s eye
+in heroic attitude rushing into my mother’s room
+where the sacred volume lay, and bearing it out
+through flames and smoke into the street. It was
+not my mother or sisters that I was going to save&#160;...
+but my prayer-book! Alas! what a defect
+of nature, or of teaching, must have been there!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Curious, the covered underground life that some
+children lead! I never remember, all those years
+at Brighton, till I was nineteen or twenty, a single
+person older than myself who was my confidant. I
+do not remember a single occasion on which in any
+trouble or perplexity I was able to go to any one
+for help or consolation. My mother, firm, just, and
+courageous as she was, and setting her children an
+heroic example, belonged to the old school, which
+thought any manifestation of feeling unbecoming.
+We early learned to suppress and control emotion,
+and to fight our own battles alone: in some ways
+a good training, but liable in the long run to starve
+the emotional nature. Masters at school in those
+days did not “draw boys out”; education was
+mainly a nipping of buds; older friends outside the
+family, who may so often play a useful part in the
+development of boy or girl life, never came—that
+I remember—to the rescue; and so my abiding
+recollection of all that time is one of silent concealment
+and loneliness.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Nevertheless of course there were joys. Though
+a town-house is not a congenial nursery for a child,
+yet we were comparatively fortunate. There was
+a large space at the back, where we kept, in succession,
+endless pets—pigeons, seagulls with clipped
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>wings, rabbits, tortoises, guinea-pigs, and smaller fry
+(I was especially fond of an aquarium); while in
+front was the large garden of Brunswick Square,
+overrun, despite the efforts of the gardener and other
+authorities, by all the children of the surrounding
+houses. A fearfully active family, boys and girls,
+we kept a sort of proud superiority over the other
+children in running races, prisoners’ base, etc.;
+while inside the house, and for wet weather, we
+had a sport entirely our own, and which consisted
+in one pursuing the others up the front stairs and
+down the back stairs, or <i>vice versa</i>, with endless
+shrieks and uproar—a terrible affair, which nothing
+but the noblest self-sacrifice could have ever nerved
+our parents to endure! Also there was hide-and-seek
+in the dark, a grisly game, dangerous both to
+limbs and to furniture; and occasionally a battle
+of the giants—as when, on one occasion, an elder
+sister having with the greatest care built up a beautiful
+dummy man round a long smooth pole, my
+eldest brother came on the sly and drew the backbone
+out! Then there was earth-shaking conflict,
+which I, quite a small boy, witnessed from a distance,
+and with quaking limbs.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As to school life, I suppose it is a general experience
+that what one learns at school does not
+count for much. At the age of ten I began at the
+Brighton College. My eldest sister had taught me
+a little Latin grammar before that. My eldest brother
+Charlie was already at the College. He was a kind
+of hero there. At that time (or possibly a year
+or two later) he was easily first in <i>everything</i>. In
+mathematics, classics, foreign languages, in cricket,
+football, athletics—no matter what it was—he took
+all the prizes. Withal he was so friendly, so sociable,
+that he was a universal favorite; so generous and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>so humorous—so naturally full of fun and comedy—that
+I really think he disarmed all jealousy in
+others—nor felt a spark of jealousy or vanity in
+himself. Seldom I should think has there been such
+a boy; and when at the age of nineteen or twenty
+he took his final leave in order to join the Indian
+Civil Service, his memory lingered long and long
+behind him in the school.<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c012'><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My reception under those circumstances was
+naturally favorable. One day, shortly after my
+arrival, I was playing by myself in a corner of
+the entrance hall, when a big boy with a pleasant
+face came up to me and, making a suitable gesture,
+said, “Sweep up the Chips, sweep up the Chips.”
+Then I knew that my nickname was Chips—a family
+nickname indeed, since my father and my brothers
+at different times bore it.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The College was a large school of 150 or 200
+boys—on public school lines. I went through the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>classes in due order from the lowest upwards; and
+the personality of each master in turn impressed
+its unconscious weight upon me. I remember distinctly
+the agonized effort and the triumph of passing
+the “Asses’ Bridge” in Euclid. The name of the
+master who got me over was Newton, and for some
+years I firmly believed that he was no other than
+the celebrated Sir Isaac. I joined in the games and
+athletics—and not without success, though I was
+never very partial to cricket; I climbed slowly up
+through the classes; I rubbed shoulders with all
+the queer, red-haired, pock-marked, fat, lean, mean,
+generous, handsome, clever, tyrannical, cross-eyed,
+gentle, good-natured, specimens of fellow humanity—the
+other boys—whose influence on one at that
+age is so strange and incalculable, and whose characters
+and deeds appear at the time so mysterious
+and inexplicable; though when one looks back upon
+them at a later date, they seem transparently clear
+and simple. I cannot remember anything very
+heroic that I did, though I can remember some
+mean things. I remember joining with the others
+in teasing the French master—that ever defenceless
+quarry; and I remember what was much worse,
+taking a kind of delight in privately tormenting an
+idiot boy. That was indeed a strange experience.
+I don’t know why the boy was allowed in the school;
+he was certainly quite weak-minded and incapable;
+and besides there exhaled from him an odd and fearsome
+odour. That boy convulsed me with alternate
+rage and pity. At one moment I was seized with
+the greatest sympathy for his weakness, and the
+next I was filled with wrath at his odour and his
+idiocy, and found or invented excuses for slapping
+him! Then after that I would sometimes lie awake
+at night remorseful over my conduct, and planning
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>little schemes of reparation; but in the morning
+the sight of him would launch me on the waves of
+irritation again. It was quite a little tragedy to
+me—and I mention it because this savage and instinctive
+dislike of anything malformed, which is so
+very marked in boys, no doubt accounts for much
+of their cruelty. It remains in the mind of course
+to a much later age, but is gradually covered over
+by the growth of sympathy and understanding. As
+a rule my better deeds were done in defence of the
+weak. Timid for the most part, I regained my
+courage on these occasions—as in delivering a small
+boy from a big bully; or once in sticking up for
+two brothers, the dirtiest and most stupid boys in
+the class, against the gibes of the master; or another
+time in helping a poor man in the street with his
+bundle—on which last occasion the said Sir Isaac
+Newton passing by, instead of scolding me as I
+expected, actually said, “That’s right, my boy”—a
+remark for which I felt ever so grateful to him—for
+indeed I was feeling rather ashamed of myself.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I think that was about the only occasion on which
+a master exercised any directly helpful influence.
+Schools were odd places in those days. The idea
+of really reaching the boy and drawing out his interest
+seems never to have occurred to the masters.
+When I arrived in the Sixth Form, the Headmaster
+was a certain Dr. Griffith—a burly, headstrong,
+muddle-headed, perhaps rather good-natured man.
+As often as not he would arrive in the class-room
+late, with his hair a-tumble, and looking as if he
+had not slept all night, would complain that some
+naughty boy in the Fourth Form was preoccupying
+his mind, and would leave us again alone with our
+books. Then presently his study door would open,
+and he would push the said boy into the room, saying,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>“I wish one of you gentlemen would <i>cane</i> this
+boy,” and throwing a cane in over the boy’s head
+would close the door again. Once, drawing a handful
+of silver and gold out of his pocket, he asked me
+to cane a boy for him—and afterwards I felt sorry
+I had not accepted the bargain. I think he must
+have been a little touched in the head. It is certainly
+aggravating to think that we used to read Homer
+and Virgil and the Greek plays, and <i>never</i> that I
+remember was any attempt made to make us understand
+the subject or the plot or the literary interest
+of these works—nothing but grammar and syntax.
+As to mathematics the neglect was worse—and I
+left school at eighteen or nineteen having done
+nothing beyond Euclid and Algebra.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My record in the classes was on the whole, I
+suppose, good—though nothing remarkable. I
+gained the usual number of prizes, and kept about
+an equal interest in classics and mathematics. With
+regard to the former, my father—who had progressive
+ideas on such subjects—gave me a word for
+word <i>crib</i> to Horace, saying that the best way to
+learn a language was to use such a crib. Naturally
+after that I rejoiced in it freely in my preparation-work
+at home of an evening. But one day I could
+not resist taking it to school and showing it to some
+of my class-mates. Of course we were pounced
+upon, and the crib confiscated. The form-master
+at that time was E. C. Hawkins—a really fine type
+of man, father of Anthony Hope Hawkins the novelist.
+But when he asked me where I got the crib from, and
+I replied quite truthfully and simply “My father gave
+it me,” he was struck dumb! He certainly thought
+I was lying, but could make no reply. And for a
+long time after that would hardly speak to me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Cricket I never took to much. Being a bad player
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>I voted it ‘slow.’ Probably it gave too much rope
+to my dreamy tendencies, and I got into trouble
+missing unexpected catches. But hockey and football
+I was fond of, and fives, as being more lively.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>When I was about thirteen an event important to
+us children happened, which I must not pass by. My
+parents determined to spend a year in France, and
+they actually transported the whole household, nine
+children (i.e. all except my brother Charlie) and
+two servants, to Versailles. I remember only too
+well that awful night journey by Newhaven and
+Dieppe, the raging sea, the arrival drenched, the
+dim lights of the Customhouse, the cries of lost
+children, the journey by train to Paris and onwards.
+How my mother survived it I do not know. We
+settled in a house in the Avenue de Sceaux, amid
+barracks, and continual fanfaronades and trampings
+of military, near the great Palace with its endless
+galleries, and the Park with its fountains and music.
+All very exciting and delightful. And we found
+some good and friendly French neighbours. At first
+they did not the least understand our household. It
+never occurred to them for a moment that it was all
+one family, and for some time it was supposed that
+my father and mother kept a school! But when the
+truth at last dawned upon them, their delight and
+amazement knew no bounds, and we became the
+centre of the greatest interest. I and my younger
+brother, Alfred, went as day-boys to school at the
+Lycée Hoche (then Imperiale)—a great place of five
+hundred boys—where we learned French by sheer
+necessity. I do not think we learned much else.
+In the matter of lessons the instruction was much on
+a par with that at the Brighton school, and the playground
+life and social organization of the boys were
+far less pregnant of good influences.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>I don’t know how the Lycées are now, but at that
+time the school methods were only poor. The boys
+sat an outrageously long time at their desks—ten
+hours a day or more—either construing or preparing
+lessons; but got through very little work, spending
+most of their time in furtive games or conversations
+with each other. Everything was done in set and
+military style—marchings along corridors from class-room
+to class-room, or from class-room to refectory,
+or from refectory to playground. In the latter a
+master (always called ‘pion’) was present to see
+that there was no bullying, or to disperse knots of
+boys (who might of course be talking sedition) or
+to prevent individuals approaching the playground
+wall within a set distance (lest they should escape).
+The games were limited and regulated. Everything
+was regulated. It was said that the Minister of
+Education at Paris could at any hour of the day
+place his finger on the line of Virgil that was being
+translated, or the proposition of Geometry that was
+being proved at that moment in all the Lycées alike
+over the face of the land. One very curious custom
+prevailed, which has probably now gone out of date,
+but which had a strong suggestion about it of the
+Church system of Indulgences. At the end of the
+week the marks gained by each boy during the week
+were added up and announced by the master. Then
+those boys who were credited with more than a
+certain number of marks were told they might write
+out for themselves a certificate of satisfaction, good
+for exemption from one, two, or even three hours’
+punishment, according to circumstances! Great excitement
+prevailed. You cut yourself a neat square
+of paper, adorned it with lines and flourishes, and
+inscribed on it “<span lang="fr">Témoignage de Satisfaction—Elève
+Carpenter—bonne à une heure</span>”—and left a space
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>at foot for the signature of the master. When signed
+you treasured this up in your desk—and at some
+later date when the hour of punishment came, produced
+it, and unless your crime was very heinous
+were duly let off! It was a curious arrangement,
+but one which had perhaps the advantage of discouraging
+a boy from being <i>too</i> good—since obviously
+it would be a mistake to collect a greater number
+of such tickets than you were likely to make use of.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My brother and I, as day-boys, escaped a good
+deal of the general school routine and regulation,
+and on the whole had not a bad time. The boys
+received us decently, and as we could play leap-frog
+or prisoners’ base (Les Barres) as well as any of
+them, paid us due respect; and one of the masters,
+Llandais by name, was quite kind and thoughtful
+towards me. Out of hours we careered through the
+woods of Satory, watched military evolutions on the
+plain above, or at dusk chased and caught the great
+stag-beetles—a thrilling joy. We wandered through
+the huge statue-adorned Park and the shady Bosquets
+of diamond-necklace celebrity, and learned
+swimming—as did also my sisters—in the fine open-air
+swimming bath, which used to be the bath of
+the pages of Louis XIV’s Court. After a year thus
+spent, the family returned to England, and we boys
+to the Brighton College.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As I say, it is probably a common experience that
+mere school teaching does not leave a very deep
+impression. Probably a good deal really <i>is</i> learned—but
+these are the more indirect things which slip
+into the background or foundation of the mind and
+character and so pass comparatively unobserved.
+Only three or four subjects of interest stand out
+in my memory as belonging to my school-days, and
+these all lay outside school proper. The earliest of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>these was music. At the age of ten I desired mightily
+to learn the piano; but music was not considered
+appropriate for a boy—besides there were six sisters
+who had to be taught, poor things, whether they
+liked it or not—and so my appearance on the music
+stool was treated rather as an intrusion, and I was
+generally hustled off again forthwith. However I
+got my way by playing late of an evening, when they
+were all upstairs in the drawing-room; I never
+had any regular teaching, but my mother took pity
+on me and taught me my notes; and from that time
+I stumbled through the “Marche des Croates” and
+the “Nun’s Prayer” till at last I emerged on the
+far borderland of Beethoven’s Sonatas. This hour
+of piano practice to myself was for a long time
+one of the chief events of my day. Indeed, it is
+curious, but I took to composing, or attempting to
+compose, music before ever I thought of composing
+or attempting to compose poetry. Of course with a
+juvenile mind, and no musical training, nor even a
+particularly keen ear, my compositions were of no
+value, and I hardly ever troubled to write them out;
+still the habit of making up pianoforte pieces, and
+the love of doing so, continued all my life, and forced
+its way out from time to time. It is only in quite
+late years that, with more technical knowledge, I
+have written some of these down—perhaps twelve or
+twenty in all—and even occasionally thought of
+printing them.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I was also fortunate enough, when I was about
+fifteen, to come in for the reversion of a cupboard
+full of chemical apparatus, which had belonged to
+my eldest brother, and here in a little room with
+retorts and test-tubes I spent many a half-holiday,
+carrying out important experiments and prosecuting
+valuable inventions, which ended almost invariably
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>in bad smells and worse headaches. Perpetual
+motion, as usual in such cases, was one of my chief
+objects; and I could not for the life of me tell why
+a solid cylinder of wood, placed with its axis horizontal
+in the side of a box containing water, and
+so carefully fitted that it would turn on its axis
+without allowing the water to run out, would not
+revolve perpetually—seeing indeed that the one half
+of it which was in the water, being lighter than
+water, would continually tend to rise, and the other
+half of it which was in the air would continually
+tend to fall. I invented an arrangement for the
+pianoforte after the Morse telegraphic system, by
+which extemporaneous effusions could be written
+down in the act of playing—an invention which
+luckily has not been generally adopted; and was
+engaged on various other little patents at different
+times. Sometimes I gave a lecture—though it must
+be confessed that it was with difficulty that any of
+the household could be induced to attend! The
+lecture was small, but the danger from explosions
+and horrible smells was great. My remarks were
+not very lucid or explanatory, but consisted mainly
+of expressions like “Now I will show you something
+else” or “You needn’t be frightened, there is no
+danger.” These investigations were however very
+absorbing and excited far more interest in my mind
+than anything I learned at school; and I remember
+that they led me to think quite seriously about being
+a doctor (I suppose from some vague notion about
+the connection between chemicals and medicine)—a
+profession which my father was inclined to recommend
+to me, and which I have sometimes regretted
+that I did not adopt.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Towards the later part of my time at Brighton
+the natural <i>épanchement</i> of youth led me often to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>seek consolation and an escape from the wounds of
+daily life in intercourse with Nature. The Brighton
+social life—with its greetings where no kindness is—was
+to me chilly in the extreme, and I often used
+in later years to feel that I “caught cold” (morally
+speaking) whenever I returned to it. The scenery
+and surroundings of Brighton are also bare and
+chilly enough; and trees, whose friendly covert I
+have always loved, do not exist there; but the place
+has two Nature-elements in it—and these two singularly
+wild and untampered—the Sea and the Downs.
+We lived within two hundred yards of the sea, and
+its voice was in our ears night and day. On terrific
+stormy nights it was a “grisly joy” to go down
+to the water’s edge at 10 or 11 p.m.—pitchy darkness—feeling
+one’s way with feet or hands, over the
+stony beach, hardly able to stand for the wind—and
+to watch the white breakers suddenly leap out of
+the gulf close upon one—the “scream of the
+madden’d beach dragged down by the wave,” the
+booming of the wind, like distant guns, and the
+occasional light of some vessel laboring for its life
+in the surge.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But the Downs were my favorite refuge. On
+sunny days I would wander on over them for miles,
+not knowing very clearly where I was going—in a
+strange broody moony state—glad to find some hollow
+(like that described in Jefferies’ <cite>Story of my Heart</cite>)
+where one could lie secluded for any length of time
+and see only the clouds and the grasses and an occasional
+butterfly, or hear the distant bark of a dog
+or the far rumble of a railway train. The Downs
+twined themselves with all my thought and speculations
+of that time. Their chaste subdued gracious
+outlines and quiet colour have a peculiar charm.
+Their strongest line is generally some white edge
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>of cliffs or curve of the shore itself, their deepest
+tint the blue of the sea or occasionally a field of
+red clover or one overgrown with charlock. For
+the rest they wear the faint blue-green colour of thin
+turf through which the chalk almost shows. Over
+the velvety sward and among the fine herbage
+cropped by plentiful sheep run innumerable tiny
+flowers dwarfed by salt wind and scanty soil—thistles,
+whose chins rest on the ground out of which they
+grow; patches of sweet thyme which the wild bees
+love, of pink centaury and thrift and madder and
+dwarf-broom, and that sweet yellow lotus or bird’s-foot
+trefoil, which runs all over the world, in Siberia
+and Alps and Himalayas the same, one of the commonest
+and friendliest of all the flowers that grow.
+Overhead the lark sings, the clouds drift through
+the untampered blue, the bee and the butterfly sweep
+past on the breeze. Three or four miles from
+Brighton, and one is in a world remote from man.
+Except an occasional shepherd there is hardly a
+human to be seen. Here and there in a hollow
+nestles the tiniest hamlet—an old farmhouse, one or
+two cottages, a dwarf church faced with rough work
+of flints, a few trees and a well. Taking its character
+from the sky—as all chalk and limestone countries
+largely do—this land has an ethereal beauty
+in summer weather; but on wintry and gray days
+it is monotonous and sad. The shepherd then huddles
+himself in his cloak in the lee of the gorse-bush, the
+cloudy rack drives over the backs of his sheep, line
+behind line the Downs stretch, colorless, unbroken
+by any hint of tree or habitation; the wind whistles
+among the thin grass stems with a peculiar shrill
+and mournful pipe, and in its pauses the sullen and
+distant roar of the sea is heard.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>How can I describe, how shall I not recall, the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>thoughts which came to me as I wandered, towards
+the close of my school time, over these same hills—the
+brooding ill-defined, half-shapen thoughts? The
+Downs were my escape; even in their most chill and
+lonely moods they were my escape from a worse coldness
+and loneliness, which, except for a few boyfriends
+at school, I somehow experienced during all
+that time. Nature was more to me, I believe, than
+any human attachment, and the Downs were my
+Nature. It was among them at a later time that I
+first began to write a few verses. But at the time
+I mention, and till quite the end of my school days, I
+never wrote anything at all. If the thought of writing
+had occurred to me I should have deemed it, in my
+then state of mind, monstrous presumption—but I
+doubt whether the thought ever did occur to me.
+I did not even read poetry. Mozart and Beethoven
+were familiar to me, but I must have been eighteen
+years old before I was roused to any interest in
+Tennyson (the poet of the day) by a lecture at
+school on “In Memoriam.” After that I read “In
+Memoriam” and loved it well. This was followed
+(at Cambridge) by Wordsworth; and then by
+Shelley, who excited in me the same passionate
+attachment that he has excited in so many others.
+After that Whitman dominated me. I do not think
+any others of the poets—unless Plato should bear
+that name—have deeply influenced me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As to friends—that absorbing subject—I can trace
+the desire for a passionate attachment in my earliest
+boyhood. But the desire had no expression, no
+chance of expression. Such things as affection were
+never spoken about either at home or at school, and
+I naturally concluded that there was no room for
+them in the scheme of creation! The glutinous boyfriendships
+that one formed in class-room or playground
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>were of the usual type: they staved off a
+greater hunger, but they did not satisfy. On the
+other hand I worshipped the very ground on which
+some, generally elder, boys stood; they were heroes
+for whom I would have done anything. I dreamed
+about them at night, absorbed them with my eyes
+in the day, watched them at cricket, loved to press
+against them unnoticed in a football melly, or even
+to get accidentally hurt by one of them at hockey,
+was glad if they just spoke to me or smiled; but
+never got a word farther with it all. What could I
+say? Even to one of the masters, I remember, who
+was a little kind to me, I felt this unworded devotion;
+but he never helped me over the stile, and so I
+remained on the farther side.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I often think what a fund of romance, and of
+intense feeling, there is in this direction latent in
+so many boys and capable even of heroic expression—and
+how much will have to be done some day in
+the matter of directing and giving a constructive
+outlet to it. Already however there is a great difference
+in the tone of the public schools themselves on
+this subject, from what there was twenty-five or
+thirty years ago. The trouble in schools from bad
+sexual habits and frivolities arises greatly—though
+of course not altogether—from the suppression and
+misdirection of the natural emotions of boy-attachment.
+I, as a day boy, and one who happened to be
+rather pure-minded than otherwise, grew up quite
+free from these evils: though possibly it would have
+been a good thing if I had had a little more experience
+of them than I had. As it was, no elder person
+<i>ever</i> spoke to me about sexual matters—no mother,
+father, brother, monitor or master ever said a word.
+I picked up the usual information from the talk of
+my companions, and made up my own mind
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>unbiased by any person or book. I suppose it was in
+consequence of this that I never saw anything repellent
+or shameful in sexual acts themselves. From
+the earliest time when I thought about these things
+they seemed to me natural—like digestion or any
+other function—and I remember wondering why
+people made such a fuss about the mention of them—why
+they told lies rather than speak the truth, why
+they were shocked, or why they giggled and stuffed
+handkerchiefs in their mouths. It was not till (at
+the age of twenty-five) I read Whitman—and then
+with a great leap of joy—that I met with the treatment
+of sex which accorded with my own sentiments.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Nevertheless though these desires were never to
+me unclean, yet during all that time of later boyhood
+and early university life they were strangely discounted
+by that other desire of the heart. I could
+not think much of sex while the hunger of the
+heart was unsatisfied—and <i>that</i> for the time being
+occupied all the foreground of my life. Indeed at
+times it threatened to paralyse my mental and
+physical faculties. It was like an open wound continually
+bleeding. I felt starved and unfed, and
+unable to rest in the chilling contacts of ordinary
+life. As to the usual attractions set before the eyes
+of middle-class youth, the hopeless, helpless young
+ladyisms, or the bolder beauties of the gutter, they
+were both a detestable boredom to me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>For indeed the life, and with it the character, of
+the ordinary “young lady” of that period, and of
+the sixties generally, was tragic in its emptiness.
+The little household duties for women, encouraged
+in an earlier and simpler age, had now gone out of
+date, while the modern idea of work in the great
+world was not so much as thought of. In a place
+like Brighton there were hundreds, perhaps, of households,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>in which girls were growing up with but one
+idea in life, that of taking their “proper place in
+society.” A few meagre accomplishments—plentiful
+balls and dinner-parties, theatres and concerts—and
+to loaf up and down the parade, criticizing each
+other, were the means to bring about this desirable
+result! There was absolutely nothing else to do or
+live for. It is curious—but it shows the state of
+public opinion of that time—to think that my father,
+who was certainly quite advanced in his ideas, never
+for a moment contemplated that any of his daughters
+should learn professional work with a view to their
+living—and that in consequence he more than once
+drove himself quite ill with worry. Occasionally it
+happened that, after a restless night of anxiety over
+some failure among his investments, and of dread
+lest he should not be able at his death to leave the
+girls a competent income, he would come down to
+breakfast looking a picture of misery. After a time
+he would break out. “Ruin impended over the
+family,” securities were falling, dividends disappearing;
+there was only one conclusion—“the girls
+would have to go out as governesses.” Then silence
+and gloom would descend on the household. It
+was true; that was the only resource. There was
+only one profession possible for a middle-class woman—to
+be a governess—and to adopt that was to become
+a <i>pariah</i>. But in a little time affairs would brighten
+up again. Stocks went up, the domestic panic subsided;
+and dinner-parties and balls were resumed
+as usual.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As time went by, and I gradually got to know what
+life really meant, and to realize the situation, it used
+to make me intensely miserable to return home and
+see what was going on there. My parents of course
+were fully occupied, but for the rest there were six
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>or seven servants in the house, and my six sisters had
+absolutely nothing to do except dabble in paints
+and music as aforesaid, and wander aimlessly from
+room to room to see if by any chance “anything
+was going on.” Dusting, cooking, sewing, darning—all
+light household duties were already forestalled;
+there was no private garden, and if there had been
+it would have been “unladylike” to do anything
+in it; <i>every</i> girl could not find an absorbing interest
+in sol-fa or water-colours; athletics were not invented;
+every aspiration and outlet, except in the
+direction of dress and dancing, was blocked; and
+marriage, with the growing scarcity of men, was
+becoming every day less likely, or easy to compass.
+More than once girls of whom I least expected it
+told me that their lives were miserable “with nothing
+on earth to do.” Multiply this picture by thousands
+and hundreds of thousands all over the country, and
+it is easy to see how, when the causes of the misery
+were understood, it led to the powerful growth of
+the modern “Women’s Movement.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>During my school-days, however, this tragedy had,
+so far as our household was concerned, hardly developed
+itself, or at any rate become at all serious;
+and a charming recollection of that period is that
+of my companionship with two of my elder sisters.
+With one of these—my sister Ellen, afterwards Mrs.
+Hyett—I used to go long country walks. She had
+an eye for landscape and animal painting, and sometimes
+brought her sketch-book with her. Occasionally
+on hired hacks we rode together over the Downs.
+Her mind had an adventurous outdoor quality about
+it; and our conversation turned mainly on what we
+saw on our explorations, and on speculations about
+foreign lands. The other sister (Lizzie, afterwards
+Lady Daubeney) was never much of a walker; but
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>she stayed at home and played Beethoven’s Sonatas,
+and these were a continual delight to me. I stood
+quietly by and turned over the pages by the hour. The
+“Sonata Appassionata” was a dream of wonder.
+This sister had a highly poetic, sensitive temperament.
+When the younger ones of the family were children
+she told us absorbing fairy-tales. At the time I
+speak of she was the one in the household who gave
+to the atmosphere a touch of sympathy, tenderness
+and romance; which was of priceless value. As
+my mind expanded we even talked a little poetic
+philosophy together, and discussed Tennyson and
+Shakespeare.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My younger brother, Alfred, who was my schoolfellow
+at the Lycée at Versailles, went to the Brighton
+College with me (I joining for the second time)
+when the family returned to Brighton in 1858. But
+at an early age (fourteen) he joined the Navy, and
+after a preliminary year on board the <i>Britannia</i>
+training-ship, went away to sea. Consequently he
+was not so much at home during those early years.
+The sea-life suited him, I think. With a rather
+dare-devil temperament as a boy he was always
+getting into scrapes at school. [Once, I remember,
+he had the brilliant idea of lighting a fire in his
+locker in the schoolroom, and then sitting, all innocence,
+on the seat—until the crackling of sticks and
+the curling smoke drew all eyes that way, and he was
+discovered like the phœnix in apparent peril of being
+consumed!] In the Navy, at an early period, he
+distinguished himself by saving life under risky circumstances.
+In one case a man had fallen overboard
+at night in the Tagus from another ship, and in the
+darkness was being swept by the current seawards
+past the <i>Warrior</i>, on which ship my brother was—when
+the latter, who was on deck at the time, jumped
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>in to the rescue, at the same time calling to some
+of the bluejackets to man a boat and follow. Of
+course he and the drowning man were immediately
+lost to sight in the gloom, and when the boat did
+get under weigh it was only by his distant shouts
+that its crew could be guided. The two men had
+drifted half a mile or more before they were picked
+up; but it was not too late, and their rescue was
+safely effected. In another case off the Falkland
+Isles he swam to the rescue of an ordinary seaman
+under even more perilous conditions, and for this
+act gained the Albert medal—which may be called
+the V.C. of life-saving medals.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At a later period [1875–76] my brother Alfred was
+lieutenant on board H.M.S. <i>Challenger</i>, and it was
+under his management that the deepest sounding
+effected up to that period was taken. He obtained
+4,475 fathoms, or nearly 27,000 feet in the vicinity
+of the Ladrone Islands. After the <i>Challenger</i> he
+had several commands in China and elsewhere, including
+charge of the Marine Survey of India; and
+as commander of the <i>Investigator</i> he spent several
+years surveying and making charts of the coasts of
+India and the Andaman Islands. In 1885, in connection
+with the Burmese expedition against King
+Thebaw, the important duty was assigned to him of
+leading the War Flotilla up the river Irrawaddy.
+As an officer he was well liked, being considerate
+of the men under him, but firm in their management,
+and in moments of danger plucky and reliable.<a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c012'><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>In later years he published not a few papers on
+nautical and astronomical matters, and in 1915 a
+more popular illustrated handbook for travellers, entitled
+<cite>Nature Notes for Ocean Voyagers</cite> (Griffin, 5s.).</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Such, roughly summed together, are the main outlines
+of my early days—full after all of tenderest
+recollections. A large family is a roughish training
+school, but it is a valuable one. Over-sensitive and
+of a clinging disposition by nature, I early learned
+the profound lessons of suffering and of self-dependence.
+My spirit concentrated itself, and partially
+overcame its inherent vagueness and weakness in
+years of silence. The tension of those early days, the
+unexpressed hatred which I felt, though I did not
+understand it, for the social conditions in which I
+was born, was destined, when its meaning gradually
+realized itself in my consciousness, to become one
+of the great directing forces of my after life.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>II<br> MY PARENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>My father (born in 1797) had a curious early life.
+He came of a family which had lived in Cornwall
+(Launceston) for some generations. He was the
+eldest son—though he had three sisters—of an
+Admiral in the Navy, and appears to have taken to
+his father’s profession, when a boy, as a matter of
+course. He was not, however, at all suited to it, for
+he was of a rather studious temperament, and the
+rough life of the Navy of those days was probably
+very distasteful to him. He was in one or two
+skirmishes with the French off the American coast,
+and I remember his telling me of the painful feeling
+which he experienced once when being in a small
+boat and coming across some French sailors in
+another small boat he had to take aim and fire
+at them. To his relief, however, no one was hurt!</p>
+
+<div id='i039'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i039.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>MY FATHER: CHARLES CARPENTER.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>When he was twenty-three or twenty-four my father
+began to learn German and read philosophy in his
+spare hours, which did not look as though he were
+destined to remain long on board ship! As a matter
+of fact he left the Navy when he was about twenty-five.
+The bad climate of Trincomalee, where he was
+stationed for two years, damaged his health. He
+came to London and set about reading for the
+Chancery Bar. In due course he was called and for
+some years practised with success—so much so indeed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>that on his retirement he was greatly complimented
+by the presiding judge. In 1833 he married; and
+this it was which, curiously enough, led to his retirement
+from the Bar. For his father-in-law—Thomas
+Wilson—who had also been in the Navy, and who was
+then a widower, only consented to the marriage on
+condition that his daughter should remain at home,
+and that the married couple should therefore take
+up their abode at his house at Walthamstow. This
+they did, and the distance from London, a considerable
+matter in those days, combined perhaps
+with a little anxiety about my father’s health, which
+still remained unsatisfactory, brought about the abandonment
+of his profession—a great mistake as it
+appeared, for of course as soon as he lost his regular
+occupation he began to worry badly. Then, when
+Mr. Wilson died, in 1843, a move to Brighton (which
+just then was growing into importance, and yet
+retained some of its old-world character) was thought
+advisable, both for my father’s sake and for that
+of the little family which now had to be considered.
+But as far as my father was concerned this did not
+mend matters, and my mother has often told me that
+this was the worst period of their married life.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He got more and more anxious and restless—to
+a degree which seemed almost a danger to his mind—till
+at last my mother induced him to let himself be
+appointed magistrate and take his seat on the
+Brighton bench; after which his serenity returned,
+and he remained one of the most active and probably
+the most public spirited of the members of the
+Brighton and afterwards of the Hove magistracy till
+a year or two before his death. The death of his
+own father in 1846 freed him from any real cause
+for pecuniary anxiety—though from time to time all
+through his later life he was liable to fits of considerable
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>depression and nervousness about his monetary
+concerns. He settled down permanently at Brighton
+(No. 45 Brunswick Square) into the life of the
+respectable <i>rentier</i>, with its usual aims and ideals as
+far as his family was concerned, though for himself
+his aims were very different from those of the society
+round him, and his conception of life was as broad
+as it could well be upon the foundation of that particular
+social status to which he belonged.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>His early life in the Navy had given my father that
+honest, somewhat simple, cast of mind which belongs
+to sea-faring folk. He was always ready to be
+impressed by a tale of distress—especially if it came
+from the lips of one of the fair sex. At the same
+time his active brain had carried him far in most
+fields of thought. Though having a strong religious
+feeling, he soon emancipated himself from current
+orthodoxies in religion, and seldom in later life went
+to church—a fact which to the mild respectabilities
+around us was a sufficient justification for calling
+him an Atheist. For Frederick W. Robertson, who
+was then preaching at Brighton, and who not unfrequently
+came to our house, and for Frederick D.
+Maurice, however, he had a great admiration; and
+his own views were—as far as I remember what he
+said when I was a boy—a kind of Broad Church
+mysticism, derived at first from reading S. T.
+Coleridge (whom he had met occasionally in former
+years in London), and gradually broadening out under
+the influence of Eckhardt, Tauler, Kant, Fichte, Hegel
+and others into a religious and philosophic mysticism
+without much admixture of the Broad Church at all.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In politics he was a strong Liberal—indeed in
+his most active period a philosophic Radical of the
+Mill school, and gave strong support to Henry
+Fawcett during the time when the latter represented
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>Brighton. Though occasionally asked to stand himself
+he never as far as I know felt inclined to do so,
+and indeed a certain lack of glibness and difficulty
+of expression which he experienced always made him
+disinclined from taking part in any kind of public
+speechifying. In his quite latest years he veered
+round to the support of Beaconsfield’s Government;
+but this, if partly due to the reactionary tendency
+of old age, was also caused by his keen perception
+of the hypocrisy (unconscious or otherwise) of Gladstone,
+whom in the last few years of his life he never
+ceased to vilify.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Almost all general literature interested my father—especially
+works on natural history, travels, and
+science of any kind; but art and music were never
+much in his line. Any tale of heroism, or prodigy
+of science would bring ready tears to his eyes; and
+his love of reading—as in the case of his own father—lasted
+to the latest years of his life; for when he
+was over eighty years of age he would not unfrequently
+sit up till one or two in the morning, conning
+the last new book or running over favorite passages
+of his philosophical authors.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In a letter of his (written in ’73) I find the following
+passage: “Circumstances have been leading me
+to think a good deal lately about Instinct. I do not
+see how any distinction can be drawn between what we
+call Instinct in the lower animals—such as the insect
+when she deposits eggs and then brings to the place
+of deposit the food needful for the support of her
+offspring grub, and covering them up (eggs and food)
+together, flies away to perish—and that power in
+Plants that causes them to send forth their roots
+often to a great distance and in a special direction,
+in search of the material needful for their nutriment,
+the mineral perhaps without which they could not
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>live. This can only be understood, as it seems to
+me, upon the assumption of there being a Life, an
+intelligent Life, in the Plant or Insect, of which
+they are unconscious. Think of the Swallow going
+to Egypt perhaps, and then at proper season returning
+to its old nest under the eaves of some cottage in
+England. The possession of sense-organs, therefore,
+does not expel from the Bird or Fish this Intelligent
+Life within them, which orders their migrations,
+etc., but of which they are unconscious. And why
+should it be otherwise with man? That he should
+be conscious of this life will one day be his highest
+blessing.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And in another letter (of 1876): “Surely the true
+meaning of Nirvana is that at some future stage
+of our being man will be so conscious of the indwelling
+and inworking of Deity, that he will ascribe
+every movement, whether of his body or mind, to
+the One Will, the One <i>Vernunft</i>, the One Life, and
+thus think of himself as swallowed up by and
+absorbed, as it were, in that Being.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>These extracts will show what a priceless debt
+I owe to the early contact with his mind.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>How strange and far-back all that early life seems
+now—and yet so vivid—I can see it all in brightest
+detail! Of an evening, after dinner or supper, how
+we sat round the drawing-room table, or in scattered
+chairs, reading. My father would get out his Fichte
+or his Hartmann and soon become lost in their
+perusal. Occasionally he would, when he came to
+a striking passage, play a sort of devil’s tattoo with
+his fingers on the table, or, getting up, would walk
+to and fro quarter-deck fashion, with creaky boots,
+and reciting his authors to himself. Then my mother
+or perhaps my eldest sister would remonstrate, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>after a time he would settle down again. Sometimes
+if he was very quiet one might look up from one’s
+book and see from his upturned eyes and half-open
+lips that he had lapsed into inner communion and
+meditation.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>His was a very religious nature, and it was his
+habit to think of the divinity as clearly present—as
+he would say: “When I am taking my bath
+or even when I am breathing I say to myself, ‘This
+is God working within and around me.’” In later
+years, however, his liability to extreme worry and
+anxiety would return; and there were times when
+even his books failed to save him from the sleepless
+nights and despondent days occasioned by the
+failure or possible failure of some Stock Exchange
+speculation. At such times reports of railway companies,
+maps, gazetteers, newspaper cuttings, etc.,
+were got out and studied and restudied; I was called
+in to take part in the investigations (“put in the
+stocks” as I used to call it), and had to sit up till
+the small hours of the morning in attitudes of painful
+suspense and tension. The troubles, however, would
+pass away in due time, and on the whole my father
+was (owing chiefly to the care and thought he gave
+to them) very successful over his “investments.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The rest of the family spent the evening, as a
+rule, in reading—of which we were all fond. My
+sisters would play or sing a little; and when they
+ceased, the sound of the near sea would reassert itself,
+or the roaring of the wind in the chimney. My
+mother sat on a low chair, with a book on her knee
+and some knitting in her hands, but occasionally,
+tired with the work of the day, would drop asleep;
+at ten o’clock the servant brought up wine and
+biscuits, and shortly afterwards we would all—except
+my father—retire.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>Of my mother’s life how can I say anything?
+That which is so vital to one, so intimate, how can
+one disengage it from oneself? There was an
+unspoken tragedy in those beautiful gazelle-like eyes—the
+tragedy as of dumbness itself. The tender
+loving spirit which beamed forth from them never
+found direct utterance in this world. It was the look
+of a prisoner. Her mother was a Scotchwoman. A
+baneful parental influence—Scottish pride and puritanism—had
+rested on my mother’s young life, making
+all expression of tender feeling little short of a sin;
+and this reserve, inculcated in youth, became in later
+days involuntary and inevitable. My mother had a
+sister to whom she was much attached, but who had
+offended my grandmother by marrying a man who
+was considered undesirable. The sister was never
+forgiven, nor even acknowledged again. She died
+soon after her marriage; and her death, with all the
+accompanying circumstances, was a great blow to
+my mother; but of it—as of other things which
+touched her nearly—she would never speak.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Her nature was not so much intellectual or imaginative
+as practical and prompt to act, with a kingly
+sense of duty and courage. Her life was one long
+self-sacrifice—first to her parents, then to her husband
+and children. All day and much of the night, without
+haste and without rest, she went about the house
+attending to our young wants, to my father’s comfort,
+and to the organization of a large household—wearing
+herself daily to a thinner and slighter frame,
+which even in age seemed by this means to maintain
+its activity—till at last when her children were grown
+up, and her husband’s growing infirmities demanded
+the services of a trained nurse, there came upon
+her the grievous sense—not the less grievous because
+wholly unwarranted—that she was “no longer
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>of any use in the world.” Twice, I remember,
+she repeated these fatal words; and then, not long
+after, a brief attack of bronchitis parted easily the
+thread of life, already worn so fine. The manner of
+her death was as heroic as that of her life, with
+thought in lucid intervals for all around her, servants,
+and everybody in the house; and with closing smile,
+and words of calm, “All is as it should be.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>When my mother died (in January 1881) my
+father—who had been for the most part absorbed
+in business or philosophic speculations, and who had
+given indeed too little time to personal matters—suddenly
+became aware of the greatness of the loss
+he had sustained. He woke up from dreamland
+when it was too late. My mother’s silent and untiring
+forethought had unconsciously to himself been the
+great support and directing power of his life; and
+now he ceased not to say, “The mainspring is broken,
+the mainspring is broken.” His infirmities, which
+at eighty-three years of age were the natural ills
+of senile decay, rapidly gained upon him, and a year
+afterwards, in April 1882, he died and was laid in
+the same grave with her—in Hove cemetery, between
+the sea and the Downs, close to the little church to
+which, years before, we as children had trudged with
+these our parents every Sunday by the fields and footpaths
+which then separated the village of Hove from
+the growing West of Brighton.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My mother had very gracious manners, of gently-smiling
+dignity, yet her inflexible sense of truth and
+justice—inflexible especially as regards her own life
+and conduct—was easily apparent beneath the gentle
+exterior. Her ideas of social demarcation, etc., were
+of course of the old school; and she looked upon
+it quite as a duty to keep up a certain position in
+society—as the phrase is. Indeed, though much of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>the social life of Brighton was in reality irksome
+to her, I think that she never questioned the duty of
+conforming to it. But then—unlike many modern
+mistresses—she never questioned the duty of attending
+to the wants of dependents; and her care for the
+interests of the household servants, and others whom
+misfortune might bring to her door, was most unfailing
+and most sincere. The servants in fact were
+as a rule much devoted to her—though she was by
+no means lax in matters of discipline and daily
+superintendence.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>A great feature of my mother’s character was her
+love of animals, especially dogs and horses. Outdoor
+and garden occupations she was also fond of—and
+I believe her natural inclination would have led
+her to a rural life. But Brighton offered nothing in
+this direction—and here again the promptings of her
+nature were destined only to be thwarted.</p>
+<div id='i049'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i049.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>MY MOTHER: SOPHIA WILSON CARPENTER (ABOUT 1864).</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>III<br> CAMBRIDGE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>Between school and College days I went to Germany
+for some months. I was already nineteen when
+I left school, full old enough to go to College, but
+it did not seem to be decided what was to become
+of me. I inclined to go into Orders. Possibly my
+father, dreading this, thought Heidelberg would be
+an antidote! At any rate I could learn German
+there. So off I went, lodged with a professor and
+his Frau for five months, wandered through the woods
+and over the hills of Heidelberg, heard Bunsen and
+Kirchhoff lecture on Physics and Chemistry, attended
+the English church on Sundays, and ate sausages
+with the Professor and his friends on weekdays.
+An odd secluded life, seeing but little of the Germans
+and less of the English, what I chiefly remember
+of it is those long moony rambles through the woods—not
+very clearly thinking about anything that I
+can make out, but wondering, and just waiting—and
+every now and then chancing in some secluded
+glade or gorgeous sunset scene upon something that
+caught my breath and held me still. Indeed on one
+occasion I perpetrated some rhymes in German about
+the Neckar—the first verses that I ever wrote. The
+Professor and his wife chaffed me about my odd
+ways. I even wore a tall hat to the English church
+on Sundays! He argued with me about the Bible
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>and about the idiotic habits of my countrymen and
+women. I resisted his arguments, but secretly they
+touched me. Ultimately I gave up attending the
+church, and became so disgusted with my tall hat
+that when I returned to England I placed it in my
+carpet-bag! So I learned something besides German
+at Heidelberg.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then came Cambridge. When my father after
+some hesitation consented to let me go to Cambridge,
+and asked me which College I would prefer, I said
+“Trinity Hall,” and for my reason that it was a
+<i>gentlemanly</i> college. My father laughed, as he certainly
+was justified in doing—and I can only wonder
+now what sort of animal I was then. At any rate the
+answer shows that notwithstanding all my sufferings
+at Brighton I had not yet realized what was the true
+cause of them. There were however other reasons for
+my choice. One was that Romer, the last Senior
+Wrangler, was a “Hall” man; the other was that
+the same College was now Head of the River. Both
+events had brought Trinity Hall into notice.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>So thither I went, and found myself immediately
+in the thick of a boating set. The whole College
+was given up to boating. Not to row or help in the
+rowing in some way or other was rank apostasy. A
+few might read besides, and a few—a dozen or
+two at most—did so. I boated and talked boating
+slang; was made stroke of the second boat, and it
+went down several places; became Secretary of the
+Boat Club; and for two years wore out the seat of
+my breeches and the cuticle beneath with incessant
+aquatic service. At the end of that time I got sadly
+bored with the business, and gave it up. Indeed I
+was obliged to give it up; for reading pretty hard
+for my degree, as I was later on, the two strains
+together were too much, and my health was breaking
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>down. But so far perhaps boating had not been a
+bad thing. It was healthy exercise, and brought
+me in with healthy muscular companions who
+bothered their heads about no abstruse problems,
+and for the most part rarely read a book. Fives and
+rackets too occupied some of my time; but in athletic
+sports I was not so successful as I had been at school.
+At Brighton I had been a good high-jumper, having
+cleared 5 ft. 3 or 4, a good height in those days—but
+at Cambridge, probably owing to the relaxing
+quality of the air, I failed to make any mark. Thus,
+with games and wine parties and boat suppers, life
+slid easily onward.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Certainly nothing could be more unlike what I
+had expected. I had imagined a university where
+folk would talk Latin naturally and where I, lamely
+taught at school and late coming from loafing in
+Germany, would be an outcast and an object of contumely.
+I found myself at the end of the first term
+easily head of my year in the College examinations.
+Myself and another. He, Yate, was the son of a
+country doctor—keen on boating, but a fellow of
+some originality and thought as well and of singular
+gentleness and candour. A friendship sprang up between
+us; and for the next year or two we were
+always together. In examination honours (such as
+they were) we were quits, and it was sincerely I
+believe a matter of indifference to both of us which
+might win the prize. Then he fell ill of rheumatic
+fever, and ultimately died without taking his degree—my
+first experience of loss of this kind.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Other friends of this period were Ernest Gray—a
+very dear and affectionate creature who afterwards
+became the Vicar and very fatherly pastor of a
+country parish; Harry Spedding, son of Anthony
+Spedding of Bassenthwaite, and nephew of James
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>Spedding of Baconian fame; and Francis Hyett of
+Painswick, who afterwards became my brother-in-law.
+Harry Spedding was one of those extraordinary
+beings who though quite unable to row himself
+cherished an immense enthusiasm for boating. Long
+and thin and weak-chested, hard work in the boats
+would probably have been fatal to him, but on the
+banks, running beside the boats and cheering the
+crews in the races, his pluck and lively humour never
+failed. Hyett did not take to the river, but kept
+to racquets and his law-studies, and was really one
+of the few undergraduates who took any interest in
+political affairs. In later years he has done much
+administrative and literary work in connection with
+his own county.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In coming up to Cambridge it had never occurred
+to me at the outset to go in for an honour degree;
+my opinion of the university was too high for that.
+But after a term or two the tutor to my surprise
+seriously recommended me to read for the mathematical
+tripos. I was of course frightfully behindhand
+in my subjects, but I took a private ‘coach,’
+went through the routine of cram, and ultimately
+obtained a fellowship.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Mathematics interested me and I read them with
+a good deal of pleasure—but I have sometimes regretted
+that three years of my life should have been—as
+far as study was concerned—nearly entirely
+absorbed by so special and on the whole so unfruitful
+a subject. I think every boy (and girl)
+ought to learn some Geometry and Mechanics; without
+these the mind lacks form and definiteness, and
+its grip on the external world is not as strong as
+it should be; but the higher mathematics (certainly
+as they are read at Cambridge) are for the most part
+a mere gymnastic exercise unapplied to actual life
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>and facts, and easily liable to become unhealthy, as
+all such exercises are.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>After my degree, though retaining a certain general
+interest in the subject, I never again opened a mathematical
+book with the intention of seriously pursuing
+its study. I worked however at one time on
+“Taylor’s theorem” in the Differential Calculus, with
+the object of finding a simpler and more direct
+proof than Homersham Cox’s (the one usually
+adopted). But not being able to complete the proof,
+I handed it over to my friend Robert Muirhead, who
+has adopted and worked it to its conclusion in a
+contribution to the Proceedings of the Edinburgh
+Mathematical Society (Vol. 12, Session 1893–4).</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was just about this time of my degree (and
+curiously late) that my attention began to be turned
+towards literary production. I had won as an undergraduate—and
+to my surprise—two College prizes
+for English Essays (one, by the way, on Civilization);
+and shortly after my degree, in 1870, I was awarded
+a university prize (the Burney), £100, for an essay
+on “The Religious Influence of Art.” Meanwhile I
+kept scribbling, just for my own satisfaction, quantities
+of verse, very formless and incoherent—but
+which formed an outlet for my own feelings in the
+absence of any more tangible way of expressing them.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>How well I remember going down, as I so frequently
+did, alone to the riverside at night, amid
+the hushed reserve and quiet grace of the old College
+gardens, and pouring my little soul out to the silent
+trees and clouds and waters! I don’t know what
+kind of longing it was—something partly sexual,
+partly religious, and both, owing to my strangely
+slow-growing temperament, still very obscure and
+undefined; but anyhow it was something that
+brooded about and enveloped my life, and makes
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>those hours still stand out for me as the most pregnant
+of my then existence.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Here are some verses (written in ’68) which I give
+as a specimen of the kind of thought and the half-formed
+emotional atmosphere in which I brooded,
+as well as of their juvenile style.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>O pale and wan with watching, starless night!</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Far, far beyond thy cloudy banks</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Pass and repass in serried ranks</div>
+      <div class='line'>The flaming watchfires of the infinite—</div>
+      <div class='line'>Gliding and streaming through the realm of space</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>In breathless adoration round</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>The burning throne whose base profound</div>
+      <div class='line'>Knoweth no resting-place.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>To thy deep silence through the moving years</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Cometh no cry of misery,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>No sound of all the things that be,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Upborne from this dark field of feverish tears;</div>
+      <div class='line'>But all the myriad worlds thou dost enfold</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Move on before their Monarch hushed,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>And, looking forth, my soul is crushed</div>
+      <div class='line'>Beneath a weight untold.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>O great Humanity, that liest spread</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Beneath the gaze of the sleepless night,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Who is there who will dare to fight</div>
+      <div class='line'>To raise the tresses of thy drooping head?</div>
+      <div class='line'>Who cares through the immensity of suns?</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Which of the angels shall arise?</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Oh! heavy and dark the burden lies</div>
+      <div class='line'>On all thy noblest ones.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Far off the morning stars may shout and sing,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>For there is Love and Joy and Peace,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>And Life—true life that cannot cease—</div>
+      <div class='line'>But here the ghastly shuddering of Death’s wing.</div>
+      <div class='line'>And here faint whispers only come to die</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Upon the threshold of our hearts,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Voices at which the sad soul starts</div>
+      <div class='line'>With a half-uttered sigh.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>O hanging cloud, O scarcely stirring trees,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>O velvet waters moved to sound</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>By the gliding fishes’ bound,</div>
+      <div class='line'>O Willow, whispering to the fitful breeze,</div>
+      <div class='line'>O gentle touch of the sweet summer air,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>O solitary owl, alone,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Nursing thy joy in low weird tone</div>
+      <div class='line'>Within thy leafy lair!</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>O one and all, unveil! and let us see</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>The flaming soul of world-wide Love</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Burning behind you, far above,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Beneath, deep-fountained life, strange mystery!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Unveil! O night that washest Earth’s dark shore,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>O suns, through space that ever roll,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>O Love, clasping us body and soul</div>
+      <div class='line'>For evermore!</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Curiously enough, as it happened, I was practically
+offered a Fellowship before I took my degree.
+The College was in want of an assistant Lecturer.
+There were three clerical Fellowships (the others
+being connected with the Bar as a profession), and
+one of these clerical Fellowships had lately become
+vacant by Leslie Stephen, who held it, relinquishing
+his Orders. It was understood that I was going
+into the Church; it seemed probable that I should
+take a fair degree; and for the rest, who could be
+found so suitable—so mild, so docile, so decently
+mannered and generally unaggressive—as the young
+man in question! Accordingly one day the tutor
+(Henry Latham) sounded me on the subject. I
+conveyed to him that I had not changed my intention
+of being ordained, and that I rather liked the prospect
+of staying on at Cambridge in connection with
+the College; and it became practically understood
+that if things turned out favorably that should be
+my destiny.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>And things turned out accordingly. In the Mathematical
+Tripos of 1868 I came out tenth wrangler,
+which was a sufficiently high degree to justify a
+Fellowship at a small College; and in the autumn
+of that year I came into residence at Trinity Hall
+as a Lecturer; shortly afterwards I was elected to
+a clerical Fellowship; and in June ’69 I was
+ordained Deacon by the Bishop of Ely.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The story of my connection with the Church may
+be soon told. Brought up in the philosophical Broad
+Churchism of my father, with an ever-expanding
+horizon, my mind had at no time undergone any
+revulsion of feeling such as could be called a religious
+crisis; no sense of antagonism to the Church and
+its teachings had been developed. Though quite
+aware that my opinions were vastly different from
+those of the ordinary Churchman, I perhaps hardly
+appreciated <i>how</i> far I had drifted; and with an
+easy faith in progress, such as I had, it seemed to
+me that anyhow in a few years the Church, widening
+and growing from within, would become adapted to
+the times, and be a perfectly habitable and a useful
+institution.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As soon as I was ordained I had services in the
+College Chapel to read, and sermons to preach—with
+the usual accompaniment of winks and grins from
+the fellow-students, shufflings of hassocks, racings
+half-dressed through the prayers on winter mornings,
+with clicks of watches timing the performance, and
+all the gaping signs of unconcealed boredom; but I
+thought I would like to see something more satisfactory
+and more definite in the way of Church work than
+that, and accordingly took a curacy at St. Edward’s
+under a dry evangelical of the steel-knife and lemon-juice
+type, named Pearson.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>If I had nursed in my mind any sentiment of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>romance in connection with ecclesiastical affairs, it
+was soon expelled by these experiences. A peep
+behind the scenes was enough. The deadly Philistinism
+of a little provincial congregation; the tradesmen
+and shopkeepers in their sleek Sunday best;
+the petty vulgarities and hypocrisies; the discordant
+music of the choir; the ignoble scenes in the vestry
+and the resumed saintly expression on returning into
+the church; the hollow ring and the sour edge of
+the incumbent’s voice; and the fatuous faces upturned
+to receive the communion at the altar steps—all
+these were worse, considerably worse, than the
+undisguised heathenism of the chapel performance.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was not long before I began to have serious
+misgivings about the step I had taken. Still I did
+not torment myself; and when in the following June
+(1870) the time arrived for my ordination as a priest,
+I prepared myself quite philosophically to go through
+the ceremony.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But here an interesting hitch occurred. In the
+Bishop’s examination preparatory to the ordination,
+the candidates had among other things to write a
+Life of Abraham; and such was my optimistic confidence
+in the breadth of the episcopal mind that
+I quite candidly and without any particular misgiving
+committed to paper the view which I had picked up,
+I think from Bunsen the historian, and which is also
+adopted by Dean Stanley in his <i>Jewish Church</i>—that
+Abraham’s intended immolation of Isaac was a relic
+of Moloch-worship, and of the old practice of human
+sacrifices, and that the “voice of God” which bade
+him substitute the ram did indeed figure the evolution
+of the human conscience to a higher ideal of worship
+than that in vogue among savage nations. This
+paper, containing so dreadful a heresy, I sent up
+without a qualm! But on arriving myself some
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>days later at the Palace at Ely, the Bishop (Harold
+Browne) soon after the first greetings called me
+into his study and confronted me with the offending
+passage. At first I had some difficulty in understanding
+what the trouble was, but when the Bishop in
+grave tones began to remind me that the sacrifice
+of Isaac was a type—a type and a prefigurement of
+that greater sacrifice of Jesus, and that the whole
+Biblical scheme of salvation rested four-square upon
+this incident (not forgetting the ram), I immediately
+saw that the fat was in the fire, and that there
+was now no escaping a solemn discussion on the
+Atonement.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And to that it came. Our conversation, interrupted
+by dinner, was resumed again late in the evening;
+and when all the other clerics and candidates had
+gone to bed the reverend Father-in-God and I sat
+up till past twelve discussing all the main and side
+issues of Theology! On the latter he was easy
+enough. I told him plainly that I did not believe in
+the historical accuracy of the Old Testament; and
+he admitted that there were gaps! Even the Thirty-nine
+Articles were to be swallowed in the lump, and
+not in detail, so to speak. But on the Atonement the
+discussion narrowed. Here was a vital point. My
+views were woolly in outline, sadly blurred by the
+Broad Church mysticism of F. D. Maurice, and I
+confess I had some difficulty in formulating them.
+The Bishop merely shook his head, asked me to “say
+that again,” and declared that he could not understand.
+It ended by his requesting me to <i>write out</i>
+my doctrine; and going to bed himself he left me
+sitting up for a couple of hours more for this purpose!
+In the morning I handed him, before breakfast,
+my mystic script. After breakfast he once more
+called me into his study, said he had read the paper,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>that it was thoughtful and all that, but that he could
+not say that he really followed it, and that he was
+sure it was <i>not</i> the doctrine of the Church of England.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We were then within a few minutes of the commencement
+of the service. I took for granted that
+he would not ordain me; but after a pause he said
+“I cannot refuse to ordain you; but I do not think
+your views are those of the Church.” I think he
+hoped that <i>I</i> should then retire of my own accord.
+However I said nothing but took it all as settled in
+my favour, and in less than an hour the apostolic
+hands were on my head.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>After luncheon the good old man, not without a
+certain anxiety and <i>épanchement</i>, put his arm in
+mine and walked with me round the garden. I
+remember there was a chaffinch hopping about, and
+a longish discourse followed on creation and suffering
+and vicarious sacrifice, which I listened to with
+due deference; but it did not seem to me to lead to
+any conclusion; and soon the time came for us
+to leave the palace, and I saw him no more.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It may be imagined that I did not find my profession
+any more satisfactory after being made
+priest than before. He of the sour knife-edge, my
+superincumbent, left St. Edward’s, being translated
+into a canon of Carlisle, and was succeeded, curiously
+enough, by Maurice himself. That was I think early
+in 1871.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Of this transaction, by which F. D. Maurice
+became incumbent of St. Edward’s, it may be worth
+while to say a few words. Maurice had lately come
+to Cambridge as Professor of Moral Philosophy.
+As far as his moral worth was concerned, the choice
+was a good one. There was an ineffable personal
+charm about him, of moral earnestness and deep
+feeling, connecting itself somehow with his lofty
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>venerable head and extraordinary modesty. But of
+his philosophy perhaps the less said the better. He
+saw facts which doubtless it is impossible adequately
+to translate into language. Certainly it was impossible
+for him. To see him struggling with the root-ideas
+which he was always trying, and vainly, to
+express, to see him perspiring with effort, tapping
+his forehead with his fingers, shutting his eyes, and
+still only framing broken sentences, was really touching.
+The net result among the students was, as I
+have hinted, one of personal devotion to him, but
+of utter bafflement as to his teaching. It is said that
+one student hearing that the great man was giving
+a course of lectures on the “I” (as he was), made
+his way down to the <i>Physiological</i> schools and after
+many inquiries finding that no lectures were being
+given on the <i>Eye</i>, came back again with the conclusion
+that the whole affair was a myth!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Well, Maurice having expressed a wish to take
+some practical “duty” in Cambridge, and the living
+of St. Edward’s falling vacant at that time, a movement
+was got up in the College to offer the living
+to him. The living was in the gift of the Fellows
+of Trinity Hall, and most of the Fellows were favorable
+to the proposal. But an unexpected difficulty
+arose in the person of the Master (Dr. Geldart).
+Not that the Master himself (who was an old sporting
+man, more than anything else) cared a button
+about the matter, but because his wife, Mrs. Geldart,
+was accustomed to attend St. Edward’s and fuss
+round the parson there, and <i>she</i> strongly disapproved
+of any one so heretical as Maurice occupying the
+pulpit!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I was a Fellow of the College at the time, and the
+scenes round the table as we discussed the knotty
+question were most amusing. The obvious embarrassment
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>of the old Master when the question arose as
+to <i>why</i> he thought Maurice so dangerous; his mysterious
+references to the opinions of other people (his
+wife) and his candid disavowal of any knowledge on
+these subjects himself; the guffaws of Henry Fawcett
+(then Professor of Political Economy and afterwards
+Postmaster-General) as he called for his chop and
+settled himself down to enjoy a scene to which his
+blindness was little drawback; the quips of H. D.
+Warr, one of the Fellows; the muttered blasphemies
+of our Dean (Hopkins), who couldn’t think why
+we wasted time “over such blasted nonsense”;
+the ingenious surmises of the barrister fellows
+generally as to what Maurice’s opinions might conceivably
+be; and the politic expediencies of the
+Tutor (Latham) who at last silenced the Master and
+his Missus by producing a letter from the Bishop of
+Carlisle (Goodwin) endorsing Maurice with a friendly
+pat on the back: all this was as good as a play.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Maurice was installed in the living early in 1871,
+and thenceforth read the services and prayed and
+preached, with that profundity of earnest innocence
+which was so characteristic of him, and which contrasted
+strangely with the manner of his election,
+and more strangely still with the cheap commercialism
+of his congregation.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Maurice had no great ear for music. The organist
+and choir of flat-singing shop-girls revelled in florid
+hymns about the “blood-of-the-Lamb.” Maurice
+besought me to alter this and induce them to sing
+again those fine old hymns like the “Old Hundredth.”
+A nice task for an amiable curate!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was curious that after having been brought up
+in and adopted Maurice’s views, I should now, having
+become his curate, feel so uncomfortable as I did.
+But so it was. I had had experience in the short
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>space of a year and a half, of three spiritual superiors—each
+in a sense more favorable than the last; and
+yet my sense of aggravation continually increased.
+I saw a good deal of Maurice. He was kindness
+itself. I opened out my difficulties to him; and
+he was I think troubled to find I could not reconcile
+myself to the position which <i>he</i> occupied apparently
+without difficulty. But to me his attitude was
+a growing wonder. I could quite understand his
+historical-philosophical view of the Creeds and the
+Old Testament, and that he could read into them a
+deep and necessary meaning, satisfactory to his own
+mind; I had in fact been already, long before,
+initiated into this Broad Church attitude by my
+father. But when it came to standing up oneself
+in church and reciting these documents to a congregation
+who (as one knew perfectly well) did not
+understand a word of them, and practically received
+them in their grossest sense and in a spirit of mere
+superstition, then I felt it <i>was</i> necessary to draw the
+line somewhere! It was not that I then, or at any
+time, made a trouble of the conformity of my own
+<i>views</i> with those of the Church; for I thought and
+I think now, that if a man feels he can do useful
+work, and congenial to himself, in that connection,
+he had better remain where he is until he is kicked
+out; and that seeing the variety of interpretations
+that Church doctrines are capable of, it is rather
+for the Church to decide whether <i>his</i> interpretations
+are within its pale, or not, than for him to do so.
+But the trouble to me was a practical one—namely
+the insuperable <i>feeling</i> of falsity and dislocation
+which I experienced, and which accompanied all
+my professional work from the reading of the services
+to the visiting of old women in their almshouses—who
+were, one could see, goaded on to hypocrisy by
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>the position in which they were placed—and who
+would hastily shuffle a Bible or prayer-book on to
+the table, when they saw the parson coming. This
+sense of falsity grew on me more and more till I felt
+the situation to be intolerable.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is remarkable—certainly I have found it so
+in my own life—how little its greater changes are
+one’s own choice, and in a sense, how much they are
+forced upon one by necessity—sometimes by an outward
+necessity, sometimes by an inner and necessary,
+though perhaps unconscious evolution of one’s own
+nature. No doubt I <i>thought</i> about this matter a
+great deal, argued to myself the question of my conformity
+to the Church, and the pros and cons of
+remaining in it—worried myself, passed sleepless
+nights—and felt generally unhinged over it; but
+all this conscious argument brought me no nearer
+to a decision. Deep below I felt that some sort of
+sheer necessity was driving me on. Sometimes when
+I was occupied with, and thinking about, quite other
+things, a kind of shiver would run down my back:
+“You’ve got to go, you’ve got to go,” and I felt
+as if I was being pushed to the edge of a steep
+place.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>For it was not altogether easy to face the situation.
+I was doing very well, in a pecuniary sense, at Cambridge,
+making with my Fellowship and small offices
+as lecturer, librarian, etc., £500 or £600 a year, and
+prospects good for the future; the abandonment of
+my Orders would probably mean the loss of my
+Fellowship, and possibly also that I should have to
+leave Cambridge altogether. And it did not seem
+quite reasonable to risk all this for what might after
+all be only a Quixotic fancy.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But blessed is Necessity which cuts all arguments
+short! By the middle of May 1871 I felt so ill and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>wretched that I <i>could</i> not stay on even a few weeks
+to the end of the term. I begged off my lectures,
+left Maurice to find another curate, and ran away!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Meanwhile other threads and clues of life were
+developing. Up to my degree (January ’68) I had
+lived singularly apart from any intellectual or literary
+circles. As an undergraduate my companions had
+mostly been boating men. After my degree however
+I came naturally into a more literary society,
+consisting partly of the younger Fellows of Colleges
+and partly of the more go-ahead students who had
+not yet taken their degrees. One or two of the
+more thoughtful undergrads of my own College also
+leaned towards me. I belonged to one or two little
+societies which used to meet and discuss literary or
+other topics. To one of these, which W. K. Clifford
+organized, I used, after I became a curate, to rush
+round on Sunday evenings after church—in time to
+take part in the reading of Mazzini’s <cite>Duty of Man</cite>;
+illustrated by a plentiful accompaniment of claret-cup
+and smoke! Clifford was a kind of Socratic presiding
+genius at these meetings—with his Satyr-like
+face, tender heart, wonderfully suggestive, paradoxical
+manner of conversation, and blasphemous
+treatment of the existing gods. He invented just
+at that time a kind of inverted Doxology which ran:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>O Father, Son and Holy Ghost—</div>
+      <div class='line'>We wonder which we hate the most.</div>
+      <div class='line'>Be Hell, which they prepared before,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Their dwelling now and evermore!</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c014'>and his influence, combined with that of Mazzini,
+was certainly part of my education at that period.
+If it had by any chance come to the Bishop’s ears
+that I attended these meetings there is little wonder
+about his hesitation to ordain me!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>There was another Cambridge heretic with whom
+I not unfrequently consorted—Lock of King’s—who
+certainly by his attainments and ability ought
+to have been made a Fellow of his College, but his
+views and the audacity with which he ventilated them
+proved a fatal obstacle. Having to write a ’Varsity
+prize-poem he sat up all the preceding night to do
+it, worked himself up into a kind of prophetic frenzy
+and managed under cover of a forecast of republican
+utopianism to introduce the lines:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Since they traded in holy things, and treated the people like beasts,</div>
+      <div class='line'>The priests shall be slain and the kings shall be drowned in the blood of the priests.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>I don’t feel so certain of the exact words of the first
+line as I do of the second, but I hope the author of
+both (who was then, of course, an undergraduate)
+will forgive my quotation of them. It is hardly to
+be wondered at that in those days he was <i>not</i> made
+a Fellow!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One of the undergraduates of my own College
+with whom I made quite a friendship at this time was
+Edward Anthony Beck. He came up to Cambridge,
+a poor student from the country district of Castle
+Rising in Norfolk, on the shores of the Wash—he
+also with his head full of rhymes and verses, which
+he had written since he was a boy of eight or ten,
+to the wonderment and delight of his widower father,
+who prophesied in no uncertain tone, a nook in Westminster
+Abbey for his poet son. Beck was a bright,
+capable fellow, with a slight stoop, and a stammer,
+and a good-humoured way of laughing at his own
+oddities. He took the University by surprise by
+carrying off, in his first year, the prize poem on
+Dante—having been fain, it is said, to work up the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>subject by reading Cary’s translation (which he could
+not afford to buy) on the bookstalls. Then he wrote
+another prize poem on Runnymede, which delighted
+him chiefly I think on account of a misprint which
+occurred in the printed copy. There was an eloquent
+passage in the poem, describing the sunrise of freedom
+in England, and something about the clouds
+heralding the approach of morning:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Streaks rosy-tinted vanward of the sun—</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c014'>which the printer, in a materialistic mood, altered
+into:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><i>Steaks</i> rosy-tinted vanward of the sun.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>These rosy-tinted steaks gave Beck, I believe, as
+much pleasure as he got from all the <i>kudos</i> of his
+poetic success. He worked away at Classics, took
+a good first-class, and ultimately became a fellow
+and tutor of the College. But his vein of poetic
+feeling and romance, possibly too soon ripe, ran
+itself out, and he never carried on this line of production
+or published anything. His mind, perhaps
+from the same cause, took on a slightly cynical
+cast; he lapsed into the ordinary channels of lecturing
+and coaching, then married and had a large
+family, and so gave himself up to the work-a-day
+routine of College life.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At the time I mention he and I chummed together
+a good deal—indeed there was a touch of romance in
+our attachment—we compared literary notes, went
+abroad together once or twice, and after he was
+made a Fellow, had rooms adjoining each other,
+and spent many and many an evening in common.
+He became a favorite in the general society of the
+younger dons and B.A.’s, on account of his brightness,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>naturalness and frankly avowed enjoyment of
+the good things of life.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As for myself, for a couple of years or so after
+my degree I entered with great zest into this
+academically intellectual existence—these chit-chat
+societies, these little supper parties, these lingerings
+over the wine in combination-room after dinner—where
+every subject in Heaven and Earth was discussed,
+with the university man’s perfect freedom of
+thought and utterance, but also with his perfect
+absence of practical knowledge or of intention to
+apply his theories to any practical issue. It was
+helpful no doubt especially as a solvent of old ideas
+and prejudices; but after a time it began to pall
+upon me and bore me. There was a vein of what
+might be called painful earnestness in my character.
+These talking machines were, many of them, very
+obnoxious to me. And then of what avail was the
+brain, when the heart demanded so much, and
+demanding was still unsatisfied?</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Looking back, I think with regard to this last-mentioned
+matter, that the fault was probably a
+good deal on my own side. Strong as had been
+two or three attachments of this and my earlier
+undergraduate period, and deeply as they had moved
+me (to a degree indeed which I should be almost
+ashamed to confess); yet for the most part, owing
+to my reserved habits, and the self-repressive education
+I had received—combined with the fatuities of
+public opinion—I consumed my own smoke, and did
+not give myself the utterance I ought to have given.
+By concealing myself I was unfair to my friends,
+and at the same time suffered torments which I need
+not have suffered.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As I have already said, during the time shortly
+after my degree I scribbled a great deal in verse
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>form merely as an outlet to my own feelings, and
+without much attention to conventionalities of style
+and rhythms—though of course along the ordinary
+lines of versification. But now came my introduction
+to the poet who was destined so deeply to influence
+my life. It was in the summer of ’68, I believe
+(though it may have been ’69), that one day H. D.
+Warr—one of the Fellows of Trinity Hall, and a
+very brilliant and amusing man—came into my room
+with a blue-covered book in his hands (William
+Rossetti’s edition of Whitman’s poems) only lately
+published, and said:—</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Carpenter, what do you think of this?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I took it from him, looked at it, was puzzled, and
+asked him what he thought of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Well,” he said, “I thought a good deal of it at
+first, but I don’t think I can stand any more of it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>With those words he left me; and I remember
+lying down then and there on the floor and for half
+an hour poring, pausing, wondering. I could not
+make the book out, but I knew at the end of that
+time that I intended to go on reading it. In a
+short time I bought a copy for myself, then I got
+<cite>Democratic Vistas</cite>, and later on (after three or four
+years) <cite>Leaves of Grass</cite> complete.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>From that time forward a profound change set
+in within me. I remember the long and beautiful
+summer nights, sometimes in the College garden
+by the riverside, sometimes sitting at my own window
+which itself overlooked a little old-fashioned garden
+enclosed by grey and crumbling walls; sometimes
+watching the silent and untroubled dawn; and feeling
+all the time that my life deep down was flowing
+out and away from the surroundings and traditions
+amid which I lived—a current of sympathy carrying
+it westward, across the Atlantic. I wrote to Whitman,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>obtained his books from him, and occasional
+postcardial responses. But outwardly, and on the
+surface, my life went on as usual.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>What made me cling to the little blue book from
+the beginning was largely the poems which celebrate
+comradeship. That thought, so near and personal
+to me, I had never before seen or heard fairly
+expressed; even in Plato and the Greek authors
+there had been something wanting (so I thought).
+If there had only been those few poems they would
+have been sufficient to hold me; but there were
+other pieces: there was “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,”
+“Out of the Rocked Cradle,” “President Lincoln’s
+Funeral Hymn,” and the prose Preface<a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c012'><sup>[3]</sup></a>—and then
+afterwards <cite>Democratic Vistas</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On the whole at that time I thought most, I
+believe, of the prose writings. <cite>Democratic Vistas</cite>
+was a mine of new thought. Both this and the
+little blue book I read over and over again, and
+still they were new. I had read a great deal of
+Wordsworth about the time of my degree; then
+Shelley captivated and held me for a long time;
+portions of Plato and of Shakespeare I had read
+repeatedly; but never had I found anything
+approaching these writings of Whitman’s for their
+inexhaustible quality and power of making one return
+to them.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Yet all this time, or for three or four years, I
+believe my interest in them was mainly intellectual—that
+is, they were producing an intellectual ferment
+in me, but I had not distinctly come into touch with
+the dominant individuality behind them, nor felt that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>they were reshaping my moral and artistic ideals.
+This is partly shown by the fact that I continued
+all these years, and up to ’74 or so, writing verse
+along the usual lines and upon the usual subjects.
+Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” and  Shelley’s
+“Adonais” and “Prometheus” still ruled my
+artistic and emotional conceptions; and withal,
+living as I was in an atmosphere of literary criticism
+and finesse, mere academic technique seemed to me
+a great matter, and I made great struggles to attain
+to it.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Though I was not particularly successful in these
+efforts towards the conventional in literature, yet I
+have no doubt they were very helpful in giving me
+some sort of training in the power of handling words
+and rhythmical forms—and it was a true instinct
+which led me through this instead of urging me to
+leap at once into the ocean of metrical freedom, so
+difficult to navigate with success. Anyhow so it was
+that while (in other things as well as in literature)
+my inner scarcely conscious nature was setting outwards
+in a swift current from the shores of conventionality,
+under the influence of its new genius, into
+deeps it little divined, my external self was still busy
+in a kind of backwater, and working hard if by
+any means it might attain to a creditable or even a
+possible existence in these channels!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But by ’71 and ’72 I began to feel that continued
+existence in my surroundings was becoming impossible
+to me. The tension and dislocation of my life
+was increasing, and I became aware that a crisis was
+approaching. In May of the former year I had taken
+a holiday and got away from Cambridge. In October
+I returned to my lecturing and College work, but not
+to the church duties; and all ’72 I continued on,
+going through the daily round—but in a torpid, perfunctory
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>manner—feeling probably that I ought to
+throw it all up, yet without the pluck to do so till I
+was fairly forced. By the end of ’72 I was obviously
+ill and incapacitated, and when I asked for leave of
+absence for a couple of terms it was readily granted—my
+own object in asking (so I put it to myself)
+being to get quite away and for long enough to be
+able to estimate my position and future action fairly
+and deliberately.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The year ’73 was an important one for me. Feeling
+shattered and exhausted, and with a big holiday
+before me, I determined to go to Italy. It was a
+new life and I may almost say inspiration. I spent
+two months in Rome, a month in the Bay of Naples,
+and a month at Florence. I was alone, still alone;
+but the healing influences of the air and the sunshine
+were upon me. Amid the bright external life of the
+day, and the rich records and suggestions of the
+past, all the questions which had been tormenting
+me faded away. I <i>thought</i> about them no more; but
+new elements came into my life which decided them
+for me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The Greek sculpture had a deep effect. The other
+things, pictures, architecture, etc., interested me much
+from an historical or æsthetic point of view; but
+this had something more, a germinative influence on
+my mind, which adding itself to and corroborating
+the effect of Whitman’s poetry, left with me as it were
+the seed of new conceptions of life. The marvellous
+beauty and cleanliness of the human body as presented
+by the Greek mind, the way in which the
+noblest passions of the soul—the tender pitying love
+of Diana for Endymion, the haughty inspiration of
+Juno, the heroic endurance of the fallen warrior,
+the childlike gladness of the faun—were united and
+blended with the corporeal form—or rather scarcely
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>conceived of as separated from it; the emotional
+atmosphere which went with this, the Greek ideal of
+the free and gracious life of man at one with nature
+and the cosmos—so remote from the current ideals
+of commercialism and Christianity!—to become
+aware of all this in the midst of that “delicate
+air” and delightful landscape and climate of Italy,
+was indeed a new departure for me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>There are magnificent fragments of Greek sculpture
+in the British Museum, not forgetting the priceless
+frieze of the Parthenon—things which to a skilled
+artistic eye are as suggestive as any that can be
+found—but to me the great range and completeness
+of the Italian galleries, the almost perfect Cupids,
+fauns, Venuses, athletes, warriors, youths, maidens,
+sages, gods, in unending procession under that
+southern sky, gave a poetic impulse which I could
+not, at any rate at that time, have surmised from a
+broken marble seen in a London fog!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Nor must I omit, as part of the Greek impression,
+a visit to the Temples of Pæstum—which helped to
+give a habitation in the mind’s eye to those strings
+of sculptured figures, exiles in alien Rome, and to
+intensify the sense of harmonious life and divine
+proportion which they had excited.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I stayed in Italy long enough to see, at Florence,
+the fireflies skim and flicker over the blossoming
+wheat-fields of May and June, and then returned
+home, to find that without worrying about it a change
+had taken place in my mental attitude which would
+make my return to the Cambridge life impossible.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>And here I must not omit to mention another
+influence which played a large part in the shaping
+of my life at this time. Most men own a deep debt
+to women’s influence in the ordering and guidance
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>of their lives. I cannot say that I have felt this.
+With the exception of my mother and one other
+person, I cannot remember a single case in which
+a woman came to me as a strong motive-force or
+inspiration, or as a help or a guide in doubt or
+difficulty. Perhaps on the emotional side women did
+not supply what I needed; while on the intellectual
+side a woman with decisive, originative, authentic
+mind is certainly not often to be met with. Such a
+woman, however, of the latter type, was the person
+to whom I allude, and whom I may call Olivia
+(which indeed was one of her Christian names).</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>She was a connection by marriage with one of my
+sisters, a woman about fifty, still retaining traces of
+an exceedingly handsome youth. Married, but separated
+from her husband; artistic to the finger-tips;
+brought up in Italy, and loving the South; hating
+everything British and Philistine and commercial;
+detesting the Bible and religion; she had fought her
+way through social odium and disability, and then
+through severe illness and suffering, till she was but
+the wreck (she used to say) of her former self.
+Nevertheless a remarkable fire and enthusiasm still
+survived in her, and though one of those natures who
+see everything rather violently black or white, yet
+the decisive artistic quality of her mind was most
+refreshing and inspiring. I have given some general
+account founded on her life and character in a separate
+sketch.<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c012'><sup>[4]</sup></a> Sufficient to say here that her conversations
+on literature and art, her criticisms of art work (and
+of my own efforts), her views on marriage, on religion—though
+we disagreed a thousand times and often
+saw things from opposite points—were most helpful to
+me. They served to liberate my mind, corrected in
+many respects the native vagueness of my thought,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>and certainly helped me greatly on the road to choose
+my own way in life. I find a scrap of a letter from
+her, written during this period of my suffering and
+doubt as to my continuance at Cambridge and in
+the Church: “I ought not to write this morning,
+<i>caro mio</i>, I am too depressed. It is terrible to me
+to know how you suffer. Your letter last night made
+me cold to the finger-ends. One thing is clear anyhow,
+your present life is intolerable, <i>change it you
+must</i>.... When you get away from the depressing
+influence of your present life with all its worries you
+will breathe and clap your hands and thank God!”
+It is needless to say that my move to Italy and my
+preparations for abandoning Orders were things truly
+after her own heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And now for the first time I seriously entertained
+the idea of taking to literature as a profession. I
+saw that my Cambridge career was at an end, and
+that I must do something else; and for a time
+(though only for a short time) it appeared to me
+that I might make a living by writing.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I believe I felt that I really had something to write,
+that I must write, though certainly my mind and purpose
+was only vague as yet; and as to the professional
+side of the question, though I realized, I
+only partly realized, how difficult it would be to make
+writing of any kind ‘pay.’ There were plenty of
+‘candid friends’ however to impress <i>that</i> upon me,
+and I well remember the derisive chorus of the other
+Fellows which greeted (at some College meeting or
+other) the announcement of my intention! I stayed
+at home, at Brighton, during the summer and autumn
+and gathered my verses—those more careful and
+academic productions which I had perpetrated in
+the late years—together in a volume for publication.
+Of course no publisher would take the volume at
+his risk, and I was content, after a few efforts, to
+pay the piper myself for the pleasure of seeing the
+work in print, and on the chance of its leaping to
+a world-wide success! The book, under the title
+<cite>Narcissus, and other Poems</cite>, was published in
+November 1873, and needless to say fell practically
+dead—a few notices, mostly depreciatory, in the
+papers, a few copies bought by friends, and then it
+ceased to stir.</p>
+
+<div id='i078'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i078.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>MY SISTER LIZZIE.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>Nor was there any reason why it should stir.
+There was nothing of any moment in the book;
+only a vague sentiment of Nature and humanity
+running through, not definite enough at any point to
+carry weight; and really not so much of the author’s
+own self in it, as of his effort to reach a certain
+literary standard. Perhaps one of the best of the
+pieces, both in form and intention, was “The Artist
+to his Lady”: which I remember expressed in its
+indefinite way the dominant feeling which I had
+those last years, of being drawn away from my
+surroundings by another ideal than that which I
+could realize at Cambridge. Of the other pieces,
+“The Carpenter and the King”—an extract from
+an unfinished revolutionary drama of which the scene
+was laid in Austria and Italy in 1848—indicates a
+certain advance in political ideas and the germ of
+future developments; while “The Angel of Death
+and Life” contains in embryo some of the dominant
+conceptions of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It so happened that at the time of publication of
+<cite>Narcissus</cite>, in November ’73, I was at Cannes, in
+the South of France, whither I had gone with my
+sister Lizzie (to whom I was much attached) on
+account of her illness. I stayed two or three weeks,
+and then it became necessary for me to return home,
+in order to make preparations for and be present at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>our College Fellows’ meeting at Christmas. It had
+of course become quite imperative that I should make
+some distinct announcement of my intentions with
+regard to the future; and for my part I had now
+quite decided that I would relinquish my Orders,
+and go through the legal formalities of unfrocking
+myself. Sincerely I hoped that this would lead to
+my disappearance from Cambridge. If, before, I
+had recoiled from such a thought, the torpor and
+misery I had experienced since then had quite altered
+my point of view.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And in all this matter it was not by any means
+only the clerical difficulty that troubled me. As I
+have hinted before I had come to feel that the so-called
+intellectual life of the University was (to me
+at any rate) a fraud and a weariness. These everlasting
+discussions of theories which never came anywhere
+near actual life, this cheap philosophizing and
+ornamental cleverness, this endless book-learning, and
+the queer cynicism and boredom underlying—all impressed
+me with a sense of utter emptiness. The
+prospect of spending the rest of my life in that atmosphere
+terrified me; and as I had seemed to see
+already the vacuity and falsity of society life at
+Brighton, so in another form I seemed to see the
+same thing here.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And now it dawned upon me that my abandonment
+of Orders, instead of being a thing to be dreaded,
+would be my veritable deliverance, and would provide
+just that valid excuse for breaking with my
+old life, which otherwise might prove hard to find.
+When friends, relations, Fellows of the College, and
+others, were all urging upon me the folly of committing
+professional suicide, I felt that the argument
+of <i>conscience</i>—though not really to myself the final
+and convincing thing (since that was Necessity)—was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>one which I could make use of, and which I
+should <i>have</i> to make use of, since every one, whether
+I liked it or not, would credit me with it!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I therefore, to avoid all possible lapses or failures
+that might ensue if I left the matter over to a personal
+explanation at the College meeting, <i>wrote</i> beforehand
+to the Master of Trinity Hall, explaining that I had
+entirely made up my mind to formally relinquish my
+Orders, and placing my Fellowship in his hands, in
+accordance with what I supposed would be necessary
+under the circumstances. Then two or three weeks
+afterwards I followed in person to join in the Christmas
+festivities.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At that time, every year at the Christmas season,
+not only did all the Fellows assemble for the transaction
+of College business at our meetings, but there
+was a week of dinner-parties, with often fifty or sixty
+guests each evening (no women) and very serious
+junketings! This was, of course, in Commemoration
+of the Founder of the College—and with money partly
+left for the purpose. We sat down to dinner, a most
+extensive one, at six o’clock, which lasted, with the
+passing of the loving-cup and the serving of wine and
+dessert, till about eight; then we adjourned to the
+combination-room to take coffee and to chat for an
+hour; after which the elder men generally resolved
+themselves into whist parties, while the younger would
+retire in batches to college rooms in order to smoke
+and drink brandies and soda. Soon after ten <i>supper</i>
+was served; and returning to the combination-room
+one found a table spread with the traditional boar’s
+head, supplemented by oysters, game-pie, and other
+little delicacies. In order to stimulate the exhausted
+powers, bottled stout was found useful at this period.
+Some of the old hands did no scant justice to the
+supper; others remained at the whist tables. Finally
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>and as the <i><span lang="fr">coup de grâce</span></i>, about 11.30 hot milk punch
+and roast apples appeared!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was generally the duty of the younger Fellows
+to look after the ceremonies a little, to arrange the
+whist parties, invite the guests to supper, and ply
+them with meat and drink. I remember one evening,
+somewhat past midnight, finding the Mayor of Cambridge
+(who had been invited) by himself in a remote
+corner discussing a roast apple. I went and got
+a good big glass of milk-punch, and brought it him,
+saying, “Now, Mr. Mayor, I’m sure this will do you
+good”—but he waived it away, with a comical gesture,
+replying: “No, no more—I <i>can’t</i> drink any
+more, thank you; but this apple is delicious!”
+Shortly afterwards, leaning on my arm, he was to be
+seen carefully descending the stairs to his carriage.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My feelings at this particular Christmas were of
+rather a mixed kind. As to the Fellows they were
+berating me of one accord for my madness in writing
+to the Master and practically resigning my Fellowship
+before it was proved needful to do so; also for
+my supposed Quixotism in troubling about my Orders.
+As to the Dean, being of course in Orders himself
+he made short work of the difficulty: “It is all such
+tomfoolery,” he said, “that it doesn’t matter whether
+you say you believe in it, or whether you say you
+don’t. Look at my sermons in chapel now—are they
+not models of unaffected piety! You let the matter
+drop, and it will all blow over.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Among the Fellows and members of my own and
+other colleges with whom at that time I was often
+in contact were Henry Fawcett (afterwards Postmaster-General),
+Henry Latham (Tutor of Trinity
+Hall), Charles Wentworth Dilke, W. K. Clifford,
+George Darwin, Robert Romer (afterwards Lord
+Justice), Lumley Smith, Henry Fielding Dickens,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>Augustine Birrell, Edward Beck (present Master of
+Trinity Hall), and others of course. Most of these—though
+not all—did their best from their different
+points of view to dissuade me from the course I had
+embarked on; but I was not going to be dissuaded
+it was obvious to me that half-measures would be
+no good, and that if I wanted to make my escape
+from Cambridge I must throw the whole thing overboard;
+so underneath all the unpleasantness there
+was the secret satisfaction of feeling that unknown
+to everybody I was really going to gain a point
+instead of lose one!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>What kind of debates they had in College meeting
+over my case I don’t know, for of course I was not
+present, but it was conveyed to me that though there
+was a general wish that I should stay on as before,
+yet if I persisted in relinquishing my Orders, it would
+be doubtful if I could be asked to remain in the
+College—owing to the scandal of the thing! As to
+the question whether my relinquishment of Orders
+should involve the loss of my fellowship, that was
+adjourned for the present.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>So again next term I did not rejoin; but remained
+at home, at Brighton, occupied with another important
+literary project! <cite>Moses</cite>: a drama. Early one
+morning I had woken from sleep in the midst of a
+heavy thunderstorm, with an extraordinarily vivid
+conception (I don’t know how it came to be there) of
+Moses on the top of Sinai. Then and there I wrote
+out a long soliloquy (Act II. Sc. 1), which now insisted
+on expanding itself into a considerable poem in
+dramatic form—the ruling idea being to take the
+Bible story, treat it in a rationalistic way, as an
+obscure tradition of an actual event, and to show
+Moses as a noble but entirely human reformer, embarrassed
+in his great enterprise more by the apathy,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>stupidity and superstition of the people he desired
+to save than by anything else.<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c012'><sup>[5]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Meanwhile through solicitors I set the ecclesiastical
+law in operation with a view to my unfrockment.
+The process takes six months for its completion.
+It was not necessary for me to see my Bishop again;
+but I had one or two gravely regretful letters from
+him. I spent the ‘Long’ at Cambridge—July and
+August—the last ‘Long’ that I spent there; and
+during that time received the legal document which
+rendered me once again a layman.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>These summer vacations spent at Cambridge were
+the part of my university life that—even from my
+undergraduate days—I had most enjoyed. Chapels
+and lectures were in abeyance, the monotonous
+tyranny of boating-practice and training was unknown;
+a few students only were up, perhaps twenty
+or so at our College—but these would be the more
+intelligent and congenial spirits. During the long
+morning from nine to two one got through a lot of
+reading unhindered by lectures and other interruptions;
+then came afternoons canoeing up the river,
+two or three together, in the dreamy sheen of the
+water and the overhanging willows, or through beds
+of iris; or bathing; or playing fives or rackets; or
+walking the country lanes, or sitting long on some
+turfy bank with a friend. Sometimes we would make
+quite a party and go, a fleet of canoes, with provisions,
+far up the river and not return till dark.
+Then as a rule there were two or three hours more
+work in the evening, though sometimes this was
+broken through by some little entertainment.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>What a curious romance ran through all that life—and
+yet on the whole, with few exceptions, how
+strangely unspoken it was and unexpressed! This
+succession of athletic and even beautiful faces and
+figures, what a strange magnetism they had for me,
+and yet all the while how insurmountable for the
+most part was the barrier between! It was as if
+a magic flame dwelt within one, burning, burning,
+which one could not put out, and yet whose existence
+one might on no account reveal.<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c012'><sup>[6]</sup></a> How the walks
+under the avenues of trees at night, and by the riversides,
+were haunted full of visionary forms for
+which in the actual daylight world there seemed no
+place!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Yet as time went on I think it must have become
+clearer to me that Cambridge never would afford in
+this direction the actual that I wanted. Expectation
+grew dry at the fount, and torpor and distress in the
+last year or two took the place of the romance of the
+years before. Somehow I think I must have dimly
+understood that the trouble arose partly from a deep
+want of sympathy between myself and the whole
+mental attitude, mode of life, and ideals of the university,
+and of the gilded or silvered youth who lived
+and moved within it; for I remember that on the
+memorable journey from Cannes homewards, when I
+was revolving the whole situation—the abandonment
+of my Orders and Fellowship, the failure (as it
+already appeared) of my first literary venture, and
+the doubt of what I should or <i>could</i> do in the future,
+it suddenly flashed upon me, with a vibration through
+my whole body, that I would and must somehow go
+and make my life with the mass of the people and
+the manual workers.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was in pursuance of this last idea that shortly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>after the eventful College meeting above mentioned
+I went to see James Stuart at Trinity, who was just
+then organizing the first outlines of the University
+Extension Lecturing Scheme, and asked him if he
+could find me a place on it. He agreed to do so;
+and suggested that I should take the subject of
+Astronomy. I consented, and shortly after was
+appointed to begin a course of Lectures (in October
+1874) at Leeds, Halifax and Skipton.</p>
+
+<div id='i079'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i079.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SELF, IN ABOUT 1875</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>IV<br> UNIVERSITY EXTENSION AND NORTHERN TOWNS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>I sometimes think myself singularly fortunate in
+the way in which my dreams of life (the wildest and
+most unlikely) have from time to time been realized;
+but in this connection I have noticed two things that
+have generally happened—one is that the new life-purpose
+would come, to begin with, with great force,
+making me believe it was going to be realized at
+once, and that then it would seem to fail and almost
+be abandoned, and then again, some years after, it
+<i>would</i> be realized. The second thing is (and this
+is in accordance with the general law of the “cussedness
+of things”) that just in the moment of the
+realization of the first endeavour, <i>another</i> ideal would
+make itself felt, which would in some degree supersede
+the former.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It had come on me with great force that I would
+go and throw in my lot with the mass-people and
+the manual workers. I took up the University
+Extension work perhaps chiefly because it seemed
+to promise this result. As a matter of fact it merely
+brought me into the life of the commercial classes;
+and for seven years I served—instead of the Rachel
+of my heart’s desire—a Leah to whom I was not
+greatly attached. Nevertheless this period was of
+interest and useful to me. I had never been in the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>Northern Towns. I was profoundly ignorant of commercial
+life. The manners, customs, ideas, ideals,
+the types of people, the trades, manufactures, the
+dominance of Dissent, the comparative weakness of
+the Established Church, the absence of art, literature
+and science, the dirt of the towns, the rough heartiness
+and hospitality—all formed a strange contrast
+to Cambridge and Brighton.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I spent the two winters ’74–’75 and ’75–’76 at
+Leeds—lecturing there, and at Halifax and Skipton—living
+in Leeds, in lodgings—and seeing a good
+deal of the people (mostly ladies) who were actively
+engaged in promoting the Extension lectures. My
+subject was Astronomy. It was a curious subject
+for these towns where seldom a star could be seen.
+As far as the heavens were witness I might have told
+any fables. My own knowledge was derived almost
+entirely from books, and my pupils’ knowledge was
+practically limited to books. Occasionally I used
+to drag an evening class onto Woodhouse Moor, at
+Leeds, to look at the actual subjects of our discussions,
+but the latter generally withdrew themselves
+from observation! I don’t know whether this kind
+of learning was of much use; but it was on the
+same lines as most modern learning. I think the
+study of books educates the constructive imagination—and
+teaches people to figure to themselves things
+and situations they have never seen. That is perhaps
+the chief use of it. The bulk of the pupils at this
+time and during my later connection with the University
+Extension were of the “young lady” class.
+These were the main support of the movement, and
+they might be said to fall into three groups—namely,
+the best scholars from girls’ schools, especially some
+very intelligent ones from the Friends’ Schools; girls
+living at home and having nothing particular to do;
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>and elder women in the same plight. These formed
+the great majority of the afternoon classes, and a
+considerable fraction of the evening classes; the
+remainder being elderly clerks and a few extra-intelligent
+young men, and a very small sprinkling
+of manual workers.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Though for the most part incapable of any mathematical
+processes, I found my students open to simple
+geometrical reasoning and consequently able to follow
+a great deal of formal Astronomy. They took a real
+interest in the work, which carried them on and which
+made the teaching a pleasure—a great pleasure in
+comparison with my experience of the tuition of
+“poll” men at Cambridge, whose dulness and
+distaste for their work were crushing.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The modern Women’s Movement was just beginning
+to take shape at that time. And there was
+at Leeds three women—all remarkable characters in
+their way—who were very much in evidence in connection
+with the University Extension. They were
+Miss Lucy Wilson, Miss Heaton, and Miss Theodosia
+Marshall. Miss Wilson was Local Secretary to the
+University Extension; Miss Heaton and Miss
+Marshall both aspired after the dignity and influence
+of the position. As may be imagined there
+was no love lost between the three, and the cabals
+and conflicts were unending and most amusing. At
+one time there were two other lecturers from Cambridge
+living in Leeds besides myself, namely H. S.
+Foxwell (of St. John’s, Cambridge) and E. S.
+Thompson (of Christ’s). We used to meet every
+day for dinner at each other’s lodgings and had no
+end of fun comparing notes of local scandal. Coming
+from a distance and being in the position in which
+we were, we were naturally the recipients of confidences
+from all sides. The three ladies were constantly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>asking one or other of us out to <i><span lang="fr">tête-à-tête</span></i>
+breakfasts, lunches, or afternoon teas—pouring out
+their grievances against one another, and drawing us
+into deadly plots. These we duly compared—not
+without hatching comical counterplots of our own.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But Miss Wilson was not to be dislodged; she
+was firm in her seat. Extremely good-looking and
+capable, and a good organizer, she yet had two
+defects. Like many “advanced” women she was
+very <i>doctrinaire</i>; and having swallowed a principle
+(like a poker) would remain absolutely unbending
+and unyielding; and, in the second place, she hated
+men. On one occasion she got up a “Women’s
+Rights” Meeting in Leeds. It was one of the first
+of these meetings—certainly the first I had been to.
+It was well attended—by women; Miss Wilson made
+a clever speech, full of keen thrusts at the male
+portion of mankind. I dare say it was well deserved.
+It was very slashing. There were a few of us “lower
+animals” huddled near the door. At some final
+witticism there was a yell of applause. We shut
+our eyes, assured that our last hour had come—but
+were ultimately spared for another day.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On another occasion a rather amusing thing happened.
+One of the lecturers—not either of those
+already mentioned, but one living at Halifax though
+also lecturing in Leeds—got himself engaged to be
+married. This in itself was perhaps an offence to
+Miss Wilson. But what was worse—and certainly
+foolish of the young man—he went and fixed his
+wedding (in the South of England) for a date in
+the middle of the term, and then asked leave to miss
+a lecture in order to attend it! Of course Miss
+Wilson refused. Then in a day or two he wrote
+again. The affair was very pressing, he said, and he
+must go. Miss Wilson called her committee together.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>They were inclined to yield to the over-hasty marriage
+arrangement—foreseeing no doubt that it was inevitable.
+But Miss Wilson was absolute. <i>She</i> would
+not yield—a great principle was at stake. “What
+if all lecturers,” etc. Of course her word prevailed,
+and a refusal was sent. Then the inevitable happened.
+The fellow went off without leave, only
+leaving <i>me</i>, poor unfortunate! to <i>read</i> his lecture
+to his gently smiling class. After that there was a
+scene between me and Miss Wilson on which the
+curtain had better be drawn! “What business had
+I to give my services and help to the rebellious
+lecturer?” etc. Sufficient to say that we both survived
+it, and were quite good friends afterwards.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On the whole it was an interesting time. It was
+at Leeds that I came to know the three sisters Ford
+of Adel Grange, whose friendship I have valued
+ever since; and it was at Leeds that I resumed
+acquaintance, to deepen into intimacy, with C. G.
+Oates, of Meanwood Side—a companion of Cambridge
+days. But my health was not of the best—a
+certain overstrain and tension of the nerves, dating
+from Cambridge worries, and carried on and increased
+by other causes, was continually pulling me
+down, and rendering my life at times quite painful.
+It was at this time too that my brother Charlie died
+in India (March 1876) quite suddenly, as I have
+already explained, through a fall from his horse. He
+was just, as it happened, on his way home on furlough
+after a long absence, and the shock to my
+mother and those at home was very great. And
+even I—though I had seen comparatively little of
+him—felt it a good deal.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In September 1876 my lecturing beat was changed
+from the Leeds district to Nottingham, York and
+Hull. I lodged at Nottingham (with a fatuous landlady)
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>for that term and rather enjoyed the brighter
+air of Nottingham and brighter spirits of the people,
+after Leeds. The Casey family with their simple
+rather foreign habits (Mrs. Casey half-English, half-German,
+Mr. Casey half-Irish, half-French) were my
+chief refuge during that and later visits to Nottingham.
+To my Astronomy course, I added Light and
+Sound. The limelight lantern became my companion,
+and experiments—though they increased the labour
+of preparation—made the lectures easier and more
+successful. By nature an abominably bad speaker,
+I had at first found lecturing extremely difficult and
+a great strain. My nervous disorganization increased
+the difficulty. Words would not come. I suffered;
+and if possible my audiences suffered more! But
+by degrees, by very slow degrees, I improved; practice
+and hard work over my notes in preparation made
+a vocabulary more ready to my tongue; and at last,
+by about the end of my seven years, I could get
+through an hour’s talk without absolutely disgracing
+myself!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In this connection I may tell a story. One term
+(a little later on, I think) I was lecturing at Barnsley.
+The place was a little local theatre, unused at the
+time; but about the middle of the term it was taken
+by a traveling company, and we had to move into
+another building. The last evening of our occupation,
+some scenery was already up, and I, having
+affixed my star diagrams to the shifts and side-scenes,
+was lecturing from the stage when a belated
+stranger, a rough navvy or collier—no doubt attracted
+by the theatrical bills already out—came stumping
+down the middle gangway and ultimately dropped
+into a seat. He remained quiet for a good time;
+and then—his patience fairly giving out—he rose
+up and spoke. “Look ‘ere,” he said, “I’ve been
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>sittin’ ‘ere ’alf an hour—and I haven’t understood
+a <i>word</i> of what you’ve been saying, <i>and I don’t
+believe you do neither</i>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I felt for the poor man—I deeply sympathized.
+He had come in no doubt on the expectation of a
+theatrical treat—got in too without paying at the
+door, which was <i>nuts</i>, as they say—and now—what
+had he come to?</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>There was a scene. Everybody jumped round on
+their seats. The local Secretary—a tiny little man,
+a Frenchman, a dentist—approached the bold
+stranger.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“You must sit down,” he said.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“<i>Shan’t</i> sit down!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Den you must go out of de room.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“<i>Shan’t</i> go out of the room.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Den I shall have to <i>make</i> you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The situation was too ludicrous—this tiny Gallic
+David and this huge and beery Goliath! What
+might have happened we know not. Fortunately
+the stranger took the better part, and said—</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“I’m sure I don’t want to stay ’ere any longer”—and
+left us with contempt to our Astronomy.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In the Spring term, January to April, 1877, I
+lodged at York—again an improvement in climate.
+The lectures there were largely supported by
+Unitarian, Quaker, and other dissenting groups
+flourishing in the very shadow of the Cathedral.
+There were the Spences, the Smithsons, the Wilkinsons,
+and the excellent ‘Mount’ school (‘Friends’)
+managed by Miss Rous—whose girls were good pupils
+and great chums of mine.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>In the end of April that year I went out to
+America. This was the accomplishment of a long-slumbering
+intention. Ever since, in my rooms at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>Cambridge, I had read that little blue book of
+Whitman, his writings had been my companions, and
+had been working a revolution within me—at first
+an intellectual revolution merely—but by degrees the
+wonderful personality behind them, glowing through
+here and there, became more and more real and
+living, and suffusing itself throughout rendered them
+transparent to my understanding.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I began in fact to realize that, above all else, I
+had come in contact with a great Man; not great
+thoughts, theories, views of life, but a great Individuality,
+a great Life. I began to see and realize
+correspondingly that ‘views’ and intellectual furniture
+generally were not the important thing I had
+before imagined; that character and the statement
+of Self, persistently, under diverse conditions were
+all-important; that the body in Man (and this the
+Greek statuary had helped me to realize), and the
+quality corresponding to body in all art and behaviour,
+was radiant in meaning and beautiful beyond
+words; and that the production of splendid men and
+women was the aim and only true aim of State-policy.
+By day and night the presence of this Friend, exhaled
+from his own book, had been with me—thus working,
+transforming, drawing me wonderfully to seek him.
+America too, the United States, began of necessity
+to compel my interest, and to form an additional
+attraction across the Atlantic. I wrote to Whitman
+more than once, and in 1876 obtained from him the
+complete (Centennial) Edition of his works published
+in that year. Indeed I made every preparation
+to go out to the States that summer, but circumstances
+rendered the voyage impossible.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>This year, however, 1877, gave me the long-desired
+opportunity. I have recorded in another place<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c012'><sup>[7]</sup></a> the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>main outlines of my visit to Whitman on this occasion,
+so on that subject I need not say anything further
+here, except that Whitman as a concrete personality
+entirely filled out and corroborated the conception of
+him which one had derived from reading <cite>Leaves of
+Grass</cite>. The Rev. W. H. Channing, who was then
+acting as Unitarian Minister at Leeds, insisted on
+giving me letters of introduction to various friends
+of his on that side—Emerson, O. W. Holmes, Russell
+Lowell, Charles Norton of Harvard and others—of
+which I made use. Emerson was very charming and
+friendly. I stayed one night at his house and dined
+with him and his wife and his daughter Ellen. His
+failure of memory for names was considerable, and
+at times painful, and there was the fixed look of age
+often in his eye; but otherwise he was active in
+body and full of fun and enjoyment of intellectual
+life. His eyes greyish-blue, the corners of his lips
+often drawn upward—altogether a wonderful bird-like
+look about his face, enhanced by his way of
+jerking his head forward—the look sometimes very
+straight and intense, then followed by a charming
+placid smile like moonlight on the sea. His domestic
+life seemed admirable. I took a turn in the garden
+with him in the afternoon and a drive afterwards—saw
+the ‘Minute Man’ and the ‘old Manse’ where
+his grandfather lived. Then in his library he talked
+much about books and authors—handling his books
+in a caressing loving way—and showed me his
+Upanishad translations, and his verses “If the red
+slayer thinks he slays,” etc. He expressed his admiration
+for Carlyle and Tennyson; his want of
+the same for Matthew Arnold; and his plain contempt
+of Lewes’ Life of Goethe. His conversation
+generally seemed very <i>literary</i> in character and I
+could not get him to express any views or ideas
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>about America’s place and progress. When I spoke
+of Walt Whitman he made an odd whinnying sound:
+“Well, I thought he had some merit at one time:
+there was a good deal of promise in the first edition—<i>burt</i>
+he is a wayward fanciful man. I saw him
+in New York and asked him to dine at my Hotel.
+He shouted for a ‘tin mug’ for his beer. Then
+he had a <i>noisy</i> fire engine society. And he took
+me there and was like a boy over it, as if there had
+never been such a thing before.” Emerson also
+took exception to Whitman’s metre.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>O. W. Holmes did not please me so well—a good-natured
+little spiteful creature, one might say, with
+shovel underlip and bright grey-blue eyes under a
+low brow, a dapper active man of seventy—his vanity
+qualified by geniality and humour. No ideas whatever
+about America. “As to Whitman, well, Lord
+Napier said <i>He</i> was the one thing that interested
+him in the States. And then Lord Houghton at
+dinner one day came plump out in his favour—but
+Willie Everett made such a fierce attack in reply that
+conversation was silenced.” And he knew that
+Rossetti and others in England thought much of
+him; but he could only say that in America he was
+not known. Then he told the story about him and
+Lowell and Longfellow sitting in judgment on Walt
+Whitman!<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c012'><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One of the men who interested me most in Boston
+neighborhood was Professor Benjamin Pierce—Astronomical
+Professor at Harvard—a fine capable
+man. We had a long talk on Astronomy, very helpful,
+and he gave me a fine set of drawings published
+by the Observatory.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One day at New York I met Bryant the poet. It
+was at his editorial office. Though eighty-four years
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>old he was walking down there daily and getting
+through much work. He was infirm and aged-looking
+of course, but still wonderfully active; forehead
+narrowing above, and high like a sort of promontory,
+straight brow, and eyes sunken but opening out on
+you occasionally, straight nose inclining to a hook,
+and high bridge, white hair like a thin fall of spray
+over neck, ears and mouth. A very literary person—and
+manners extremely undemonstrative, even unsympathetic.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But it was Whitman I came out to see, and he in
+interest and grandeur of personality out-towered
+them all.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The other thing that fascinated me in America
+was Niagara. I stayed there four days all alone,
+looking at the Falls all the time, <i>feeling</i> their earth-shaking
+roar under my feet by day and in bed at
+night, and watching that strange calm sentinel, that
+column of white spray which, like a great spirit,
+exhales itself into the immense height of the sky
+over the roaring gulf, and which, rainbow-tinted in
+the sun, or glistening mysterious in the moon by
+night, seems to overlook the land for far and wide
+around. It was the only thing I saw which seemed
+quite to match Whitman in spirit.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>For the rest the broad, free life—Washington, New
+York, Philadelphia, Boston, Albany, and the rivers
+and steamboats—the rough freedom and ease and
+independence—rougher and better a good deal than
+exists now—the hearty welcomes and general friendliness
+were pleasant and inspiring.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On my way down the Hudson I stopped at Esopus
+and stayed with John Burroughs a night or two.
+We took a long walk in the primitive woods back
+of his house, while he talked of Whitman and bird-lore—a
+tough reserved farmer-like exterior, some
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>old root out of the woods one might say—obdurate
+to wind and weather—but a keen quick observer close
+to Nature and the human heart, and worth a good
+many Holmes and Lowells.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I was alone all this time, and felt lonely, among
+all these people; but as it was the same in England
+there was nothing remarkable about it! I returned
+in July to my life of lodgings and lectures; and
+in September was put on another lecturing round—to
+Sheffield, Chesterfield, and part of the time York
+and Barnsley.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>This itinerant life in lodgings was a little dull
+and unfruitful it must be confessed; the only relief
+from the importunities of lodging-landladies being
+the futile hospitalities of commercial villa-dom. Both
+experiences however had their comic side. At Nottingham
+my landlady—a widow of course—used to
+aggravate me much, when I first came downstairs
+of a morning, by jumping out upon me from a side-door
+with “What’ll you have for dinner to-day?”
+This query, unannounced by any morning greeting
+or salutation, and flung at me <i>every day</i> even before
+I had had breakfast, was a complete poser. If I
+suggested anything, the suggestion was met by insuperable
+difficulties. <i>She</i> made no suggestions.
+And there we used to stand staring at each other
+in a kind of dismay which at that early hour in the
+morning was sadly demoralizing! On one occasion
+I wanted a box made—for some of my books—and
+I asked this foolish widow to recommend me a
+joiner for the purpose. She mentioned some man’s
+name; and I, to make sure, queried: “Is he a
+good workman? would he make a strong and serviceable
+article?” “He made my husband’s coffin,
+Sir,” she replied with an air of triumph! And once
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>more I was completely silenced—for I really could
+not ask whether it had lasted well or otherwise.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My first experiences of lodging in Sheffield were
+about equally bad. I took a lodging at the top end
+of Glossop Road. It was a good part of the town;
+but the weather was awful. For three successive
+days it rained blacks mingled with water! The sky
+was dark. Lamps had to be lighted indoors. Then
+my lodging-place people were most doleful—three
+timid little old maids, like bunnie-rabbits. No. 1,
+the youngest and most presentable, waited on me;
+No. 3 I never saw, she lived in the kitchen below;
+No. 2 haunted in the passage or on the stairs half-way
+between. No. 1 would come in and ask me
+what I would have for dinner. “Chop and potatoes,”
+I would say. Then she would put her head out of
+the door and say to the one in the passage “The
+gentleman says he will have chop and potatoes.”
+Then I could hear the one in the passage say to
+No. 3 in the kitchen “The gentleman says he will
+have chop and potatoes.” Then a sort of echo came
+up from below in a deep tone “Chop and potatoes.”
+Then No. 1 would begin again with the second
+course. “Rice pudding.” “The gentleman says
+he will have rice pudding.” And so it went on, also
+for three days, everything that I said was circulated
+round the house and echoed back again from below!
+It was too much. If this was Sheffield I could stand
+it no longer—and I fled away and took rooms at
+Chesterfield—dullest alas! of earthly places, but with
+a rather better climate.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Perhaps I rather liked the quietude of Chesterfield—where
+it was hardly necessary to know anybody.
+There were good country walks out towards
+the moors, and once or twice I got as far as Barlow,
+half-way to Millthorpe—of which place, needless to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>say, I had then never heard. I penetrated, during
+my stay in Chesterfield, into the cottage of a plasterer,
+a dear old man, S. Ashmore, and became familiar
+in his household—the only permanent alliance I made
+in Chesterfield.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The next winter—1878–9—I really did manage to
+settle in Sheffield, in Holland Terrace, Highfields—three
+old maids again for landladies!—but rather
+better conditions generally. I lectured at Nottingham
+and Hull and Chesterfield, so had a good deal
+of traveling, and added a new course of lectures—“Pioneers
+of Science”—which was popular on
+account of its more discursive character: a brief
+history of scientific progress illustrated by biographies
+of the great men. The courses on “Sound” and
+“Light” went on as well; also that on
+“Astronomy”—which last was a popular subject
+in Sheffield. <cite>Omne ignotum pro magnifico.</cite> The
+evening students were very enthusiastic. Many of
+them bought telescopes, and we had outdoor meetings
+at night, with all sorts of optical gear, for the purpose
+of observing the heavenly bodies. One elderly
+enthusiast was quite sure he had discovered a comet,
+and was not satisfied till he had written to Greenwich
+Observatory, and even then (seeing that they could
+not find it) he was not satisfied. The Sheffield
+students too formed a Students’ Association, and
+discussed subjects among themselves, organized
+excursions, and hunted up fresh pupils—all very
+good. From the first I was taken with the Sheffield
+people. Rough in the extreme, twenty or thirty
+years in date behind other towns, and very uneducated,
+there was yet a heartiness about them, not
+without shrewdness, which attracted me. I felt more
+inclined to take root here than in any of the Northern
+towns where I had been.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>But during all this lecturing period my health
+had been bad, and getting worse instead of better;
+and now I was approaching a crisis in regard to
+it. The state of my nerves was awful; they were
+really in a quite shattered condition. My eyes, which
+even in Cambridge days had been weak, kept getting
+worse. There was no disease or defect—I had been
+to three first-rate oculists and they all agreed about
+that. It was simply extreme sensitiveness—probably
+the optic nerve itself. A strong light from a lamp
+or candle was quite painful. I could hardly read
+more than an hour a day—certainly not two hours.
+It caused a pain in the nerve, which seemed to
+mount to and disorganize the brain. I was conscious
+that the refusal of my eyes to read was in
+all probability a kindly indication that I would
+be much better without reading—but this would
+mean giving up the lectures—so here I was
+again!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As long as the lectures went on I was in perpetual
+suffering with my eyes, and anxiety—sometimes being
+really unable to prepare the work before me. Then
+on this came the strain of lecturing—traveling to a
+place with a great box of apparatus, arriving there
+three or four hours before the time of the meeting,
+getting all one’s apparatus and experiments ready
+(in some wretched schoolroom with <i>no</i> assistance),
+having often in those days to make my oxygen gas
+myself for the lantern; to rush out when all was
+ready for a cup of tea, to return in time to take
+an hour’s preliminary <i>class</i>, and then to give the
+lecture; all this was terribly exhausting. But
+it by no means ended there. After the lecture some
+local manufacturer and patron would carry one off
+to his residence for the night, there to meet a few
+friends at supper, and to talk and be talked to till
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>the small hours of the morning. When one got to
+bed—a vibrating mass of nerves—sleep was out of
+the question. There were all the pupils and their
+faces, and their needs and their personalities; there
+were the tiresome patrons and committee people, in
+endless dance on my brain. Often and often I never
+slept a wink—only to get up the next day and go
+through a similar round. Often and often when I
+got back to my lodgings I had to lie on my back
+on the sofa for hours—not even then to sleep—but
+simply to rest and soothe the nerve-pain throughout
+my body. I felt my life was becoming wrecked
+and I remember at last swearing a great oath to
+myself that somehow or other I would get out of
+it and find my health again.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And behind it all there was that other need—which
+I have already mentioned more than once—that of
+my affectional nature, that hunger which had indeed
+hunted me down since I was a child. I can hardly
+bear even now to think of my early life, and of
+the idiotic social reserve and Britannic pretence
+which prevailed over all that period, and still indeed
+to a large extent prevails—especially among the so-called
+well-to-do classes of this country—the denial
+and systematic ignoring of the obvious facts of the
+heart and of sex, and the consequent desolation
+and nerve-ruin of thousands and thousands of women,
+and even of a considerable number of men. I came
+home in the summer to Brighton to find my sisters,
+for the most part unmarried, wearing out their lives
+and their affectional capacities with nothing to do,
+and nothing to care for: a little music, a little
+painting, a walk up and down the Promenade; but
+the primal needs of life unspoken and unallowed;
+suffering (as one can now see all this commercial age
+has been doomed to suffer) from a state of society
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>which has set up gold and gain in the high place of
+the human heart, and to make more room for these
+has disowned and dishonoured love. It is curious—and
+interesting in its queer way—to think that almost
+the central figure of the drawing-room in that later
+Victorian age (and one may see it illustrated in the
+pages of <cite>Punch</cite> of that period) was a young or
+middle-aged woman lying supine on a couch—while
+round her, amiably conveying or consuming tea and
+coffee, stood a group of quasi-artistic or intellectual
+men. The conversation ranged, of course, over
+artistic and literary topics, and the lady did her best
+to rise to it; but the effort probably did her no
+good. For the real trouble lay far away. It was
+of the nature of <i>hysteria</i>—and its meaning is best
+understood by considering the derivation of that
+word. I had two sisters—who each of them for
+some twenty years led that supine, and one may
+say tragic, life; so I had good occasion—beside
+what may have lain within my own experience—to
+understand it pretty thoroughly. Certainly the
+disparity of the sexes and the absolute non-recognition
+of sexual needs—non-recognition either in life
+or in thought—weighed terribly hard upon the women
+of that period.<a id='r9'></a><a href='#f9' class='c012'><sup>[9]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Another cause, increasing the hardship of disparity,
+was the growing disinclination of men (of the upper
+classes) to get married. Partly this arose, no doubt,
+from their growing realization of the perils and complications
+of matrimony; but partly also it arose
+from an increase in the number of men of what may
+be called an intermediate type, whose temperament
+did not lead them very decisively in the direction
+of marriage—or even led them away from it; men
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>who did not feel the romance in that direction which
+alone can make marriage attractive, and perhaps
+justifiable. There have of course been, in all ages,
+thousands and thousands of women who have not
+felt that particular sort of romance and attraction
+towards men, but only to their own kind; and in
+all ages there have been thousands and thousands
+of men similarly constituted in the reverse way;
+but they have been, by the majority, little understood
+and recognized. Now however it is coming
+to be seen that they also—both classes—have their
+part to play in the world.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>For my part I have always had excellent and
+enduring alliances among women, and life would
+indeed be sadly wanting and impoverished without
+their friendship and society; but since the days
+when I sat a boy of nine or ten under the table,
+apparently playing with my marbles, while my elder
+sisters and their girl friends were talking freely and
+unconsciously with each other about some ball of
+the night before, and their partners in the dances,
+and their conversations—the workings of the feminine
+mind and nature have always been perfectly open and
+clear to me. By a sort of intuition (partly no
+doubt inborn) I never had any difficulty in following
+these workings. They enshrined no mystery for
+me. This fact has always caused me to find women’s
+society interesting; but naturally it did not conduce
+to headlong adorations and marriage! The romance
+of my life went elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Whether such a state of affairs may be desirable
+or undesirable, whether it may indicate a high moral
+nature or a low moral nature, and so forth, are
+questions which (in a land where <i>everything</i> is either
+moral or immoral) are sure to be asked. But in a
+sense they are quite beside the mark. They do not
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>alter the fact; and that has always been the same
+since my earliest days.<a id='r10'></a><a href='#f10' class='c012'><sup>[10]</sup></a> But it will be evident enough—to
+any one who takes the trouble to think what
+these things mean—that to a person of my emotional
+nature the conditions which brought about—to a comparatively
+late age—the absence of marriage, or its
+equivalent, were a fruitful source of trouble and
+nervous prostration. I realized in my own person
+some of the sufferings which are endured by an
+immense number of modern women, especially of
+the well-to-do classes, as well as by that large class
+of men of whom I have just spoken, and to whom
+the name of Uranians is often given.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Certainly my isolation was in a sense my own
+fault—due partly to reserve and partly to ignorance.
+When at a later time I broke through this double
+veil, I soon discovered that others of like temperament
+to myself were abundant in all directions, and
+to be found in every class of society; and I need
+not say that from that time forward life was changed
+for me. I found sympathy, understanding, love, in
+a hundred unexpected forms, and my world of the
+heart became as rich in that which it needed as
+before it had seemed fruitless and barren.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The Uranian temperament in Man closely resembles
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>the normal temperament of Women in this
+respect, that in both Love—in some form or other—is
+the main object of life. In the normal Man,
+ambition, moneymaking, business, adventure, etc.,
+play their part—love is as a rule a secondary matter.
+The majority of men (for whom the physical side
+of sex, if needed, is easily accessible) do not for
+a moment realize the griefs endured by thousands
+of girls and women—in the drying up of the well-springs
+of affection as well as in the crucifixion of
+their physical needs. But as these sufferings of
+women, of one kind or another, have been the great
+inspiring cause and impetus of the Women’s Movement—a
+movement which is already having a great
+influence in the reorganization of society; so I do
+not practically doubt that the similar sufferings of
+the Uranian class of men are destined in their turn
+to lead to another wide-reaching social organization
+and forward movement in the direction of Art
+and Human Compassion.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>V<br> BRADWAY AND <cite>TOWARDS DEMOCRACY</cite></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>Everything, one sometimes thinks, has its Compensation.
+The soul of man is so vast, so endless,
+that no matter on what side or sides it be hemmed
+in or thwarted, it will find its outlet in some fresh
+direction—all the more powerfully perhaps for its
+temporary and local obstruction. This is true of
+bodies of people, and it is true also of individuals.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The sufferings of these years, the emotional distress
+and tension which I had experienced, poured
+themselves out in poetical effusions, outbursts, ejaculations—I
+know not what to call them. Sometimes
+lying full length in the train coming home at midnight
+from some lecture engagement, hardly able
+to move; sometimes in the morning with a sense
+of restoration, flying over the fields in the sunlight;
+sometimes in my little lodging; sometimes on a
+long country walk—I wrote just what the necessity
+of my feelings compelled—formless scraps, cries,
+prophetic assurances—in no available metre, or shape,
+just as they came. In no shape that they could be
+given to the world; but they were a relief to me,
+and a consolation.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Afterwards, when I found as it were the keynote
+which harmonized these disjointed utterances, I made
+use of them; and they were mostly embodied and
+embedded and adapted into the structure of <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>I say my nerves had come to such a pass of
+dislocation, that I was nearly breaking down; and
+I had sworn a great oath to myself to mend matters
+somehow. The year 1879 was in many ways the dim
+dawn or beginning of a new life to me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Early in that year I made my first valid essays
+in the direction of a reform in diet. I may have
+tentatively experimented in vegetarianism before that,
+but ineffectually and in ignorance. Once I remember
+boldly dining off nothing but a vegetable marrow.
+Of course, disastrous defeat and dismay immediately
+followed! Practically I had always lived along the
+usual régime, of plentiful meat, washed down with
+beer or wine; and probably the sick headaches and
+nervous tension of my early years were to a considerable
+extent due to this excess of stimulation.
+Now, the vegetarian ideal, for many reasons, began
+to commend itself to me; and though I did not
+abandon meat at once, I gradually pushed along
+this line—slowly as my way is, but steadily—so that
+after four or five years, that is, by ’83 or ’84, I
+practically was able to dispense with meat (and
+alcoholics) altogether—and did so dispense, often for
+months at a time.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>A word here about my vegetarian practice
+generally. I find now [1899] that though I have
+lived, as said, for months at a time without meat
+or fish of <i>any kind</i>, and have enjoyed in so doing
+infinitely better health than ever before—and though
+I feel as if I could continue in this diet indefinitely
+and much prefer it—I have yet never made any absolute
+rule against flesh-eating, and have as a matter
+of fact eaten a very little every now and then—just,
+as it were, to see how it tasted, or to avoid giving
+trouble in Philistine households, and so forth. Having
+a strong (perhaps a too strong) objection to <i>principles</i>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>generally, I have disliked the idea of making
+any absolute rule in the matter. Briefly I find the
+vegetarian diet—fruit and grains and vegetables,
+nuts, eggs, and milk—pleasant, clean, healthful in
+every way, and grateful to one’s sense of decency
+and humanity. It is a real pleasure to live among
+those who adopt it. But having spent my time for
+the most part embedded among folk who favour
+meat, I have not always kept to my own choice,
+but have given in at times to a supposed convenience
+or necessity. Perhaps I should have done better,
+for myself and others, if I had been more resolute,
+but such are the facts.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In the year 1879 also the absolute necessity for
+a more open-air life began to make itself felt. I
+had always lived in towns, and though fond of the
+country I looked on the town as my natural home.
+Now I began to long for a country home. I took
+long walks round Sheffield, and bitterly regretted
+having to come <i>back</i> in the evening, instead of staying
+permanently outside. I began to revolve how a
+change might be possible. Manual work, too, in
+contradistinction to the mere ‘exercise’ (riding or
+cricket or athletics) which takes the place of work
+among the well-to-do classes, began to have a
+fascination for me. I think it was in this summer
+[1879] that being at Brighton, I worked for a couple
+of months in a joiner’s shop, regularly, from 6.30
+to 8.30 every morning; I used to make panel doors,
+and got a good experience, so far, of the trade.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Also as I continued to make Sheffield the headquarters
+of my lectures, I was taking definite root
+there, and reaching down partly through my classes,
+partly through explorations of my own, into the
+actual society of the manual workers; and beginning
+to knit up alliances more satisfactory to me than
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>any I had before known. Railway men, porters,
+clerks, signalmen, ironworkers, coach-builders,
+Sheffield cutlers, and others came within my ken,
+and from the first I got on excellently and felt
+fully at home with them—and I believe, in most
+cases, they with me. I felt I had come into, or at
+least in sight of, the world to which I belonged,
+and to my natural <i>habitat</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was about this time that I made the acquaintance
+of a man who for some years after was a
+good deal associated with me—Albert Fearnehough.
+He came up one evening after a lecture, and gave
+me his name (I remember thinking how strange it
+was) and address; and asked me if I would come
+and see him some time. Later, meeting me in the
+street, he renewed the request, telling me that his
+friend who came with him to the lectures was a
+young farmer who was well up in ‘book-learning’
+(which he himself was not)—that they both lived in
+the country, he in a cottage on the farm of which
+Fox, his friend, was owner; and that they would
+both gladly entertain me any time that I cared for
+a country walk. Here was exactly my opportunity.
+I accepted the invitation, and not long afterwards
+went to visit the two friends at the little hamlet of
+Bradway, four or five miles from Sheffield, on the
+charming outskirts of Beauchief Abbey.</p>
+<div id='i112'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i112.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ALBERT FEARNEHOUGH AND “BRUNO.”</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Fearnehough was a scythe-maker, a riveter, a
+muscular, powerful man of about my age, quite ‘uneducated’
+in the ordinary sense (since indeed at the
+age of nine he had pushed a handcart about the
+streets of Sheffield) but well-grown and finely built,
+with a good practical capacity though slow brain,
+and something of the latent fire and indomitableness
+of the iron-worker—a man whose ideal was the rude
+life of the backwoods, and who hated the shams of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>commercialism. Indeed he was always getting into
+coils with his employers because he would not scamp
+and hurry over his work, as occasion demanded;
+and with his workmates because he would not
+countenance their doing so. In many ways he was
+delightful to me, as the one ‘powerful uneducated’
+and natural person I had as yet, in all my life,
+met with. Moreover there was a touch of pathos
+in his inarticulate ways and in his own sense of
+inability to compete with the cheapjack commercialism
+of the day. He lived in a tiny little
+cottage, on Fox’s farm as I have said, with his wife,
+a good patient worker, and two children. And many
+a Saturday or Sunday afternoon I came up there
+and had tea with them, or roamed about the
+fields.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Charles Fox was a very singular character—a
+bachelor, with a good brain, curiously fond of
+mathematics in his boyhood, quite an original thinker
+in his way—yet to look at, a mere clodhopping
+farmer with inexpressive face, humped shoulders, and
+beetle-like gait. He was not ill-looking, but decidedly
+quaint, with his florid, shaven face, and only
+the sharp gleam of his eye to show you his shrewdness.
+Most of the country-folk thought him a little
+touched in the head, for his odd Socratic humour;
+and never fathomed in the least his real ability. He
+lived on the farm left him by his father, with an
+unmarried cousin of his, Miss Fox, for housekeeper,
+and with <i>her</i> son Teddie for his farm-lad and helper;
+and with a brother, Owen, who certainly <i>was</i> weak
+in the head and feeble, and of no practical use in
+the establishment. Between Teddie and his uncle
+quite an affection existed; but of the household,
+and especially of Charles Fox I have given some
+account in a separate paper, under the title of <cite>Martin
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>Turner</cite><a id='r11'></a><a href='#f11' class='c012'><sup>[11]</sup></a>; and what I have there said I need not
+repeat.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My acquaintance with these two men had its
+inevitable effect on me. I saw at last my way of
+escape out of that dingy wilderness, that <i>selva
+oscura</i>, in which I had wandered lost, from childhood
+even down to the very middle of life’s journey.
+They represented at any rate for me a deliverance
+from the idiotic fatuous life I had been submerged
+in all my boyhood at Brighton, and more or less
+ever since. They represented, if nothing more, a
+life close to Nature and actual materials, shrewd,
+strong, manly, independent, not the least polite or
+proper, thoroughly human and kindly, and spent for
+the most part in the fields and under the open sky.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My visits to little Bradway and the farm became
+more and more frequent. I was accepted cordially
+by both households. I joined in the farm work, and
+spent long evenings with the boy and his uncle in the
+cowhouse or with the two families round their kitchen
+fire—quaint scenes of fun and merriment which are
+graven on my mind, but which it would take too long
+to recount here. I soon formed a plan of coming
+to live if possible with these good people, and carrying
+on my lectures even from this distance out in the
+country.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It took a little time to arrange anything, but
+after some months it was agreed that Fearnehough
+should move into another cottage a little distance off
+(since the one he occupied was so small) and that I
+should lodge with him for a time. Accordingly (in
+May 1880) he migrated with his family to the neighboring
+parish of Totley, and I joined them there;
+but in March of the following year, the adjacent
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>cottage to the old one on Fox’s land having become
+vacant, and Fox having thrown the two into one,
+we returned to Bradway and resumed our old relations
+on the farm.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I had managed to carry on my lectures from Totley—indeed
+I had added a new course, on the “History
+of Music,” and one that interested me much, to my
+former ones; but it was certainly inconvenient, carrying
+on the work from such a distance in the country;
+and new interests and forces were growing within me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The life, especially since our return to Bradway,
+was so different from anything to which I had before
+been accustomed, it was so congenial in many
+respects, so native, so unrestrained, it seemed to
+liberate the pent-up emotionality of years. All the
+feelings which had sought, in suffering and in distress,
+their stifled expression within me during the
+last seven or eight years, gathered themselves together
+to a new and more joyous utterance. My physical
+health was every day becoming better. There was
+a new beauty over the world. Everywhere I paused,
+in the lanes or the fields, or on my way to or from
+the station, to catch some magic sound, some intimation
+of a perpetual freedom and gladness such as
+earth and its inhabitants (it seemed to me) had
+hardly yet dreamed of. I remember that, all that
+time, I was haunted by an image, a vision within
+me, of something like the bulb and bud, with short
+green blades, of a huge hyacinth just appearing
+above the ground. I knew that it represented vigour
+and abounding life. But now I seem to see that, in
+the strange emblematic way in which the soul sometimes
+speaks, this image may have been a sign of
+the fact that my life had really at last taken root,
+and was beginning rapidly to grow.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Another thing happened about this time. On the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>25th January 1881 my mother died. Her death
+affected me profoundly. Though there had been
+(as I have explained elsewhere) so little in the way
+of spoken confidences between us, we were united
+by a strong invisible tie. For months, even years,
+after her death, I seemed to feel her, even see her,
+close to me—always figuring as a semi-luminous
+presence, very real, but faint in outline, larger than
+mortal. It was an inexpressibly tender and consoling
+relation. Gradually, in the course of years,
+the presence, or the sense of it, faded away, becoming
+less and less objective, into the background of my
+mind, where it remains now, more as it were an actual
+part of myself than it was then.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Her death at this moment exercised perhaps a
+great etherealizing influence on my mind, exhaling
+the great mass of feelings, intuitions, conceptions,
+and views of life and the world which had formed
+within me, into another sphere. The <cite>Bhagavat Gita</cite>
+about the same time falling into my hands gave me
+a keynote. And all at once I found myself in touch
+with a mood of exaltation and inspiration—a kind of
+super-consciousness—which passed all that I had experienced
+before, and which immediately harmonized
+all these other feelings, giving to them their place,
+their meaning and their outlet in expression.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And so it was that <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> came to
+birth. I was in fact completely taken captive by
+this new growth within me, and could hardly finish
+my course of lectures for the preoccupation. Already
+I was speculating how I could cut myself free. No
+sooner were the lectures over (about the end of April
+1881) than I began writing <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>.
+It seemed all ready there. I never hesitated for a
+moment. Day by day it came along from point to
+point. I did not hurry: I expressed everything
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>with slow care and to my best; I utilized former
+material which I had by me; but the one illuminating
+mood remained and everything fell into place under
+it; and rarely did I find it necessary to remodel,
+or rearrange to any great extent, anything that I
+had once written.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I soon saw that the whole utterance would take a
+long time. I decided to give up my lecturing work
+so as to be quite unhampered. And I did so.
+What with my savings from Cambridge days, and
+a small income of fifty or sixty pounds a year springing
+from them, I knew I could live well enough for
+a few years—and so I felt supremely happy. It
+became necessary also to have some place in which
+to sit many hours a day writing—and so I knocked
+together a kind of wooden sentinel-box, placed it
+in a quiet corner of the garden, overlooking far
+fields, and thither resorted all through the summer,
+and into the autumn, and far away through the winter.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>What sweet times were those! all the summer to
+the hum of the bees in the leafage, the robins and
+chaffinches hopping around, an occasional large bird
+flying by, the men away at work in the fields, the
+consuming pressure of the work within me, the wonderment
+how it would turn out; the days there in
+the rain, or in the snow; nights sometimes, with
+moonlight or a little lamp to write by; far far
+away from anything polite or respectable, or any
+sign or symbol of my hated old life. Then the afternoons
+at work with my friends in the fields, hoeing
+and singling turnips or getting potatoes, or down in
+Sheffield on into the evenings with new companions
+among new modes of life and work—everything
+turning and shaping itself into material for my poem.
+There was a sense to me of inevitableness in it all,
+and of being borne along, which gave me good
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>courage, notwithstanding occasional natural doubts;
+and a sense too of unspeakable relief and deliverance,
+after all those long years of gestation, as of
+a woman with her child.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In about a year, that is, by early in 1882, <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite>—that is the long first poem which bears
+that name—was completed except for some technical
+revisions. The child, conceived and carried in pain
+and anguish, was at last brought into the world.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Some further details with regard to the genesis of
+<cite>Towards Democracy</cite> were given in a short paper in
+the <cite>Labour Prophet</cite> for May 1894, and are now
+reprinted as a Note to the editions of <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite>; and the history of its publication is
+given in Chapter XI below.</p>
+<div id='i120'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i120.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>E. C. (1887), AGE 43.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>VI<br> MANUAL WORK AND MARKET-GARDENING</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>In April 1882 my father died; and I was at once
+whirled out of my land of dreams into a very different
+sphere. It became necessary for me to return home,
+to Brighton, and handle, as executor, a considerable
+estate—divisible among ten children. The investments
+were chiefly in American securities—and they
+gave a lot of trouble! I stayed at Brighton four or
+five months, dealing with solicitors, brokers, officials,
+relatives—selling, negotiating, dividing, transferring
+without end—doing the work of a lawyer’s clerk in
+fact. Indeed our solicitor remarked one day, perhaps
+rather plaintively, that it was lucky I had had
+the time to spare, as it had saved the family no doubt
+some hundreds of pounds! Of course the work was
+not really finished for three or four years, but the
+thick of it was got through that summer, and after
+that I returned to my beloved Bradway.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My forced stay at Brighton brought out into strong
+relief the contrast between the old life and the new.
+I felt more than ever the futility and irksomeness
+of the old order. I missed my companions of the
+North, I grieved more than ever over the wasted
+lives around me in the South—but it was with a new
+sense, the knowledge that there was something better.
+I employed my spare time in writing shorter pieces
+in the style of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> and revising
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>what I had already written, using my new surroundings
+again as a point of view under the great light
+of my main inspiration. My unmarried sisters remained
+on for a few years at Brighton after my
+father’s death, keeping the house together much as
+of old. Then they removed to London, and at last
+(in 1886) the old house and furniture were sold
+and its doors closed on the family who had occupied
+it for forty years.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At the end of the summer of which I am speaking—about
+September 1882—I returned to my home at
+Bradway. My father’s death had left me (more or
+less prospectively) possessor of about £6,000—which
+with my little savings of earlier years, seemed quite
+a large fortune—too large indeed—it rather weighed
+on my mind!<a id='r12'></a><a href='#f12' class='c012'><sup>[12]</sup></a> My lectures were over and done
+with; some years of literary work were before me,
+but obviously not of a paying sort, either in the way
+of wages or fame. The question was What should I
+do?</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I might have simply settled down into an armchair
+literary life. I really don’t know exactly why
+I didn’t. But the fancy for manual work had seized
+me, and for some reason or other, nothing but a life
+of that kind would satisfy me—only it must be in
+the open air. No sooner had my father died than I
+made up my mind to buy a piece of land and work
+on it as a market-gardener.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>No doubt it was a healthy instinct. The motive
+was in the main a purely personal one. I felt (and
+rightly) the need of physical work, of open-air life
+and labour—something primitive to restore my overworn
+constitution. I felt the need directly and
+instinctively, not as a thing argued out and intellectually
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>concluded. I have sometimes been credited with
+making this move onto the land in pursuance of
+some great theory or scheme of social salvation!
+But it was not so. There was no idea of this kind
+in it, or if there was, it was of a very secondary
+character. My thought was my own need. But I
+may have had some feeling that a life of this kind
+was more honest than the alternative, and I think
+also that I felt it would bring me more decisively
+into touch with the great body of the people (a
+strong motive at the time)—and so far I believe these
+two motives had some secondary play.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At any rate I never felt much doubt about the
+move. I persuaded Fearnehough, after a little time,
+to join me if I should settle anywhere; and then I
+set looking out for a bit of land. But that was not
+easy to find. At intervals for many months I scoured
+the country in the neighborhood of Sheffield, but
+could find nothing there except the small holding
+at Millthorpe, which though good land and in a
+lovely situation, with water, etc., seemed too far
+from town to be available for market purposes. Then
+I went down into Worcestershire; but in truth the
+difficulty of finding a small freehold anywhere in
+England—especially with good soil and near a market—is
+great; and being no more successful in Worcestershire
+I returned to Sheffield. Ultimately and
+being (as usual in such things) more compelled by
+necessity than of my own choice, I fell back on the
+seven acres at Millthorpe which I now occupy. Of
+course I could not help rejoicing in the lovely necessity
+of living in such a place—the charming brook
+running at the foot of my three fields, the beautiful
+wooded valley, and the close proximity, a mile or so
+off, of the open moors. But I had some misgiving,
+not only about the market side of the question, but
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>about living so completely gulfed in the country—eight
+or nine miles from a town centre—for I had
+never tried anything of the kind before.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I spent the winter of ’82 and ’83 mostly at Bradway,
+continuing my writing and other life there, in
+the intervals of the search for land. About Easter
+’83 I came to terms for the purchase of the three
+fields at Millthorpe, and soon after that I set to
+house-building. The house was finished by the end
+of the summer, and in October ’83 the Fearnehoughs
+and I moved in. About the same time I published
+through John Heywood of Manchester, my first poem
+<cite>Towards Democracy</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was a small thin volume of 110 pages, meant
+for the pocket. It was sent out to the Press, but
+excited very little comment, except as the ravings of
+some anonymous author. Yet after a time, faithful
+to its charge, it came back to me, bringing dear
+and true friends from all sorts of unlikely places
+and distant parts of the world; and has not ceased
+to do so since. Not long after its publication Havelock
+Ellis picked it up on a second-hand bookstall
+in London, and wrote to me; and he again brought
+me into communication with Olive Schreiner, whose
+<cite>African Farm</cite> was then beginning to attract attention.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>That winter, of ’83–’84, was spent in hard work,
+getting the house and the yard and out-buildings
+in order, laying out the garden ground, digging
+up the grass-land, planting fruit and other trees, etc.
+And so were the summers and winters following, for
+four or five years.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>That strange œstrum of hard manual work, and
+digging down to the very roots of things, spurred me
+on. I hardly know how to account for it. It possessed
+me. Every habit, every custom or practice
+of daily life—house-arrangement, diet, dress, medicine,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>etc., was overhauled and rigorously scrutinized.
+I worked for hours and for whole days together out
+in the open field, or garden, or digging drains with
+pick and shovel, or carting along the roads; going
+into Chesterfield and loading and fetching manure,
+or to the coalpit for coal, grooming and bedding
+down the horse, or getting off to market at 6 a.m.
+with vegetables and fruit, and standing in the market
+behind a stall till 1 or 2 p.m.; I was not satisfied
+but I must do everything that was necessary to be
+done, myself.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was a considerable strain. With my somewhat
+vague aspiring mind, to be imprisoned in the rude
+details of a most material life was often irksome.
+Yet a consuming passion drove me on—a desire to
+know, to do something real, an evil conscience perhaps
+of the past unreality of my existence. I was
+compelled to eat it all out.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I carried on, for those first three or four years,
+the superintendence (of course with the help of my
+friend and his wife) of house and garden, with their
+manifold points of detail. I went on with my writing—adding
+essays on social subjects (“England’s
+Ideal” and others) to my poems; and I started
+lecturing on similar topics.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was too much. I remember that period as a
+time of great strain. I felt indeed the isolation of
+the country—gulfed as I was among a perfectly
+illiterate unprogressive country population (much
+more so than at Bradway), with my friend and his
+family, who though good and true people were also
+quite limited to material interests. There was no
+one to whom I could talk, who could give me any
+help. My Sheffield friends were far away, only to
+be seen once a week or so, and (in the early years
+at any rate) visitors at Millthorpe were rare. It was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>too much, and my health suffered a little; and yet
+(as I have said) I was driven to it. It is strange
+how unaccounted impulses and instincts underlie the
+evolution of one’s life. Certainly during those years
+I (in some ways the most unlikely person to do so)
+bottomed out the whole of the material and
+mechanical ways of life—from the details of household
+life to the processes of agriculture and of a
+great number of other trades and industries. It
+was a training such as no university could give.
+And if my health suffered now and then from the
+strain, <i>on the whole</i> it improved immensely during
+this period; so that after five or six years I threw
+off completely my nerve troubles, and became stronger
+than I had ever been before in my life.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Two other things happened in 1883 besides my
+migration to Millthorpe, and publication of <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite>—namely, my first acquaintance with the
+Socialist movement, and my reading of Thoreau’s
+<cite>Walden</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Of course, in a vague form, my ideas had been
+taking a socialistic shape for many years; but they
+were lacking in definite outline—that definition which
+is so necessary for all action. That outline as regards
+the industrial situation was given me by reading
+Hyndman’s <cite>England for All</cite>. However open to criticism
+the Marxian theory of surplus-value may be
+(and <i>every</i> theory must ultimately succumb to criticism),
+it certainly fulfilled a want for the time by
+giving a definite text for the social argument. The
+instant I read that chapter in <cite>England for All</cite>—the
+mass of floating impressions, sentiments, ideals, etc.,
+in my mind fell into shape—and I had a clear line of
+social reconstruction before me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I gave my first semi-socialistic lecture (though I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>think this was before reading the above book)—on
+“Co-operative Production”—in that year; and later
+on in the same year I one evening looked in at a
+committee meeting of the Social Democratic Federation
+in Westminster Bridge Road. It was in the
+basement of one of those big buildings facing the
+Houses of Parliament that I found a group of conspirators
+sitting. There was Hyndman, occupying
+the chair, and with him round the table, William
+Morris, John Burns, H. H. Champion, J. L. Joynes,
+Herbert Burrows (I think) and others. After that,
+though I did not actually join the S.D.F., I kept in
+touch with them, and was able at a later time to
+render material help in the establishment of <i>Justice</i>
+as their organ.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>From that time forward I worked definitely along
+the Socialist line: with a drift, as was natural,
+towards Anarchism. I do not know that at any
+time I looked upon the Socialist programme or doctrines
+as final, and it is certain that I never anticipated
+a cast-iron regulation of industry, but I saw
+that the current Socialism afforded an excellent text
+for an attack upon the existing competitive system,
+and a good means of rousing the slumbering consciences—especially
+of the rich; and in that view I
+have worked for it and the Anarchist ideal consistently.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The other thing that happened in 1883 was my
+reading of Thoreau’s <cite>Walden</cite>. Just about the very
+day that I got into my new house and onto my plot
+of land—the realization of the plotting and scheming
+of some years—that book fell into my hands, which
+took the bottom completely out of my little bucket!
+Having just committed myself to all the exasperations
+of carrying on a house and market-garden and the
+petty but innumerable bothers of ‘trade,’ the charming
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>ideal of a simplification of life below the level
+of all such things was opened out before me—and
+for the time I felt almost paralyzed.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Whatever the practical value of the Walden experiment
+may be, there is no question that the book is
+one of the most vital and pithy ever written. Its
+ideal of life spent with Nature on the very ground-plane
+of simplicity (though probably only permanently
+realizable by a highly cultured humanity,
+having access to all the results of art and science,
+as Thoreau had at Concord) has yet shattered the
+conventional views of thousands of people. It helped,
+I must confess, to make me uncomfortable for some
+years. I felt that I had aimed at a natural life and
+completely failed—that I might somehow have
+escaped from this blessed civilization altogether—and
+now I was tied up worse than ever, on its
+commercial side.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>What sort of line my life would have taken if
+Thoreau had come to me a year earlier, I cannot tell.
+It is certain that there would have been a considerable
+difference. Perhaps it is lucky I was not drifted
+away by him and stranded, too far from the currents
+of ordinary life. At any rate I do not regret now
+that things happened as they did. Instead of
+escaping into solitude and the wilds of nature—which
+would have satisfied one side—but perhaps not the
+most persistent—of my character, I was tied to the
+traffic of ordinary life, and thrown inevitably into
+touch with all sorts of people.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Early in 1883, as I have said, I gave my first
+lecture on social questions, and from that time forward
+I spoke on these subjects. In the summer of
+’84 I went again to the United States, my chief
+object again being to see Whitman—though I had
+also friends to visit. I crossed the Atlantic as a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>steerage passenger—in a big Inman boat, the <cite>City
+of Berlin</cite>—with seven or eight hundred other
+steerage passengers. It was a great experience. I
+have described it in my poem “On an Atlantic
+Steamship.” The fact of my venturing it shows
+the determination with which I was working down
+into a knowledge of the life of the people. Besides,
+I had crossed as a <i>saloon</i> passenger before, and I
+felt that <i>that</i> was intolerable! The experience was
+not nearly so rude as I had expected. We had
+good weather, which of course is everything, and
+were on deck all day; the nationalities, Swedes,
+German, Irish, English, etc., were kept apart from
+each other below; I secured a cabin with a very
+decent set of young English fellows, and we got on
+first-rate. The food was quite clean and good. So
+well satisfied was I that I actually <i>returned</i> (from
+Quebec) in the steerage section!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I spent three or four days in Philadelphia and saw
+Whitman each day (of which I have given an account
+elsewhere<a id='r13'></a><a href='#f13' class='c012'><sup>[13]</sup></a>); and then went on to Massachusetts.
+The visit to Whitman did not help me so much as
+the first time. He was very friendly; he gave me
+introductions to Dr. Bucke in Canada, and to W.
+Sloane Kennedy, and was generally kind; but his
+self-centredness (arising no doubt largely from
+physical causes) had increased, and seemed difficult
+to overcome.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In Massachusetts I stayed with my friends the
+Rileys, who had at one time been on St. George’s
+farm (Ruskin’s) near Sheffield. They were now
+on a farm near Townsend Centre, and I remained
+with them about three weeks, joining in the life,
+doing a bit on the farm with them, and seeing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>something of the neighbours. George Riley, the son,
+and I were chums, and spent some of the time
+walking together—on one occasion a two days ‘out’
+to Wachusett, mountain and lake, a charming neighborhood.
+During the time I also visited Sloane
+Kennedy, at Belmont, and together we went to
+Walden pond, bathed in it, and added a stone to
+Thoreau’s cairn. Thence to Pennsylvania, beyond
+Pittsburg, to stay with Mrs. Hardy and her three
+daughters—also people I had known in Sheffield—who
+together were ‘running’ a big farm and making
+it pay well, an excellent example of female management.
+Thence, after a pleasant stay of four or five
+days, across Lake Erie to Toronto and so to London,
+to see Dr. Bucke. Dr. Bucke was acting as head and
+superintendent of a large Asylum for Insane folk—over
+a thousand patients—which he managed excellently.
+I found him very interesting. We had
+long talks about Whitman; he showed me his Whitman
+books, pictures, etc., and then after another four
+or five days I got the steamer at Toronto, and
+went down the St. Lawrence to Quebec. The Lake
+itself, the passages of the thousand islands and of
+the successive rapids, were a great delight. I had
+only an hour or two at Quebec, unfortunately—not
+time to see much of the town; and then I embarked
+on the <i>Parisian</i> for home. Here again the lower
+reaches of this magnificent river, the coast of Gaspé,
+and of Labrador, the hundreds of icebergs we saw
+that day, becalmed in a glassy blue sea, and in
+blazing sunlight, were most interesting. We slipped
+through the straits of Belle-Isle and had an enjoyable
+passage to Liverpool.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It was, I think, some little time before the events
+recorded in the first part of this chapter—though
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>I cannot be quite sure about the date—that I had
+the signal experience of meeting with Edward J.
+Trelawny, the devoted friend of Shelley and the
+companion of Byron. For years and years—until
+indeed the star of Whitman rose in the West—Shelley
+had been my own ideal. To grasp Trelawny’s hand
+was to gain an unexpected link with a far remote past.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Trelawny’s life had been one of extraordinary
+adventure. To understand even a part of it one must
+read his <cite>Adventures of a Younger Son</cite> (largely his
+own story), and his book <cite>Records of Shelley, Byron,
+and the Author</cite> (1858 and 1878). Born in 1792
+of a well-known Cornish family he joined the Navy
+as a mere boy, and then at an early age <i>deserted</i> and
+took up, according to his own account, with a pirate
+gang among the seas of Java and Borneo. After
+some amazing adventures, he returned in about 1813
+to Europe; and soon after married an English lady.
+Of this period however, between 1813 and 1820,
+very little seems to be known, except that he himself
+says: “I became a shackled, careworn and spirit-broken
+married man of the civilized West!” It
+was in 1820 at Lausanne that a German bookseller
+chanced to show him <cite>Queen Mab</cite>; and a little later,
+at Geneva, that he met Thomas Medwin, Shelley’s
+cousin. The reading of the book and the conversations
+with Medwin convinced Trelawny that here
+was a man worth knowing; and he did not rest till
+a year or two later he went to Pisa and actually made
+Shelley’s acquaintance (early in 1822). The two
+were about the same age; and it shows something
+of what manner of man Trelawny was, that he so
+quickly recognized the quality of Shelley; and something
+of what Shelley was that he so soon commanded
+the admiration of this buccaneer and man of adventure.
+After Shelley’s death Trelawny was with Byron
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>a great deal, both as Captain of Byron’s yacht and
+companion in his expedition to Greece; but he never
+expressed a great regard for Byron—perhaps indeed
+he hardly did the latter justice. Byron died at
+Missolonghi in 1824; but Trelawny stayed on in
+Greece, joined the Greek cause against the Turks,
+took to wife the sister of Ulysses, or Odysseus, a
+Greek chieftain, lived for some time with him and
+his guerilla band in a cave on Mount Parnassus, and
+was nearly killed there by a bullet from a spy. These
+and many other things are written in the <cite>Records</cite>
+above mentioned.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Later, after his return to England, and somewhere
+about 1840, Trelawny fell in love with a certain
+Lady Goring, and finally induced her to leave her
+husband and live with him. And it was this, curiously
+enough, which at a later period led to my acquaintance
+with him. Lady Goring’s son, by the old Sir
+Harry, married a cousin of mine, and when a boy
+of sixteen or seventeen I used occasionally to go and
+stay with the young pair at Highden near Worthing
+where they lived, and where I was initiated in the
+mysteries of coursing, ferreting, etc., which were
+very much in the order of the day there. Charles
+Goring, my cousin’s husband, was the very type of
+the “bold bad baronet” of the shilling novels—a
+type fairly common then, though almost extinct now—a
+rather handsome man with fierce twirlable moustache,
+and thoroughly bearish manners, given to
+swearing and drinking, and devoted to his dogs and
+guns. Whatever induced my cousin—who was the
+sweetest and gentlest of girls—to marry him I do
+not know. But that is always the way: the mild and
+forgiving women marry the wicked men, and of
+course make the latter all the wickeder by doing so!
+In course of time he grew a little tired of his wife
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>(there were no children) and behaved badly towards
+her. Then his mother died—whom he had not seen
+since she ran away with Trelawny, some twenty-five
+or more years before; and so, seized with some sort
+of compunction after all this time, Charles Goring
+went on a pilgrimage to his mother’s adopted home;
+found there Trelawny <i>and</i> his mother’s daughter by
+Trelawny—his own stepsister, by that time a rather
+beautiful girl or young woman.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>From all this complications arose, which I need
+not go into, but which ultimately in an indirect way
+led to a somewhat celebrated affair in the Divorce
+Courts—the Goring Case of the year 1878. Suffice
+it to say that soon after these unfortunate squabbles
+were over, Charles Goring had the grace to die, and
+my cousin (who had obtained a separation order)
+was left quite free. It was then that I asked her
+one day to give me an introduction to Edward
+Trelawny, which she willingly did.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I found him at the house which he was then
+occupying in Pelham Crescent, S.W.—No. 7 I think—a
+quite old man of about eighty-seven or eighty-eight,
+rugged to a degree, with sunken eyes and projecting
+cheek-bones, but with a strange gleam of
+fire about him even at that age—not unlike some
+semi-extinct volcano—and the appearance of what
+had once been a rather massive and powerful frame.
+He was sitting in a high chair near the fire with a
+pile of books on the floor beside him. “You are
+interested in Shelley,” he said. And then without
+waiting for a reply: “He was our greatest poet
+since Shakespeare.” And then: “He couldn’t have
+been the poet he was if he had not been an Atheist.”
+That was a pretty good beginning; he rolled out the
+“Atheist” with evident satisfaction. He went on
+to express his contempt for the contemporary poets,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>like Tennyson and Browning; then returned to
+Shelley: “I am not sure he wasn’t the greatest man
+we have ever had: all these others just tinker with
+the surface; Shelley goes down to the roots.” We
+talked a little about individual poems, but I forget
+what. Then he took up one of the books beside
+him—a Godwin’s <cite>Political Justice</cite>, and read extracts
+from it—always with a choice which showed his
+hatred of modern Civilization. (And this was interesting
+from one who had seen so much of the world
+outside the bounds of our civilization.) Indeed there
+was something astonishing in this old man’s intensity
+of rebelliousness, which extreme age had apparently
+done nothing to reduce. He directed my attention to
+an oil-portrait over the mantelpiece: “Do you know
+who that is?” I guessed. It was a portrait—apparently
+not a very good one—of Mary, Percy Shelley’s
+wife<a id='r14'></a><a href='#f14' class='c012'><sup>[14]</sup></a>: the face rather milk-and-watery in expression.
+“She did him no good,” he said—“was always
+a drag on him—shackling him with jealousies and
+the conventions of social life.” [Trelawny was never
+quite fair to any one he did not like, and it was
+evident he did not like Mary—though in the earlier
+days of their acquaintance he had certainly been fond
+of her.] “Poets,” he continued, “ought never to
+marry. It’s the greatest mistake. A poet ought to
+be free as air—free to say and do what he pleases—and
+he cannot be free if he is married.” This was
+pretty good from a man who had been so very <i>much</i>
+married as Trelawny!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He had had four wives at least—no one knew how
+many more. His first wife (as appears also from
+<cite>The Younger Son</cite>) was a girl of Borneo. The second
+was the lady who filled somehow the gap between
+1813 and 1820. The third, as we have seen, was a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>Greek, the sister of Odysseus; the fourth was the
+former Lady Goring. There were many stories about
+him in the family, mostly no doubt somewhat embellished.
+His second wife, it was said, was only a
+small woman, and when she was “naughty” he
+would dangle her by the scruff of her neck <i>out of
+the window</i>, until she was good again. He had
+various dried heads, of pirates and others, among his
+treasures; and swords and daggers stained with the
+blood of enemies! Our conversation rambled on,
+but at this distance of time I forget details. As
+I say, it gave me a strange thrill on leaving (and
+he died soon after) to grasp the hand of one who had
+been so near to Shelley, and whose character undoubtedly
+had a great fascination for the poet. In
+Shelley’s <cite>Fragments of an Unfinished Drama</cite> (in
+which the Pirate on the Enchanted Isle is generally
+supposed to represent Trelawny), the poet says—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>He was as is the sun in his fierce youth,</div>
+      <div class='line'>As terrible and lovely as a tempest.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c014'>On the other hand Trelawny in the Preface to his
+<cite>Records</cite> says of Shelley: “After glancing one day
+at an old Italian romance, in which a knight of Malta
+throws down the gauntlet defying all infidels, Shelley
+remarked: ‘<i>I</i> should have picked it up. All our
+knowledge is derived from infidels.’” These two
+quotations give a good idea of the relation between
+the two men.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>VII<br> SHEFFIELD AND SOCIALISM</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>During my absence in the United States, my friend
+Harold Cox, who had just left Cambridge, came
+down to Millthorpe and spent a good part of the
+summer there—remaining a bit after my return home.
+He wanted to get manual and farm and garden
+experience, and that same autumn he plunged into
+farming—took a farm at Tilford in Surrey, and inducted
+a little colony into it. But the land was
+mere sand, and the experience of one winter and
+spring was enough! In less than a year he gave
+the place up, and went out, by way of a change,
+to India, to the Anglo-Mohammedan College at
+Futtehgur. While in India he went in ’85 or ’86
+for a tour in Cashmere, and from Cashmere he sent
+me a pair of Indian sandals. I had asked him,
+before he went out, to send some likely pattern of
+sandals, as I felt anxious to try some myself. I
+soon found the joy of wearing them. And after
+a little time I set about making them. I got two
+or three lessons from W. Lill, a bootmaker friend
+in Sheffield, and soon succeeded in making a good
+many pairs for myself and various friends. Since
+then the trade has grown into quite a substantial
+one. G. Adams took it up at Millthorpe in 1889;
+making, I suppose, about a hundred or more pairs
+a year; and since his death it has been carried on
+at the Garden City, Letchworth.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>In 1885 I published the second edition of <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite>—still through John Heywood; and early
+in ’86 quite an important local event occurred in
+the establishment of our Sheffield Socialist Society.
+One or two of us beat round the town and got
+together a few Socialists and advanced Radicals;
+we persuaded William Morris to come down (early
+in March)—and the result of that was the formation
+of the Society.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At that time, William Morris, having with a few
+others parted from Hyndman and the S.D.F., had
+founded the Socialist League—branches of which were
+springing up merrily all over the country. And it
+was William Morris’s great hope, often expressed
+in the <cite>Commonweal</cite> and elsewhere, that these
+branches growing and spreading, would before long
+“reach hands” to each other and form a network
+over the land—would constitute in fact “the New
+Society” within the framework of the old, and
+destined ere long to replace the old. No doubt the
+forces of reaction—the immense apathy of the masses,
+the immense resistance of the official and privileged
+classes, entrenched behind the Law and the State,
+and the immense and growing power of Money—were
+things not then fully realized and understood. There
+seemed a good hope for the realization of Morris’
+dream—and we most of us shared in it. But History
+is a difficult horse to drive. In this matter of the
+Socialist movement, as in other matters, it has always
+been liable to take the most unexpected turns; and
+the little League societies after flourishing gaily for
+a few years—suddenly began to wane and die out;
+I believe indeed that at this moment there is not
+one of them left. Morris saw with some sadness
+that his hope was not going to be fulfilled—and
+though I do not think that he altogether lost heart
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>he was fain in his last years to bury his disappointment
+in a return to his art work, and even to favour
+as a forlorn hope the Parliamentary side in revolutionary
+politics! It is curious indeed in this matter
+to see how, of all the innumerable little societies—of
+the S.D.F., the League, the Fabians, the Christian
+Socialists, the Anarchists, the Freedom groups, the
+I.L.P., the Clarion societies, and local groups of
+various names—all supporting one side or another
+of the general Socialist movement—not one of them
+has grown to any great volume, or to commanding
+and permanent influence; and how yet, and at the
+same time, the general teaching and ideals of the
+movement have permeated society in the most remarkable
+way, and have deeply infected the views
+of all classes, as well as general literature and even
+municipal and imperial politics. Perhaps it is a
+matter for much congratulation that things have
+turned out so. If the movement had been pocketed
+by any one man or section it would have been
+inevitably narrowed down. As it is, it has taken on
+something of an oceanic character; and if by its
+very lack of narrowness it has lost a little in immediate
+results, its ultimate success we may think is
+all the more assured.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The real value of the modern Socialist movement—it
+has always seemed to me—has not lain so much
+in its actual constructive programme as (1) in the
+fact that it has provided a text for a searching
+criticism of the old society and of the lives of the
+rich, and (2) the fact that it has enshrined a most
+glowing and vital enthusiasm towards the realization
+of a new society. It is these two points which have
+always drawn and attached me to it. The constructive
+details of the future are things about which
+there may and indeed must be different opinions.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>The necessity of organization in society, and of united
+action, the avoidance of officialism and bureaucracy,
+the handling of the land so as to afford the most
+general access to it, the barring of monopolies and
+of all industrial parasitism, the liberation of labour
+to dignity and self-reliance, the conduct of public
+ownership, the questions of taxation, representation,
+education, etc.—these are all most complex affairs
+whose united and detailed solution can only proceed
+step by step, by slow trial and experience. We
+must expect mistakes and differences of opinion here.
+Nevertheless I think we may say that in the broad
+lines of its constructive policy Socialism has taken
+the right course and the one which time will justify.
+It has laid down in fact once for all the principles
+that parasitism and monopoly must cease, and it
+has set before itself the ideal of a society which
+while it accords to every individual as full scope
+as possible for the exercise of his faculties and enjoyment
+of the fruits of his own labour, will in return
+expect from the individual his hearty contribution
+to the general well-being, and at least to claim
+nothing for his own which (or the value of which)
+he has not by his own effort produced. Towards
+the fulfilment of these aims Socialism has proposed
+a guarded public ownership of land and of some
+of the more important industries (guarded, that is,
+against the dangers of officialism), and it seems
+likely that this general programme is the one along
+which western society will work in the near future;
+that is, till such time as the State, quâ State, and
+all efficient Government, are superseded by the voluntary
+and instinctive consent and mutual helpfulness
+of the people—when of course the more especially
+Anarchist ideal would be realized.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As I say, while there is practically no dissent
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>about the future form of society as one which shall
+embody to the fullest extent the two opposite poles
+of Communism and Individualism in one vital unity,
+there may and naturally must be differences on the
+question of the detailed working out of the problem,
+and indeed it may well be that the solution will take
+somewhat different forms in different places and
+among different peoples.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It has not been, I repeat, the belief in special
+constructive details as panaceas which has led me
+into the Socialist camp, so much as the fact that the
+movement has been a distinct challenge to the old
+order and a call to the rich and those in power to
+remodel society and their own lives; and that other
+fact that within the Socialist camp has burned that
+wonderful enthusiasm and belief in a new ideal of
+fraternity—which however crude and inexperienced
+it may at times appear is surely destined to conquer
+and rule the world at last.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is this latter side of the movement which
+by the outsider is so little known and understood.
+Those who stand outside a revolutionary agitation,
+or who look down on it from above, necessarily
+only see the defiant subversive elements of it, they
+do not guess the glowing heart within. To me,
+passing from time to time from one stratum of life
+to quite another, it was a strange experience and
+not without its comic side, to see the wildly different
+features which one and the same movement wore
+to those within and those without; to hear Socialism
+spoken of from above, as nothing but an envious
+shriek and a threat, a gospel of bread and butter,
+a grab, a “divide up all round”—the work of unscrupulous
+demagogues and tinsel politicians; and
+then the next moment to pass into the heart of
+the thing and to find oneself in an atmosphere of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>the most simple fraternity and idealism, where the
+coming of the kingdom of Heaven, a kingdom of
+social order and decency, was entertained with a
+childlike faith that might almost make one smile;
+where it seemed only necessary to go out into the
+streets and preach the better ideals for crowds to flock
+to the standard; and where, if a betterment of
+conditions was the main thing sought for, it was
+a betterment of social life and a satisfaction of the
+needs of the heart fully as much as an increased
+allowance of bread and butter. It was a strange
+experience to pass from cold to hot, and from hot
+to cold, as it were, and to realize how little those
+in the one current could understand what was going
+on in the other.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Certainly from what experience I have had of
+a movement at one time thought very revolutionary,
+I am inclined to think that most revolutions must
+have been pretty well justified before they took place.
+One hears of dangerous mobs led by demagogues and
+fed on fancied wrongs; and of course there are
+such things in every movement as self-seeking
+blusterers, or designing misleaders; there is
+ignorance and non-reasoning exasperation; but my
+experience of the (British) masses is that instead
+of being too inflammable, they are surely only too
+<i>slow</i> to move, too slow to perceive the burdens
+which they bear, or to point out the cause of their
+own suffering; and—in the Socialist agitation—the
+number and influence of the blusterers and self-seekers
+compared with the genuine leaders has
+always been very small. No, revolutions do not take
+place without cause; and I doubt whether in any
+case the excesses accompanying a rising have exceeded
+the cruelties and injuries of the preceding
+tyranny. There is such a heart of tenderness and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>patient common sense in the mass of the people—everywhere
+I believe—as to convince one that, notwithstanding
+the slanders that have been heaped up
+by the armchair historian, they are really more inclined
+to endure than to accuse, more ready to forgive
+than retaliate. No—the general Socialist movement
+(including therein the Anarchist) has done and is
+still doing a great and necessary work—and I am
+proud to have belonged to it. It has defined a
+dream and an ideal, that of the common life conjoined
+to the free individuality, which somewhere
+and somewhen must be realized, because it springs
+from and is the expression of the very root-nature
+of Man.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Our “Sheffield Socialists,” though common working
+men and women, understood well enough the
+broad outlines of this ideal. They hailed William
+Morris and his work with the most sincere appreciation.
+I found among them the most interesting
+personalities, saturated for the most part, as I have
+said, with the thought of fraternity and fellowship;
+and I made one or two lifelong friends.</p>
+<div id='i144'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i144.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>G. E. H.<br>  <br>  (One of the first “Sheffield Socialists.”)</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>We organized lectures, addresses, pamphlets, with
+a street-corner propaganda which soon brought us
+in amusing and exciting incidents in the way of
+wrangles with the police and the town-crowds. At first
+an atmosphere of considerable suspicion rested upon
+the movement, and dynamite and daggers were
+assumed by outsiders to be indispensable parts of
+our equipment; but as time went on, and after a
+few years, this died away—and where there had been
+only jeers or taunts at first, crowds came to listen
+with serious and sympathetic mien. A dozen or
+twenty at most formed the moving and active element
+of our society—though its membership may have been
+a hundred or more; and these disposed themselves
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>to their various functions. Mrs. Usher, large-bosomed
+and large-hearted, would move on the outskirts
+of our open-air meetings, armed with a bundle
+of literature. She was an excellent saleswoman and
+few could resist her hearty appeal “Buy this
+pamphlet, love, it will do you good!” Even in
+the streets or the tramcars the most solemn and
+substantial old gentlemen fell a prey to her. Her
+brothers, the two Binghams, were among our two
+speakers, and both of them pretty effective, the one
+in a logical, the other in a more oratorical way.
+They were provision merchants in the town; and
+their business suffered at first, but afterwards gained,
+by the connection. Then there was Shortland,
+handsome, fiery and athletic, an engine fitter,
+always ready for a row and to act as ‘chucker
+out’ if required. Or J. M. Brown, who took quite
+an opposite part. He (tailor by trade) the very
+picture of kindness and broad good-nature would
+move among the crowd as if he hardly belonged to
+us, and engaging persuasively in conversation, first
+with one and then with another, would draw many
+a doubter into the fold; or George E. Hukin, with
+his Dutch-featured face and Dutch build—no speaker,
+nor prominent in public—but though young an excellent
+help at our committee meetings, where his
+shrewd strong brain and tactful nature gave his
+counsels much weight; and always from the
+beginning a special ally of mine; or George Adams,
+afterwards associated with me at Millthorpe, with
+his amusing quips and sallies, and plucky
+antagonisms, a good friend and a good hater,
+and always ready for an adventurous bout; or
+Raymond Unwin, who would come over from
+Chesterfield to help us, a young man of cultured
+antecedents, of first-rate ability and good sense,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>healthy, democratic, vegetarian, and now I need not
+say a well-known architect and promoter of Garden
+Cities.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then at one time there was Fred Charles—who was
+afterwards accused of an anarchist plot and sentenced,
+most unfairly, to ten years’ hard labour. He was
+already leaning to the Anarchist side of the movement,
+but was ready to work with us; and certainly was one
+of the most devoted of workers. No surrender or
+sacrifice for the ‘cause’ was too great for him;
+and as to his own earnings (as clerk) or possessions,
+he practically gave them all away to tramps or the
+unemployed. The case was tried at Stafford in
+March ’92 by Justice Hawkins, and though the
+incriminating evidence was quite slender yet, there
+being a panic on at the time with regard to
+Anarchism, there was an obvious determination to
+convict. I appeared in the box to testify to Charles’
+excellent character and public spirit, but needless to
+say without success. Or there was Burton, enginetenter,
+rather a type of the stout, somewhat self-satisfied
+and ignorant street-speaker, who would get us
+into trouble shouting “The land for the people!”
+or other cant phrases of the period, with really no
+clear idea of what they meant, and would have to
+be rescued when attacked or challenged by some
+keener critic among the audience; or again, Jonathan
+Taylor, the very opposite in type to these, tall,
+lean, logical and conclusive to the last degree;
+who with a kind of homely unconquerable humour,
+compelled his hearers from finger to finger, and from
+point to point, of his argument, and somehow always
+succeeded in holding the most restive crowd, and
+for any period. He had been on the school-board at
+one time, and was useful to us also by his knowledge
+of local and municipal expediencies. Or
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>again, John Furniss: he was a remarkable man,
+and perhaps the very first to preach the modern
+Socialism in the streets of Sheffield. A quarryman
+by trade, keen and wiry both in body and in mind,
+a thorough-going <i>Christian</i> Socialist, and originally
+I believe a bit of a local preacher; he had somehow
+at an early date got hold of the main ideas
+of the movement; and in the early ’eighties used
+to stride in—he and his companion George Pearson—five
+or six miles over the Moors, to Sheffield in order
+to speak at the Pump or the Monolith; and then
+stride out again in the middle of the night. And
+this he kept up for years and years, and when later
+he migrated to another quarry about the same
+distance from Chesterfield did exactly the same thing
+there; for perhaps twenty years, with marvellous
+energy and perseverance, he must have kept up this
+propaganda; and the amount of effective influence
+he must have exercised would be hard to reckon.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Such were some of the characters with whom I
+found myself associated, and for five or six years
+we carried on the Society with the utmost friendliness,
+accord and enthusiasm. It was a most interesting
+time. I knew all those mentioned and many
+others, very intimately, was familiar in their houses,
+stayed with them, knew all their goings-out and
+comings-in, and something of the details of their
+various trades.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In 1887 we took a large house and shop in
+Scotland Street, a poor district of the town; and
+opened a café, using the large room above for a
+meeting and lecture room, and the house for a joint
+residence for some of us who were more immediately
+concerned in carrying on the business. We had
+all sorts of social gatherings, lectures, teas, entertainments
+in the Hall—the wives and sisters of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>“comrades” helping, especially in the social work;
+we had Annie Besant, Charlotte Wilson, Kropotkin,
+Hyndman, and other notables down to speak for
+us; we gave teas to the slum-children who dwelt
+in the neighboring crofts and alleys (but these had
+at first to be given up on account of the poor
+little things tearing themselves and each other to
+pieces, perfect mobs of them, in their frantic attempts
+to gain admittance—a difficulty which no arrangement
+of tickets or of personal supervision seemed to
+obviate); and we organized excursions into municipal
+politics; and country propaganda. This last
+was often amusing as well as interesting. While, in
+the towns, as time went on, audiences grew in
+numbers and attentiveness, it still remained very
+difficult to capture the country districts. The miners
+would really not be uninterested, but in their sullen
+combative way they would take care not to show
+it. Many a time we have gone down to some mining
+village and taken up our stand on some heap of
+slag or broken wall, and the miners would come
+round and stand about or sit down deliberately <i>with
+their backs to the speaker</i>, and spit, and converse,
+as if quite heedless of the oration going on. But
+after a time, and as speaker succeeded speaker, one
+by one they would turn round—their lower jaws
+dropping—fairly captivated by the argument. It was
+much the same with the country rustics—but as a
+rule less successful. I remember on one occasion
+seven or eight of us, armed with literature, going
+for a long country walk to Hathersage in the Derbyshire
+dales. We had Tom Maguire with us, from
+Leeds, an excellent speaker, full of Irish wit and
+persuasiveness. We set him upon a stoneheap in
+the middle of the village and standing round him
+ourselves while he spoke, acted as decoy ducks to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>bring the villagers together. The latter full of
+curiosity came, in moderate numbers, but not one
+of them would approach nearer than a distance of
+twenty or thirty yards—just far enough to make the
+speaker despair of really reaching them. In vain
+we separated and going round tried to coax them
+to come nearer. In vain the speaker shouted himself
+hoarse and fired off his best jokes. Not a
+bit of it—they weren’t going to be fooled by us!
+and at last red in the face and out of breath and
+with a string of curses, Tom descended from his
+cairn, and we all, shaking the dust of the village
+off our feet, departed!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I meanwhile and during these years, not only took
+part in our local work, but spoke and lectured in
+the Socialist connection all round the country—at
+Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh,
+Hull, Liverpool, Nottingham and other places—my
+subjects the failures of the present Commercial
+system, and the possible reorganization of the
+future. As to the Café, we were only able to hold
+to it for a year. Though quite a success from the
+propagandist point of view, financially it was a
+failure. The refreshment department was not
+patronized nearly enough to make it pay. The neighborhood
+was an exceedingly poor one. And so
+we were obliged to surrender the place, and retire
+to smaller quarters. During that year however I
+really lived most of the time at the Scotland Street
+place. I occupied a large attic at the top of the
+house, <i>almost</i> high enough to escape the smells of
+the street below, but exposed to showers of blacks
+which fell from the innumerable chimneys around.
+In the early morning at 5 a.m. there was the strident
+sound of the ‘hummers’ and the clattering of innumerable
+clogs of men and girls going to their
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>work, and on till late at night there were drunken
+cries and shouting. Far around stretched nothing
+but factory chimneys and foul courts inhabited by
+the wretched workers. It was, I must say, frightfully
+depressing; and all the more so because of
+tragic elements in my personal life at the time.
+Only the enthusiasm of our social work, and the
+abiding thoughts which had inspired <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite> kept me going. I spent my spare
+time during the year in arranging and editing the
+collection of songs and music called <cite>Chants of
+Labour</cite>—a thing which might have been much better
+done by some one else, but I could find no one
+to do it. And it was a queer experience, collecting
+these songs of hope and enthusiasm, and composing
+such answering tunes and harmonies as I could, in
+the midst of these gloomy and discordant conditions.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As I say, we only stayed a year here, and as far
+as my health was concerned I don’t think I could
+have endured it much longer. I realized the terrible
+drawback to health and vitality consequent on living
+in these slums of manufacturing towns, and the way
+these conditions are inevitably sapping the strength
+of our populations.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>VIII<br> TRADE AND PHILOSOPHY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>In 1887 or 1888 I turned over the organization and
+commercial side of the garden at Millthorpe to my
+friend Albert Fearnehough. During the first four
+years or so I had taken the responsibility, and
+by many mistakes bought some valuable experience—but
+now I found that my literary and social work
+demanded so much time that I wanted my brain free
+from agricultural cares. So after this, while still contributing
+a fair amount of manual labour I left the
+organization alone.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I cannot say that, adopting the commercial
+standard, the experiment at Millthorpe could at any
+time be called <i>paying</i>. At the same time it was
+never (to me) disheartening. Taking strawberries
+as our main crop, we found, with several years’
+experience, that £40 per acre was a fair estimate
+of the gross produce. (And I do not think that
+this is excessive since I know that £60 or £70 is
+a not uncommon estimate.) If we had put, say,
+5 acres out of our 7½ under strawberries, this would
+have yielded £200 a year, which, allowing for extra
+labour, manure, etc., would still have maintained a
+man and his family; 100 fowls would probably
+have paid the rent (if it had not been a freehold);
+and the 2½ acres would have gone far to keep a
+horse or pony. But I had not the time to give to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>a complete organization, nor perhaps felt the necessary
+interest in it; and my friend had hardly the
+required energy; so we just paddled along, keeping
+two or three acres only under spade cultivation, and
+making a small sum, but not sufficient to meet
+expenses. I think, as I say, that the thing might
+have been made to pay in the commercial sense—but
+there is no doubt that under prevailing conditions
+and prices in England, agriculture of any
+kind requires pretty hard work and long hours to
+make it fairly successful. One of the reasons of
+this is the want of a prosperous country population
+and the local markets which this would afford. With
+industrial villages scattered over the land, eggs, fruits,
+vegetables would be in great demand—even in country
+districts—prices would be fair, the middleman would
+be dispensed with; even the horse and cart might
+not be needed. But it is quite a different matter
+when the stuff has to be sent to a distant market,
+there to be bought by hucksters, and to feed middlemen
+and railway shareholders, before it feeds either
+the producer or consumer. This trouble is really
+one of the great troubles of modern civilization—and
+while there is no doubt a certain advantage gained by
+division of labour among nations and provinces, and
+by the raising of products in the most suitable localities,
+it is a matter quite open to question whether
+the enormous expenses of the present world-wide
+exchange and the maintenance of these swarms of
+merchants, traders, shipping and railroad companies,
+with their innumerable shareholders and employees,
+does not quite obliterate or absorb the advantage
+so gained. Indeed when one thinks of the immense
+numbers of people in this way withdrawn from any
+direct service in production and made systematically
+dependent on the others, one may question whether
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>the gain does not at times come very near a loss;
+and one ceases to wonder that the condition of the
+actual producers, agricultural and others, remains
+so poor and unimproved.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In ’86 and ’87 I prepared for the Press and
+published the volume called <cite>England’s Ideal</cite>. The
+papers composing it had been written at different
+times during the two or three years preceding—some
+of them at Brighton, during intervals when family
+affairs had taken me back there for a time.
+Especially I remember writing <cite>Desirable Mansions</cite>
+in this way in an interval when I was tangled in
+family business and the idiotic life of the place—and
+with a kind of savage glee as I sought to tear
+the whole sickly web to pieces. Descended from
+the transcendental generative thought of <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite> on the one hand, and my new-found
+acquaintance with intensely practical life on the
+other, these papers, though crude in some respects,
+bear I believe a certain impetus about them. Once
+or twice, by the violent opposition they have excited
+(always a reassuring thing for an author), I have
+had evidence of this. When <cite>Desirable Mansions</cite>
+was first issued, as a separate pamphlet, I received
+a copy, anonymously sent and written all over with
+the most furious and scurrilous denials, challenges,
+abuse, etc.; and after the publication of <cite>England’s
+Ideal</cite> as a volume, a friend of mine had a letter
+from a lady, in which she said that her husband
+had been reading the book, and that she had got
+hold of it and “poked it into the fire, as she found
+it was unsettling him so!” I have always regretted
+that I did not get hold of that letter, with leave
+to publish it. It would have made such a splendid
+advertisement.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The influences of Ruskin, in style and moral bias,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>and of Marx in economics, are very apparent in
+the volume; and though I do not think that I
+ever gave myself ‘hand and foot’ to Marx in his
+views; yet I was very willing to adopt his theory
+of surplus value as a working hypothesis. The
+truth is that though no exact measure of ‘surplus
+value’ or of the amount of which the workman
+is ‘defrauded’ by the capitalist, is possible—and
+though any theory which attempts to exactly define
+this amount is sure to be open to criticism<a id='r15'></a><a href='#f15' class='c012'><sup>[15]</sup></a>; yet,
+the general fact of surplus value, namely that the
+workman does <i>not</i> get the full value of his labours,
+and that he is taken advantage of by the capitalist
+is obvious—and serious—enough. And it is on this
+general position that <cite>England’s Ideal</cite>—like the whole
+Socialist movement—is founded. The seriousness of
+the matter may be seen from the fact that from this
+original falsity (of the appropriation of other folks’
+labour) are flowing to-day by a perfectly logical evolution
+two other great falsities or failures—Commercial
+Crises and shopkeeping Imperialism—which are
+now threatening ruin to all the Western Civilizations.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Commercial Crises, as has been often explained
+(see <cite>England’s Ideal</cite>, pp. 42, 43) flow primarily from
+the fact that the working masses for their wages
+only receive a fraction of the value of the goods
+produced, and therefore can only <i>buy back</i> a
+fractional part of the same, while the capitalist
+classes (though with their share of the swag they
+<i>could</i> buy back the remainder) do not want more
+than a part of the remainder. Consequently there
+occurs every year on the one hand an accumulation
+of goods unused and on the other an accumulation
+of capital waiting for reinvestment; and these two
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>things from time to time clog the Commercial
+Machine so as to render it hardly workable, and will
+probably in the end bring it to a standstill. As to
+modern Imperialism it is a logical outcome of the last-mentioned
+item, the accumulation of capital waiting
+for reinvestment. For all the openings for capital
+in the mother country having been filled up there
+remains nothing but to invest it in manufactures
+abroad. And since other Western countries are
+similarly filled up, there further remains nothing but
+to go to savage and outlying nations and force <i>them</i>
+to become our employees and our customers. But to
+do this with safety requires military occupation
+and the country’s flag. Hence in a nutshell the
+flag-waving and Imperialism of the day.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In 1889 I got off <cite>Civilization: Its Cause and
+Cure</cite>—another series of reprints. And here too the
+philosophical position, though often crudely expressed,
+and with more attempt at <i>suggestion</i> than
+finish, is I think in the main well-founded and
+valuable. The attacks on Civilization and on Modern
+Science were both wrung from me, as it were by
+some inner evolution or conviction and against my
+will; but in both cases the position once taken
+became to me fully justified. In neither case did
+I take any great precautions to guard against misunderstanding,
+and in consequence I have been freely
+accused of blinding myself—in respect of Civilization—to
+modern progress, and of desiring to return
+to the state of primitive man; and in respect to
+Science—of preferring ignorance to intelligence. But
+no careful reader would make these mistakes. The
+monumental, patient, one may almost say heroic, work
+which has been done by Science during the nineteenth
+century, in the way of exact observation,
+classification, and detailed practical application, can
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>never be ignored and can hardly be over-estimated.
+None the less the very decided criticism in <cite>Civilization:
+Its Cause and Cure</cite>, of the limits of scientific
+theorizing and authority has been quite necessary;
+as well as the forcible insistence on the fact that
+Science only deals with the surface of life and not
+with its substance. As to Civilization the advances
+of Humanity during the Civilization period have been
+largely bound up with the advance of Science and
+have chiefly consisted perhaps in increase of technical
+mastery over Nature and materials. Like every
+increase of power this has led to greater opportunity
+of good and greater opportunity of evil. On
+the moral side however, we may believe that men’s
+sympathies <i>have</i> broadened and widened during the
+civilization period—so that there is a larger and more
+general sense of Humanity. On the other hand
+during this period something of the intensity of the
+old tribal kinship and community of life has been
+lost, as well as something of the instinctive kinship
+of each individual to Nature. It is obvious enough
+that there can be no <i>return</i> to pre-scientific or pre-civilization
+conditions—though it may be hoped that
+a later age may combine some of the virtues of
+the more primitive man with the powers that have
+been gained during civilization.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In the year following [1890] something happened
+which in a curious vague way I had been expecting
+to happen for some time. It almost amounted to
+my making the acquaintance of a pre-civilization
+man of a very high type. I have mentioned how
+the <cite>Bhagavat Gita</cite> falling into my hands at a certain
+date, gave the clue to and precipitated the crystallization
+of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>. From that time of
+course I was intensely interested in the wise men
+of the East, and that germinal thought which in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>various ages of the world has become the nucleus
+and impulse of new movements. During the years
+’80 to ’90 there was a great deal of Theosophy
+and Oriental philosophy of various sorts current in
+England, and much talk and speculation, sometimes
+very ill-founded, about ‘adepts,’ ‘mahatmas,’ and
+‘gurus.’ I too felt a great desire to see for myself
+one of these representatives of the ancient wisdom.
+But it did not seem very clear how the thing would
+come about. However at last there came a very
+pressing letter from my friend Arunáchalam in Ceylon
+(the very friend who had given me the <cite>Bhagavat
+Gita</cite> at an earlier date), asking me to come out
+and meet a certain Gñani to whose discourses and
+teaching he was himself already deeply indebted,
+and who was willing to give some time to me if
+I should come. So the way was made plain, and
+I immediately made arrangements to go.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I have given a careful account of this Gñani, his
+personality and teaching, in my book <cite>Adam’s Peak
+to Elephanta</cite>—and I need not repeat the material
+here. As I say, he was in some respects a high
+type of pre-civilization man. For, like most men
+of this class in India, he identified himself so closely
+with the ancient religious tradition that one could
+almost feel him to be one of the old Vedic race of
+two thousand or three thousand years back. His
+modes of thought, appearance, personality, all suggested
+this. And here in this man it was of absorbing
+interest to feel one came in contact with the
+root-thought of all existence—the intense <i>consciousness</i>
+(not conviction merely) of the oneness of all
+life—the germinal idea which in one form or another
+has spread from nation to nation, and become the
+soul and impulse of religion after religion. However
+one might differ from him in points of detail,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>in matters of modern science or of politics, one
+felt that he, and his predecessors three thousand
+years ago, had seized the central stronghold, and
+were possessors of an outlook and of intuitions which
+the modern might truly envy. After seeing Whitman,
+the amazing representative of the same spirit in all
+its voluminous modern unfoldment—seven years
+before—this visit to the Eastern sage was like going
+back to the pure lucid intensely transparent source
+of some mighty and turbulent stream. It was a
+returning from West to East, and a completing of
+the circle of the Earth.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is curious that <i>his</i> teacher (Tilleinathan Swamy)
+seems to have told this Gñani many years before
+that an Englishman or Englishmen would come to
+him. Probably he foresaw, from the growth of the
+English mind, that the time was not very far distant
+when the English would rise to an understanding
+of the great Indian tradition and would come over
+to study it.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Looking back now [1901] after ten years, on
+my personal experiences of the Eastern teachings,
+I seem to realize more and more that the true line
+is that (first adequately pointed out by Whitman)
+which consists in combining and harmonizing <i>both</i>
+body and soul, the outer and the inner. They are
+the eternal and needful complements of each other.
+The Eastern teaching has or has had a tendency
+to err on one side, the Western on the other. The
+Indian methods and attitude cause an ingathering
+and quiescence of the mind, accompanied often by
+great illumination; but if carried to excess they
+result in over-quiescence, and even torpor. The
+Western habits tend towards an over-activity and
+external distraction of the mind, which may result
+in disintegration. The true line (as in other cases)
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>is not in mediocrity, but in a bold and sane acceptance
+of both sides, so as to make them offset and
+balance each other, and indeed so that each shall
+make the extension of the other more and more
+possible. Growth is the method and the solution.
+The soul goes out and returns, goes out and returns;
+and this is its daily, almost hourly, action—just as
+it is an epitome of the æonian life-history of every
+individual.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>This visit to the East in some sense completed
+the circle of my experiences. It took two or three
+years for its results to soak and settle into my mind;
+but by that time I felt that my general attitude
+towards the world was not likely to change
+much, and that it only remained to secure and
+define what I had got hold of, and to get it
+decently built out if possible into actual life and
+utterance.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>With regard to this process of “building out”
+into the actual world I should feel very ungrateful
+if I did not acknowledge my indebtedness to the
+Nature-conditions around me. For any sustained
+and more or less original work it seems almost necessary
+that one should have the quietude and strength
+of Nature at hand, like a great reservoir from which
+to draw. The open air, and the physical and mental
+health that goes with it, the sense of space and
+freedom in the Sky, the vitality and amplitude of
+the Earth—these are real things from which one
+can only cut oneself off at serious peril and risk
+to one’s immortal soul. And there is somewhat of
+the same potency and vitality in the very life of the
+mass-peoples who are in touch with these foundation-facts
+and outdoor occupations. It was a true
+instinct or a gracious Fate—and I realized this more
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>and more—which had compelled me to locate myself
+in the midst of such surroundings.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I should feel ungrateful too if I did not express
+my indebtedness to the lovely little stream which
+like a live thing ran night and day, winter and
+summer, full of grace and music at the foot of my
+garden. It entered into my life and became part
+of it.<a id='r16'></a><a href='#f16' class='c012'><sup>[16]</sup></a> The hut, which I had built at Bradway
+to write the earlier part of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> in,
+I transported with me to Millthorpe, and planked
+it down on the edge of the brook, facing the sun
+and the south; and thenceforth it served a double
+purpose—that of a study in which, a hundred yards
+away from the house, I could write in comparative
+safety from interruption; and that of a bathing
+shelter with its feet almost in the water. Here
+through uncounted hours I continued the production
+of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> and my other books,
+avoiding always the act of writing within the house
+except when absolutely forced to retire by stress
+of weather or other causes, and rejoicing always
+to get the sentiment of the open free world into
+my pages; and here I came, either alone or with
+friends, to rest from labour in the garden, or to
+bathe and be refreshed after the heat of the day.</p>
+<div id='i161'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i161.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE HUT AND THE BROOK.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>IX<br> MILLTHORPE AND HOUSEHOLD LIFE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>It must be admitted, however, that the acclimatization
+to the new and somewhat limited and strenuous
+life at Millthorpe did not take place all at once; and
+perhaps the fact of my having burnt my boats, as
+it were, and committed myself as I had done, was
+after all a good thing. For some little time I
+felt restive and unsettled at the enchainment—partly,
+as I have said, because the Thoreau ideal, opening
+out <i>underneath</i>, took the bottom out of the commercial
+and rather materialistic life in the way of
+Trade in which I was embarking; and partly
+because anyhow the latter sort of life—though
+valuable as an experience—was not by its nature
+likely to hold my interest for long. The rustics
+too and farmfolk around me were on my first arrival
+a little strange, and inclined, as often happens in
+such cases, to hold off and be suspicious of a newcomer;
+my reputation as a Socialist alarmed them;
+there was none of the cordiality of little Bradway;
+the climate was damp and the winters were long;
+and I had occasional relapses of feeling about
+it all.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Yet if I <i>had</i> cut the painter and floated my little
+boat away onto the great deep I doubt whether the
+result would have been favorable. After all, all
+life means a denial of <i>part</i> of oneself. It is
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>obviously impossible to find a situation or conditions
+which will satisfy <i>all the demands</i> of one’s nature—millionfold
+complex as they are. Some must be
+sacrificed. To moan over that necessity or to pose
+as a martyr is absurd. All one can reasonably
+do is to find a situation which will satisfy the <i>root</i>-demands,
+and the <i>rooting</i> demands—those that have
+the power of growth in them. Then the seed, though
+it seem to die in its prison-house, will assuredly
+find its outlet and quicken into a new life.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I could not complain in this case that the root-needs
+of my temperament were unsatisfied. Quite
+the contrary. I was plunged in the very heart of
+Nature—that Nature which for many years I had
+felt the need of—in a singularly beautiful Derbyshire
+valley with plentiful woods, streams and moors;
+I had already become familiar with the mass-folk
+of Sheffield, and found friends among the workers
+in many trades; and was beginning to know the
+rustics of my own neighborhood. I was leading
+an outdoor life, and my health was every day
+becoming firmer and more consolidated. I had
+escaped from the domination of Civilization in its
+two most fatal and much-detested forms, respectability
+and cheap intellectualism. In my happy valley
+there was no resident squire of any kind, nor even
+a single “villa,” while the church, more than a
+mile distant, was quite amiably remote! We were
+just a little population of manual workers, sincerely
+engrossed in our several occupations. And finally,
+and perhaps more than all, I had found a firm
+basis and secure vantage-ground for my literary and
+productive work.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>People have often asked me if I did not miss
+the life I had left behind. I cannot truly say that
+I ever did. At Brighton and at Cambridge and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>partly in London I had had my fill of balls and
+dinner-parties and the usual entertainments, and when
+at the close of those two dispensations (somewhere
+in the early ’eighties) <cite>I gave my dress clothes away</cite>,
+I did so without any misgiving and without any fear
+that I should need them again. The fact is that
+though it is perfectly true that by steadily and persistently
+going to evening parties and social functions
+one may come into touch with interesting or remarkable
+people of sorts, yet the game is hardly worth
+the candle. Through leagues of boredom, platitudes
+and general futility one occasionally has the satisfaction
+of exchanging a wink of recognition, so to
+speak, with some really congenial and original woman
+or man; but at all such functions the severe flow
+of amiable nonsense soon cuts any real conversation
+short, and if one wants to continue the latter the
+only way is to arrange a meeting quite outside and
+apart—which after all one might have done in other
+and simpler ways. As to the matter of dress, the
+adoption of a pleasant yet not strictly conventional
+evening garb of one’s own has the useful effect of
+automatically closing doors which are not “worth
+while” and opening those that <i>are</i>—so in that way
+it is much to be recommended!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On the whole, though just the first few years
+at Millthorpe were somewhat isolated I believe my
+independent life there has really enabled me to
+see more of the great world than I should otherwise
+have done. Visitors from a distance have often
+many and intimate things to tell one, and questions
+can be discussed in a more leisurely way than in
+a great centre where every one stands watch in hand,
+counting the minutes. And on the other hand, by
+going myself to London for a fortnight or so three
+or four times a year, I found I could get into touch
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>with all sorts of cliques and circles—such as I perhaps
+should not have cared to be involved in if I had
+been permanently living there! The country became
+a splendid basis for literary work, with the opportunity
+it afforded (so priceless to me) of writing
+in the open air and in close contact with the ordinary
+realities of life; it supplied a good basis for my
+lecturing and other excursions into the Northern
+Towns; and with its market-gardening and sandal
+trades kept my hands busy when my head required
+a rest.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Of the many years mainly spent here at Millthorpe,
+the first fifteen—from 1883 to 1898—were somewhat
+handicapped for me by the presence of a small
+working-family in the house; first, for ten years,
+the Fearnehoughs of whom I have already spoken;
+and afterwards, for five years, the Adams’. No
+other arrangement was at that time possible. Both
+families were charming and interesting in their
+different ways; but necessarily they hampered my
+freedom a good deal. With children in the house
+(in both cases) the domestic arrangements had
+largely to be suited to their necessities and convenience,
+and my interests had to come very decidedly
+second. This did not so much matter at
+the beginning of the time, but later with the expansion
+of my own sphere of operations a different
+household arrangement became imperative.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Fearnehough, as I have said, was of a “powerful
+uneducated” type—a good specimen of the British
+worker—a bit slow in brain, but exceedingly thorough
+and downright in all his dealings. His wife possessed
+the infinite patience and kindliness of the household
+guardian—going always about her work with untiring
+forethought and industry—even when, as often happened,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>she was silently suffering from bad headaches.
+There was a certain native grace about her, and
+dignity about him, which well became them. The
+two children, boy and girl of about nine and ten
+when they first arrived, were sensible and natural
+too. To have this family living with me—though
+it may have been hampering in some ways—was for
+some years very helpful. Whether at meals, or
+working in the fields, or sitting round the fire of
+an evening, to be in close touch with so sane and
+simple an outlook on life, and one so entirely
+different from that to which I had generally been
+accustomed, was in itself an education. The very
+downrightness of daily existence among those who
+live close upon absolute necessity is a thing hardly
+realized even by the most well-meaning of the well-to-do,
+unless they positively share that existence.
+Of course it cuts away a vast deal of sentimentalism,
+æstheticism, and all that. But on the whole it is
+rather healthy.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I remember one day—in later years when Annie,
+the daughter, had gone away to work in Sheffield—speaking
+to her mother about the girl (whose absence
+I knew she felt) and saying rather sentimentally,
+“I expect you miss Annie a good deal nowadays.”
+The answer was characteristic, and in its way quite
+lovely: “<cite>Yes, I do miss her—especially on washing
+days!</cite>” It was not that Mrs. Fearnehough cared
+one whit less for her daughter than many a very
+cultured mother might, but simply that her answer
+allowed the bed-rock of human nature to be seen.
+At any rate it took the wind out of my sentimentality!
+Not long ago I was asking a neighboring farmer—whose
+son had just got married and migrated on
+to a little farm of his own—how the son “liked
+his new place.” “Like it?” said the old man with
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>a dryish sort of laugh—“well, I guess he’ll like it
+if he can any way make a living out of it—and if
+he can’t he won’t; he’ll be better able to say in
+a year or two.” It is from answers like these that
+one perceives how close on the rocks the lives of
+the mass peoples are thrust—too close indeed to allow
+much scope for expression of their real life or liking.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Fearnehough and I stumbled away at our market-gardening
+for a good many years. Being both to
+begin with quite ignorant of the trade we made our
+full complement of mistakes and purchased our experience
+sometimes dearly. Yet by degrees we got
+the land into good order. We dug it over, made
+drains to carry off the water, planted a hundred or
+two of fruit and forest trees, built bits of walls and
+fences, kept a horse, and fowls, and grew our crops,
+and took our produce into market—a strenuous time,
+but greatly interesting in its way. My commercial
+instinct was weak, but Albert’s was perhaps even
+weaker! With his real love of good work he would
+spend as much time preparing an onion-bed as could
+only be paid for by ten times the value of the crop;
+and at one period he insisted on rooting every bit of
+rock and stone out of the subsoil so persistently that I
+began to think the garden would be turned into a
+quarry! It was characteristic of him when I remonstrated,
+to say: “I can’t help it—if I didn’t do my
+work thorough when I’m at it, I should only keep
+awake at night thinking about it.” I have already
+given some of the general results and conclusions
+of our labours of that time. When the period of
+our experiment came to an end, Fearnehough returned
+again to his scythe-making trade in Sheffield, which
+he still carries on, hale and hearty, down to this day
+[1915].</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I cannot pass this period by without dwelling for
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>a moment on another friend at that time a member
+of the household. I mean my dog Bruno<a id='r17'></a><a href='#f17' class='c012'><sup>[17]</sup></a>—so called
+not from his colour, for he was a very handsome
+black spaniel, but from some fanciful association
+with Giordano Bruno the Italian. That dog—like so
+many black animals, black horses, black cats, black
+poodles, black-plumaged birds, rooks, jackdaws, starlings,
+and so forth—had something <i>demonic</i> about
+him. The tenderness and gentleness of his spirit,
+combined with a penetrative vision which searched
+one’s very soul, was almost superhuman. I came
+first to know him when he was merely a puppy at
+a friend’s house. We almost fell in love with each
+other then and there, and I was not altogether surprised
+when a few weeks afterwards he arrived at
+my door, sent on as a present from the said friends.
+He never doubted for a moment that he had come
+to his true home, and he settled down at once, a most
+loving member of the household. The Fearnehoughs
+took to him right cordially, and Albert himself a year
+or so later had the great satisfaction of saving him
+from a horrible death.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I had been out somewhere on foot with Bruno
+and arriving back within a couple of hundred yards
+of my gate I perceived the local pack of foxhounds
+(the pests of this as of all countrysides!) scattered
+about the road between me and home—the huntsmen
+having gone into the public-house for a moment to
+have a drink. But that moment was more than
+sufficient—for hounds are dangerous things unless
+under severe control. Something occurred—I know
+not what. A hound gave cry; the others joined in;
+and in an instant, to my horror and despair, the whole
+pack was yelling in pursuit, and Bruno flying for
+his life—in the only direction he <i>could</i> at the moment
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>fly, away from home! The dog was swift and active,
+but what chance had he? I gave him up for lost.
+With extraordinary agility however and much
+presence of mind he doubled and, clearing ever so
+many garden walls and gates, dashed through the
+little hamlet back again, finally racing across one
+of my fields with the whole pack close behind and
+of course gaining on him. Most luckily Albert was
+in our yard at the moment, and hearing the hullabaloo
+rushed out with a pitchfork in his hand, just
+in time to check the ravening horde while Bruno
+rushed past him to safety. A moment more and the
+dog would have been torn to fragments.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Bruno showed in high degree that curious quality
+resembling <i>conscience</i> in man, by which dogs, having
+contracted and adopted a new standard of life from
+their masters, betray an emotional conflict going on
+within them. Sometimes—as is often the case where
+fowls are kept—we would have a nest of newly-hatched
+chicks being kept warm and dry in a basket
+on the hearth. On such occasions Bruno was torn
+by conflicting passions. The very sight and smell
+of the chicks roused the old primitive hunting instinct,
+and he would creep nearer and nearer to the
+basket in a very ecstasy of excitement—his limbs
+trembling and his nose quivering as he sniffed the
+prey. Yet he knew perfectly well that he must not
+touch; and his fidelity was so absolute that I firmly
+believe he harboured no intention of doing so. But
+who can tell? We felt that possibly a sudden frenzy
+of the animal nature might overtake him; and we
+could not do otherwise than keep on the watch. As
+a matter of fact he never did do anything rash;
+but the tension on him, poor dog, was so great that
+sometimes for two or three days he would hardly
+touch his food, and he positively grew quite thin
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>under the strain. It was really a relief for all of
+us when the hatching days were over.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>There is something strangely touching in the fact
+that dogs not only thus develop a conscience and
+a morality foreign to their canine nature, but that
+also from their intense devotion to their so-called
+‘masters’ they are severed and alienated to some
+degree from the natural loves of their race—at any
+rate on the affectional side. I think Bruno nourished
+in his heart a strange susceptibility to beauty. His
+amours with other dogs were only of the ordinary
+kind; but he cherished for a certain white kitten
+a positive adoration. The kitten was certainly beautiful—snow-white
+and graceful to a degree—and to
+Bruno obviously a goddess; but alas! like other
+goddesses only too fickle and even cruel. When
+Bruno arrived on the scene, the kitten would skip on
+to the vantage-ground of a chair-seat; and from
+thence torment the pathetic and pleading nose of
+the dog with naughty scratches. Again and again
+would Bruno—wounded in his heart as well as in
+his head—return to his ineffectual suit, only to have
+his advances rejected as before. At last he had to
+abandon this quest, but it was curious that a year
+or two later he fell in love with <i>another</i> white kitten
+in much the same way and with much the same
+result.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Everything however comes to him who waits”;
+and the most curious and pathetic part of this story
+is its ending. For, a good many years afterwards
+when Bruno had become quite an old dog and had
+lost much of his activity, a <i>cat</i> came and fell in
+love with him! This cat used to come from a
+neighboring farm and spend much of its time with
+the dog, and frequently at night would stay with
+him in the little outhouse which he used as a kennel,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>sleeping between the dog’s paws. Ultimately the
+cat was there when Bruno died.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Fearnehough’s place, when he returned to Sheffield,
+was taken by George Adams, who (also with wife
+and two children) came to share the Millthorpe
+Cottage with me. Adams was in most ways the
+very reverse of Albert Fearnehough. Town bred,
+rather slight and thin, with a forward stoop and a
+shock of black hair, he was of an impetuous humorous
+and rather artistic temperament—not too exact or
+precise about details, but one who could cover a
+good deal of ground in a day. Born in the poorest
+slums of Sheffield he told me more than once how,
+after his mother died, he was left alone a mere urchin
+in a tiny lodging with his father. His father was a
+cobbler by trade rather given to drink, and in the
+habit of going out early of a morning to work as
+a wage-slave in some shop, and returning late. When
+he went out he left a <i>halfpenny</i> on the table for the
+boy to find his food with during the day! Not a
+very good start in life. The boy roamed about,
+half-starved, cadging or ‘snaking’ what he could—but
+developed, perhaps in consequence, a singular
+resourcefulness. When about thirteen his father died,
+and he was left absolutely alone in the world. The
+neighbours may have been kind in their way, but he
+was alone and without refuge to flee to. Then something
+pathetic happened. An orphanage for little
+<i>girls</i> had lately been opened in the neighborhood,
+and the boy knew one or two of these girls. One
+evening, at closing time, the matron discovered among
+her little flock this large-eyed, thin-legged almost
+rickety ragamuffin sitting! Asked what he was
+doing there he replied that he wanted to be taken
+in. “But the orphanage is for girls only,” said
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>the matron, “and you are not a girl.” It was no
+use, he would not go; tears ran down his face; he
+told his plight; and they were fain to find him a
+bed in an attic for the night. Needless to say he
+remained a second and a third night. The pale
+mobile face made friends; and the end of it was
+that a boys’ <i>side</i> was created in the orphanage and
+added to that of the girls!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>After remaining in the orphanage for a year or
+two a place was found for George Adams in the
+villa-residence of a Sheffield manufacturer, where he
+went first as knife and boot boy and afterwards
+as under-gardener. The good people of the villa
+discovered his taste for drawing and painting, and
+sent him to a School of Art for lessons; and so
+when at the age of twenty or so he left ‘service’
+and started for himself as an insurance-collector
+(most depressing of occupations) he had a fair knowledge
+of gardening and a fair artistic ability at his
+command. He married, and joining the Socialist
+movement became one of our most lively and adventurous
+spirits. The departure of the Fearnehoughs
+gave me the opportunity of offering their place at
+Millthorpe to him (and his family)—which he
+accepted as a joyful exchange from the dismal
+trade of eternally dunning the needy denizens of
+mean streets for their funeral and coffin monies.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>With his arrival at Millthorpe things took on a
+more lively air there. His knowledge of gardening
+was a decided help, and the financial side of the
+venture—if not exactly a success from the purely
+commercial point of view—did certainly under the
+circumstances (absence of any rent, etc.) yield a
+small profit to the good. He took up cordially with
+the sandal-making, which I had at first carried on
+alone, and which came in useful in winter when the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>outdoor work was slack; and he added bee-keeping
+to our activities. My literary work and connections
+were increasing, and the place became more social,
+and more especially socialistic, than it had been
+before—so much so indeed that the country folk (or
+some of them at any rate) became a little alarmed!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>A year or two after George Adams’ arrival the
+Parish Councils Act came into operation, and the
+first election was the cause of much excitement in
+the villages. Adams and I—though knowing perfectly
+well that we had no chance of success—decided—chiefly
+for the fun of the thing—to come forward
+as candidates; and almost a panic ensued among
+the larger farmers and the parson as to what we
+might possibly do or propose. Strange stories were
+circulated of the Socialist programme, and of the
+expenses into which the community would certainly
+be plunged if it were adopted. But the finishing
+touch to our chances was given by an election address
+printed and circulated by one candidate of decidedly
+Conservative type, in which he did not hesitate to say
+that “it is reported publicly in Holmesfield that one
+of our opponents advocates the burning of the Bible,
+and also working on the Sabbath Day.” After that
+we had no prospect of success! <i>Which</i> of us two
+was really pointed at in this accusation we never quite
+knew, though we entered into a sort of friendly
+rivalry for the honour. But the printed card containing
+the address I retain to this day, and it is a
+treasured possession.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Adams was certainly not mealy-mouthed, and I
+am afraid he made very blasphemous remarks at
+times, but his intense sense of fun and his twinkling
+delight over ‘good stories’ quite redeemed any such
+deficiencies. His courageous humour was all the
+more remarkable because, poor thing, he was always
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>suffering from ill-health. Dating from the early life
+which I have described, his internal arrangements,
+as can easily be imagined, never worked really
+properly; and at times he would suffer a lot of
+pain, and become seriously emaciated. How he
+managed to keep up his gardening and other activities
+in spite of frequent illness was always a wonder;
+but his vivid imagination carried him on, and if he
+were downcast at times, new plans and enterprises
+were sure to come in and disperse the pessimistic
+mood.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The gardening work, however, at Millthorpe <i>was</i>
+too much for his slight frame; and after some five
+years’ stay there he elected to retire with his family
+into a cottage not far off in the same parish and
+devote himself to the sandal-trade and to the occasional
+sale of his water-colour drawings. This he
+did; and after remaining for four or five years moved
+on to the Letchworth Garden City where his labours
+and his personality were much appreciated, and where
+he occupied a little home of his own until his death
+in 1910.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The Adams’ left Millthorpe early in February ’98;
+and the next day—trundling with the help of two
+boys all his worldly goods in a handcart over the
+hills, and through a disheartening blizzard of snow—George
+Merrill arrived. This extraordinary being,
+in many ways so kindred a spirit to my own, had
+now been known to me for some years. I had met
+him first on the outskirts of Sheffield immediately
+after my return from India, and had recognized at
+once a peculiar intimacy and mutual understanding.
+Bred in the slums quite below civilization, but of
+healthy parentage of comparatively rustic origin, he
+had grown so to speak entirely out of his own roots;
+and a singularly affectionate, humorous, and swiftly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>intuitive nature had expanded along its own lines—subject
+of course to some of the surrounding conditions,
+but utterly untouched by the prevailing
+conventions and proprieties of the upper world.
+Always—even in utmost poverty—clean and sweet in
+person and neat in attire, he was attractive to most
+people; and children (of whom he was especially
+fond) would congregate round him. Yet being by
+temperament loving and even passionate—to a degree
+indeed which sometimes scandalized the “unco’ guid”—he
+was, it may safely be said, never ‘respectable.’
+Fortunately he was either too careless or too unconscious
+of public opinion to trouble much about that;
+and despite the shafts of occasional criticism he remained
+always fairly assured of himself—with the same
+sort of unconscious assurance that a plant or an animal
+may have in its own nature. What struck me most,
+however, on my first meeting with him, was the
+pathetic look of wistfulness in his face. Whatever
+his experiences up to then may have been, it assured
+me that the desire of his <i>heart</i> was still unsatisfied.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>To George Merrill the arrival at Millthorpe was
+the fulfilment of a dream; and a blizzard ten times
+as bad as the actual one would not I believe have
+daunted him. The departure of the Adams’ had
+left the house largely denuded of furniture, and for
+some days we bivouacked with a trestle table for
+meals and a sanded floor. By degrees we got things
+into order, acquired the necessaries of life and
+comfort; and started housekeeping on a new
+footing. For seven years the possibility of this
+arrangement had I believe wavered before George’s
+eyes, and it had certainly been considered by me.
+But we had hardly spoken about it. It was too
+remote. On my side other arrangements and engagements
+precluded the plan; on his, the various situations
+he had found—once in a newspaper office, once
+in an hotel, and lastly in an ironworks—were not
+to be lightly thrown aside. It was only now, when
+the Adams’ were leaving and George at the same
+time was out of work, that the Fates pointed
+favorably and the thing was done.</p>
+
+<div id='i178'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i178.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>GEORGE MERRILL.<br>  <br>  (<cite>Photo: Lena Connell.</cite>)</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>If the Fates pointed favorably I need hardly
+say that my friends (with a few exceptions) pointed
+the other way! I knew of course that George had
+an instinctive genius for housework, and that in all
+probability he would keep house better than most
+women would. But most of my friends thought
+otherwise. They drew sad pictures of the walls
+of my cottage hanging with cobwebs, and of the
+master unfed and neglected while his assistant amused
+himself elsewhere. They neither knew nor understood
+the facts of the case. Moreover they had sad
+misgivings about the moral situation. A youth who
+had spent much of his early time in the purlieus of
+public-houses and in society not too reputable would
+do me no credit, and would only by my adoption
+be confirmed in his own errant ways. Such was
+their verdict. For myself if I entertained any of
+these misgivings it was but very faintly. Of the
+fellow’s essential goodness I felt no doubt. What
+rather troubled me was the question whether <i>he</i>
+would be able to endure the dulness and quiet of
+a country life.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>With a remarkably good ear for music, and a
+sympathetic baritone voice, he had a ready talent
+which would have taken him far on the music-hall
+stage. In fact I hardly know how it was that he
+did not find a vocation on that stage. Anyhow he
+was known in not a few circles for his musical
+quips and his comic or sentimental songs; and was
+pretty familiar with the doings and <i>personnel</i> of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>the theatres. To take such an one away into the
+depths of rustic life might have been a great mistake.
+Probably if this had been the prevailing side
+of his character it <i>would</i> have been a mistake. As
+it was the move proved a complete success. In
+a few months or a year my friend was quite
+acclimatized, and while enjoying (like myself) a day
+or two in town was always genuinely glad to
+get back again to our little home in Cordwell
+Valley.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As I have said, the families I had with me before
+were both kindly and good sorts, and in their different
+ways helpful and useful. But a time had come
+with the growing expansion of my work when it
+became quite impossible to continue running things
+on the old footing, and quite necessary for me to
+have the house really at my own command. The
+arrival of George Merrill rendered this possible. And
+immediately a new order of things began. Merrill
+from the first developed quite a talent for housework.
+He soon picked up the necessary elements of
+cookery, vegetarian or otherwise; he carried on the
+arts of washing, baking and so forth with address
+and dispatch; he took pride in making the place
+look neat and clean, and insisted on decorating every
+room that was in use with flowers. I, for my part,
+finally gave up the market garden business and contracted
+the garden ground into merely sufficient to
+supply the needs of the house. This I cultivated
+partly myself and partly with the occasional help
+of an outsider; and in addition I made it a rule
+to dust my own study and light the fire in it every
+morning. These little garden and household works—if
+not amounting to much—I have still always
+found very helpful and rather pleasant—as giving the
+bodily side of life some decent expression, and at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>the same time rendering the mental perspective more
+just.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Thus we settled down, two bachelors: keeping
+the mornings intact for pretty close and rigorous
+work; and the afternoons and evenings for more
+social recreation. As a rule I find the housekeeper
+who is a little particular and ‘house-proud’ is inclined,
+not unnaturally, to be somewhat set against
+visitors—especially those who may bring some amount
+of dirt and dishevelment with them. But George—though
+occasionally disposed that way—was so
+genuinely sociable and affectionate by nature that
+the latter tendency overcame the former. The only
+people he could not put up with were those whom
+he suspected (sometimes unjustly) of being pious
+or puritanical. For these he had as keen a <i>flair</i>
+as the orthodox witch-finder used to have for
+heretics; and I am afraid he was sometimes rude
+to them. On one occasion he was standing at the
+door of our cottage, looking down the garden brilliant
+in the sun, when a missionary sort of man arrived
+with a tract and wanted to put it in his hand.
+“Keep your tract,” said George. “I don’t want
+it.” “But don’t you wish to know the way to
+heaven?” said the man. “No, I don’t,” was the
+reply, “can’t you see that <i>we’re in heaven here</i>—we
+don’t <i>want</i> any better than this, so go away!”
+And the man turned and fled. Like the archdeacon
+in Eden Phillpotts’ <cite>Human Boy</cite> “he flew and was
+never heard of again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>No doubt his objection to the pious and puritanical
+was returned with interest by their objection to him.
+Whatever faults or indiscretions he may have been
+guilty of, they were occasionally (in true provincial
+style) fastened on and magnified and circulated
+about as grave scandals. It was on such occasions
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>however that the real affection of the country people
+for us showed itself, and they breathed slaughter
+against our assailants. George in fact was accepted
+and one may say beloved by both my manual worker
+friends and my more aristocratic friends. It was
+only the middling people who stumbled over him;
+and they did not so much matter! Anyhow our
+lives had become necessary to each other, so that
+what any one said was of little importance.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It thus became possible to realize in some degree
+a dream which I had had in mind for some time—that
+of making Millthorpe a <i>rendezvous</i> for all
+classes and conditions of society. I had by this
+time made acquaintances and friends among all the
+tribes and trades of manual workers, as well as
+among learned and warlike professions. Architects,
+railway clerks, engine-drivers, signalmen, naval and
+military officers, Cambridge and Oxford dons,
+students, advanced women, suffragettes, professors
+and provision-merchants, came into touch in my
+little house and garden; parsons and positivists,
+printers and authors, scythesmiths and surgeons, bank
+managers and quarrymen, met with each other.
+Young colliers from the neighboring mines put on
+the boxing-gloves with sprigs of aristocracy; learned
+professors sat down to table with farm-lads. Not,
+thank heaven! that this happened all in the lump;
+but little by little and year by year my friends of
+various degrees and shades got to know each other—and
+this was a real satisfaction to me. Many
+lady friends also came to stay with us—some of
+them unmarried (which may, who knows? have been
+a cause for scandal); and not a few married couples
+who liked our way of life and enjoyed talking
+over questions of household arrangement and
+simplification.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>Of course, after reading Thoreau’s <cite>Walden</cite>, whatever
+simplifications I may have effected in my own
+household management seemed very negligible and
+unimportant. Still I felt that some move in that
+direction, and some propaganda on the subject, was
+really needed. I tried hard to get some lady friend
+or other—who would probably understand household
+affairs much better than I—to write about the subject;
+but tried in vain. None would take it up.
+And so ultimately I was reduced to writing on the
+question myself—in <cite>England’s Ideal</cite> and elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>To-day I feel the importance of the subject as
+much as—perhaps more than—I did then. I certainly
+often wish that our household life, plain as it is,
+was even more plain. But I find that Time—mere
+Time—has a sinister effect in complicating life.
+Things arrive, and cannot so easily be got rid of
+again. Presents are made by well-meaning people,
+and cannot very well be returned to the donors;
+new habitudes of life are grafted on the old ones
+without actually displacing the latter; the wheel
+of life turns one way, like a ratchet, but will not
+turn back again; and so the complications grow
+and the embarrassments multiply—often to such a
+degree that they become almost unendurable; and
+one realizes at last why Death came into the world,
+and how necessary as a Deliverer of souls and a
+loosener of mortal knots he is. For myself I can
+truly say that the Waste Paper Basket stands as a
+signal of one of my greatest pleasures; and that
+when I feel depressed (which is not very often)
+I go about the house and hunt up things to destroy
+or give away—after which ritual act I feel ever so
+much better and happier.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Simplicity and plainness of life are necessary, on
+account of the frightful waste of time and strength
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>which the opposite policy entails—a waste which is
+obviously becoming daily worse and worse. Nor
+is it necessary to point out that if you employ
+<i>servants</i> to keep all these beggarly elements of life
+in order for you, instead of looking after them yourself,
+you still only waste your time and strength
+in securing (or appropriating in some way) the
+money with which you pay those servants, as well
+as in the extra labour and anxiety of looking after
+the said servants—a state of affairs probably worse
+than the first.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Plainness again is necessary from foundation considerations
+of humanity and democracy. To live in
+opulent and luxurious surroundings is to erect a fence
+between yourself and the mass-world which no selfrespecting
+manual worker will pass. It is consequently
+to stultify yourself and to lose some of the
+best that the world can give.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Thirdly, from mere considerations of health the
+thing is necessary. My Japanese friend, Sanshiro
+Ishikawa, calls our houses <i>prisons</i>. Plain food, the
+open air, the hardiness of sun and wind, are things
+practically unobtainable in a complex ménage.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And lastly, and most important, the complexity
+of material possessions and demands all around one
+almost inevitably has the effect of stifling the life
+of the heart and of the spirit. “The thorns sprang
+up and choked them.” The endless distraction of
+material cares, the endless temptation of material
+pleasures, inevitably has the effect of paralysing the
+great free life of the affections and of the soul.
+One loses the most precious thing the world can
+give—the great freedom and romance of finding
+expression and utterance for one’s most intimate self
+in the glorious presence of Nature and one’s fellows.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>X<br> MILLTHORPIANA</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>What I have just said might seem to suggest a
+sort of perpetual garden-party going on at Millthorpe.
+But this of course was by no means the
+case, and for weeks at a time we would often be
+quiet enough. A distance of four miles from the
+nearest railway-station is a good defence; especially
+in winter with snow on the ground; also the
+general rule of not seeing visitors till the afternoon.
+Still we were liable to incursions. To Job are
+ascribed the pregnant words (xxxi. 35) “O that
+mine adversary had written a book!” And I am
+afraid that I had in some such way laid myself
+open to attack. The ubiquitous American who (to
+adopt the style of Bernard Shaw) only stayed in
+England to visit Millthorpe and Stratford-on-Avon,
+was much in evidence. And faddists of all sorts
+and kinds considered me their special prey. I don’t
+know what I had done to deserve this—but so it was.
+Vegetarians, dress reformers, temperance orators,
+spiritualists, secularists, anti-vivisectionists, socialists,
+anarchists—and others of very serious mien and character—would
+call and insist in the most determined
+way on my joining their crusades—so that sometimes
+I had almost to barricade myself against them.
+A friend suggested (and the idea was not a bad one)
+that I should put up at the gate a board bearing the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>legend “To the Asylum” on it. Then the real
+lunatics would probably avoid the neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Nevertheless on the whole we got a good deal of
+fun out of these incursions, and occasionally some
+real and solid advance.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On one occasion—it was when the Fearnehoughs
+were living with me—we were sitting quietly at our
+humble dinner of carrots or what-not, in the middle
+of the day, when I saw two young ladies pass the
+window. There came a knock at the door, and I
+opened it. There stood a very good-looking
+elegantly dressed girl of twenty-three or twenty-four,
+with terracotta frock and gainsborough hat, rather
+Londony in style; with a less showy companion
+beside her. Said number one: “Does Mr.
+Carp——” and then breaking off, “Oh! I see
+you are Mr. Carpenter. You know, I heard you
+once speak at the Fabian Society. I belong to
+the Fabian Society. And my cousin and I were
+near here, and thought perhaps we might call.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Very glad to see you, I’m sure.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“And is this <i>really</i> where you carry on your
+Simplification of Life? Oh! Madge! isn’t it interesting”
+(this last thrown in as an interjection).</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“I don’t know about that; but won’t you come
+in and sit down?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Thank you so much, I should be glad of a rest.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Will you have a bit of cake and a glass of
+milk?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Oh no! but I <i>should</i> like a piece of dry bread.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Well, you need not ‘simplify’ so much as that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Oh! but I am so <i>fond</i> of dry bread!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then it came out that the Uncle and Aunt were
+waiting outside, so they had to be got in, and ultimately
+the party were all safely landed in my study—where
+after the simplification trouble had been
+got over, we made a reasonable acquaintance with
+each other.</p>
+
+<div id='i187'  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i187.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>MILLTHORPE COTTAGE AND ORCHARD.<br>  <br>  (Holmesfield on the hill above.)</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>But I never afterwards quite forgot that expression
+“Is this where you <i>carry on</i> your?” etc.—as if
+one hung a flag out of the window.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On another occasion, it being summer-time, a party
+of forty Spiritualists came over from Manchester to
+spend Sunday at a neighboring farmhouse, and with
+the intention of digging me out in the course of the
+afternoon. Providence however interposed and sent
+<i>pelting</i> rain all day, and the poor things having to
+walk several miles from the station arrived at their
+farmhouse simply drenched; and when they had
+had their dinner, and partially dried their clothes,
+were naturally in no mood or condition to turn out
+again—with the exception of ten or twelve of the
+more heroic, who came on and called on me. What
+I had done to merit this honour I do not know, as
+I had had very little experience of Spiritualism; but
+they sat round and told me all sorts of wonderful
+stories. In the middle of it all, a plashing was heard
+outside in the rain, a knock at the door, and a young
+lady <i>sandal</i>-enthusiast arrived. She was a neatlooking
+well-made girl, in sandals, with bare, unstockinged
+feet, and she wore a simple navy blue
+serge dress; but of course she was wringing wet.
+We had not seen her before; her name was Swanhilda
+Something (somehow it sounded appropriate);
+she had set out to walk all the way from Sheffield
+(nine miles). On the way the rain had come on,
+and the sandals had nearly come off. She had no
+umbrella or waterproof; and she was decidedly more
+than damp. Mrs. Adams, who was then in charge
+of our ménage, took her upstairs and gave her a
+change, and she presently joined the Spiritualist
+party, looking it must be confessed somewhat like
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>a ghost; but full of spirit and pluck. Her pluck
+(as I found afterwards) as a dress-reformer was
+really splendid. On this occasion, after tea, she
+refused all offers of a bed for the night, donned her
+still damp clothes and her sandals, and joining the
+forty Spiritualists, they all splashed back across the
+hills to the station.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One of the pathetic things of the Socialist movement
+is the way in which it has caused not a few
+people of upper class birth and training to try and
+leave their own ranks and join those of the workers,
+when—by their very birth and training being unable
+to bridge the gulf—the result has been that they,
+belonging neither to one class nor the other, outcasts
+from one, and more or less pitied or ridiculed by
+the other, have fallen into a kind of limbo between.
+I have known several cases of young men of this
+kind. One of them I may describe under the name
+of ‘Bryan.’ His father, being a country squire,
+wanted Bryan to go into the army. The boy had
+ideas of his own about the matter, and simply refused.
+Differences ensued, and ultimately the father offered
+him £100 a year for three years, and told him to
+find his <i>own</i> way into life. The youth drifted to
+London, fell in with the Socialists at a street corner,
+became inspired with their ‘cause,’ and sought to
+identify himself thenceforth with the working class.
+He came and spent a year or more in our neighborhood
+at Millthorpe. He was a good fellow—his
+heart, as they say, in the right place; but whether
+owing to the wretched character of his training, or
+to native want of skill or perseverance, he never could
+or would shape himself to do any solid work. He
+would dabble a little at the joiner’s bench, or in the
+garden, or with the woodmen in the woods—but only
+a little. When we urged him to learn some one trade
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>thoroughly—if only cobbling or cabinet-making—he
+would always say “Ah! but things will be different
+when the Revolution comes—we shall all go
+barefoot, or these things will be done by machinery”;
+and so one got no nearer any practical result. On
+one occasion being in the neighborhood of his family
+home, I went and called on his father, thinking I
+might be of some use, but found him in a state of
+despair.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Oh, Bryan,” he said, “I don’t know what has
+taken the boy. Why the other day he came to see
+us in our London house, and the first thing he said
+was ‘Father, all these houses ought to be burnt
+down.’</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“‘Burnt down,’ I replied; ‘are you mad?’</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“‘Well, they <i>ought</i> to be,’ he said, ‘and the people
+made to do some honest work instead of idling their
+lives away on other folk’s labour.’</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“‘And pray what sort of work would you set
+them to, young man?’</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“‘Oh, anything,’ he said, ‘any straightforward
+work like mending the roads or breaking stones.’</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“‘Then I suppose you Socialists would take an
+old man like me, seventy years of age, and turn me
+out of house and home, and set me to break stones
+on the roads—nice “saviours of society” you
+are!’</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“‘Well,’ he replied, ‘of course there would be
+exceptions—I daresay we should allow you a pension,
+say £100 a year, on account of your age and
+infirmity!’</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Think of that, Mr. Carpenter, think of your own
+son offering you £100 a year, and in the name of
+these rascally Socialists!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Needless to say I deeply sympathized—(I don’t
+think in fact he suspected me of being a Socialist)—but
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>I saw that nothing useful could be done, and at
+an early opportunity  I retired.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Bryan drifted out to Topolobampo, a socialist
+colony on the Gulf of California; and when that
+broke up he floated about the borders of Mexico and
+California, living on chance luck and occasional remittances
+until family changes brought him finally
+home.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Another case of a somewhat similar kind was that
+of a young R.E. captain, Captain Peterson, let us
+call him, who had read Tolstoy and convinced himself
+that a military life was wrong, and that he must leave
+the Army. Being at the time Adjutant of Volunteers
+in a neighboring town, he used to come up to
+Millthorpe to discuss these questions and as to how
+he should ordain his life when once free. I admired
+his enthusiasm, but felt obliged to warn him not
+to be in too great a hurry; for it was easy to see
+that in practical matters he was a mere babe. Certainly
+the Army was not the place for him. Anything
+but ‘correct’ in dress, with generally a large gap
+between his waistcoat and his trousers, and again
+another between his trousers and his boots, with projecting
+schoolboy ears and red nose, he was just the
+man who would be unmercifully chaffed or even
+‘ragged’ by his fellow-officers. But on the other
+hand his capacity for battling his way in the world,
+or for earning his own living, was evidently of the
+smallest; and his schemes for the future were of the
+most wild-cat kind. He was going to build a house—but
+as he would have no money to pay for it,
+he should get together a little group of workmen
+(who desired to improve their minds) on the condition
+that he should teach them elementary mathematics,
+surveying, etc., during one half of the day,
+while they should set bricks and mortar for him
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>during the other half! (A charming scheme! but
+I think I see the British workman agreeing to it!)
+His house, according to the plan which he drew out of
+his pocket, was more like a greenhouse than anything
+else—with walls and roof largely glass; and when I
+suggested that it might prove rather hot in
+summer (!) he seemed to have no difficulty in
+imagining plentiful vines trailing overhead, with
+foliage and hanging bunches of grapes, to ward
+off the sun’s rays. For the floor of his room he had
+a device of which he was quite proud. “It is often
+convenient,” he said, “to have <i>two</i> carpets—a rough
+one for ordinary use, and a better one for special
+occasions.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I assented to this rather dubious premise, for the
+sake of seeing what would follow!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Well” he continued “my idea is to sew these
+two carpets together like a roller towel, and have
+them passing over rollers at the two opposite ends
+of the room, so that one carpet should be <i>on</i> the
+floor, and the other <i>underneath</i>. Then, you know,
+when you saw visitors coming, all you would have
+to do would be to turn the crank (suiting the action
+to the word), and you would have your best carpet
+on in a jiffey!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Too amazed and speechless to make any objection,
+I could only see with my mind’s eye, a cottage
+piano and a table and an armchair or two gaily sailing
+across the room, as the crank was being turned.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Meanwhile” he went on “as carpets are always
+wanting brushing I intend to have brushes <i>fixed</i>
+underneath the floor, so that every time the carpet
+is changed it will be automatically brushed. Nothing
+could be simpler.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It would have been cruel to make further objections
+to schemes so indeed transparently simple. But
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>they will give the reader an idea of the difficulties and
+dangers attending the metamorphosis from the condition
+of an army officer to that of a private in the
+peaceful regiments of humanity. What has become
+now of our friend Peterson I cannot certainly say.
+That he nobly and consistently abandoned his life
+in the army I know; but whether he succeeded in
+getting a house built on the Principles of Euclid is
+doubtful.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Peterson was also connected with an occurrence
+which at the time was rather mysterious, and caused
+us some puzzlement. My friend George Merrill had
+come to live with me, and we two were occupying
+the house alone. One evening, late in the summer,
+we had just returned from Sheffield, and tired had
+thrown ourselves for a moment into chairs, when
+almost at once a knock came at the door—so soon
+indeed that we wondered how the visitor could have
+been so close behind. George went to the door and
+then turning to me said “A lady wants to see you.”
+At once a voice from outside said very distinctly,
+“A <i>woman</i>, if you please.” Roused to a sense of
+serious events impending, I went forward, and saw,
+as well as the falling dusk would allow, what
+appeared to be a fairly pleasant-looking woman of
+about thirty-five, but somewhat dishevelled and
+untidy in dress; and said—</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Can I do anything for you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“You can,” she replied, “I’m lost, I’m an outcast
+from the world, will you befriend me?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“I will if I can,” I said, “but tell me first about
+yourself—what is your name? do you come from
+Sheffield?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“You,” she exclaimed, “Mr. Carpenter, the author
+of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>—and you won’t help me, till
+you know my name and all about me!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>I looked at George with a wild surmise. “Certainly,”
+I said, “I can’t very well help you till I
+know what is the matter.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“I tell you,” she rejoined with increasing emphasis,
+“I’m lost, I’m an outcast, I can never go back to the
+world again. Ah!” (pointing to the garden and the
+rising moon) “if I could only live here in this beautiful
+scene, with you, far away from the town and
+all its belongings. Mr. Carpenter, will you befriend
+me?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>What an appeal to a lone bachelor! Luckily I
+resisted the temptation to a too ready sympathy, and
+leaning forward said again, “But still you have not
+told me anything about yourself and your troubles.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As I did so I caught a distinct and strong waft of
+liquor.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Is it not enough that I am lost?” she replied.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The situation was really embarrassing. At last I
+said:—</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Well, you know, I and my friend have only just
+come back from Sheffield, and are very tired; will
+you come again to-morrow, or any day you like to
+name, when we shall have more time, and tell me
+your whole story.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At this she threw up her head with a kind of snort,
+and said: “And you are Mr. Carpenter! and you
+say come to-morrow—and to-morrow perhaps I shall
+be <i>dead</i>!” And thus saying she strode off to the
+gate with the air of a tragedy queen.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Nevertheless for some days we could not help feeling
+a little uncomfortable. The people at the neighboring
+inn told us that she had come from the
+Sheffield direction during the afternoon, and had
+been hanging about waiting for our return for some
+hours, doubtless had been in the garden on our
+arrival—which accounted for her sudden appearance—but
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>no one knew who she was; nor did tidings of
+her, or of any mischance to her, reach us for some
+weeks—till at last the memory of the incident died
+out.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then one afternoon, the said Captain Peterson
+having turned up and being engaged in expounding
+his theories over a cup of tea—my attention (which
+had quite wandered from his conversation) was suddenly
+caught by the words “and there’s that woman,
+she gets drunk, and then comes to my house, and
+won’t go away—it’s very awkward!—and she has
+read your <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“That’s the woman,” I exclaimed, “tell me about
+her!” and a few explanations soon disclosed the
+fact that my mysterious visitor was the wife of
+Peterson’s colour-sergeant—a decent sort of body
+apparently, and all right except for occasional
+drinking-bouts, when she became liable to these
+vespertinal excursions!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>During the first year or so after Merrill’s arrival,
+and for a year or two before that, we had a young
+Russian, or Russian Jew, staying in the house. Invalided
+with consumption he had somehow taken
+refuge with us. He went by the name of Max Flint.
+He was of that fine and delicate type of Jew (somewhat
+perhaps like Mordecai in George Eliot’s <cite>Daniel
+Deronda</cite>) which one associates with Polish origin—a
+sensitive face with slender nose (not the Jewish
+proboscis), arched fine eyebrows and brown pensive
+eyes, well-formed features on the whole, and hands
+the same—something refined and almost womanly
+about him. He was handy in a house, and skilful
+with a needle; for indeed he was a tailor by trade.
+His history is worth relating if only because
+typical of hundreds and thousands of similar cases.</p>
+<div id='i197'  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i197.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>G. M. FEEDING THE FOWLS.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>His father, who was a Jewish butcher by trade,
+“very religious” according to Max “and always
+lending money and always losing it,” lived at
+Slobodka across the river from Kovno, and not far
+from the German frontier. Slobodka was the Jewish
+quarter and consisted of small wooden houses, two
+stories at most, but even so not unfrequently each
+occupied by more than one family. Noah Flynck
+however and his wife and the eight children were
+proud to have a house all to themselves. The mother
+died early but Max remembered her telling stories in
+which she recalled the subjugation of Poland. How
+Polish ‘gentlemen,’ landowners, took refuge in
+Slobodka, were hunted down by the Russian soldiers
+and <i>hanged</i>, and their lands appropriated—especially
+one well-known old story of a Polish noble who concealed
+himself in the interior of a haystack. The
+troops surrounded and searched his house and farmyard,
+but could not find him, till at last his little
+dog (who had smelt him out) was seen scratching
+and routing on the top of the stack, and he was
+betrayed!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>When Max was about sixteen or seventeen the
+terror of the Russian conscription came upon him.
+Few people realize what this nightmare is to the
+Russian peasantry. Even in the late Japanese war,
+villages were surrounded at midnight by Cossacks
+and police, houses if not opened immediately were
+broken into, men roused from sleep, and all between
+the ages of twenty-one and forty-three taken away,
+in most cases never to be heard of again! In Max’s
+time it was as bad, if not worse. The same thing
+went on. At any moment, at dead of night, the
+home might be broken into and plundered—the young
+men snatched away for ever. Bribes might defer
+your fate for a time—but only for a time. As to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>passports, you could not move without a passport—even
+to go from one village to another.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Max determined—even against old Noah’s wish—to
+get away to England; and he managed to
+effect the escape. There are of course professional
+smugglers who undertake this business for you; and
+Max often told the story of how he paid three roubles
+to one of these for the job. He was instructed to be
+at a certain village close to the river Memel on a
+certain evening. He gave his family the slip, and
+arrived there to time; met the agent all right,
+and with twenty others bound on the same errand
+was packed in a stable for the night. Half of the
+company went off in the small hours of the morning,
+but Max and the remaining half had to remain there
+all the next day and night till 2 a.m., when the man
+came and gave them the signal to follow. They
+crept through the deserted street and along the road
+till they came to the bridge which alone divided
+them from Germany. But how to cross this in face
+of the Russian sentinel keeping watch at the near
+end? Needless to say it was a question of bribes.
+Of the three roubles the soldier was to have one.
+And Max with a kind of glee used to describe how
+he saw the man sitting there in his box as they crept
+by, and pretending to be asleep, yet visibly peeping
+with one eye through his fingers to see that <i>only the
+bargained number got through</i>. Once on the German
+side they were all right, and could breathe again
+freely. They met at an inn, counted up their
+remaining monies, and went on in parties together.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Max came to Leeds. Of the hundreds of Russian
+Jews there he knew a little about some. He
+changed his name from Flynck to Flint, to suit the
+English ear, and soon settled down into sweated
+work in a Jewish tailors’ den.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>One must hope and suppose that the move was
+for the better; but what a long crucifixion is the
+life of the people! You escape from the horrors
+of the Russian army—from being preyed upon by
+human and insect vermin, as well as becoming food
+for powder—only to sit cross-legged for the rest
+of your life in a dirty, evil-smelling workshop, with
+gas flaring, stoves superheated (for making the irons
+hot), and windows all tightly shut—and that, in the
+heart of a sad-eyed smoke-ridden manufacturing town
+in the North of England. The wages I believe, in
+Max’s case, were not so bad as in some such dens,
+but the ‘drive’ and the pressure were incessant,
+the machine-work was exhausting, and the hours
+amounted to ten and a half per day. Little wonder
+that in a few years he developed the seeds of phthisis,
+and was practically marked down as its victim.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Turning into a rebel and a hater of the present
+order (or disorder) of things, he joined the Socialist
+club in Leeds and became a worker in the cause.
+That led to his abandoning his own religion,
+lodging with Christians, and doing such outrageous
+things as poking the fire or preparing his own meals
+on the Sabbath Day—which in turn led to the Jewish
+community slandering and persecuting <i>him</i>! They
+threw mud and stones at him in the streets; and
+he became an outcast among his own people. The
+Jewish girl he was courting refused to consort with
+him any more and went off with another man, driving
+him so mad that (as Max told me himself) he on
+one occasion nearly killed her.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was somewhere about this time that, in connection
+with the said Socialist club, I happened to
+meet him. It was at the deathbed of another
+Socialist; and perceiving his distress and evident
+need of a change I asked him for a short holiday
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>to Millthorpe. After that he came again, and again.
+There was something so gentle and helpful about
+him that he was always gratefully received by my
+friends; and the stories of his life and times were
+always interesting. Once or twice I wrote—in my
+best German—to his father<a id='r18'></a><a href='#f18' class='c012'><sup>[18]</sup></a>; and the innocent joy
+of the old man (in his replies) was touching. But
+naturally Max did not get stronger—and a time came
+when after being here a week or two he obviously
+could not go to work again and had to stay on
+rather indefinitely. The Adams’ and he became great
+friends, and he even helped a little in the sandalwork.
+Then later, when this was too laborious for
+him, he took up basket-making, and turned out quite
+a number of useful baskets; and as many of these
+were “waste-paper baskets,” one must feel that in
+this alone—in the providing receptacles for the printed
+rubbish of the day—he performed a useful service!
+Gradually however he got weaker, and had to give
+up all work. Then it became necessary for him to
+go to a convalescent Home at Bournemouth; and
+there after some months he died.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is often the case that invalids and old people
+feel themselves a burden on the household in which
+they live, think they are no good in the world, and
+wish themselves out of the way; and yet all the
+time the opposite may be the fact. Often they form
+a point of real interest in the house, they call out
+people’s sympathy and helpfulness, and their own
+pluck and sociability under failing health gives
+courage to others who are stronger. Something of
+this was true of Max. Though depressed at times
+his quaint and delicate humour was a joy to his
+friends and acquaintances. One event, which might
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>have proved prematurely fatal to him, he would
+frequently recount with pleasure. It was one
+Christmas; a time when the Village Band is in
+the habit of coming round to each house in turn
+and playing its rather fearsome tunes! As it happened
+Max’s bedroom, being at one end of the house,
+was over a more or less open shed. It was evening
+and he was composing himself to sleep; when the
+band arrived. But, snow being on the ground, their
+footsteps were not heard; and the bandmen very
+naturally disposed themselves, for more shelter, inside
+the shed, quite unconscious of course that they were
+exactly underneath the bed on which an invalid was
+sleeping. All of a sudden they struck up with a
+tremendous blare “Christians, Awake!” or some
+such tune. It was like St. Jerome hearing the last
+Trump. Poor Max was nearly lifted out of bed
+by the shock. For a moment he did not know
+whether he was in this world or the next. When
+he concluded in favour of this one he found himself
+lying there in the old bedroom, but his heart palpitating
+so violently that, combined with the fit of
+laughter which also seized him, he was quite a wreck
+for some days after.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>There was something ironical in the idea of a
+Christian hymn proving so nearly fatal to a Jew;
+but a similar irony, curiously enough, pursued him
+to his end at Bournemouth. At the Home there—in
+order to avoid unpleasant questionings, and also
+because to him the matter was of no importance—he
+had said nothing about his Jewish connection
+but had declared himself a Christian, and had
+received in a friendly way the visits of the chaplain.
+When he died the Home made the usual arrangements
+for his interment in the Protestant Cemetery.
+But—and the story shows how the Jewish community
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>hangs together—the Jews at Leeds and Manchester
+got to know somehow about it all, and telegraphed
+to the synagogue at Southampton to stop the infamy
+of Christian burial. A deputation came over from
+Southampton and arrived at the Bournemouth home
+only an hour or two before the funeral—to claim
+the body for removal to Southampton and burial
+with Jewish rites. I of course was on the spot;
+and a nice position I was in! The matron of the
+Home and the Chaplain on the one hand had
+“always understood” that he was a Christian; the
+Chief Rabbi and his friends insisted absolutely that
+he was a Jew; the funeral car was already waiting
+in the yard; and Max himself lay there in the
+mortuary chapel with his features in death finer and
+paler than ever, and wearing such an expression
+of high calm and indifference as might well represent
+his own actual feeling in the matter. I, of
+course, to all the parties concerned was obviously
+the “guilty” person—guilty of having got them into
+such a coil—and they looked at me with eyes of
+blame. But—though really just as indifferent as Max
+himself—I thought it best to ‘play the game’; and
+insisted that as he had openly declared himself a
+Christian he <i>was</i> a Christian and should be buried
+as such. The Jewish party on its side brought
+arguments to show that a mere declaration on such
+a matter counted for nothing; and soon we plunged
+into a long discussion which I kept up for some
+time in order (partly) to hear what they would say.
+When I perceived however how tremendously
+seriously the Jews took the whole matter, and reflected
+also that Max’s father would be broken-hearted
+if he heard that his son had been put in a
+Christian grave, I thought it best to give way. The
+Chaplain and the matron agreed, and were indeed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>quite sensible about it all—and finally poor Max’s
+mortal remains were carried off in triumph by his
+own people.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>In conclusion of this chapter I may relate a curious
+story which perhaps helps to show how the elements
+of real inspiration and of mental aberration may
+sometimes get mixed up in the same person.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I had received a letter from London from a man
+who described himself as a gold-miner from the
+Sierra Nevada, saying that he had just arrived in
+England, and was wishful to see me, as he had a
+message to deliver, and proposing to come on immediately
+to Millthorpe. As it happened I was just
+starting for Glasgow and Edinburgh on a lecturing
+tour. So I wrote at once telling him to wait a
+week for my return, and to employ his time meanwhile
+in sight-seeing. But on my return I found
+to my surprise that he had already been in the
+village some days, that he had taken a lodging,
+and was awaiting my arrival. The next day,
+November 21, 1910, he walked into my yard—obviously
+an American of a manual worker type,
+thin, sandy-haired and tall, with dark clothes and
+black slouch hat, somewhat horny-handed, but
+with a certain refinement of figure and physiognomy.
+Also there was a slightly “fallen in”
+and tired look about him which puzzled me
+at the moment, but was soon explained. He
+began almost immediately—as soon as we were sat
+down—telling me a long story—of which I can only
+give the outlines.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It seemed that he had been working for a good
+many years in a gold-mine (probably as part-owner
+of it)—a mine up 10,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada.
+One day—six years before the events which he was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>about to narrate—a strange vision came to him. He
+had lost his way on the Nevada sandhills, and was
+searching about in some anxiety, when a sudden
+transformation of the landscape occurred, and he
+was transported into a new world, which he could
+only describe as ‘heaven.’ On several succeeding
+occasions the same vision came to him. Meanwhile,
+he said, he had been fighting hard against the three
+great temptations of a miner’s life—drink, tobacco,
+and an irascible temper. Each of these troubles in
+turn disappeared finally with a sudden deliverance
+and certain assurance of success. Then, only a
+couple of months before coming to England, more
+frequent visions came to him, accompanied by voices;
+and the affair culminated in his getting hold of
+Dr. Bucke’s book on <cite>Cosmic Consciousness</cite> when
+he read the chapters about Buddha and Jesus. Then
+followed what he described as “seven days of
+ecstasy, agonizing ecstasy—tears of peace and joy
+streaming down my face—in which I saw <i>everything,
+everything</i>.” After that he read one day in the
+same book the chapter on E. C.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then one morning—as he was going up the
+mountain to his work from the camp below (Victor,
+Colorado), he heard the voices again shouting:
+“They came surging up close to my ears, and then
+faded away into the far distance, and then came
+close again—and two of the voices were God’s, and
+one was my own [!], and they were shouting <cite>Edward
+Carpenter, Edward Carpenter, go and see E. C.,
+go and see</cite>, etc., etc. And I at the same time
+was shouting <cite>Brother E. C.—God’s beloved Son, I
+am coming to you</cite>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>[George and I looked at each other again with a
+wild surmise! Another case for the Asylum!]</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“And all this,” he continued, “kept being repeated
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>as I walked up the hill, over and over again,
+till at last it faded away in the distance. And all
+the morning over my work I was in tears—tears of
+joy and pain—and had to conceal my face from
+my mates. But as I turned the crusher I felt
+enormous strength, and was quite unconscious of
+effort.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then followed all sorts of stories about God telling
+him to do this and that, and the Devil telling him
+to do this and that, and of temptations and <i>tests</i>
+to which he had been subjected. But in the end,
+he said, he had been impelled to come and see me,
+and he had come. One day he just threw down
+his tools and left them lying there, went and said
+good-bye to his mother (and she evidently did not
+want him to go) and set sail for England. And
+now we two (he and I) were to lead a mission
+round the world—he had some idea about a new
+Messiah—and to preach and convert the nations
+together.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Things were evidently getting serious! Yet I
+hardly knew what to do. He was such a very
+decent fellow, quiet and kindly and essentially
+reasonable, and by no means a fanatic; and most
+obviously genuine and spontaneous. I hardly knew
+how to attack him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then George Merrill saved the situation. He
+asked Grogan (C. E. Grogan was his name) to have
+some tea; and the answer gave the needed clue.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Tea? No, thank you, I haven’t taken tea or
+any food for three weeks.” [Afterwards on inquiry
+at his village-lodgings I found his landlady had been
+dreadfully disturbed at his not touching a crumb
+of anything all the time he was there.]</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“But if you won’t eat, you’ll have a cup of tea,
+or something to drink?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>“No, nothing—except a glass of water—I haven’t
+eaten anything for three weeks, and I don’t think
+I shall ever eat again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The cat was out; and the line of action was
+clear.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Look here!” I said, “I quite understand you,
+and sympathize with your experiences—and I think
+indeed you have had some very real experiences,
+and some realizations of another kind of consciousness;
+but you must be careful, and have some idea
+of what you are doing. There is no doubt that
+sometimes abstinence from food will help to develop
+internal faculties. On the other hand to go too far
+and to weaken the body, perhaps permanently, may
+be most foolish, and dangerous. The body is there
+to give expression to the soul, and if you have any
+important spiritual revelation to express you want
+all the faculties of your body in good order for the
+purpose. Starvation, it is well known, engenders
+visions and voices, often of a very delusive character.
+You must not give yourself away to all that. How
+do you know that what you say is of God is not
+of the Devil; and <i>vice versâ</i>? And how do <i>I</i>
+know?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>So I went on at him; making him plainly understand
+that I was not going to join in his crusade—whatever
+it was. “Besides,” I said, “I still do
+not see what made you come here. You say you
+have not read any of my writing—except what was
+contained in Dr. Bucke’s book. <cite>What do you know
+about me?</cite>”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Then he leaped out again. “Oh, I know all
+about you. <cite>I know that you will never die!</cite>”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“That is not a very cheerful prospect,” said I,
+gently laughing.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Oh, well,” he replied, “you will at any rate
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>live four hundred years. It is like this: The earth
+and all that are in it, are from this day passing
+gradually into a new and higher plane of existence.
+That process will complete itself in four hundred
+years, and at the end of that time the earth will be
+absorbed into the Sun and the ethereal life. A
+wonderful period of new life will arrive; and all
+those who are living then will be transformed without
+passing through Death.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He spoke earnestly and with conviction. I did
+not oppose him; but warned him again about going
+too far with his abstinence, and advised deliberation
+in his conclusions. He did not seem inclined to
+give way about food—said he thought he should
+never require it again, and maintained that the
+internal breathing (<i>prana</i>) came to him with a
+wonderful sense of fragrance and refreshment.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He was extraordinarily good; for though I had
+refused, almost rudely, to join in his schemes, he
+took no offence—simply said that he was satisfied
+now, that he had given the message he had been
+told to give, and would return to America “to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Having then made my negative attitude quite clear,
+so that there should be no misunderstanding, I now
+adopted a positive line; and talked to him for some
+little time about experiences of the kind he had
+described. Then I went and fetched some books—the
+<cite>Bhagavat Gita</cite>, some of the Upanishads, and
+other works. He had never even heard their names.
+I opened the <cite>Bhagavat Gita</cite>, almost at random, and
+pointed him out a passage. He almost clapped his
+hands for joy. “Oh yes, that is exactly what I
+feel.” He seized the book, and turned over the
+pages, pouncing on passage after passage with
+delight. “Yes, yes, that is just it!” There was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>no doubt about his sincere and instant appreciation.
+Then I showed him the passage in the <cite>Bhagavat
+Gita</cite> about moderation in eating and moderation in
+abstinence; but he did not seem inclined to agree.
+“I just do what God tells me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Finally I <i>gave</i> him the <cite>Gita</cite>, and some other
+books of similar character. And he on his side
+decided to return to America “to-morrow”—and insisted
+on my writing at once for a cab. I did not
+attempt to dissuade him—feeling that perhaps he was
+right—also that his friends in America would be
+more satisfied if he returned.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Meanwhile he <i>looked</i> ever so much better than
+when he came into the house—and evidently was so—“glad
+to have carried out what he had to do,”
+he said. I told him that on board ship his mind
+would settle itself; and he went off.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He wrote from Liverpool next day, saying he was
+very happy; and a month or so later from Colorado—in
+which letter he said, “The <i>unseen force</i> which
+caused me to quit eating caused me to begin again
+(as suddenly as I quit). My fast was merely a
+part of the <i>lesson</i> which is continually before me.”
+Since then I have heard from him from time to time.
+In one letter he says: “I am feeling fine, and
+slowly but surely am I (as a child) permitted to
+learn the <i>a, b, c</i> of <i>real life</i>. It is my belief that
+we are all permitted to pierce the veil that conceals
+<i>real Life</i> from our view, only accordingly as our
+minds are ready to absorb the knowledge gained
+thereby. From a point of view of Cosmic Consciousness
+I am beginning my life all over again,
+and am only beginning in a small way to see and
+understand some of the simpler truths of the same;
+but I have lost much of that feeling of haste, and
+learning with the idea in mind that I have all eternity
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>to learn in. My folk and relatives all glad that I
+am home and quit my wanderings for the present.
+I think I shall engage in mining again in a small
+way. This mining camp is about 10,000 feet altitude,
+and the weather is beautiful, plenty sunshine,
+and not cold winter weather.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In his latest to me he says: “You will remember
+when I visited you I said you would never die.
+I still feel same way and see no chance of my
+dying, personally it is a matter of indifference whether
+I live or die. If I must die in order to live again,
+so be it, but may we not be permitted to enjoy
+eternal life here and now? I think so. I think
+the Harvest of the world is ripe, but such great
+changes are slow and almost unnoticeable and I
+think overlap each other, so that <i>harvest</i> or death
+of one thing is the Birth of another, that is consciousness
+of Eternal Life becoming more general. Well,
+I think that I have written enough that you may see
+the drift of my mind, and I think that is what you
+want. Love to Mr. Merrill and yourself, yours truly,
+<span class='sc'>C. E. Grogan</span>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>To which words of Grogan’s I would only add:
+“No doubt we <i>are</i> permitted to enjoy eternal life
+here and now—even in this tiniest corner, wherever
+it may be, of space and time.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>XI<br> THE STORY OF MY BOOKS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>The fate of my books has been interesting—at any
+rate to myself! Leaving aside <cite>Narcissus and Other
+Poems</cite>, and <cite>Moses: a Drama</cite>—which were written in
+early days at Cambridge, and were only, so to speak,
+exercises in literature and efforts to vie with then-accepted
+models—<cite>Towards Democracy</cite>, of course, has
+been the start-point and kernel of all my later work,
+the centre from which the other books have radiated.
+Whatever obvious weaknesses and defects it may
+present, I have still always been aware that it was
+written from a different <i>plane</i> from the other works,
+from some predominant mood or consciousness superseding
+the purely intellectual. Indeed, so strong has
+been this feeling that, though tempted once or twice
+to make alterations from the latter point of view, I
+have never really ventured to do so; and now, after
+more than thirty years since the inception of the
+book, I am entirely glad to think that I have not.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is a curious question—and one which literary
+criticism has never yet tackled—why it is that certain
+books, or certain passages in books, will bear reading
+over and over again without becoming stale; that
+you can return to them after months or years and
+find entirely new meanings in them which had escaped
+you on the first occasion; and that this can even go
+on happening time after time, while other books and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>passages are exhausted at the first reading and need
+never be looked at again. How is it possible that
+the same phrase or concatenation of words should
+bear within itself meaning behind meaning, horizon
+after horizon of significance and suggestion? Yet
+such undoubtedly is the case. Portions of the poetic
+and religious literature of most countries, and large
+portions of books like <cite>Leaves of Grass</cite>, the <cite>Bhagavat
+Gita</cite>, Plato’s <cite>Banquet</cite>, Dante’s <cite>Divina Commedia</cite>,
+have this inexhaustible germinative quality. One
+returns to them again and again, and continually
+finds fresh interpretations lurking beneath the old
+and familiar words.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I imagine that the explanation is somewhat on this
+wise: That in the case of passages that are exhausted
+at a first reading (like statements say of Church
+doctrine or political or scientific theory) we are simply
+being presented with an intellectual ‘view’ of some
+fact; but that in the other cases in some mysterious
+way the words succeed in conveying the fact itself.
+It is like the difference between the actual solid shape
+of a mountain and the different views of the mountain
+obtainable from different sides. They are two things
+of a different order and dimension. It almost seems
+as if some mountain-facts of our experience <i>can</i> be
+imaged forth by words in such a way that the phrases
+themselves retain this quality of solidity, and consequently
+their outlines of meaning vary according
+to the angle at which the reader approaches them
+and the variation of the reader’s mind. None of the
+outlines are final, and the solid content of the phrase
+remains behind and eludes them all. Anyhow the
+matter is a most mysterious one; but as a fact it
+remains, and demands explanation.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I have felt somehow with regard to <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite> that—while my other books were merely
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>subsidiary and mainly represented ‘views’ and
+‘aspects’—this one (with all its imperfections) had
+that central quality and kind of other-dimensional
+solidity to which I have been alluding. And my
+experiences in writing it have corroborated that
+feeling.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I have spoken elsewhere about the considerable
+period of gestation and suffering which preceded the
+birth of this book; nor were its troubles over when
+it made its first appearance in the world. The first
+edition, printed and published by John Heywood of
+Manchester, at my own expense, fell quite flat. The
+infant showed hardly any signs of life. The Press
+ignored the book or jeered at it. I can only find
+one notice by a London paper of the first year of
+its publication, and that is by the old sixpenny
+<cite>Graphic</cite> (of August 11, 1883), saying—not without
+a sort of pleasant humour—that the phrases are
+“suggestive of a lunatic Ollendorf, with stage
+directions,” and ending up with the admission that
+“the book is truly mystic, wonderful—like nothing
+so much as a nightmare after too earnest a study
+of the Koran!” The <cite>Saturday Review</cite> got hold
+of the <i>second</i> edition, and devoted a long article
+(March 27, 1886) to slating it and my socialist
+pamphlets (<cite>Desirable Mansions</cite>, etc.) as instances of
+“the kind of teaching which is now commonly set
+before the more ignorant classes, and which is probably
+accepted in good faith by not a few among
+them. A haphazard collection of fallacies, to which
+the semblance of a basis is given by half a dozen
+truisms, flavored by a little Carlylese, or by diluted
+extracts of Walt Whitman&#160;... such is the compound
+which ‘cultivated’ Socialism offers as a new
+and saving faith to the working classes, and of which
+the works before us offer a good example.” Then
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>follow severe comments on my absurd views about
+Usury and the manners and customs of the Rich,
+and finally a long quotation from <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite>; of which book the writer says: “And
+this sort of thing goes on through two hundred and
+fifty pages, the blank monotony of which is only
+relieved here and there by a few passages which
+it would be undesirable to quote, and which it is
+not wholesome to read.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The London Press—when it did deign to notice
+my work—followed the same sort of lead; and it
+was left (as usual) to comparative outsiders to
+make any real discovery in the matter. Curiously
+enough, a very young man (George Moore-Smith) in
+a long article in the <cite>Cambridge Review</cite> of November
+14, 1883, led the way in drawing serious attention
+to the first edition. The <cite>Indian Review</cite> (Wm.
+Digby) of May 1885 had a remarkably sympathetic
+and intelligent notice of the second edition, and I owe
+much to my friend W. P. Byles’ introduction of the
+book to Northern readers through the <cite>Bradford
+Observer</cite> (of March 19, 1886); also to an article
+by H. Rowlandson in <cite>The Dublin University Review</cite>
+for April, 1886.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>With the third edition (1892) a certain amount
+of timid acknowledgment set in. Notices in a few
+more or less well-known papers were friendly though
+brief and cautious, as with a scent of danger. The
+fourth and complete edition did not appear till ten
+years later (1902), and by that time the book had
+established itself. It had ceased to demand Press-appreciations,
+favorable or otherwise; and so the
+critics—<i>very luckily for themselves</i>—escaped, and have
+escaped, without ever having had to give any sort
+of full pronouncement or verdict on the book!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>To return to the first edition. I had only five
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>hundred copies printed; but at the end of two years
+when I had gathered material enough for a second
+edition, there was still a hundred or so of these on
+hand. All the same I did not feel any serious misgiving.
+I caused a thousand copies to be printed of
+the second edition (260 pp.), sent them round to the
+Press again, and waited. This was in 1885. If
+anything the reception accorded was worse than
+before—in a sense worse—because there was more
+of it! By 1892—when I needed to print a third
+edition—only some seven hundred copies of the second
+edition had gone. Seven hundred in seven years!
+The prospects were not good, yet I did not feel
+depressed. I had certainly not expected any great
+sale; and there were even signs of improvement.
+My <i>other</i> books were beginning to attract a little
+attention. It was obviously also hard on this book
+to have it published in Manchester. So I determined
+to go to London. There was no possible
+chance of getting a publisher there to take it as his
+own speculation; so I went to Mr. Fisher Unwin
+and asked him to print at my expense and sell it
+on commission—which he naturally was quite willing
+to do! The book had now grown to 368 pp., and
+its price had to be raised from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d.;
+but its sales actually improved, and for two or three
+years ranged at about two hundred copies a year.
+I began to think it was just possible that my little
+bark would navigate itself, that it would float out
+on deeper waters and into the world-current; when
+something disastrous happened which left it in the
+shallows for quite a few years longer.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>That something was the Oscar Wilde trial or trials,
+which took place in the spring of 1895; but to
+understand how they affected <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>
+I must go back a little. Early in 1894 I started
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>writing a series of pamphlets on sex-questions—those
+questions which at that time were generally tabooed
+and practically not discussed at all, though they now
+have become almost an obsession of the public mind.
+As pamphlets of that kind would have no chance
+with the ordinary publishers, I got them printed
+and issued by the Manchester Labour Press—a little
+association for the spread of Socialist literature, on
+the committee of which I was. The pamphlets were
+<cite>Sex-love</cite>, <cite>Woman</cite>, and <cite>Marriage</cite>; and they sold
+pretty well—three or four thousand copies each.
+Encouraged by their success I began early in ’95
+to put them together, and add fresh matter to them,
+till I had a book ready for publication—which I
+afterwards entitled <cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>. This
+book I offered to Fisher Unwin (as he was already
+selling <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>) and he accepted it—undertaking
+to produce the book himself and give
+me a fair Royalty. His Agreement was signed in
+June 1895.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Meanwhile, in January 1895 (though dated 1894)
+I issued from the Labour Press, and in the same
+connection as the other pamphlets, a fourth one,
+entitled <cite>Homogenic Love</cite>—which I suppose was
+among the first attempts in this country to deal
+at all publicly with the problems of the Intermediate
+Sex. I placed “printed for private circulation only”
+on the Title-page, and had only a comparatively
+small number of copies struck off—which were not
+sold but sent round pretty freely to those who I
+thought would be interested in the subject or able
+to contribute views or information upon it. My
+object in fact was to get in touch with others and
+to obtain material for future study or publication.
+Even in this quiet way the pamphlet created some
+alarm—and in the dove-cotes of Fleet Street (as I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>heard) caused no little fluttering and agitation; but it
+is quite possible the matter would have ended there, if
+it had not been for the Oscar Wilde troubles. Wilde
+was arrested in April 1895 and from that moment
+a sheer panic prevailed over <i>all</i> questions of sex,
+and especially of course questions of the Intermediate
+Sex.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I did not include <cite>Homogenic Love</cite> in my proposed
+new book, nor had I any intention of including
+it; but when the mere existence of the thing came
+to the knowledge of Fisher Unwin he was so perturbed
+that he actually cancelled his Agreement with
+me, with regard to the book <cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>,
+and broke loose from it. It was in vain that I
+tried to restrain him. He had got his leg over the
+trace, as it were, and was ‘off.’ Indeed, he was
+quite willing to sacrifice the expense he had already
+incurred (for the book was now partly set up) rather
+than go on with it. Under the circumstances I
+could not, of course, very well compel him to publish.
+Moreover I felt sorry for his perturbation,
+and quite understood some of its causes. The extent
+of it was finally shown by his going so far as to
+turn <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> out of his shop, and refuse
+to publish <i>that</i> any longer!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Thus my two books <cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite> and
+<cite>Towards Democracy</cite>—like two poor little orphans—were
+both out on the wide world again.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>For the moment I will go on with <cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>.
+Being routed by Fisher Unwin, I went
+to Sonnenschein, Bertram Dobell, and others—altogether
+five or six publishers—but they all
+shook their heads. The Wilde trial had done its
+work; and silence must henceforth reign on sex-subjects.<a id='r19'></a><a href='#f19' class='c012'><sup>[19]</sup></a>
+There was nothing left for me but to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>return to my little Labour Press at Manchester, and
+get the book printed and published from there—which
+I did, the first edition being issued in 1896.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is curious to think that that was not twenty
+years ago, and what a landslide has occurred since
+then! In ’96 no ‘respectable’ publisher would touch
+the volume, and yet to-day [1915] the tide of such
+literature has flowed so full and fast that my book
+has already become quite a little old-fashioned and
+demure! But the severe resistance and rigidity of
+public opinion at the time made the volume very
+difficult to write. The readiness, the absolute determination
+of people to <i>misunderstand</i> if they
+possibly could, rendered it very difficult to guard
+against misunderstandings, and as a matter of fact
+nearly every chapter in the book was written four
+or five times over before I was satisfied with it.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite> ought of course (like some
+parts of <cite>England’s Ideal</cite>) to have been written by
+a woman; but, though I tried, I could not get any
+of my women-friends to take the subject up, and
+so had to deal with it myself. Ellen Key, in Sweden,
+began—I fancy about the same period—writing that
+fine series of books on <i>Love</i>, <cite>Marriage</cite>, <cite>Childhood</cite>,
+and so forth, which have done so much to illuminate
+the Western World; but at that time I knew nothing
+of her and her work.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My book circulated almost immediately to some
+extent in the Socialistic world, where my name was
+fairly well known; but some time elapsed before
+it penetrated into more literary and more ‘respectable’
+circles. One of the first signs of its succeeding
+in the latter direction took a rather amusing
+shape. I had, one day, to call upon a well-known
+London publisher (who was already publishing some
+of my books, though he had refused this particular
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>one) on business, and having discussed the matters
+immediately in hand, he presently turned to me and
+inquired how my <cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite> was selling.
+I of course gave a fairly favorable account. “I
+think,” said he in a somewhat chastened tone “that
+perhaps we made rather a mistake in refusing some
+little time back to take it up. A Sunday or two
+ago I was at church [probably a Congregational
+or Unitarian Chapel], and the minister quoted a
+page or two from your book, and spoke very highly
+of it, and actually gave the published address and
+price, and all; and I saw quite a lot of people
+noting the references down.” He paused, and then
+added, “Quite a good advertisement—worth thirty
+or forty copies I daresay.” I could not help smiling.
+No wonder he was sorry! But the story gave
+promise of better things to come.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In 1902 the said publishing firm was glad to
+tale the book up and publish it on commission for
+me—which they (and their successors) have done
+ever since. And its sale in England (though not
+phenomenal like that of the German translation)
+has, I must say, been very good.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>To return to <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>. Considering
+its expulsion from Mr. Fisher Unwin’s shop and
+the generally panicky condition of the book market
+in London, there seemed nothing to do but to return
+to Manchester and place it also in the hands of the
+little Labour Press for publication. The two
+thousand or so copies remaining in Unwin’s hands
+were my property, and I had only to remove them
+to Manchester, get a new title-page printed, and
+have them issued from there. This I accordingly
+did, and in ’96 the Labour Press edition appeared—368
+pp., the same as Fisher Unwin’s. Naturally
+the Labour Press connection was not very favorable
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>as regards circulation, and the price (3s. 6d.)
+was high for Socialist and Labour circles. The
+spread of the book remained slow—slower of course
+than it had been with Unwin, and hardly amounted
+to a hundred copies a year.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>This was bad; but worse remained behind.
+Somewhere early in 1901 the Labour Press—whose
+financial affairs had never been very satisfactory—went
+bankrupt! I knew of course what was pending;
+and as the stock of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>
+belonged to <i>me</i>, and I knew that if left at the
+Press it would be in danger of falling into the
+creditors’ hands, there was nothing left but to
+smuggle it away as soon as I could into some place
+of safe keeping. Mr. James Johnston, City Councillor,
+always a good friend, came to the rescue and
+offered me storage room in his office. I hired a
+dray. And so one foggy day, with a good part
+of a ton of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> on board—which I
+helped to load and unload—I jogged with the drayman
+through the streets of Manchester amid the
+huge turmoil of the cotton goods and other traffic.
+A strange load—and I never before realized how
+heavy the book was!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It lay there for some months, and then about
+July of the same year I made arrangements with
+Sonnenschein &#38; Co. for them to sell the book on
+commission, and the stock was transferred into their
+hands. From that time its sales slowly went forward—from
+a hundred or a hundred and fifty per annum
+in 1902, to eight hundred or nine hundred in 1910,
+when the Sonnenschein business, and with it my book,
+passed into the hands of George Allen &#38; Co. In
+1902 the fourth part of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>, i.e.
+“Who shall command the Heart” was published;
+and in 1905 this was incorporated with the three
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>former parts in one complete volume. Later in the
+same year I succeeded (a long cherished project)
+in producing a pocket edition of the whole on India
+paper, which has ever since sold alongside and <i>pari
+passu</i> with the Library edition. Thus after twenty-one
+years (in 1902) these writings (begun in 1881)
+came to an end; and three years later the book
+took its definite and permanent form in print and
+binding, and some sort of rather indefinite place
+in the world of letters.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Talking about their place in the world of letters,
+some of my books have, I fear, puzzled the public
+by their titles. <cite>Ioläus</cite> has been much of an offender
+in this way. The uncertainty as to who or what
+Ioläus might be, the difficulty of knowing how to
+spell the word, and the impossibility of pronouncing
+it, proved at one time such obstacles that they quite
+adversely affected the sales. On one occasion I
+received a telegram from a firm asking me to send
+at once two hundred Oil-cans. My puzzlement was
+great, as I had indeed never embarked in the oil
+trade, nor in my wildest dreams thought of doing
+so—till suddenly it flashed upon me that the message,
+having had to pass through a rustic post-office, had
+been transformed on the way, and that the romantic
+friend and companion of Hercules had been turned
+into a paraffin tin! After that I modified the title
+so as to avoid any such sacrilege in the future.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Coming back to <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> again, I do
+not know that I have ever seen a very serious
+estimate or criticism of that book in any well-known
+literary paper. Like others of my works
+it has come into the literary sheep-fold not through
+the accepted gate but “some other way, like a thief
+or a robber.” It has been generally ignored—as
+already explained—by the guardians of the gate, yet
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>it has quietly and decisively established itself, and
+the ‘sheep’ somehow have taken kindly to the
+‘robber.’ And perhaps the matter is best so. A
+book of that kind is not easy to criticize; it cannot
+be dispatched by a snap phrase; it does not belong
+to any distinct class or school; its form is open
+to question; its message is at once too simple and
+too intricate for public elucidation—even if really
+understood by the interpreter. That it should go
+its own way quietly, neither applauded by the crowd,
+nor barked at by the dogs, but knocking softly here
+and there at a door and finding friendly hospitality—is
+surely its most gracious and satisfying destiny.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But though the ignoring by the critics of <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite> has seemed natural and proper, I confess
+I have been somewhat surprised by their non-recognition
+or non-discussion of the questions dealt
+with in the other books; because, as I have said
+these books are on a different plane from <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite>. They deal with theories or views which
+flow (as I think) perfectly logically from the central
+idea of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>—just as the different
+views or aspects of a mountain flow perfectly logically
+from the mountain-fact itself. We cannot discuss
+the central idea, but we can discuss the aspects,
+because they come within the range of intellectual
+apprehension and definition. If the world—it seems
+to me—should ever seize the central fact of such
+books as <cite>Leaves of Grass</cite> and <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>,
+it must inevitably formulate new views of life on
+almost every conceivable subject: the aspects of
+all life will be changed. And the discussion and
+definition of these views ought to be extraordinarily
+interesting. It is therefore surprising I say that no
+serious discussion of the underlying or implicit
+assumptions of these two books has yet taken place.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>It is true, of course, that to-day the world is witnessing
+a strange change of attitude on almost all
+questions, and a vague feeling after the new aspects
+to which I am alluding; but it does not concatenate
+these views on to any central fact, and therefore
+cannot deal with them adequately or effectively. It
+is as if people, having taken drawings of a hitherto
+undiscovered mountain from many different sides,
+and comparing them together, should not realize that
+it is the <i>same</i> mountain which they have been
+observing all the time, and that there <i>is</i> a unity
+and a reality there which will explain and concatenate
+all the outlines. I say it is a little disappointing
+that this point has not yet been reached, because it
+would make the discussion and definition of the
+new views so wonderfully interesting. On the other
+hand it is obvious that in the midst of the enormous
+output and rush of modern literature, critics generally
+have thrown up the sponge, and are content to
+get through their work perfunctorily or as best they
+can, without the added labour of tackling, or
+attempting to tackle, a great new synthesis.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The attempt made a quarter of a century ago—in
+<cite>Civilization: its Cause and Cure</cite>—to define the characteristics
+of (modern) civilization, and to show the
+civilization-period as a distinct stage in social evolution,
+destined to pass away and to be succeeded by
+a later stage—of which later stage even now some
+of the features may be indicated—has never as far
+as I know been seriously taken up and worked out.
+The Socialists of course have certain views on the
+subject, but they are limited to the economic field,
+and do not by any means cover the whole ground;
+and various doctrinaire sets and sects are nibbling
+at the problem from different sides; but a real statement
+and investigation of the whole question, and a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>linking of it up to deepest spiritual facts, would
+obviously be absorbingly interesting. I first read
+the paper which bears the above name at the Fabian
+Society (? in 1888), and, needless to say, it was
+jeered at on all sides; but since then, somehow, a
+change has come, and even Sidney Webb and Bernard
+Shaw, who most attacked me at the time, have
+ceased to use the word ‘Civilization’ in its old
+optimistic and mid-Victorian sense. What we want
+now is a real summing-up and settling of what the
+word connotes—both from the historical point of
+view, and with regard to the future.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Another paper in the same book, which shocked
+a good many of my Cambridge friends, was my
+“Criticism of Modern Science.” The Victorian
+age glorified modern Science—not only in respect
+of its patient and assiduous observation of facts,
+which every one allows, but also on account
+of the supposed Laws of Nature which it had
+discovered, and which were accounted immutable
+and everlasting. A light arising from some quite
+other source convinced me that this infallibility of
+the scientific “Laws” was an entire illusion. I
+had been brought up on mathematics and physical
+science. I had lectured for years on the latter. But
+now the reaction set in; and—rather rudely and
+crudely it must be confessed—I turned on my old
+teacher to rend her! I published in 1885, and in
+Manchester, a shilling pamphlet called <cite>Modern
+Science: A Criticism</cite>, and sent it round to my
+mathematical and scientific friends. I think most
+of them thought I had gone daft! But, after all,
+the whirligig of Time has brought its revenge, and
+the inevitable evolution of human thought has done
+its work; and now, one may ask, where <i>are</i> the
+airy fairy laws and theories of the Science of the last
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>century? The great stores of observations and facts
+are certainly there, and so are the marvellous applications
+of these things to practical life—but where are
+the immutable Laws?—where are the clean-cut
+systems of the families and species of plants and
+animals? where is Boyle’s law of gases? where the
+stability of the planetary orbits? where the permanence
+and indestructibility of the atom? where is
+the theory of gravitation, where the theory of light,
+the theory of electricity? the law of supply and
+demand in Political Economy, of Natural Selection
+in Biology? of the fixity of the Elements in
+Chemistry, or the succession of the strata in Geology?
+All gone into the melting-pot—and quickly losing
+their outlines!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is true that in the great brew which is being
+thus formed, rags and chunks of the old “Laws of
+Nature” are still discernible; but no one supposes
+they are there for long, and on all sides it is obvious
+that the scientific world is giving up the search for
+them, and the expectation (in the face of such things
+as radium, Hertzian waves, Karyokinesis and so forth)
+of ever reconstituting Science again on the old Victorian
+basis. These fixed ‘Laws,’ it is pretty evident,
+and their remaining débris, will melt away, till out
+of the seething brew something entirely different
+and unexpected emerges. And that will be?...
+Yes, what indeed out of such a Cauldron <i>might</i> be
+expected to emerge—a strange and wonderful Figure,
+a living Form!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Yet the curious thing is that while this process of
+the dissolution of scientific theory is going on before
+our eyes, and on all sides, no one seems to be aware
+of it—at any rate no one sums it up, gives it outline
+and definition, or tackles its meaning and result.
+Tolstoy was pleased with the attacks on Modern
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>Science contained in <cite>Civilization: its Cause and Cure</cite>,
+wrote to me about it, and had the chapter printed in
+Russian, with a preface by himself. But his point
+of view was that Science being a serious enemy to
+Religion anything which bombarded and crippled
+Science would help to free Religion. That was
+not my point of view. I do not regard Science—or
+rather Intellectualism—as the foe of Religion,
+but more as a stage which <i>has to be passed through</i>
+on the way to a higher order of perception or consciousness—which
+might possibly be termed Religion—only
+the word religion is too vague to be very
+applicable here.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Another airy castle which is obviously fading away
+before our eyes is that of the “Laws” of Morality.
+The whole structure of civilization-morality is being
+rapidly undermined. The moral aspects of Property,
+Commerce, Class-relations, Sex-relations, Marriage,
+Patriotism, and so forth, are shifting like dissolving
+views. Nietzsche has scorched up the old Christian
+altruism; Bernard Shaw has burned the Decalogue.
+Yet (in this country and according to our custom)
+we jog along and pretend not to see what is happening.
+No body of people faces out the situation,
+or attempts to foretell its future. The Ethical society
+professes to substitute Ethics for Religion, as a basis
+of social life; yet never once has it informed us what
+it means by Ethics! The Law courts go mumbling
+on over ancient measures of right and wrong which
+the man in the street has long ago discarded. Much
+less has any group attempted to foreshadow the new
+Morality, and concatenate it on to the great root-fact
+of existence. In my “Defence of Criminals: a
+Criticism of Morality,”<a id='r20'></a><a href='#f20' class='c012'><sup>[20]</sup></a> I gave an outline and an
+indication of what was happening, and of the way
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>out into the future; but that paper, as far as I
+know, has never been seriously discussed.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Nevertheless under the surface new ideas are forming,
+the lines of the coming life are spreading. The
+book <cite>Civilization</cite>—first published by Sonnenschein,
+in 1889—has had a good circulation, and been translated
+into many languages. Though somewhat hastily
+and crudely put together, yet owing to a certain <i>élan</i>
+about it, and probably largely owing to the fact that
+it gives expression to the main issues above-mentioned,
+it has been well received.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One idea, which runs all through the book—namely,
+that of there being three great stages of
+Consciousness: the simple consciousness (of the
+animal or of primitive man), the self-consciousness
+(of the civilized or intellectual man), and the mass-consciousness
+or cosmic consciousness of the coming
+man, is only roughly sketched there, but is developed
+more fully in <cite>The Art of Creation</cite>. It is of course
+deeply germane to <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>. And though
+we may not yet be in a position to define the conception
+very exactly, still it is quite evident, I think, that
+some such evolution into a further order of consciousness
+is the key to the future, and that many æons to
+come (of human progress) will be ruled by it. Dr.
+Richard Bucke, by the publication (in 1901) of his
+book <cite>Cosmic Consciousness</cite> made a great contribution
+to the cause of humanity. The book was a bit
+casual, hurried, doctrinaire, un-literary, and so forth,
+but it brought together a mass of material, and
+did the inestimable service of being the first to
+systematically consider and analyse the subject.
+Strangely here again we find that his book—though
+always spreading and circulating about the world,
+beneath the surface—has elicited no serious recognition
+or response from the accredited authorities, philosophers,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>psychologists, and so forth; and the subject
+with which it deals is in such circles practically
+ignored—though in comparatively unknown coteries
+it may be warmly discussed. So the world goes on—the
+real expanding vital forces being always
+beneath the surface and hidden, as in a bud, while
+the accepted forms and conclusions are little more
+than a vari-coloured husk, waiting to be thrown off.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Relating itself closely and logically with the idea
+(1) of the three stages of Consciousness is that
+(2) of the Berkeleyan view of matter—the idea that
+matter in itself is an illusion, being only a film
+between soul and soul: <i>called</i> matter when the film
+is opaque to the perceiving soul, but called mind
+when the latter sees through to the intelligence behind
+it. And these stages again relate logically to the
+idea (3) of the Universal or Omnipresent Self. The
+<cite>Art of Creation</cite> was written to give expression to
+these three ideas and the natural deductions from
+them.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The doctrine of the Universal Self is obviously
+fundamental; and it is clear that once taken hold
+of and adopted it must inevitably revolutionize all
+our views of Morality—since current morality is
+founded on the separation of self from self; and
+must revolutionize too all our views of Science. Such
+matters as the Transmutation of Chemical Elements,
+the variation of biological Species, the unity of
+Health, the unity of Disease, our views of Political
+Economy and Psychology; Production for Use
+instead of for Profit, Communism, Telepathy; the
+relation between Psychology and Physiology, and
+so forth, must take on quite a new complexion when
+the idea which lies at the root of them is seized.
+This idea must enable us to understand the continuity
+of Man with the Protozoa, the relation of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>the physiological centres, on the one hand to the
+individual Man and on the other to the Race from
+which he springs, the meaning of Reincarnation, and
+the physical conditions of its occurrence. It must
+have eminently practical applications; as in the
+bringing of the Races of the world together, the
+gradual evolution of a Non-governmental form of
+Society, the Communalization of Land and Capital,
+the freeing of Woman to equality with Man, the
+extension of the monogamic Marriage into some kind
+of group-alliance, the restoration and full recognition
+of the heroic friendships of Greek and primitive
+times; and again in the sturdy Simplification and
+debarrassment of daily life by the removal of those
+things which stand between us and Nature, between
+ourselves and our fellows—by plain living, friendship
+with the Animals, open-air habits, fruitarian
+food, and such degree of Nudity as we can reasonably
+attain to.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>These mental and social changes and movements
+and many others which are all around us waiting
+for recognition, will clearly, when they ripen, constitute
+a revolution in human life deeper and more
+far-reaching than any which we know of belonging
+to historical times. Even any <i>one</i> of them, worked
+out practically, would be fatal to most of our existing
+institutions. Together they would form a revolution
+so great that to call it a mere extension or
+outgrowth of Civilization would be quite inadequate.
+Rather we must look upon them as the preparation
+for a stage entirely different from and beyond Civilization.
+To tackle these things in advance, to prepare
+for them, study them, understand them is clearly
+absolutely necessary. It is a duty which—however
+burked or ignored for a time—will soon be forced
+upon us by the march of events. And it is a duty
+which cannot effectively be fulfilled piecemeal, but
+only by regarding all these separate movements of
+the human mind, and of society, as part and parcel
+of one great underlying movement—one great new
+disclosure of the human Soul.</p>
+
+<div id='i231'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i231.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>Self in Porch<br>  <br>  1905</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>My little covey of books, dating from <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite>, has been hatched mainly for the purpose
+of giving expression to these and other various questions
+which—raised in my mind by the writing of
+<cite>Towards Democracy</cite>—demanded clearer statement
+than they could find there. <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>
+came first, as a Vision, so to speak, and a revelation—as
+a great body of feeling and intuition which I
+<i>had</i> to put into words as best I could. It carried
+with it—as a flood carries trees and rocks from
+the mountains where it originates—all sorts of
+assumptions and conclusions. Afterwards—for my
+own satisfaction as much as for the sake of others—I
+had to examine and define these assumptions and
+conclusions.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>That was the origin of my prose writings—most
+of them—of <cite>England’s Ideal</cite>, <cite>Civilization</cite>, <cite>The Art
+of Creation</cite>, <cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>, <cite>The Intermediate
+Sex</cite>, <cite>The Drama of Love and Death</cite>, <cite>Angels’ Wings</cite>,
+<cite>Non-governmental Society</cite>,<a id='r21'></a><a href='#f21' class='c012'><sup>[21]</sup></a> <cite>A Visit to a Gñani</cite>,<a id='r22'></a><a href='#f22' class='c012'><sup>[22]</sup></a> and
+so forth. They, like the questions they deal with,
+have led a curious underground life in the literary
+world, spreading widely as a matter of fact, yet
+not on the surface. Like old moles they have worked
+away unseen and unobserved, yet in such a manner
+as to throw up heaps here and there and in the most
+unlikely places, and bring back friends to me on all
+sides—lovely and beautiful friends for whom I cannot
+sufficiently thank them.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>XII<br> PERSONALITIES—I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>It is curious that, with my somewhat antinomian
+tendencies, I should have gone to Trinity Hall—which
+was, and is, before all a Law College—and
+should thus have been thrown into close touch with
+the <i>legal</i> element in life. As an undergraduate,
+whose days were consumed in boating and mathematics,
+this was not noticeable; but it was not
+entirely after my heart when I became a Fellow, to
+find myself in a society which was almost wholly
+composed of barristers; and in after life to discover
+that my friends of early days had nearly all become
+eminent K.C.’s and Judges!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Just before my entering Trinity Hall, an undergraduate
+of that College, Robert Romer, had become
+Senior Wrangler—and I really believe this had something
+to do with my selecting the College for myself.
+The ‘Hall’ men were hugely delighted, as this distinction
+in the Tripos had never come to the College
+before—the more so, because Romer was a boating
+man and rowed in the First Boat; and a myth grew
+up (possibly encouraged by the subject himself, and
+in order to show how easily a real boating man
+can do anything he turns himself to!) that he passed
+his examinations by the light of nature, and never
+needed to ‘swot’ like an ordinary mortal. Others
+however said—and this was a more likely explanation—that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>he used to sit at his study table with a
+pot of beer and a sporting journal before him, while
+in the open drawer of the table lay his mathematical
+books and papers. When a knock came at the
+door it was the simplest thing in the world to close
+the drawer, and be found consuming his ale! After
+his degree he remained at Cambridge for a time
+as mathematical coach, but was by no means a
+success in that line. He could not sympathize with
+a learner’s difficulties; and when a pupil came to
+him with a problem which he could not understand,
+Romer would say “What? You can’t
+understand that? You can’t understand that?—then
+God help you, I can’t!” Naturally he
+soon gave up teaching and took to the Bar. After
+<i>my</i> degree—when we were Fellows of the College
+together—I saw quite a little of him: a rough, muscular-brained,
+“damn-your-eyes” type of man, and
+as may be imagined quite ignorant of art and literature,
+but good-natured and healthy. Later however
+the sheer physical force of his mentality took him
+to the highest reaches of the legal profession (Lord
+Justice of Appeal) and he passed out of my
+sphere.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Another Senior Wrangler whom I knew fairly well,
+as he headed the Tripos in my own year (1868),
+and who afterwards became Lord Justice (in the
+Court of Patents) was J. Fletcher Moulton. He
+was one of those people who without any great depth
+of intellect or even of character possessed an extraordinary
+rapidity of mind. His information was
+encyclopædic, and in examinations he threw off his
+papers with the airy ease of a tree throwing off
+its dead leaves in autumn; to the wonderment indeed
+both of examiners and fellow-students. Yet I am
+not aware that he ever contributed anything very
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>original in the study of mathematics or law—or in
+any other department of human thought.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Great success in examinations does naturally not
+as a rule go with originality of thought. W. K.
+Clifford who had undoubtedly one of the finest mathematical,
+scientific, and philosophical minds of the
+period of which I am speaking was only Second
+Wrangler; and my friend Robert F. Muirhead who,
+as Smith’s Prizeman and later, has contributed important
+papers on mathematical subjects, was nowhere
+to speak of in his Tripos. One could hardly of
+course expect that originality and the pigeon-hole
+mind should go together.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>To return to our Judges. That men like Romer
+and Moulton should attain the highest places in their
+profession is natural; but I confess I have been
+surprised (having known them so well in boating
+days) at the kind of men who are commonly made
+High Court or County Court Judges. I will not mention
+names (!)—but here is one, for instance, who
+was Captain of the boat-club in my time—a physically
+powerful, but mentally quite muddle-headed person;
+here is another, whose <i>forte</i> was <i>boxing</i> (no harm
+in that, but one might have wished that he had
+other interests besides)—a rather brutish and decidedly
+illiterate type; a third, whose constitution,
+both physical and mental, was feeble, but who had
+powerful relatives in the legal profession. All these
+were of the kind that have considerable difficulty in
+passing their elementary examinations. And there
+were many more of the same kind. Nevertheless,
+having once got their feet on the ladder, they have
+slowly and gradually—by family influence or sheer
+physical health (an important thing)—climbed nearly
+to the top. No blame to them, certainly; but one
+cannot help asking—and I put the question especially
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>to Labour M.P.’s: Are these the sort of men we
+really require for such posts? Let alone their want
+of bookish culture—which perhaps does not so much
+matter—we cannot but ask: What do men of this
+class—who have been brought up at a public school,
+who have worked hard at boating or cricket at the
+University, who afterwards have buried themselves
+in law-chambers and the purlieus of the Courts—and
+whose acquaintance with manual workers is
+pretty well confined to ‘scouts’ and ‘gyps’ and
+an occasional gamekeeper in the country—what do
+they know about the great mass-people on whom
+they have to sit in judgment, about the habits and
+temperament and customs of life of the latter? and
+how on earth are they qualified to bring order
+and good sense and real sympathy and understanding
+into that most important branch of public life—the
+administration of the law? These are indeed questions
+to which serious answers will have to be given
+ere long.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I have already mentioned Henry Fawcett (afterwards
+Postmaster-General) who was a Fellow of
+Trinity Hall at the time of which I am speaking.
+The story of his blindness is well known. It was
+only just after his degree that he was out pheasant-shooting
+with his father. In a rather thick covert
+the father fired at a bird, unknowing that his son
+was standing in the line of fire. Two small shot
+struck the latter—one entering into each eye—a
+strange and fatal chance. It was the father, I think,
+who told me that as soon as Henry knew that he
+was permanently blinded he said “Well, it shan’t
+make any difference in my plans of life!” And
+certainly it made very little. As may be guessed
+from that, Fawcett was a man of astounding pluck
+and vitality—a vitality which would have been almost
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>overbearing if it had not been tempered by extreme
+good nature—and his force of character, combined
+with very democratic sympathies, enabled him despite
+his blindness to do valuable work in Parliament and
+in connection with the Post Office. The adoring
+gratitude of the father at the public success of the
+son whom he had so badly crippled was most
+touching, and he would follow his son about the
+country and attend his public meetings for the mere
+pleasure of witnessing his success. As Fawcett was
+member for Brighton—and my father lent his support
+to his candidature—he, and Mrs. Fawcett, used frequently
+to dine with us at Brunswick Square, and
+I saw a good deal of them both at Brighton and at
+Cambridge. Fawcett’s pluck and vitality were however
+sometimes a trial to his friends. I have a
+rather <i>too</i> vivid recollection of riding with him, over
+the Brighton Downs or along the green lanes of
+Cambridgeshire. “Carpenter,” he would say, “this
+is a nice piece of grass, isn’t it? Let’s have a
+canter.” Then he would set off at an amazing rate,
+and I would have to keep close alongside of him,
+with a sharp look-out and warning for unexpected
+ditches and stoneheaps, and in momentary fear of
+a headlong fall—which for a man of his weight
+would have been a terrible thing! Or he would
+insist on my coming to skate with him, in winter,
+on the Cam. We would go five or six miles down
+the river, and back—he holding one end of a stick
+and I the other. That was all very well if the ice
+was sound, but every one knows what river ice is;
+and I have often skated with him when I, being a
+light weight, passed over easily, while he, holding
+on to the stick and a pace or two behind, was cracking
+through at every other step. The prospect of
+having to fish a public man, weighty in every sense,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>out of a flowing river was certainly not pleasant.
+However I am happy to say that I was not present
+with him at any disaster. Except once. That was
+at a public meeting when he was speaking, at
+Brighton. I was on the platform. A stone was
+thrown by some one at the back of the hall, which
+struck him on the forehead, causing blood to flow.
+Great sensation ensued. For the moment he felt a
+little faint and relapsed into a chair. Ladies rushed
+up on all sides with smelling salts. However in a
+few minutes he was all right, and resumed his
+speech. Afterwards he said to me “I didn’t mind
+the stone; but those scent-bottles made me sick!”
+So it will be seen that he and I had points in
+common! Since his death Mrs. Fawcett and I have
+still met not unfrequently—generally perhaps as joint
+speakers on some Women’s Suffrage platform.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Charles Wentworth Dilke was a ‘Hall’ man. He
+had just taken his degree when I arrived as a
+‘freshman’; but he stayed up in College for a
+year or so more on account of some law-examination
+or other. He never became a Fellow, but was
+an enthusiastic lover of his College; and was always
+very good to us undergraduates. I remember breakfasting
+with him at his rooms, and his showing me,
+pencilled on his door-jamb, the record of his hours
+of work, day by day, for the last year or so—<i>seventy
+hours per week</i>, as regular as clockwork! He was,
+then and afterwards, always an amazing worker—his
+room even in those youthful days pigeon-holed
+all over with notes and documents. He was also
+a man with a high sense of chivalry and honour,
+and I have no doubt that the <i>contretemps</i> which
+threw him for a time out of public life—and which
+his chivalry forbade him to explain—weighed pretty
+heavily on him. His love of facts and statistics,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>so conspicuous throughout his political life, was
+shared by his brother Assheton; and it used to
+be said that the two brothers never enjoyed themselves
+more thoroughly than when sitting knee to
+knee they spent an hour or so in ‘imparting facts
+to each other’!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Another politician of my time, though a little
+younger than myself, was Augustine Birrell. Even
+in those days he was chiefly known for his quaint
+humours and jokes—though the term ‘birrelling’ had
+not then been adopted. But being, as an undergraduate,
+somewhat interested in politics and not
+at all interested in rowing, he did not bulk largely
+in the eyes of his contemporaries, and I fear was
+a little neglected. In a late letter to me he chaffs me
+in his own native style on my academic and clerical
+past, saying “I have the most vivid recollection of
+you as Junior Tutor. The marvellous neatness of
+your now discarded <i>white tie</i> lives especially in my
+untidy mind!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Socialism and Millthorpe, I need hardly say, swept
+me out of these academic and semi-political surroundings
+into a different world—the world of a new
+society which was arising and forming within the
+structure of the old. William Morris represented
+this new society more effectively and vitally than
+any one else of that period; because away and
+beyond the scientific forecast he gave expression to
+the emotional presentment and ideal of a sensible
+free human brotherhood—as in <cite>John Ball</cite>, or <cite>News
+from Nowhere</cite>. His sturdy, brusque, sea-captain-like
+figure, with his fine-outlined face and tossing
+hair, his forcible unpolished speech, yet all so direct,
+sincere, enthusiastic—brought inspiration and confidence
+wherever he went; and for a time, as I have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>already said, there was a widespread belief that the
+Socialist League was going to knit up all the United
+Kingdom in one bond of new life.<a id='r23'></a><a href='#f23' class='c012'><sup>[23]</sup></a> Having set the
+“Sheffield Socialists” going in ’86, he came one
+day not long after to speak at Chesterfield, and
+stayed at Millthorpe a night or two. I remember
+his arriving from the train with Jefferies’ book <cite>After
+London</cite> in his hands—which had just come out. The
+book delighted him with its prophecy of an utterly
+ruined and deserted London, gone down in swamps
+and malaria, with brambles and weeds spreading
+through slum streets and fashionable squares, and
+pet dogs reverting to wolfish and carrion-hunting
+lives. And he read page after page of it to us
+with glee that evening as we sat round the fire.
+He hated modern civilization, and London as its
+representative, with a fierce hatred—its shams, its
+hypocrisies, its stuffy indoor life, its cheapjack style,
+its mean and mongrel ideals; with a hatred indeed
+which, I cannot but think, thousands and hundreds
+of thousands following him will one day share.
+Once he said to me, talking about his own life:
+“I have spent, I know, a vast amount of time
+designing furniture and wall-papers, carpets and
+curtains; but after all I am inclined to think that
+sort of thing is mostly rubbish, and I would prefer
+for my part to live with the plainest whitewashed
+walls and wooden chairs and tables.” He certainly
+was no drawing-room sort of man. His immense
+energy did not run to small talk. As a rule in
+conversation, seized by his subject, and oblivious of
+the arguments of others, he would jump from his
+chair and stride up and down the room in ardent
+monologue—condemning the present or picturing the
+future or the past. I once asked his daughter, May,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>what he did in the way of recreation. “My father
+never takes any recreation,” she said, “he <i>merely
+changes his work</i>.” And so it was. When he had
+been toiling at Merton Abbey all day, and preaching
+Socialism at a street corner all the evening, then
+at night—sick of the ugly life around him—he would
+come home and dream himself away into the fourteenth
+century, and for his recreation produce a
+masterpiece like <cite>John Ball</cite>. Be it said, nevertheless,
+that he did sometimes relax, and that when in the
+humour, no one enjoyed a pipe and a glass and the
+jovial company of friends and the telling of good
+stories, more than William Morris.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He certainly did not like anything resembling
+sentimentality. A friend tells me that he used to
+recite the following stanza, apparently delighting in
+its quaintness—but whether Morris composed it himself
+or had found it elsewhere he does not know:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>I sits with my feet in a brook,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And if any one asks me for why,</div>
+      <div class='line'>I hits him a crack with my crock,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>For it’s sentiment kills me, says I.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Among those who came from time to time to speak
+for our Socialist group in Sheffield or to stay at
+our “Commonwealth” Café were, besides William
+Morris, two notable personalities—Peter Kropotkin
+and Annie Besant. Their work and influence, both
+world-wide—the one in the Anarchist, and the other
+in the Theosophist, field—have been really important.
+Though never myself strictly identified with either
+of these movements I have been in touch with them,
+and consequently in more or less friendly relation
+with their two leading spirits during a long period—now
+nearly thirty years. Both characters are
+certainly remarkable for their vigour, their sincerity,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>their ability and devotion. Kropotkin at the age
+of seventy and after fifty years of passionate conflict
+with ‘government’ and ‘authority’ still retains
+his sunny and almost childlike temperament and
+still believes in the speedy oncoming of an age of
+perfectly voluntary and harmonious co-operation in
+the human race. Indeed it is mainly due to him
+that this magnificent dream has spread so far and
+wide over the world, and has done so much as it
+has towards its own realization. The dramatic
+circumstances too of Kropotkin’s own life have greatly
+helped—his early escapes from prison and from
+death, his abandonment of a princely inheritance to
+become the companion and fellow-prisoner of
+criminals and outcasts, his later life spent in poverty
+and among obscure circles of enthusiasts—these things
+combined with encyclopædic knowledge and a high
+scientific reputation have compelled attention and
+respect. As in the case of many ardent social
+reformers, and certainly in the case of most notorious
+Anarchists, there is a charming naïveté about Kropotkin.
+It is so easy—if you believe that all human
+evil is summed up in the one fatal word ‘government’
+(or it may be that the word is ‘white-slave-traffic,’
+or ‘war,’ or ‘drink,’ or anything else)—to
+order your life and your theories accordingly.
+Everything is explained by its relation to one thing.
+It is easy, but it is misleading. And Kropotkin’s
+writings, despite their erudition, suffer from this
+naïveté. Whether it be History (his <cite>French Revolution</cite>),
+or Natural History (his <cite>Mutual Aid</cite>) or
+economic theory (his <cite>Paroles d’un Revolté</cite>) the
+reader finds one solution for everything, and the
+countervailing facts and principles consistently—though
+certainly not intentionally—ignored. This
+detracts from the value of the writings; though
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>in justice it should be said that the principles on
+which Kropotkin so vigorously insists—i.e. individual
+liberty and free association—<i>are</i> of foundational importance.
+In a country like Russia—obsessed by
+authority and officialism—it is not unnatural that its
+reformers, such as Tolstoy and Kropotkin, should
+be almost over-conscious of the governmental evil;
+and this fact rather encourages the hope that Russia
+may one day after all be the leader in the great
+European reaction towards a freer and more
+voluntary state of society.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The naïveté of the social reformer explains too
+the common fact that the Anarchist who is in theory
+“thirsting for the blood of kings” and occasionally
+perhaps capable of perpetrating a deed of violence
+himself, is generally (like Kropotkin) the gentlest
+and mildest of men, who “would not hurt a fly.”
+It is only such men—having the love of humanity
+in their hearts—who are able to believe in the speedy
+realization of an era of universal goodwill; and
+again it is only such men—being innocent enough
+to believe that the only impediment to the realization
+of this era is a certain wicked person in
+‘authority’—who can spur themselves on to the
+bloody dispatch of such person.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>If the career of Kropotkin has been romantically
+varied in one way, that of Mrs. Besant has been
+equally so in another. To begin as a curate’s wife,
+with a vivid strain of religious devotion; to break
+away into Broad Churchism and then into boundless
+disbelief; to become an ardent Secularist, companion
+of Bradlaugh and propagandist of antipopulation
+doctrines; to suffer imprisonment,
+persecution, and embitterment of spirit; to espouse
+the cause of Socialism and do battle in the ranks
+of Labour; to float into the haven of Theosophy and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>be made the mouthpiece of invisible Mahatmas and
+of the by no means invisible Mme. Blavatsky;
+and finally to complete this quaint circle by becoming
+the high-priestess of a religious movement and the
+guardian of the herald of the coming Christ—such
+a career ought to satisfy the most picturesque ambition.
+Yet it would be unfair to doubt Annie Besant’s
+sincerity. Having known her so long as I have
+I feel sure that she has been urged onward from
+point to point by a perfectly genuine mental evolution,
+largely directed no doubt at each turn of the
+road by some dominant mind whom she has met,
+and largely coloured by that naïveté of which we
+have already spoken—a naïveté indeed which has
+made it possible for her to take herself very seriously
+and to fulfil her adopted rôle always with a strong
+sense of duty and a comparatively weak perception
+of the humour of the situation.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>From the hour when, alone in the pulpit of her
+husband’s church, Annie Besant discovered her own
+great oratorical gift, her future career, one may say,
+was decided. With an excellent capacity for logical
+and clear statement she became the exponent in
+succession of large and important blocks of modern
+thought. She helped to batter down the ruins and
+remains of the stupefied old Anglican Church; she
+gave the general mind a wholesome shock on the
+Malthusian question; she dotted out clearly the main
+lines of the Socialist movement; she formed a new
+channel for religious thought by making the words
+‘Karma’ and ‘re-incarnation’ familiar; and she
+sought to bring the Western public into touch with
+the great age-long ideas and inspirations of the old
+Indian sages. In all these ways she has done
+splendid work, and helped vastly in the construction
+of that great twentieth century bridge which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>will in its due time lead us into another world. Only
+in the last item—her touch upon the ideas and
+inspirations of the ancient East—does she seem to
+me, curiously enough, to have failed. With all her
+enthusiasm for the subject, Mrs. Besant does not
+appear to have the intuitive perception, the mystic
+quality of mind, which should enable her to reach
+the very heart of the old Vedantic teaching. Her
+intellect, clear and systematic in its structure, has
+little of the poetic or original or inspirational in
+its composition, and it may be doubted whether it
+has ever quite fathomed the religious writings with
+which it has been so much occupied. Anyhow Mrs.
+Besant’s own writings on these subjects are—unlike
+her general lectures—dull to a degree. She analyses
+the composition of the human personality, or the
+order of general creation, or the various life-rounds
+of our mortal race; but in all she seems to be
+repeating or corroborating some pre-established formula,
+never to be describing something which she has
+herself perceived; system and formula prevail, unseen
+‘authorities’ are hinted at, the pages bristle with
+sanskrit jargon, but no living or creative <i>idea</i> moves
+among them, and the reader rises from their perusal
+void of inspiration or of any really vital impulse
+towards new fields of thought and life. Nevertheless,
+taking it all in all, and especially in her expositions
+of Socialism and Theosophy, Mrs. Besant has
+done, as I have said, a great work; and one cannot
+sufficiently admire the courage with which she has
+carried it through, as well as her kindliness and helpfulness
+towards others, and—in later years—her own
+inner mental calm, contrasting with the somewhat
+restless bitterness of an earlier time.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>In 1884 or so the founding of the <cite>New Fellowship</cite>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>in London (from which afterwards the Fabian Society
+sprang) brought me into touch with Havelock Ellis
+and Olive Schreiner. As I think I have already said,
+Ellis discovered in the proverbial penny box of a
+second-hand publisher, and soon after its publication,
+the little first edition of my <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>;
+and rescuing it wrote to me. Thus began my
+friendship with him, and afterwards with the authoress
+of <cite>The Story of An African Farm</cite>. A prophet is
+seldom acclaimed in his own country; and the work
+which Ellis has done in that most important field
+of Sexual Psychology is even yet by no means recognized
+in England as it ought to be—even though
+the subject is becoming extremely ‘actual’ here in
+the present day, and though elsewhere over the world
+his pioneer work is most honorably received and
+respected. The six massive volumes of his <cite>Studies
+in the Psychology of Sex</cite> form a masterpiece of
+large-minded and yet extremely detailed observation
+and generalization, and provide a survey of the
+most impartial character over this vast realm, and
+such as can be obtained nowhere else. For though
+the Germans have written extensively in this field
+their books—<i>more Teutonico</i>—are generally overladen
+with detail, huge jungles through which it is
+difficult to find one’s way. Ellis combines with the
+Englishman’s perspicacity and love of order a remarkable
+erudition and command of particulars.
+And at the present juncture when the world is waking
+up to the absolute necessity of a reasonable understanding
+and frank recognition of sex-things, the
+appearance of his book may almost be characterized
+as ‘providential.’ This quality may indeed be suspected
+in the fact that the author began making
+notes for his <i>magnum opus</i> at a very early age,
+driven thereto by some sort of instinct, nor finished
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>his work till he was about fifty. I know of few
+things in literature more touching than the postscript
+to his last volume—the <cite>Nunc Dimittis</cite> after some
+thirty years of toil: “It was perhaps fortunate for
+my peace that I failed at the outset to foresee all
+the perils that beset my path. I knew indeed that
+those who investigate sincerely and intimately any
+subject which men are accustomed to pass by on the
+other side lay themselves open to misunderstanding
+and even obloquy. But I supposed that a secluded
+student who approached vital social problems with
+precaution, making no direct appeal to the general
+public, but only to the public’s teachers, and who
+wrapped up the results of his inquiries in technically
+written volumes open to few—I supposed that such
+a student was at all events secure from any gross
+form of attack on the part of the police or the
+government under whose protection he imagined that
+he lived. That proved to be a mistake. When only
+one volume of these <cite>Studies</cite> had been written and
+published in England, a prosecution instigated by
+the Government put an end to the sale of that volume
+in England, and led me to resolve that the subsequent
+volumes should not be published in my own country.<a id='r24'></a><a href='#f24' class='c012'><sup>[24]</sup></a>
+I do not complain. I am grateful for the early and
+generous sympathy with which my work was received
+in Germany and the United States, and I recognize
+that it has had a wider circulation, both in English
+and the other chief languages of the world, than
+would have been possible by the modest method
+of issue which the government of my own country
+induced me to abandon. Nor has the effort to crush
+my work resulted in any change in that work by
+so much as a single word. With help, or without it,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>I have followed my own path to the end.... He
+who follows in the steps of Nature after a law that
+was not made by man, and is above and beyond
+man, has time as well as eternity on his side, and
+can afford to be both patient and fearless. Men
+die, but the ideas they seek to kill <i>live</i>. Our books
+may be thrown to the flames, but in the next generation
+those flames become human souls.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The personality of Havelock Ellis is that of
+a student, thoughtful, preoccupied, bookish, deliberate;
+yet unlike most students he has a sort
+of grand air of Nature about him—a fine free head
+and figure as of some great god Pan, with distant
+relations among the Satyrs.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Those early meetings of the New Fellowship were
+full of hopeful enthusiasms—life simplified, a humane
+diet and a rational dress, manual labour, democratic
+ideals, communal institutions. Indeed one or two
+little practical efforts towards colony groups were
+at that time made.<a id='r25'></a><a href='#f25' class='c012'><sup>[25]</sup></a> Herbert Rix, W. J. Jupp,
+Percival Chubb, Edith Lees (afterwards Mrs. Ellis),
+Mrs. Hinton, widow of James Hinton, Caroline Haddon,
+Ernest Rhys were among the early members.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Edith Lees was one of the most active and vigorous
+of this group. She helped to organize and to carry
+on for some time a joint dwelling or co-operative
+boarding-house near Mecklenburgh Square, where
+eight or ten members of the Fellowship dwelt in
+a kind of communistic Utopia. Naturally the arrangement
+gave rise to some rather amusing and some
+almost tragic episodes, which she has recorded for
+us in a little story entitled <cite>Attainment</cite>. After her
+marriage she took a farm near St. Ives in Cornwall,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>which became a helpful retreat for her husband as
+well as herself from the strenuousness of London
+life. With her extraordinary energy and directness
+she plunged into and soon mastered all the details
+of cattle and pig breeding and farming; and I
+shall never forget the impression she produced on
+one occasion when staying with me at Millthorpe,
+when we took her round to the public-house in the
+evening. The delight and amazement of the farm
+men at finding some one more or less resembling a
+lady who really understood and would talk freely
+about such things, and her at-home-ness among that
+company were most refreshing. They were fascinated
+by the directness of her intense blue eyes, her
+sturdy figure, her vigorous gestures, and the evident
+equality of her comradeship with them. And to this
+day they not unfrequently ask us, “When is that little
+lady coming again, with that curly hair, like a lad’s,
+and them blue eyes, what talked about pigs and
+cows? I shall never forget her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Edith Ellis not only became a help to her husband
+in his literary work, but herself spoke and wrote on
+subjects of Eugenics and Sex-psychology. Of late
+years she has made a considerable study of James
+Hinton, and has done me the honour to associate
+my name with his and with Nietzsche’s in a little
+book entitled <cite>Three Modern Seers</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One evening as we sat round a table (in Rix’s
+rooms at Burlington House) I saw a charming girl-face,
+of <i>riant</i> Italian type, smiling across to me. It
+was Olive Schreiner. She had arrived from South
+Africa only a few months before, had published
+her <cite>African Farm</cite>, and though only twenty-one or
+twenty-two years of age was already famous as its
+authoress. Juvenile in some ways as that book was,
+somewhat incoherent and disjointed in structure,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>written by a mere girl of eighteen or nineteen, and
+with a title which gave no idea of its real content,
+yet its intensity was such that it seized almost at
+once on the public mind. The African sun was
+in its veins—fire and sweetness, intense love of beauty,
+fierce rebellion against the things that be, passion and
+pity and the pride of Lucifer combined. These things
+too Olive Schreiner’s face and figure revealed—a
+wonderful beauty and vivacity, a lightning-quick
+mind, fine eyes, a resolute yet mobile mouth, a
+determined little square-set body. It was right—since
+alliances are so often knit by contrast—that
+she and Havelock Ellis should have become friends
+and maintained a close correspondence with each
+other for over thirty years; and it was a privilege
+to me to share in the friendship of them both.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Naturally, with such gifts of body and mind the
+arrival of the authoress of the <cite>African Farm</cite> excited
+almost a <i>furore</i> of interest. Quite a procession of
+the young literary men of the day arrived in hansom-cabs
+at the door of her Bloomsbury lodgings to pay
+their homage to the new genius, and Olive herself
+often told me with considerable amusement of the
+dismay and severe disapproval of more than one of
+her landladies, who certainly were not inclined to
+believe that mere literary talent could cause so much
+attraction! Anyhow, at that time of day, before the
+suffragette had arrived, and when ‘ladies’ took the
+greatest care to bridle in their chins and speak in
+mincing accents, a young and pretty woman of apparently
+lady-like origin who did not wear a veil and
+seldom wore gloves, and who talked and laughed
+even in the streets quite naturally and unaffectedly,
+was an unclassifiable phenomenon, and laid herself
+open to the gravest suspicions! We may congratulate
+ourselves that the pioneer women of to-day have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>made a return to some of these inhumanities of the
+Victorian era impossible.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>During that Bloomsbury period and afterwards
+I saw Olive Schreiner fairly frequently—that is,
+when she was in England (or Europe). I saw her
+in Paris early in ’87, and at Todmorden and Whitby
+later in the same year; also at Alassio where she
+stayed for two or three months in ’88. Those two
+years ’87 and ’88 were a period of considerable
+suffering for her. In 1893 she was in England again,
+and spent three months during the summer in a little
+cottage in my valley. After ’93, what with her
+marriage to S. C. Cronwright, and what with the
+outbreak of the Boer War and all the tragedies
+attendant upon that, she did not come to England for
+a long period, and it was on the last day of 1913
+that I saw her again, after a twenty years’ absence.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Her father was a German Free Church Missionary—of
+the most tender self-forgetful type—the original
+doubtless of the German overseer in <cite>The African
+Farm</cite>. Olive herself has often told me how he
+would give away his last coin to any one he deemed
+to be in need. His wife would say to him:—</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“John, where is that best Sunday coat of yours?”
+And he would say:—</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Is it not upstairs in the chest, as usual?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“No, John, I have been looking for it everywhere.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“How very strange” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Now, John, I believe you have given it away!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“No, surely, my dear, I could not have given
+<i>that</i> away—at least I think not.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“John! now tell me true, did you not give it to
+that <i>tramp</i> that came yesterday?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Well, my dear, now you mention it I think I <i>may</i>
+have done so; it is just possible you are right, but
+I am sure I hardly remember.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>“Oh John! John! you are indeed incorrigible.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>That was the picture of the father—soft, pitiful
+and dreamy. The mother, Rebecca Lyndall by her
+maiden name, was of English descent, keen, intellectual,
+fine featured and somewhat self-willed. The
+two types were combined in their daughter; and
+she again in writing her novel divided them up.
+‘Waldo’ represented one side of her own character,
+‘Lyndall’ the other.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Perhaps there was a tragic element in the combination
+of two such different hereditary strains in
+the one person; perhaps there were other causes.
+Certain it is that beneath the mobile and almost
+merry-seeming exterior of Olive Schreiner there ran
+a vein of intense determination, and that this again
+was crossed and countered by an ineradicable pessimism.
+<cite>The Story of an African Farm</cite>, despite
+its magical and beautiful pictures, is painful to
+read; and the same may be said of her other books.
+They realize and force the reader to realize almost
+<i>too</i> keenly the pain and evil of the world—too keenly
+I mean for truth and fact. Yet what is fact but
+what we feel; and if Olive Schreiner <i>feels</i> things
+so, so far her presentment is true. I have seen her
+shake her little fist at the Lord in heaven, and curse
+him down from his throne, with a vibrating force
+and intensity which surely must have been felt (and
+surely also with healthy result) in the Highest Circles.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>A lady who had spent forty years of her life
+working in the Mission Schools of South Africa
+once said to me—and this was quite in her old age,
+when she was nearing eighty—“Ah!” she said,
+“the Kaffirs are the finest people on earth. You
+English think a lot about yourselves, but I tell
+you, you are not to be compared with the Kaffirs.”
+Olive Schreiner was born in Basuto Land. She
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>grew up and spent her early life among the natives,
+and in many ways her verdict was the same as that
+just quoted. She loved the dark folk and their land,
+and she has never ceased to love them. It has been
+one of the tragedies of her life that she has been
+compelled to stand by and witness the crushing of
+this free and fine-souled people beneath the sordid
+heel of Western Commercialism—or let us say “the
+attempted crushing,” for indeed (thank heaven!)
+the process is not yet complete. It has been her
+agony to see them at every moment cajoled and
+betrayed of their lands, broken with labour in the
+mines, deceived with drink, and mowed down with
+machine-guns—and all this by the very Christian
+race that ought to have lent them a helping hand;
+and to have been able to do so little (as it would
+seem to her) for their salvation. But even though
+it would seem little, the fact that one woman in South
+Africa has thus prophet-like stood up and (much of
+the time) singly opposed Rhodes and the shoddy
+Imperialism of which he was the mouthpiece, <i>has</i>
+had an influence deep and wide reaching and such
+as will be felt far down the years.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Another thing that has formed almost a tragedy
+in Olive Schreiner’s life has been her dedication to
+the Cause of Women. No one can read her <cite>Three
+Dreams in a Desert</cite> or her <cite>Woman and Labour</cite>
+without feeling how in the consciousness of the sufferings
+of Woman the iron has entered into her soul.
+If she had only been content—like some of the wilder
+spirits of the movement—to unload on <i>men</i> the vials
+of her wrath, and to saddle on <i>man</i>kind alone the
+responsibility for these sufferings, her strain in the
+cause would have had more of the delight of battle
+in it. But she was too large-minded not to see that
+if there is to be any blame in such a matter, the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>blame must be accepted by Woman herself just as
+much as by Man. The two sexes are joined together,
+and if Man has been unworthy has it not been because
+Woman his mother has made him so? If Woman has
+played the parasite has that not resulted in her injuring
+Man? Olive Schreiner’s perception of the
+slow inevitable strain and suffering inseparable from
+Evolution itself in this matter of the emancipation
+of women, has had a complexion of tragedy in it.
+She has seen her dearest friends, like Constance
+Lytton and others, crippled and broken for life by
+their heroic struggles and undaunted resolution in
+face of prison-horrors; and yet she has felt that
+the evil lay deeper than any accusation against men
+(taken by itself) could explain, or any mere reform
+of the suffrage could mend.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It is curious how South Africa, to those who know
+the country well, carries with it a fascination and an
+attraction which time and again draws them back
+to its soil. A friend of mine who lived for some
+years around Lake Nyassa told me that after his
+return to England he frequently dreamt at night
+of all that wild region and its primitive animal life.
+On more than one occasion he dreamed that he was
+wrecked at sea, and swam desperately to the African
+coast, if only he might die as it were in the arms of
+his beloved; or he would make an imaginary pilgrimage
+from London to the very shores of the
+Lake, and there in a kind of ecstasy would take
+the water up in his palms and wash it over his
+face and head—only to wake up and find his features
+wet with his own tears.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>This was Henry B. Cotterill—a schoolfellow of
+mine at the Brighton College—where indeed his
+father was headmaster. About the time (1875 or
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>so) when I was lecturing Astronomy at Leeds,
+Livingstone’s book came out exposing the horrors
+of the black slave traffic around Lakes Tanganyika
+and Nyassa—a region at that time entirely, except
+by Livingstone himself, unexplored by white men.
+The book bit deeply into Cotterill’s heart and soul.
+It said that the only cure for the Mahomedan or
+Arabian trade in slaves would be the introduction
+of a trade by white men in the legitimate articles
+of commerce; and from that moment Cotterill could
+not rest, goaded on by the thought that <i>he</i> must
+undertake this work. At the time he was acting as
+an assistant master at Harrow School. He started
+lecturing there and at other places round the country
+on the subject. He collected a fund; the Harrow
+boys and masters gave him a steel launch or cutter
+which could be taken up country in sections and
+screwed together; he came to Leeds and spoke
+there, as well as at places like Edinburgh, Manchester,
+Liverpool; the fund grew; and I remember
+going with him to some African warehouse in London
+City, where he bought bales of cotton cloth, and
+hundredweights of beads, and quantities of scarlet
+shell-jackets (especially coveted by African chieftains
+as their sole garment) for purposes of barter
+up country. Thus off his own bat, as it were, he
+got up this strange mission, and leaving Harrow
+and pedagogy behind, embarked on a career of considerable
+adventure and danger. The mission succeeded,
+ordinary traders followed in his footsteps, and
+within a few years the slave-trade engineered by
+Moors and Arabs died out in the land. It was
+followed, it is true, by the almost equal horrors of
+that commercial civilization which has since been
+introduced by Europeans; but I suppose one must
+be thankful in the slow and age-long evolution of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>human affairs for even one small step towards better
+things.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At a later time Cotterill returned to England,
+but unable, like many another traveler and lover
+of the wild, to endure the smug Philistinism of
+British life, he ultimately settled on the Continent—or
+rather led a somewhat roving life there, chiefly
+in France, Germany and Italy—supporting himself
+and a small family by the not too lucrative pursuits
+of literature and the teaching of languages. He has
+written and edited many books, to which his encyclopædic
+knowledge and command of six or seven languages
+have contributed; but undoubtedly his great
+and monumental work has been the translation of
+the Odyssey of Homer complete into English hexameters.<a id='r26'></a><a href='#f26' class='c012'><sup>[26]</sup></a>
+Daring is the man who ventures on that
+exceedingly boggy ground of the English hexameter,
+and many are those who have gone under and been
+gulfed in the attempt. By lightness and speed of
+movement only can one keep going; but in those
+qualities—so characteristic of the Greek—this translation
+is supremely successful; its verbal fidelity
+is amazing; its presentation of the old warrior and
+tribal life (made possible as he himself says by his
+intimate knowledge of African customs) is such as
+no armchair scholar could attain to; and the result
+is a gift to the whole English-speaking world—a
+rendering of the immortal classic that one may read
+with unflagging joy and zest from cover to cover.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>XIII<br> PERSONALITIES—II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>The part that Olive Schreiner played in trying to
+avert the Boer War, and to expose the scoundrelly
+commercial machinations which led to it, is well
+known. Curiously enough, while England was being
+worked up by a lying Press into a fury of indignation
+against President Krüger I knew already early in
+1899 about the real state of affairs and the plot of the
+financiers to force on a reckless and selfish war—not
+only from Olive Schreiner herself but from a man who
+came at that time to Millthorpe from Johannesburg.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>This was Lisle March-Phillipps—who afterwards
+wrote <cite>With Rimington</cite> and other books about the
+war. He was a young man of about thirty, who
+after an upper-class education on the usual lines
+had had the good sense to go abroad and see a
+little of the world for himself; had drifted out to
+South Africa, and had actually worked in the mines
+and shared the life of the miners. Disgusted with
+what he saw of the Beit and Joel and Rhodes and
+Barney Barnato gang—their meanness to their employees,
+their slanders against Krüger, their nonsense
+lies about British “women and children,” and
+foreseeing the inevitable conflict, he hurried home—thinking
+doubtless also that he might do something
+to make the actual truth known in England. For
+some reason, not very clear to me as we had had
+no previous communication, he came straight to Millthorpe,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>and walking in one afternoon sat a long time
+telling me all about the affair. I saw at once that
+his errand was authentic and that he knew what he
+was talking about, and from that time did my best
+in my small way, at public meetings and lectures,
+to get the matter seen in its true light, and to check
+the rising war-tide. All of no use of course. The
+gulled sentimental sloppy British public poured itself
+out in a torrent of rubbish—as a broken reservoir
+might pour through the slums and alleys of a manufacturing
+town; and it was hopeless even to protest.
+It is one of the saddest things to find how easily
+the great majority of a nation may be caught and
+swept away by some trumped-up catchword, often
+of the most flimsy character. I wrote a warning
+leaflet entitled <cite>Boer and Briton</cite> and circulated some
+twenty thousand copies of it. I spoke with L. H.
+Courtney (now Lord Courtney) and others at a public
+meeting at Bradford, and at various other meetings.
+Mr. W. T. Stead did his best to warn the nation as
+to what was happening; Cronwright-Schreiner came
+over from the Cape, and later H. W. Nevinson also,
+in a crusade through England and Scotland. To
+no purpose: they only got mobbed and insulted for
+their pains. Finally March-Phillipps, anxious to see
+at close quarters all that was going on and unable
+to get a billet as war-correspondent, went out again
+and joined Rimington’s Scouts; and after the war
+was over—returning to Millthorpe and taking a
+cottage there—remained near us a good part of the
+summer and wrote his very graphic and interesting
+account of the campaign as witnessed and taken
+part in by him.<a id='r27'></a><a href='#f27' class='c012'><sup>[27]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was at an early period of the Socialist movement—in
+1884 I think—that I first came across
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>Henry Salt and his gifted life-companion and wife,
+and it is to their initiative that I owe the gain of
+a close and long-enduring friendship. Salt and his
+brother-in-law, J. L. Joynes, were two young Eton
+masters who had in their time been collegers and
+scholars of Eton and afterwards graduates of King’s
+College, Cambridge. Carried along on the rising
+tide of Socialism they both (much to their credit)
+broke away from the highly respectable traditions
+of these foundations. Henry George of Land Tax
+fame was in the country, and Joynes actually associated
+himself with George, and went with him in
+1881 or ’82 on a propagandist campaign to Ireland.
+This might well have passed unobserved at Eton,
+had it not happened that at some obscure place he
+and George were both temporarily arrested and had
+to spend the night under lock and key. The notoriety
+this gave to Joynes was fatal to his career,
+and he had to resign his mastership. Henry Salt
+and his wife about the same time gave almost worse
+offence. They adopted vegetarianism—a thing almost
+unheard of at Eton except in the dubious connection
+of Shelley; they revolted in their personal habits
+from the luxury and indulgence of the life there;
+and they protested against the coursing of hares,
+and other inhumanities favored by both boys and
+masters. It soon became clear to them that they
+could not remain in surroundings so uncongenial,
+and that they too would have to sacrifice a professional
+career and comparative affluence for the greater
+blessings of liberty and a simple living; and it was
+at the time when they were revolving their schemes
+of liberation and of migration into other spheres of
+life that I came—through Jim Joynes—to know them.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Joynes and his sister were singularly unlike externally,
+yet singularly alike in the depths of their
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>hearts and in their devotion to each other. Both
+were tall and long-limbed: she dark, raven-haired,
+with large eyes and sensitive, somewhat sad, Dante-like
+profile; he red-haired, with high complexion,
+small bluish eyes, heavy features. She was intensely
+emotional, too emotional, but—as such people often
+are—highly musical; and her literary gift was certainly
+one of the most remarkable I have known—though
+unfortunately, except in her letters, rarely
+utilized. He was intensely logical, concentrated,
+determined—though underneath ran a strong current
+of poetic feeling—as witness his little book of
+excellent verses <cite>On Lonely Shores</cite> (1892). Both
+of them did good work in connection with the
+Socialist and Labour movement, he more especially
+by lecturing and writing for the Social Democratic
+Federation and other such organizations; and she
+rather more by personal sympathy and helpful friendship
+towards the rank and file of the workers; both
+of them were devoted lovers of Nature, and of a
+natural plain way of life; and their devotion to each
+other only ended with his too early death in 1893.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>These two and Henry Salt were among the
+pioneers in the early eighties of the great Socialist
+and Humanitarian and Nature movements which are
+destined to play such an important part in the new
+Democracy. Henry Salt’s work in founding the
+Humanitarian League (in 1891) and presiding over
+its very various activities has been so really extensive
+and far-reaching that it is difficult to estimate—the
+more so because unlike so many leaders of
+movements he has always kept his own name consistently
+in the background. As a matter of fact
+he has not only been the main originator of the
+important work done, but has been the guiding hand
+and inspirer of the many committees which have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>had to be formed in order to deal with the various
+subjects—with Vivisection, Blood Sports, ‘Murderous
+Millinery,’ Reform of the Prisons, the Game
+Laws, Slaughter-house Reform, Corporal Punishment,
+Diet Reform, Rights of Native Races, and so forth.
+Besides this the long list of his publications—on
+Shelley, on James Thomson (B.V.), on H. D.
+Thoreau, Richard Jefferies, Lucretius, etc., shows
+the trend of his mind and his liberating influence
+in the matters of religion and social freedom and a
+large-minded Nature-study.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At one time he and I composed jointly “A
+Church Service for the use of the Respectable
+Classes”—which I am afraid however has never
+yet been properly published. It consisted of a
+Preface, in the manner of our Prayer-book Preface
+of 1661, of a sort of Athanasian Creed (on the
+Trinity of Land, Capital and Interest) called the
+creed of St. Avaritius, of a Litany (on the lines of
+salvation through dividends and social advancement),
+and a final Processional Hymn. Of this last, as it
+has already been printed among some of Salt’s verses,
+the two first stanzas may here be given:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>Respectables are we</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And you presently will see</div>
+      <div class='line'>Why we confidently claim to be respected:</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>In well-ordered homes we dwell</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And discharge our duties well—</div>
+      <div class='line'>Well dressed, well fed, well mannered, well connected.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>We have heard the common cant</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>About poverty and want</div>
+      <div class='line'>And all that is distressing and unhealthy;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Some cases may be sad,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>But the system can’t be bad</div>
+      <div class='line'>Which affords such satisfaction to the Wealthy.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>And so on.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>On one occasion a boy brought to Mrs. Salt a
+young rook which had been hurt (so he said) by
+falling out of its nest, and as she and her husband
+had been staying with us, the bird became for some
+time an inmate of our establishment. But though
+it became familiar, as was natural, with us, and
+would fly in and out of the door or window, and
+perch on hand or head quite freely, its devotion
+to Mrs. Salt was something almost uncanny. Indoors
+or outdoors it <i>would</i> be with her; and if
+she went into town for a few hours, or anywhere
+that she could not take the bird, she had to escape
+by ruse, or by simply caging the creature first.
+When she sat on the lawn it would delight to play
+and dance around, and to pick daisies with its beak
+and place them in her lap, or bright and shining
+pebbles from the gravel walk. Anything more like
+an engaging human child it would be hard to imagine.
+And it certainly seemed to know by some intuition
+of her return after absence along the road, and if
+caged would become very restless, or if free would
+fly to meet her. Once after a long absence, when
+she appeared once more—in the midst, as it happened,
+of a small crowd of people—the bird with
+a loud cry suddenly flew down from a tall tree and
+alighted forthwith upon her shoulder—much to the
+astonishment of the onlookers. Later, and after
+some months of this kind of life, the bird one day
+disappeared; nor could we ever find out what had
+happened to it—whether an accident or the mere
+“call of the wild” back to rook-land. It was
+seen no more, alive or dead; and one human heart
+at any rate felt the loss very deeply.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>I have mentioned 1881 as the year in which
+<cite>Towards Democracy</cite> ‘came to me,’ and insisted
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>on being given form and expression. It is curious
+that the same year (or 1882) saw the inception of
+a number of new movements or enterprises tending
+towards the establishment of mystical ideas and a
+new social order. Mother Shipton’s prophecy with
+its strange prognostication of mechanically propelled
+cars and flying machines ended up with the
+words:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>And the world to an end shall come</div>
+      <div class='line'>In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>The world did not come to an end, but in a certain
+sense a new one began; and just in those two years
+quite a number of societies were started with objects
+of the kind indicated. Hyndman’s Democratic
+Federation, Edmund Gurney’s Society for Psychical
+Research, Mme. Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society,
+the Vegetarian Society, the Anti-vivisection movement,
+and many other associations of the same kind
+marked the coming of a great reaction from the
+smug commercialism and materialism of the mid-Victorian
+epoch, and a preparation for the new
+universe of the twentieth century. Amongst these
+was one which especially claimed to fulfil the prophecies
+of Mother Shipton and to be the herald of
+a New Age. This was the Hermetic Society. It
+consisted practically of two people—Edward Maitland
+and Anna Kingsford; for though there was
+a nominal membership I think it may be said that the
+other members had little or no voice in it. And its
+idea was to read into the stories of Jesus, and of
+Moses and Abraham and so forth, their inner significations,
+to interpret in fact much of the New
+and Old Testaments not as historical matter but
+rather as eternal truths, allegories and emblems of
+the drama of each human soul. Thus the miraculous
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>birth of Jesus, his exile in Egypt, his temptation in
+the wilderness, his toils and sufferings, his Betrayal,
+Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension were not external
+histories of a certain man, but inner histories
+of you and me and all mankind.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>This method of interpreting the myths of past
+days, which we now in the twentieth century so
+well understand, and which explains for us the origin
+of a vast number of legends and at the same time
+accounts for their popularity, was in 1881—except
+for some few previous hints by Swedenborg and
+others—quite unrecognized. And we owe much to
+Edward Maitland and Anna Kingsford that they
+gave it, as well as some valuable collateral matter,
+to the world. Of course they did not fully recognize—though
+they did in part—how much of the
+story of Jesus, for instance, <i>is</i> purely legendary and
+mythical. But even if they had known it to be
+entirely legendary, that would not probably have
+greatly altered their views—though it would certainly
+have deprived their gospel of the supernatural
+halo with which they delighted to invest it.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It was this affectation, if I may use the term,
+of a supernatural mission which rather spoilt the
+work of these two well-meaning people—as it has
+spoiled alas! the work of so many ‘prophets’ and
+teachers in the past. To the egotism of the human
+being there is no end; and if such an one can only
+persuade others that he has some supernatural source
+of knowledge and power, or persuade himself (or
+herself) of the same, there is no limit to the devilry
+or folly into which he will plunge—as witness the
+history of the priesthood all down the centuries.
+In the case of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland
+it was not devilry which was the trouble, but
+the other thing! Having reached a certain insight
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>or intuition, or whatever you may call it, into the
+inner meanings of life, they both became so inflated
+with heavenly conceit over their discovery that they
+really grew quite foolish and intolerable. As it
+happened I had known Maitland since I was a boy.
+When I was eighteen or twenty years of age he
+a grown man, and known in the literary world as
+the author of <cite>The Pilgrim and the Shrine</cite>, used
+sometimes to come to my father’s house at Brighton.
+He was an interesting talker, well up in literature
+and science, and always keen on some new idea or
+discovery; but even then somewhat egotistically
+absorbed in his own thoughts and conversation.
+When he met the lady, however, who became his
+great life-inspiration, it must be said that he submerged
+all his own claims to prophetic gifts in a
+whole-hearted recognition of hers. He laid his soul
+at her feet.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Anna Kingsford was certainly a remarkable
+woman. As a young girl she had had strange
+visions. When Maitland met her (she being twenty-seven)
+she must from all descriptions have been
+singularly beautiful. He describes her as “tall,
+slender and graceful in form; fair and exquisite
+in complexion; bright and sunny in expression. The
+hair long and golden, but the brows and lashes
+dark, and the eyes deep-set and hazel, and by turns
+dreamy and penetrating. The mouth rich, full, and
+exquisitely formed.” While Mrs. Fenwick Miller
+says: “I thought her the most faultlessly beautiful
+woman I ever beheld; her hair is like the sunlight,
+her features are exquisite, and her complexion—I can
+use no other term than faultless—not a spot, not a
+flaw, not a shade.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Add to these natural gifts a good medical training
+in the Schools of Paris, a fair knowledge of Greek
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>and Latin, considerable literary ability and a generous
+and undisguised use of cosmetics, and you have a
+strange but powerful combination. Edward Maitland
+met her in 1874 (he was then fifty and she
+twenty-eight), and practically thenceforward dedicated
+his life to her. (It must however be remembered
+that the intimacy caused no estrangement from
+Mr. Kingsford, the husband, who remained a close
+friend to them both.) The reinforcement of Anna
+Kingsford’s intuitive and prophetic gift by Maitland’s
+incisive and logical mentality certainly had a valuable
+result, and their combined work left a notable
+mark on the time. Jointly from 1881 (to 1888
+when Anna Kingsford died) they carried on a
+strong Crusade against Vivisection—one of the
+earliest protests made; and they published besides
+a series of works—<cite>The Perfect Way</cite>, <cite>Clothed with
+the Sun</cite>, <cite>The Virgin of the World</cite>, etc.—bearing the
+esoteric and theosophic message to which I have
+already alluded. Of these <cite>The Perfect Way</cite>, which
+shows both the systematic clearness of the one mind
+and the inspiration of the other, is perhaps the most
+important. It embodies in fairly clear outline those
+ideas of Indian and Gnostic origin which were at
+that time curiously descending upon the Western
+world, and which no doubt quite independently began
+about the same time to be spread abroad by Mme.
+Blavatsky and the Theosophic Society. Portions of
+this book, and large portions of <cite>Clothed with the
+Sun</cite> were apparently spoken by Mrs. Kingsford under
+trance conditions, and have a certain fine quality
+and atmosphere about them. They seem to indicate
+things actually seen in the inner world of being;
+but they suffer, as such communications must do,
+from the medium through which they come. Large
+portions of <cite>The Perfect Way</cite> degenerate into mere
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>drivel, and large portions of <cite>Clothed with the Sun</cite>
+are offensive (as their authoress herself often personally
+was) with a kind of spiritual arrogance.
+It is curious that those two prophetesses Anna Kingsford
+and Sophie Blavatsky—though so very different
+in personal exterior—should have been so like each
+other in many respects. Both undoubtedly had access
+to trance-conditions and to some region of astral
+intelligence or earth memory; both (as happens in
+such cases) dug out for us some shining jewels of
+truth, but mixed at the same time with a huge mass
+of rubbish. (No words can describe the general
+rot and confusion of Blavatsky’s <cite>Secret Doctrine</cite>.)
+Both were emotional in their different ways to an
+abnormal degree; and both were, fortunately for
+themselves, associated with coadjutors of cool and
+intellectual temperament—Mrs. Kingsford with Maitland,
+and Blavatsky with Mrs. Besant. Both had
+really great and remarkable gifts; and both, notwithstanding
+their high calling, descended to strange
+and unworthy subterfuges—Blavatsky to common
+juggleries and Anna Kingsford to a most deliberate
+and disagreeable ‘pose.’ At the Hermetic Society’s
+meetings the latter would take the chair in state—after
+the style of the Great Panjandrum—and if any
+humble member of the audience asked a simple
+question like “Do you think, Mrs. Kingsford, that
+the soul survives after death?”—she would draw
+herself up, close her eyes, and say “<i>I know</i>,” and
+sit down again! On one celebrated occasion I remember
+that at the close of the meeting, Edward
+Maitland rose and referring to the epoch-making
+speech of the Lady-president on “The finding of the
+Christ,” pointed out that that very meeting was indeed
+a world-event. For just as the <i>Kings</i> of the East
+came across the <i>ford</i> of the Jordan to lay their
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>treasures at the feet of the infant Saviour, so now
+the treasures of Eastern thought were being brought
+across the world for the birth of a new Redeemer
+in the West, and by one whose name was most
+appropriately and prophetically none other than
+<i>Kingsford</i>!! After that we could naturally do
+nothing but dissolve along our different lines—in
+tears, or laughter, or through the doorways and
+passages, as the case might be. We poor little
+mortals must be grateful for what illuminations we
+can get, however quaint or queer the mediating personalities
+may be.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The years from 1881 onward were certainly a
+new era for me. They not only brought me <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite>, but they marked the oncoming of a
+great new tide of human life over the Western World,
+and so—partly through the book itself—brought me
+into touch with a number of people and movements.
+It was a fascinating and enthusiastic period—preparatory,
+as we now see, to even greater developments
+in the twentieth century. The Socialist and
+Anarchist propaganda, the Feminist and Suffragist
+upheaval, the huge Trade-union growth, the Theosophic
+movement, the new currents in the Theatrical,
+Musical and Artistic worlds, the torrent even of
+change in the Religious world—all constituted so
+many streams and headwaters converging, as it were,
+to a great river. To be in fairly close touch, as
+time went on, with these movements and their
+(English) representatives—with men and women like
+John Burns, Cunninghame Graham, Mrs. Despard,
+H. M. Hyndman, Bernard Shaw, Keir Hardie, the
+Bruce Glasiers, Pete Curran, Ramsay Macdonald,
+Walter Crane, Sydney Olivier, H. W. Nevinson,
+H. G. Wells, Annie Besant, F. R. Benson, Granville
+Barker, Iden Payne, Mona Limerick, Isadora Duncan,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>Margaret Macmillan, Lowes Dickinson, G. P. Gooch,
+G. M. Trevelyan, Roger Fry, Rutland Boughton,
+Granville Bantock, Laurence Housman, William
+Rothenstein, R. J. Campbell, E. W. Lewis, the Sidney
+Webbs, Olive Schreiner, Isabel Margesson, Edith
+Ellis, Alfred Russel Wallace, Oliver Lodge, George
+Barnes of the A.S.E., C. T. Cramp of the A.S.R.S.,
+Stephen Reynolds of the Fisheries, Raymond Unwin
+of Garden Suburbs, Cecil Reddie of Abbotsholme,
+James Devon of the Prisons Commission, Edward
+Westermarck, Havelock Ellis, and so forth—was indeed
+an extraordinary inspiration and encouragement.
+Practically all these (and I have not mentioned the
+foreign friends and coadjutors) were giving their
+lives to the furtherance of some tributary of the
+great movement, and each of them represented
+hundreds or perhaps thousands of others who were
+doing the same. One felt that something massive
+must surely emerge from it all.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It was no wonder that Hyndman—whose name I
+have put near the beginning of this list—becoming
+conscious as early as 1881 of the new forces all
+around in the social world was filled with a kind
+of fervour of revolutionary anticipation. We used
+to chaff him because at every crisis in the industrial
+situation he was confident that the Millennium was at
+hand—that the S.D.F. would resolve itself into a
+Committee of Public Safety, and that it would be
+for him as Chairman of that body to guide the ship
+of the State into the calm haven of Socialism! The
+S.F.D. was constituted in the early eighties; when
+1889 was impending it was obvious that that year,
+as centenary of the first outbreak of the French
+Revolution would be the fateful date. I remember
+his telling me, not without gleeful rubbing of hands,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>that the whole Society of London Stevedores (whom
+he had been addressing at the Docks) was behind
+him to a man, and would come without fail to his
+support. 1889 however passed, with nothing more
+effectual than the Socialist Congress at Paris—at
+which a great deal of dissension and difference of
+opinion was manifested. Then came ’99, the last
+year of the century and clearly big with destiny;
+and he piled his hopes upon that. But it alas!
+only gave birth to the Boer War—which put things
+back for many a year. And after that 1909 and
+other dates did but provide further material for disappointment.
+And yet all the time the Socialist
+clock was really going forward, and though there
+was no sudden revolution or conversion, the nation
+steadily and almost unconsciously became saturated
+with the new ideas. Hyndman—though no doubt
+disappointed from time to time—stuck gamely to his
+‘cause’—and it was largely through his personal
+exertions that the educational work begun by him
+in ’81 was carried to such fruition that in 1914
+with the German War the Government and the
+country suddenly adopted large sections of the
+Socialist programme (without calling them Socialist
+of course) as the most natural thing in the world!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>That neither Hyndman in his time, nor Morris in
+his, nor the Fabian Society in theirs, nor Keir Hardie,
+nor Kropotkin, nor Blatchford, nor any other individual
+or body, succeeded in capturing the social
+movement during these years and moulding it to his
+or their hearts’ desire, must always be matter for
+congratulation. For once pocketed by any clique
+it would have pined and dwindled into an insignificant
+thing; but, as I have just tried to show, the
+real movement of this period has been far too great
+for such a destiny. It is like a great river, fed by
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>currents and streams flowing into it from the most
+various directions and gathering a force which no
+man can now control and a volume too great to be
+confined.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One regrets that Hyndman’s efforts to get into
+Parliament have never been crowned with success.
+Not that he would have been any use in the House
+as a party-leader (Labour or Socialist). Much the
+reverse; for though personally the most good-natured
+man in the world he had an extraordinary
+gift for falling foul of all his friends in the political
+arena. But because it would have been a satisfaction—and
+there would have been a certain poetical
+justice in it—to see Hyndman face to face with the
+bogeys of his own propaganda, the representatives
+of the established order, and trouncing them to his
+heart’s content. With an excellent command of
+statistics and finance, a good knowledge of political
+conditions and the diplomatic <i>personnel</i> over Europe,
+two great causes close to his heart in the championship
+of our colored subjects in India and our white
+wage-slaves at home, and with a vigorous and ready
+tongue, he would surely, off his own bat, have made
+the House sit up, and compelled its attention to some
+neglected things. Nevertheless he would never I
+think under any circumstances have been a great
+force in politics; for curiously enough notwithstanding
+his mental vigour and energy there was a certain
+want of <i>weight</i> about his personality which prevented
+his influence carrying very far. On the platform,
+with his waving beard and flowing frock-coat, his
+high and spacious forehead and head somewhat low
+and weak behind, he gave one rather the impression
+of a shop whose goods are all in the front window;
+and though a good and incisive speaker his frequent
+gusts of invective seemed out of keeping with the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>obvious natural kindliness of the man and rather
+suggested the idea that he was lashing himself up
+with his own tail.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The frock-coat and tall hat were always of course
+<i>de rigueur</i> with him—not I imagine that they were
+particularly congenial to his Socialist ideals, but
+because they were a necessary part of his outfit and
+‘make-up’ on the stage of the Stock Exchange;
+for no doubt the Stock Exchange as the centre of
+our Commercial system will cling to these old
+symbols of the industrial capitalist era to the
+very last.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>A young friend of mine, who was at one time
+clerk to Albert Grant of City fame, told me the
+following story. One day while he was sitting in
+Grant’s office H. M. Hyndman was announced, and
+walked in, frock-coat and all. My friend left the
+room while the two conferred—the well-known
+Socialist with the even more well-known German
+Jew and Company-promoter. Grant’s reputation was
+not of the highest—or if it could be called “high”
+at all it was only in the sense in which game is
+sometimes so called. When the visitor was gone and
+my young friend returned to the room, Grant said,
+rubbing his hands “Do you know who that is?
+Do you know who that is? That is Mr. Hyndman,
+the great Socialist. You see, you see, with all their
+talk, even <i>they</i> cannot get on without <i>me</i>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I do not for a moment suppose that Hyndman’s
+dealings on this occasion were anything to be
+ashamed of; but Albert Grant’s transactions were
+commonly thought to be of a shady character.
+Perhaps to make up for that, he bought with some
+of his gains the site of Leicester Square, converted
+it into a public garden, and presented it to the
+public. In consideration of this, and possibly other
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>things, he was made a Baron—Baron Grant. Whereupon
+some wag wrote the following distich:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Princes can Rank confer, but Honour can’t;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Rank without honour is a barren (Baron) grant.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>I have mentioned Walt Whitman more than once
+in the foregoing pages, and I think I ought not
+to let this chapter pass without referring to the
+ardent little coterie at Bolton in Lancashire who
+for many years celebrated his birthday with songs
+and speeches and recitations, with decorations of lilac-boughs
+and blossoms and the passing of loving cups
+to his memory. J. W. Wallace was the president,
+and Dr. Johnston, Fred. Wild, J. W. Dixon,
+Charles F. Sixsmith, were some of the earlier
+members of this little club, which met quite frequently
+from 1885 onward for twenty years or more.
+If there was a somewhat Pickwickian note about its
+revels still no one could doubt the sincerity of its
+enthusiasm. It helped largely to spread the study
+and appreciation of Whitman’s work in the North of
+England; it welcomed Dr. Bucke on his arrival from
+Canada with congratulatory addresses and hymns of
+its own composing; some of its members (the two
+first-mentioned) crossed the Atlantic on a pilgrimage
+to the good grey poet; and Dr. Johnston wrote a quite
+excellent little book <cite>A Visit to Walt Whitman</cite> descriptive
+of Whitman’s personality and surroundings, which
+I believe is now being reissued from the Press in
+conjunction with some Notes on the same subject
+by Wallace. In later years I have been able to
+count Dr. Johnston and Charlie Sixsmith among my
+own constant friends.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>I will conclude this chapter with a few brief notes
+on my almost lifelong friend Arunáchalam. I feel
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>that I owe a great debt to him because long ago,
+in ’80 perhaps or ’81 he gave me a translation of
+a book, then little known in England, the <cite>Bhagavat
+Gita</cite>—the reading of which as I think I have said
+before, curiously liberated and set in movement the
+mass of material which had already formed within
+me, and which was then waiting to take shape as
+<cite>Towards Democracy</cite>. As when a ship is ready to
+launch, a very little thing, the mere knocking away
+of a prop, will set her going; so—though it was
+something more than that—did the push of the
+<cite>Bhagavat Gita</cite> act on <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>. It gave
+me the needed cue, and concatenated my work to
+the Eastern tradition.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I first came across Arunáchalam at a meeting of
+the <i>Chitchat</i> or some such society at Cambridge,
+when he was an undergraduate of Christ’s and I
+a newly made Fellow of Trinity Hall. As in the
+case of other Hindus his extraordinary quickness
+and receptiveness of mind had very quickly rendered
+him <i>au fait</i> in all our British ways and institutions.
+With engagingly good and natural manners,
+humorous and with some of the Tamil archness and
+bedevilment about him, he was already a favorite
+in his own college—and at that time these early
+comers to the Universities from India were certainly
+received by our students with more friendliness and
+sense of equality than they are to-day. His father
+having been a wealthy man and occupying a good
+position in Ceylon, Arunáchalam had received a good
+education and was fairly well up in Greek and Latin,
+French and German, and their literatures, besides his
+own Eastern languages, like Tamil and Sanskrit.
+Altogether he was a very taking, all-round sort of
+fellow, capable of talking on most subjects, and full
+of interested inquiry about all. Many were the afternoons
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>or evenings we spent together—walking or
+boating or sitting by the fireside in College rooms—and
+I learned much from him about the literature
+of India and the manners and customs of the mainland
+and Ceylon. When he left Cambridge he went
+to London and studied Law for some years, and then
+going out to Ceylon joined the Civil Service there,
+and in due time became Judge, Registrar-General,
+and finally Member of the Legislative Council.
+In 1890 he wrote to me about the Gñani Ramaswamy
+whose acquaintance he had made, and asked
+me to come out and meet him; and I gladly went—for
+it just chimed in with my wishes at the time;
+and, as I have told in my <cite>Visit to a Gñani</cite> and
+elsewhere, for six weeks or so we called on the
+Guru every day and absorbed all he had to say
+on the traditional esoteric philosophy of India in
+general and of the Tamils in particular. After
+settling in Ceylon, Arunáchalam paid from time to
+time various visits to England, at one time to bring
+his wife over, at another to put his sons to College,
+and so on. The last occasion was in 1913 when
+he received a tardy recognition of his really important
+services to the Crown in the form of a knighthood.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On these occasions, whether he was conversing
+with the humblest of my friends at Millthorpe or
+at Sheffield, or with high officials and “great ladies”
+in London his manners had always just the same
+charming frankness and grace about them, which
+established at once the <i>human</i> relation as the paramount
+thing. And yet this man, whose artistic
+culture and practical knowledge of the world was
+miles above most people he met, had often to suffer
+from the boorish rudeness of Anglo-Indians in his
+own land, or of belated Britishers on board ship.
+Alas, for the vulgarity of my countrymen!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>I cannot leave him without one little anecdote.
+Being a guest on some occasion at a Mansion House
+dinner he was duly of course introduced to the various
+bigwigs present, and took his seat with the rest;
+but immediately caused consternation (being a vegetarian)
+by refusing turtle-soup and other carnivorous
+dishes in favour of spinach, potatoes and the like,
+and finally nearly wrecked the whole show by asking
+for a glass of water! Such a thing had never been
+heard of before. Waiters hurried to and fro, but
+water could not be found; and at last, with many
+apologies, he was asked to put up with a bottle of
+Apollinaris (“Whiskey, sir, with it?” “No, thank
+you”)!</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>XIV<br> LONDON AND LECTURES</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>Having many friends in London, and a good many
+relations, I naturally, during all the years of my
+sojourn at Millthorpe, have been in the habit of
+paying fairly frequent visits to the big city. It
+is good to have one’s roots in the country, but it
+is also necessary to have one’s branches in the great
+towns where one can come into contact with the
+winds and storms of human life.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>A considerable social storm at which I was present
+was that of the so-called “Bloody Sunday” in
+November ’87. A socialist meeting had been announced
+for 3 p.m. in Trafalgar Square, to protest
+against the Irish policy of the Government, and the
+authorities (for conscience doth make cowards of
+us all) probably thinking Socialism a much greater
+‘terror’ than it really was, had vetoed the meeting
+and drawn a ring of police, two deep, all round
+the interior part of the Square. Of course the
+Socialists had to make an active protest, if only
+in order to bring the case into court; and three
+leading members of the S.D.F.—Hyndman, John
+Burns and Cunninghame Graham—agreed to march
+up arm-in-arm and force their way if possible into
+the charmed circle. Somehow Hyndman was lost
+in the crowd on the way to the battle, but Graham
+and Burns pushed their way through, challenged the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>forces of ‘Law and Order,’ came to blows, and
+were duly mauled by the police, arrested, and
+locked up.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I was in the Square at the time, and like most
+of the crowd there more as a sightseer than anything
+else. Indeed, though a large crowd it was
+of a most good-humored and peaceable kind; but
+the way in which it was ‘worked up,’ provoked
+and irritated by the authorities, was a caution; and
+gave me the strongest impression that this was done
+purposely, with the intention of leading to a collision.
+If this was not so the only explanation must be
+that abject <i>fear</i>, on the part of the authorities, was
+the moving cause. As I say, the crowd was a most
+good-humored, easy-going, smiling crowd; but
+presently it was transformed. A regiment of
+mounted police came cantering up. The order
+had gone forth that we were to be ‘kept moving.’
+To keep a crowd moving is I believe a technical
+term for the process of riding roughshod in all
+directions, scattering, frightening and batoning the
+people—the idea no doubt being to prevent the formation
+of knots or the consolidation of organized
+bodies among the crowd. In this case there was
+really no sign of any organized movement on the
+part of the people against the police, nor had I
+heard of any plan to that effect, further than the
+march-up of the three leaders already mentioned.
+I was standing—with my friend Robert Muirhead,
+Cambridge mathematician and Smith’s Prizeman, two
+peaceable enough members of society as may be
+supposed—on an island-refuge just where the Strand
+debouches into Trafalgar Square, when we found
+ourselves violently pushed about by mounted and
+foot police and told to ‘move on.’ Whether Muirhead
+did not move on fast enough, or what the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>trouble was, was never explained; but the next
+moment I saw him seized by the collar by a mounted
+man and dragged along, apparently towards a police-station,
+while a bobby on foot aided in the arrest.
+I jumped to the rescue and slanged the two
+constables, for which I got a whack on the cheekbone
+from a baton (which distressed the more
+respectable members of my family for some weeks
+after), but Muirhead was released, and we soon regained
+our footing on the refuge, from which for
+some time we watched the police continuing, at considerable
+risk to life and limb, to circle round and
+insult the ‘mob.’ I mention these little details just
+to show the kind of thing that happens. Purely
+as the result of this ill-timed action there were
+one or two ugly rushes I believe and a few broken
+heads; but the damage of ‘Bloody Sunday’ did not
+after all amount to much.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The case came into Court afterwards, and Burns
+and Graham were sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment
+each for “unlawful assembly.” I was asked
+to give evidence in favour of the defendants, and
+gladly consented—though I had not much to say,
+except to testify to the peaceable character of the
+crowd and the high-handed action of the police.
+In cross-examination I was asked whether I had
+not seen any rioting; and when I replied in a
+very pointed way “Not on the part of the <i>people</i>!”
+a large smile went round the Court, and I was not
+plied with any more questions.</p>
+
+<div id='i282' class='c002 figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i282.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p><cite>MORNING LEADER</cite> CARTOON, 13 MARCH, 1906.<br>  <br>  “If Society people had to make their own clothes there would be some curious scenes in<br>  the streets, and many would go about attired in simply an Indian blanket.”—Mr. <span class='sc'>Edwd.<br>  Carpenter</span> at the meeting of the Humanitarian League at Essex Hall.<br>  <br>  (By courtesy of the <cite>Daily News</cite>.)</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>At an early period of my Millthorpe days (about
+1885 I think) two young Cambridge men who had
+only just taken their degrees, Lowes Dickinson and
+Roger Fry, came down to see me—two gentle,
+humorous and charming creatures, who have since
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>made their mark in Literature and Art, and whose
+friendship has remained with me, I am happy to say,
+all these years. Dickinson as a writer of pure
+English is I should say far ahead of any of his
+contemporaries. In contrast with the Meredithian,
+Henry Jamesian, Chestertonian, and other literary
+gymnastics of the day, his style flows along, pellucid
+with pure grace and purpose, saying exactly what
+is needed, no more and no less. It has the quality
+of ‘the absolute in style’—which is very different
+from, though sometimes mistaken for, absence of
+style. Nothing could be more charming and to
+the point than his <cite>Letters of John Chinaman</cite> (or
+<cite>From a Chinese Official</cite>) and his <cite>Greek View of
+Life</cite>. With regard to the former he told me an
+amusing story about W. J. Bryan, candidate more
+than once for the Presidency of the United States.
+Being an American Mr. Bryan, perhaps naturally,
+did not perceive (the English being so perfect) that
+no Chinaman could possibly have written the book,
+and being also somewhat shocked at some of the
+remarks in it about the common infidelities of
+matrimonial life in England and America, he quite
+innocently published an article rebutting these
+charges and explaining that if the author (the supposed
+Chinese official) had had the advantage of
+being brought up in an Anglo-Saxon household he
+would never have made such mistakes! Dickinson
+had consequently to write to Mr. Bryan, and, breaking
+his incognito, to inform him that the author <i>had</i>
+had the said advantage, and really knew what he
+was talking about!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>From 1885 onwards I lectured pretty frequently
+in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol, Leeds,
+Birmingham, Bradford, and so forth—chiefly at first
+in connection with the various Socialist societies and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>groups in those places. The subjects treated of
+were those which are now so well recognized and
+understood everywhere that there is no need to insist
+on them, though at that time they were only
+beginning to appear on the social horizon—the evils
+of Competition, Adulteration, Falsification of goods,
+Waste, the scramble for Dividends, the iron Law
+of Wages, and so forth. Afterwards the lectures
+branched out a little more widely into literary and
+philosophical subjects, and with more general
+audiences.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In 1891, as I have already said, the Humanitarian
+League was founded. And later on I gave addresses
+on various occasions in connection with the League’s
+meetings; one at an early date (about ’92 or ’93)
+on Vivisection—in conjunction with Edward Maitland;
+another on the same subject some years later;
+one in ’97 on the Prisons; one in ’98 on what
+might be called “Humane Science”; and one in
+1906 on “Simplification of Life,” and others. In
+the last-mentioned lecture I referred to the complexity
+of life among our well-to-do classes which
+arises from the fact of their being able to <i>pay</i>
+servants for doing things for them, and pointed out
+(supposing the bottom ever fell out of the bucket
+of modern society, and these people really had to
+produce their own food, clothing, etc.) how <i>simple</i>
+their lives would probably become—and how interesting
+it would be to see them going about barefoot
+and clothed in flour-sacks, rather than do the
+hard work of cobbling and tailoring for themselves.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The <cite>Morning Leader</cite> took the idea up, and brought
+out a Cartoon illustration of the lecture, showing
+the London Club men promenading in Hyde Park
+with only Indian blankets and flour-bags for covering,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>though still clinging religiously to their old
+umbrellas and tall hats!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>For the Theosophist societies I spoke occasionally,
+in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, and
+elsewhere—weaving in some amount of Indian
+philosophy (the Upanishads, etc.) with talk on social
+subjects; also for the Ethical societies in much
+the same way; and for Charles Rowley’s Sunday
+afternoons at Ancoats, Manchester. In 1905 I took
+up the question of Small Holdings and the Co-operative
+Colonization of the Land—a question which
+had by that time become actual through the Small
+Holdings Acts of 1892 and 1907, and which will
+have to be still more seriously considered in the
+future; and spoke on the subject in Holmesfield
+and other villages in my neighborhood, as well as
+in Oxford, Glasgow and other large centres. Joseph
+Fels was very keen at that time on the subject;
+and I went with him to view his group of a dozen
+or so five-acre holdings at Maylands in Essex. Unfortunately
+the experiment did not turn out a success.
+He had bought some very heavy clay land at an
+absurdly low price, £7 an acre, and had spent
+£20 per acre on it in breaking up and burning the
+clay and heavily manuring, thus making the real
+initial cost of the land £27 per acre; and had
+then planted the ground with fruit-trees and had
+suitable cottages built on it. Reckoning up the
+total cost of each holding he offered them at a
+low rental, some 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. on the
+capital invested, and took some care besides in the
+choice of tenants, feeling confident that with proper
+handling the places would prove remunerative.
+Unfortunately they did not do so. Probably it had
+been a mistake to speculate on such extremely poor
+land as this was to begin with. Anyhow it never
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>yielded the crops expected; and one by one the
+tenants disheartened abandoned their holdings, and
+the whole scheme fell to the ground.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Having always a good many friends among the
+Railway-men I was not unfrequently asked to speak
+at their clubs and branch meetings. On one
+occasion in November 1907, in conjunction with
+George Barnes, C. T. Cramp, Pete Curran and
+Victor Grayson, I addressed an A.S.R.S. meeting
+of over three thousand in the Sheffield Corn-Exchange.
+George Barnes always strikes me as a
+fine, solid and sensible man; Charlie Cramp the
+same; and indeed the railway-men generally—perhaps
+from their close and constant contact with
+the flow of humanity—have a discernment and
+reasonableness of outlook which is quite peculiar.
+Victor Grayson, the course of whose political career
+was so brief and so meteoric, was a most humorous
+creature. His fund of anecdotes was inexhaustible,
+and rarely could a supper party of which he was a
+member get to bed before three in the morning.
+On the platform for detailed or constructive argument
+he was no good, but for criticism of the
+enemy he was inimitable—the shafts of his wit played
+like lightning round him, and with his big mouth
+and flexible upper lip he seemed to be simply
+browsing off his opponents and eating them up. His
+disappearance from public life has been quite a loss.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In some ways these large audiences are easier
+to speak to than small ones. Consciousness of
+personalities—either one’s own or of members of
+the audience—disappears; the great broad human
+interests come forward; finesse and detailed argument
+are of little account; the reverberation of
+emotion is great, and that carries the speaker on;
+but of course much depends on conditions. To
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>hold a large audience in the open air is difficult
+work, but it is good practice. Concatenation and
+logical continuity are of no great importance, but
+every word must be distinct, every phrase must tell,
+every point be made clear and attractive, else the
+congregation will evaporate even while you talk to
+it, and condense again round the nearest coster’s
+barrow.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In a closed room or hall you have your hearers
+more at command. They cannot easily escape, and
+you may become dull without knowing it! But here
+again much depends on circumstances. I find a
+room (of the common type) with level floor and
+high raised platform at one end rather trying. It
+is difficult to get <i>at</i> an audience so much below
+you, and as the voice tends to rise the more <i>distant</i>
+listeners seem unreachable. Worse still is a flat
+room where you stand on the floor without <i>any</i>
+platform; for then you cannot see your flock, and
+you lose all command over it. Personally I like
+an amphitheatre lecture-hall with rising tiers of seats
+one behind the other; or best of all an ordinary
+theatre with pit and galleries, so that from the
+stage one is nearly on a level with the great bulk
+of those present. I have spoken (on <cite>The Larger
+Socialism</cite> or cognate subjects) to audiences of two
+thousand or more at various theatres—the ‘Grand,’
+Manchester (November 1908 and November 1909),
+the ‘Prince’s,’ Blackburn (October 1910), the
+‘Metropole,’ Glasgow (November 1910), and others,
+and with a satisfactory sense in general of being
+able to reach my hearers.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On November 11, 1910, I gave an address
+to the Literary and Philosophical Society at
+Greenock on <cite>State-Interference with Industry</cite>,
+which was repeated afterwards at Cambridge,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>Oxford, and elsewhere. The subject was much
+to the fore at that time, and from opposite points
+of view, owing to prevalent strikes and lock-outs.
+The Clyde shipping strike was on, and there was
+a good deal of indignation expressed up and down
+the country at the conduct of the men in the shipyards,
+who had refused to take up their tools and
+go to work again, even after their leaders had counselled
+and urged them to do so. I was as much
+in the dark as most others about the cause of this
+strange refusal—until I reached Greenock; and then
+I soon heard from various quarters, both of men
+and masters, the real reason. It was not a question
+of wages or of hours. Those matters had so far
+been settled satisfactorily. The real grievance was
+a personal one. The men had been affronted by
+the overbearing conduct of the Chairman of the
+Employers’ Association, the insulting manner in
+which he had behaved to their representatives, and
+so forth; and they were not going to put up with
+this without a protest. They wanted to be treated
+in a gentlemanly way. It was encouraging and
+refreshing to find that this was so; and the fact
+that it was so lets a good deal of light into a
+frequent cause of labour troubles and dissensions.
+But of course in this case at Greenock, as in so
+many others, the Press all over the country had
+got on the wrong tack, and the public never knew
+the real rights of the matter.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On October 24, 1908, the Women’s Suffrage
+party held a great demonstration in Manchester,
+which like others of their functions was a miracle
+of organization. There were to be ten platforms,
+and the mere getting together of ten distinct bodies
+of processionists at their respective starting-stations
+in the neighborhood of the Town Hall, and marching
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>them off to the appointed time, was no light
+matter. However it was done; and with Mrs.
+Despard walking gallantly at the head, supported
+by Margaret Ashton, Miss Abadam, Dr. Helen
+Wilson, Isabella Ford, Mrs. Swanwick, Mrs. K. D.
+Courtney, Mrs. Billington Greig, Councillor James
+Johnston, Professor Chapman, Canon Hicks and
+myself, a solid phalanx nearly a mile long, with
+bands and banners complete, walked all the way
+to Alexandra Park, three miles out! The immense
+crowd which came forth to witness the demonstration,
+and which lined both sides of the road, did
+not say much; it did not cheer to any great extent,
+nor did it scoff; it was simply deeply impressed.
+A large part of it followed on the route and collected
+round the ten platforms—about a thousand listeners
+to each. Each platform dealt with a separate subject—mine,
+in conjunction with Mrs. Greig and Miss
+Margaret Robertson, took <cite>Prison Reform</cite>. A cornet
+finally gave the signal for a joint resolution to be
+proposed in favour of the Suffrage, which was of
+course carried by acclamation, and the crowd
+dispersed.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Mrs. Despard’s work in the two related causes
+of Women and Labour has been splendid. Her
+ardour and indomitable resolution, despite the
+drawback of advancing years, have been almost
+miraculous, and I always see her in my mind’s eye
+marching gloriously to some encounter, and resembling
+the horse (in the words of the book of
+Job) “who saith among the trumpets Ha! ha!
+and sniffeth the battle from afar!” It has been
+an honour and a pleasure to me to speak on many
+a platform with Mrs. Despard—in Trafalgar Square
+and elsewhere. In October 1912 I took the chair at
+a meeting of the Sheffield Women’s Freedom League,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>when she lectured on the subject of Shelley’s <cite>Prometheus
+Unbound</cite>. It is characteristic of her that
+this poem was a favorite of hers from earliest girlhood;
+and in a sustained address that evening she
+quoted very large portions of it by heart, holding
+her audience for nearly two hours in rapt accord
+and attention. Mrs. Despard was, I need hardly
+say, like Shelley himself, an ardent vegetarian—though
+Shelley, owing to circumstances and conditions,
+often probably found it difficult to live quite
+up to the mark of his wishes in this respect.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In October 1909 I was honoured by being made
+President of the Vegetarian Congress at Manchester
+for that year—notwithstanding my own occasional
+derelictions from the ideal standard—and I found
+myself in the chair at an interesting meeting supported
+by well-known pillars of the movement like
+Professor J. E. Mayor of Cambridge, Dr. E. A.
+Axon of Manchester, Dr. Lybeck of Helsingfors, and
+others. The thing that struck me most about the
+meeting was the extraordinary number of extremely
+ancient looking patriarchs present with long white
+hair and beards; and I very nearly disgraced
+myself in my opening speech by expressing a doubt
+whether in view of this result Vegetarianism was a
+thing really to be desired or recommended! Some
+kind presiding spirit however saved me from this
+ineptitude, and I reached the end of my discourse
+safely and without succumbing to the temptation.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>A subject on which I have often spoken—though
+always with the sense of only touching the fringe
+of it—is that of the connection between Sun worship
+and Christianity. The existing books on the subject
+are quite unsatisfactory, being very limited in their
+outlook. Some day it will have to be worked out
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>more thoroughly. It is a most interesting subject,
+but as it involves a good deal of historical and
+antiquarian information and some technical knowledge
+of Astronomy besides reference to early sexual
+rites, it is not a very easy one to put before a general
+audience. I gave a lecture on it for the Sheffield
+Ethical Society in December 1908 and for J. R.
+Campbell’s “Progressive League” at the City
+Temple in November 1909, as well as in other
+places; but it really would require a series of
+lectures for anything like adequate presentment.
+The <i>continuity</i> of Christianity with the religions of
+the old world and its ordered evolution from them
+is the idea which we now require to realize. We
+have had enough of its portrayal as a miraculous
+and exceptional stage in human development; and
+now that the world is coming round again to a
+concrete appreciation of the value and beauty of
+actual life, and to a sort of neo-Pagan point of
+view, it is above all important that we should understand
+the sources from which Christianity sprang
+in the past, and what germs of a world-religion
+it may bear within itself for the future, when it
+shall have cast off the crude and gothic elements
+of its mediæval development.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My friend Edward Lewis, himself a writer on The
+New Paganism, was in 1912 and 1913 minister of
+the King’s Weigh House Church, Duke Street, W.,
+and he and R. J. Campbell not unfrequently interchanged
+pulpits at that time. Lewis persuaded me
+to speak at his church; and on two occasions
+(November 1912 and October 1913) I did so. His
+congregation, largely trained no doubt and educated
+by his discourses, was an intelligent and sympathetic
+one, and though I had some misgivings on
+my first visit in speaking on so abstruse a subject
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>as “The Nature of the Self”—illustrated as it was
+by numerous quotations from the Upanishads and
+from <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>—I felt no misgiving on
+the second occasion, when my subject (similarly
+illustrated) was “Rest.” These lectures were repeated
+at the Lyceum (women’s) Club, Piccadilly,
+at Croydon, Eastbourne and elsewhere; and the
+fact that audiences like these, of a rather popular
+character, could listen with deep understanding and
+sympathy to the unfolding of innermost psychological
+teachings has convinced me that the germs of a
+new and democratic religion are only waiting among
+our mass-peoples for the day and the stimulus which
+will bring them to birth and development.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Edward Lewis, being vigorous in heart and brain,
+and a real man, naturally could not continue very
+long in a profession like “the ministry” which
+entailed his ascending the pulpit three or four times
+a week and not only giving ‘edifying’ counsel to
+his congregation but confining his own life within
+a corresponding circle of inanity. Such a career
+would inevitably have sapped and ruined his manhood;
+and with true instinct he threw up his
+five or six hundred a year and retired into the
+wilderness. The members of his congregation were
+duly shocked and grieved in their different ways,
+according to the views they took of his lapse or
+lapses from holiness; but if, as is likely, the
+quondam Christian minister should become the missionary
+and apostle of a new and vital Paganism,
+the world will be very much the gainer.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The War, now going on [1915] is not only acting
+already very directly on the industrial life of the
+nations concerned but is pointing pretty clearly
+towards a remodelling of our general conception of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>Industry for the future. It is fairly certain that
+somehow or other the gloomy and depressing wage-slavery
+of the present day—so intimately bound up
+with the Commercial régime—will have to give way;
+and productive work will have to regain the
+characters of spontaneity and gladness which surely
+are of the essence of its nature, and which are the
+necessary roots of all Art and of all Beauty and
+Joy in life. With that transformation of industry
+all life will be transformed, and the neo-Pagan ideal
+will become a thing possible of realization.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>For some years, from 1910 onwards I have
+spoken on this idea—entitling my lectures “Freedom
+in Industry,” “Beauty in Civic Life” and so
+forth, and delivering them before various bodies and
+in various places—as at Caxton Hall, London, for
+the Humanitarian League; at Crosby Hall, Chelsea,
+for the University Settlement there; for the Fabian
+Society at Oxford; for the Arts Club at Leeds;
+for the Progressive and Town-planning League at
+Bolton; for the N.U.T. Association at Chesterfield;
+and for many Adult Schools, I.L.P. Clubs and
+Ethical and Theosophist societies in different parts
+of the country.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>To produce for Use; that production should really
+take place for the benefit of the Consumer; to concentrate
+not on Profit to individuals, but on advantage
+and gain to the Community; to drop in one inspired
+moment the whole mad sequence of cut-throat
+Rivalry, insane Waste, disgusting Fraud, and inane
+Uselessness, which constitute modern Industry; all
+this would mean such an enormous liberation of
+Power, such an incalculable increase in general
+Wealth, that the spectre of poverty would be exorcised
+for ever, and the numbing anxiety which
+weighs so heavily now on the lives of millions would
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>be lifted away like an evil cloud. Joy would descend
+upon life, and the ordinary occupations would become
+free, spontaneous and beautiful.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Our powers of production to-day are so immense
+that even in the midst of the present frightful War
+we (on this little island) can spare millions of our
+best men for fighting, and millions more for the
+work of providing those fighters with engines of death
+and destruction, and <i>yet</i> with the residue can calmly
+and easily keep the nation going. What our powers
+and our achievement might be if once those eight
+millions or so—whose work is now only destructive—were
+turned on to the great positive task of social
+reconstruction and sensible human emancipation, it
+really passes imagination to conceive. The age-long
+world-dream of Paradise Regained would at last be
+within our reach. We can see that the War is even
+now forcing the modern peoples to take stock of
+their boasted Civilization, to reckon up the gains
+to Humanity which it represents—and the losses;
+to find out and decide in what direction they are
+really moving, and in what direction they want to
+move. If an event so great, so colossal, as this
+does not shatter the old order of profit-grinding
+and wage-slavery and wake a new ideal of life in
+the heart of the nations, one would say there is
+little hope for the world. But surely it will do so.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>XV<br> TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>Among the many good things in my life which I
+owe to my books by no means the least has been
+my introduction through them to dear and valued
+foreign friends.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One day in March 1901 there called upon me a
+young Hungarian—Ervin Batthyány by name—a
+modest, sturdy and almost rustic-looking youth of
+about twenty-three. He proved to be a member
+of the well-known Batthyány family, whose influence
+in Hungarian politics, on the Liberal as well
+as on the Conservative side, has always been considerable;
+but he was by no means conservative
+in his outlook or ultra-aristocratic in his leanings.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It happened at the moment of his appearance that
+I was doing some gardening and trundling about
+a wheelbarrow. “Oh,” he said at once, “do let
+me wheel that barrow for you; I do like so much
+to do that sort of work, but I have no chance at
+home—I am so <i>civilized</i> you know.” For a moment
+I thought he was chaffing; then the next moment
+I saw he was quite sincere. I believe I let him
+trundle the barrow for a bit; then we sat down
+and talked.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It turned out that he was expecting in the following
+year to come into large landed estates in
+Hungary; that he had studied and thought about
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>Socialism to some extent; and that among other
+things he wanted to consult me about the administration
+of his property when he should have the management
+of it. It appeared that with the almost feudal
+system still prevailing in that part, the cottagers and
+labourers working on such estates were practically
+attached to the soil and frequently transferred with
+it from owner to owner; that they were employed
+by the farm-bailiffs in gangs for the benefit of the
+estate; that they received next to no monetary
+wages, but were paid in pork or flour or the poor
+tenements they inhabited—that is, they were paid
+by a small share of the wealth they had themselves
+created; that they had no means of earning anything
+independently; and that they had little or
+no education—the schools being all under the thumb
+of the Catholic priests.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We talked over possible reforms—of a mild kind
+of course, as anything drastic would be out of the
+question; and when he went away he said with
+the same charming simplicity as before “The next
+time I see you I hope I shall not be so <i>civilized</i>.”
+The next time proved to be some three years later.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He returned to Buda-Pesth shortly after his visit
+to Millthorpe; and took as it happened a copy of
+<cite>Towards Democracy</cite> with him, which he gave to a
+lady friend there—a certain Madame Nadler—knowing
+that she was interested and indeed accomplished
+in English literature. Madame Nadler took warmly
+to the book, and before long it came about that
+she and the young Count, who was a frequent visitor
+at her house, spent a large part of their time together
+in reading and discussing it—with the not unnatural
+result that they became warmly interested in each
+other.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Meanwhile he, the young man, plunged into the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>administration of his newly acquired estate, and in
+the course of two or three years made useful changes.
+He founded an undenominational school, with a workshop
+for instructing the peasants in various crafts,
+and a reading-room provided with more or less
+socialistic literature—an innocent enough proceeding
+as we should think, but it turned the whole Clerical
+party against him, and terrified the aristocratic landowners
+of the neighborhood out of their wits, as
+with the shadow of a coming revolution! All this,
+together with his journalistic work in connection with
+various anti-militarist and Anarchist papers brought
+him into conflict with his family and the authorities,
+with the result that a sequestration of his property
+took place, and for a couple of years he was subject
+to a good deal of annoyance. During that period,
+curiously enough, little Millthorpe became the chief
+means of communication between the two friends—for
+I was in touch with them both, while their
+local and more direct letters were liable to be intercepted.
+They were thus able to concert plans to
+frustrate the enemy, which they did with such success
+that at the end of the period mentioned Ervin resumed
+work on his estates—though not without some
+risk, as may be imagined, of renewed attacks.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>After these events <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> became
+more than ever a link between the two friends. They
+determined to translate the book—not into Hungarian
+but into German (as being a more widely received
+language), and they set to work upon it in real
+earnest. Mme. Nadler’s competence for this labour
+was quite exceptional. With a great enthusiasm for
+the book and a quick appreciation of its meanings,
+she combined a very fine literary sense and aptness
+of phrase; while Ervin with his rather encyclopædic
+brain was able to interpret all sorts of references
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>to trades and Nature-processes. In 1906 the
+translation of Part I was published in Berlin; and
+Parts II, III and IV followed in separate editions
+in the three following years, 1907, 1908, and 1909.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But meanwhile (early I think in 1904) Mme.
+Nadler having decided to give her children the
+advantage of an English education, and at the same
+time to save them from the hatefulness of enforced
+military service, migrated to this country; and so
+it came to pass that I made the personal acquaintance
+of this remarkable and beautiful woman—an
+acquaintance which, I need not say, soon ripened
+into friendship. Ervin, too, finding his native land
+not very congenial came over to England; and
+thus it happened that after the lapse of three years
+he and I resumed the conversations which we had
+first begun over the wheelbarrow. I did not notice
+that he was notably less ‘civilized’ than before,
+but his experiences had very obviously altered his
+political and social outlook, and his general views
+were decidedly more anti-governmental than they
+had been at the earlier date.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>These translations by Madame Nadler were, however,
+by no means the first to be made into German.
+In 1901 or so Herr Karl Federn had come over
+from Vienna and spent a day or two at Millthorpe.
+In 1902 he placed his translation of <cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>
+with a Leipzig publisher, and the book almost
+immediately had a good reception. It passed
+through several editions, and when a few years later,
+in 1912, the first German Women’s Congress was
+held in Berlin the book curiously enough became
+a sort of bone of contention, dividing the advanced
+party who took it as their text-book, from the more
+conservative party who anathematized it. In proportion
+as controversy raged around it the work
+became more notorious, a cheap edition was printed,
+and before the Great War broke out some fifty
+thousand copies had been sold.</p>
+
+<div id='i299'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i299.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>LILLY NADLER-NUELLENS WITH HER DAUGHTER.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>Herr Federn was not very fortunate in his choice
+of a title. <cite>Wenn die Menschen reif zur Liebe
+werden</cite> is only a rather heavy paraphrase of
+<cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>, and the text of the book
+itself suffers from a certain heaviness and diffuseness.
+Still to Herr Federn himself I feel I owe a
+considerable debt, not only for introducing my work
+to the German public, but for the general fidelity
+of his translations and the loyalty of his dealings
+on my account with the German publishers. In
+1903 he published also in Leipzig his translation
+of <cite>Civilization: its Cause and Cure</cite>; and in 1905,
+in Jena, the translation of <cite>The Art of Creation</cite> (<cite>Die
+Schöpfung als Kunstwerk</cite>). This last was issued
+in rather elaborate <i>format</i> by the well-known firm,
+Eugen Diederichs, but has never reached the
+circulation of the other two.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>In the Spring of 1909 I was at Florence for
+some weeks; and there—largely through my friend
+Professor Herron—I came into touch with an interesting
+circle of young Italian <i>literati</i> and artists;
+especially interesting to me because they represented
+a strong reaction away from the very
+bourgeois and commercialized Italian art-ideals of
+the later nineteenth century, and towards the ideals
+of John Ruskin and William Morris—ideals founded
+on the socialization of human activities and the intimate
+relationship of all true literary and artistic
+work to the actual life of the mass-peoples.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The group included such men as  Riccardo
+Nobili, probably the best living exponent of Fourteenth
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>Century Italian art, whose charming little
+story <cite>A Modern Antique</cite> delightfully exposes the
+fakes of Florentine art-dealers and the gorgeous
+gullibility of American globe-trotters; Roberto
+Assagioli, the young philosopher, editor of <cite>Psiche</cite>—a
+psychological Review—and author of an illuminating
+tract on the Talking Horses of Elberfeldt<a id='r28'></a><a href='#f28' class='c012'><sup>[28]</sup></a>;
+Guido Ferrando, author of a couple of tracts
+on <cite>La Coscienza Universale</cite> and <cite>La Nuova Psicologia</cite>
+(Florence 1908)—who has done me the honour to
+translate my <cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite> and my <cite>Art of
+Creation</cite> into Italian; Count Auteri, the Sicilian
+architect and sculptor; Giuseppe Rambelli, the artist,
+and others.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>More or less associated with this group—and on
+a second visit—I made the acquaintance of Teresina
+Bagnoli, a gifted young woman who had already
+been in correspondence with me with regard to a
+translation of <cite>T. D.</cite> (of which she sent me batches
+from time to time for criticism and revision). I
+found her swift and penetrating and original, and
+verging on Anarchism in her political and philosophic
+outlook; and I have to thank her for her excellent
+little volume <cite>Verso la Democrazia</cite><a id='r29'></a><a href='#f29' class='c012'><sup>[29]</sup></a> which has
+brought me into touch with Italian readers in that
+intimate field.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It is curious, but perhaps not unexpected, that
+my best translators have been women. To a third
+lady friend, Mademoiselle Senard, I owe a very excellent
+version of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> into French
+(Parts III and IV only). After some little preliminary
+correspondence Mlle. Senard came over from
+Paris in the summer of 1913 and spent a couple
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>of months in the country in my neighborhood.
+Sprung from an old-fashioned and rather aristocratic
+family in Burgundy she had managed at a comparatively
+early age to emancipate herself from a convent
+school and education, and by her resolution had
+almost compelled her parents to find for her a way
+out into the great world. She had become a perfect
+linguist in English, German and Italian; and I found
+her a fine-looking and attractive person of thirty-five
+or so, always, like a true Frenchwoman, perfectly
+dressed and <i>chic</i>, yet simply dressed and absolutely
+natural in her conversation and movements.
+It was a pleasure to spend many a morning or
+afternoon with her, looking over her translation
+work or rambling through the garden and the
+fields.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>However well one may know a foreign language
+it is rarely possible to follow every <i>nuance</i> of meaning
+or to succeed entirely in avoiding errors; and
+a foreigner dealing with English has perhaps all
+the more difficulty in that way on account of the
+idiomatic and irregular character of our language.
+I have not always cared so much about the other
+books, but with <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> I have been
+very anxious that the renderings should be faithful;
+and it has been fortunate for me that in these three
+cases I have had such very competent translators,
+and been sufficiently versed myself in the languages
+concerned to be able to assist them in doubtful
+places.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Marcelle Senard wrote also a little brochure of
+her own on <cite>Edward Carpenter et sa Philosophie</cite>,<a id='r30'></a><a href='#f30' class='c012'><sup>[30]</sup></a>
+which shows the clearness and penetration of a
+well-balanced French mind. Then, on the outbreak
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>of the War in 1914 she took up Nursing work, and
+with extraordinary energy and devotion organized
+and helped to equip a new Hospital for the Wounded
+at Nevers, south of Paris, where she remained for
+a year as Manageress and Secretary, till exhausted
+with the incessant labour she was at last compelled
+to relinquish the post.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In connection with French translations I must not
+forget to mention my friend Paul Le Rouge who is
+now assistant judge in French Morocco, and who
+translated and published my <cite>Prisons, Police and
+Punishment</cite> in Paris some ten years ago. I am
+sorry to say I have not found an English judge or
+police-magistrate who has taken an equal interest
+in the original book!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Early in 1910 I received one or two letters from
+a young Japanese illustrating the sad state of commercial
+slavery and militarism into which Japan had
+fallen since the Russo-Japanese War. Women and
+children as well as men were being worked twelve
+hours or more a day in the factories which were
+springing up on all sides, and for a miserable
+pittance; there were no regulations to curb the greed
+of employers; and any public protest was treated
+as anti-governmental Socialism, with the result that
+papers were suppressed in the most arbitrary way,
+and speakers committed to prison. A Japanese lady,
+Mme. Fukuda, had been imprisoned for five years
+for thus voicing the wrongs of the workers; and
+my correspondent, Sanshiro Ishikawa, was awaiting
+trial on a similar charge. He had, being a fair
+English scholar, been interested in my work for
+some time; and told me (what I had heard before)
+that a translation of my Civilization book had circulated
+pretty widely in his country at a quite early
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>date. That translation, however, had gone out of
+print, and he, Ishikawa, was preparing a new one
+for the press, when—the Japanese Censor interfered
+and forbade its publication!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>This shows up pretty clearly the state of darkness
+which had descended on the land of the Rising
+Sun! It was not of course on account of his
+interest in my book that he had been arrested, but
+on account of his general work in the cause of
+Labour.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The result of his trial was that he was sent to
+prison for three months, and that on his emergence
+he had to keep rather quiet on account of the attentions
+of the Police. He retained however his interest
+in my writings, made translations of portions of
+them, and embodied these together with some
+biographical matter in a book of some three hundred
+pages beautifully printed in Japanese characters and
+published in Tokyo in 1912; but of course for
+the most part a sealed book to me. Some small
+portions, however, are printed in our language and
+characters, including a letter from myself written
+to him while he was in prison—which I may as
+well reproduce here as it serves to throw light on
+the situation:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c015'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Dear Friend Ishikawa Sanshiro</span>,</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>Just a line to cheer you in prison—though you will be nearly
+coming out when this reaches you. I received your letter of March
+27 with much pleasure. You were to go to prison next day. They
+seem to be very severe and despotic in Japan, when one cannot
+even publish <cite>Civilization: its Cause and Cure</cite> there. But your
+countrymen are too sensible to bear this sort of treatment for very
+long. I suppose it is <i>patriotism</i> which is so very strong in the nation
+just now, and which forms an excuse for anti-socialism. King
+Edward VII’s death is causing a great wave of patriotism here; yet
+the future of mankind is leading us beyond patriotism to <i>humanity</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>I cannot write much now, but thought I would send you a few
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>lines. I believe I did send you my photograph. If it did not reach
+you let me know, and I will send another.</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>With hearty greetings and thanks to you for what you have done
+in the great Cause.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c015'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Yours very truly,</div>
+      <div class='line in8'><span class='sc'>Edwd. Carpenter</span>.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c015'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><i>21 May, 1910.</i></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>After a time—I hardly know whether on account
+of troubles in Japan or of attractions towards
+Europe—Sanshiro determined to come to these
+Western lands; and one day in the autumn of 1913,
+as I happened to be in London, he came to call
+on me there. Anything less dangerous-looking as
+a revolutionary it would be hard to imagine. Small
+in stature, timid in manner, and with a very gentle
+voice, he seemed the embodiment of quietude and
+sympathy. It was not difficult however in his case,
+as in that of many Japanese, to discern, beneath
+that composed exterior, a strong undercurrent of
+resolution and courage.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>He read English with ease, but spoke it rather
+slowly and with difficulty, was intelligent, and like
+many Orientals skilful with his fingers and apt at
+housework. We tried to find him employment and
+a means of living in our neighborhood or in Sheffield
+or Manchester, but without success, and after similar
+efforts in London he migrated to Brussels where he
+knew of a friend in Paul Reclus, son of Elie and
+nephew of Elisée Reclus, and where he obtained
+occupation in decorative painting. This was early
+in 1914. In August, of course, the War broke out,
+and a few weeks later the Germans entered Brussels.
+The Reclus family—before their entry I imagine—retired
+to Paris; but Sanshiro remained in Brussels—I
+believe as caretaker of their apartments. It
+was a somewhat risky position. The Germans drew
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>a cordon round the city, and ruled severely within it.
+Once or twice only he got messages through to me.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But as the weeks went by he began to feel that
+he must escape at all costs; and in the end he
+succeeded in doing so—by representations I believe
+to the Japanese Government, which led to his liberty
+being granted in exchange for a German prisoner
+taken at Kiao-chow; but of this I am not certain.
+I have not seen him since, but anyhow he got to
+Liancourt (near Paris) where he now is [1915].</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Another Japanese friend, Mr. Saikwa Tomita, the
+youthful author of <cite>The Matanjitenshô</cite> or <cite>Psalm of
+the Last Day</cite>, has translated and published large
+portions of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> in current Japanese
+magazines, and intends apparently to bring the whole
+out in book form—as well as versions of <cite>The Art
+of Creation</cite> and some of my other works. Speaking
+(in a letter) of the present War, he says: “Japan
+is at her crisis as well as Europe is. Here in this
+country, as you well know, he who is for the lower
+classes and vagabonds, or who is for [the] cosmopolitanism,
+is treated by the authorities under the
+name of ill-fame and has to suffer from a bitter
+experience.” And Sanshiro Ishikawa above-mentioned
+speaks likewise: “Is not this a terrible
+epoch, that the violent force only holds the supreme
+power in this world, and humanity has no influence,
+at least in [the] international affairs. The present
+situation of Japan is in most dangerous step [stage];
+many peoples are becoming admirers of militarism.
+Commercialism is already too powerful; and I feel
+a duty that I must fight with full-hearted spirit
+against them.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Let us pray that these true-hearted fighters for
+Internationalism may prevail—all over the world, and
+among all nations!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>I am proud to find that among the Bulgarians—who
+are supposed just now to be our enemies—I
+have many friends. Messrs. Vaptzaroff and Dosseff,
+editors of the magazine called <cite>Renaissans</cite> at Burgas
+and Tchirpan, published in it shortly before the War
+various chapters of <cite>Civilization</cite>, including “The
+Defence of Criminals,” “Custom,” “Modern
+Science,” etc., and later the whole of that book,
+and of <cite>England’s Ideal</cite>. With the outbreak of the
+war however they retired to Maikop in the Kuban
+Territory (east of the Black Sea), being in touch
+there with another friend of mine, the Russian novelist
+and mystic, Ivan Najívin. M. Najívin, who makes
+his home apparently in the country near Novorossisk
+on the shores of the Euxine—working there among
+his bees, and in his vineyard and vegetable garden—has
+written to me for some years, chiefly about
+Cosmic Consciousness and Sandals! He is, as may
+be imagined, particularly interested in the Indian
+Sannyasis and mystics, and was lately much surprised
+to find that some of the Russian peasant sects
+(notably the <i>Stranniks</i>) among whom he had lived
+so long were all the time unbeknown to him holding
+views and favouring practices very similar to those
+of the Hindu mystics. “<span lang="fr">Bientôt je vous écrirai des
+choses extraordinaires à propos du <i>gñanam</i> et
+<i>samadhi</i>, etc. Tout cela existe parmi le bas peuple
+et les moines Russes!</span>” (letter of May 1913). He
+has translated my <cite>Visit to a Gñani</cite> into Russian under
+the title <cite>I Am</cite>, also large portions of <cite>Towards
+Democracy</cite> and the whole of <cite>Civilization</cite>. Besides
+M. Najívin I am indebted to M. Sergius Orlovski
+and M. G. Rapoport and others for introductions to
+the Russian public.</p>
+
+<div id='i310'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i310.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>MARCELLE SENARD.<br>  <br>  (<cite>Photo: L. Fréon, Neuilly, Paris.</cite>)</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>To my young friend Illit Gröndahl of Kloften,
+Norway, I owe the circulation of my works in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>Norway, especially in Bergen. In Amsterdam a
+translation of <cite>Civilization</cite> (<cite>De Beschaving: hare
+oorzaak en hare Genesing</cite>) was issued as long ago
+as 1899—with Preface by Leo Tolstoy (the same
+preface which Tolstoy wrote to the chapter on
+Modern Science<a id='r31'></a><a href='#f31' class='c012'><sup>[31]</sup></a>); and in the same city a translation
+of <cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite> (<cite>Liefde’s Meerderjarigheid</cite>)
+was issued in 1904.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>XVI<br> RURAL CONDITIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>In contrast with the Artisans and Town-workers
+whom I had got to know so well, the farm-populations
+and rustics among whom I found myself
+embedded when I settled at Millthorpe were decidedly
+interesting. In the working masses of the towns—at
+any rate of the Northern towns—what attracted
+one was the ferment of the New Life coming on:
+the social dreams of a better future; the efforts to
+realize such dreams, even in a small way; the push
+towards independence; the greater alertness and
+education; the busy hum and activity of Trades
+Unions and all manner of Labour Associations. What
+interested me in the country was something quite
+different. It was in fact the Old Life—the old
+immemorial rustic existence still going on, still there
+though giving signs of passing of course. As it
+happened, I could hardly have found a more old-world,
+purely agricultural parish, if I had searched
+for it—certainly not in the North of England—than
+Holmesfield when I first came there. (Now—oh,
+irony!—it is already beginning to be civilized!) It
+was all in the old rural style—the leisurely long day
+with its varied occupations and interests, the life of
+the open air and the fields, the cattle and the crops,
+the barn and the public-house; the absolute acceptance
+of things as they are, complete non-interest in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>reform, positive indifference to anything not patently
+visible to the eye, or to abstractions of any kind.
+The good folk would talk about a particular field—and
+really with amazing detail about its history, its
+climate, its soil, its suitability for such and such
+crops, and so forth; but if you broached any phase
+of the Land Question (however really important to
+them)—their eyes would soon glaze and their conversation
+revert to their pigs or potatoes.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>A few years after my arrival at Millthorpe, having
+found out some facts about the Commons Enclosures
+in the neighborhood, I wrote a four-page tract
+entitled <cite>Our Parish and our Duke</cite>—giving some
+account of the circumstances under which our
+common lands were eaten up by our local landlords
+early last century—and circulated it around. It was
+printed in the London <cite>Star</cite> (July 8, 1889) and
+quoted and commented on in other papers; and it
+sold and circulated in leaflet form some twenty
+thousand or more copies; but in the Parish itself
+it elicited no response! One old farmer whom I
+knew pretty well said “It’s very well put together,
+Mister, and it’s just exactly true”—and that was
+all the backing I got. Probably if there were others
+that approved they did not dare to say so. The fact
+that it challenged a Duke gave them pause! The
+tract, somewhat enlarged and altered and under the
+title <cite>The Village and the Landlord</cite>, is now published
+by the Fabian Society (Tract No. 136, 1d.).<a id='r32'></a><a href='#f32' class='c012'><sup>[32]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Thus, as I think I have said before, on first
+coming to Millthorpe I experienced a certain sense
+of isolation among the people there. Whereas in
+Sheffield and even at little Bradway I was received
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>as a friend and commonly called by my christian
+name, at Millthorpe I was a stranger—and like all
+strangers an object of suspicion—and was addressed
+as “Mister.” It was a curious situation, and I
+found myself leading a double and divided life. How
+I came in the end to bridge the gulf and (so far)
+to overpass it I hardly know; but Time does
+wonders, and by slow degrees the rustics have
+accepted me almost as one of themselves and given
+me, some of them, their warm friendship. I am
+indeed bound to say that despite the great differences
+between them and the town-workers, and the greater
+general intelligence and alertness of the latter, I
+admire the character of the country-folk most—their
+extraordinary serenity and good humour, their
+tenacity, sincerity, and real affectionateness. Even
+their silent ways—though irritating at times—are a
+relief from the eternal gabble of the cities. Said
+a farmer youth to me one day—after we had been
+listening for some time to the rather cheap talk
+of an elderly and radical “citizen”—“They do talk,
+those townsfolk,” he said; and then after a pause—“them
+as talks so much <i>they must tell a lot o’
+lies</i>.” And I entirely agreed with him.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Talking about the gulf fixed between the Old
+and the New, and especially between the mentality
+of the downright manual worker and that of the
+artist—at one time we had an artist friend staying
+with us who was rather down on his luck and making
+only a poor living. He was working on a landscape
+picture, and every morning used to sit in one of
+my fields and close to the wall which divided it
+from the high-road. An old road-mender (the same
+who had told me years before how he remembered
+the Commons “going in” i.e. being enclosed)—a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>good old man but bowed with age and labour—used
+to come that way every morning to his work;
+and every morning, as sure as Fate, made some
+patronizing remark to the painter, which at last
+enraged the latter beyond endurance. “That’s a
+nice pastime for you, young man.” And then the
+next morning, “I see you’re amusin’ yoursen again,
+young man”; and so on. (“Pastime, indeed!
+amusing myself! I wish the old fool had to do it
+instead of me. But I’ll be even with him yet!”)
+So the next morning the artist inveigled the old
+man into conversation, and after submitting meekly
+to more patronage, said: “Well you see I have
+to do this for my living.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Do it for your livin’, do ye?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Do you sell them paintin’s, then?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>“Of course I do.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><i>Old Man</i> (a little taken aback): “And how
+much might you get for a thing like that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><i>Artist</i> (stretching a point): “Well I might get
+ten pounds.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><i>Old Man</i> (astonished): “Ten pun! well I
+never!”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><i>Artist</i> (following up): “Or I might get more
+of course.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><i>Old Man</i> (thoughtfully and with deep respect):
+“Ten pun! Well, I never—<i>and sittin’ down to it
+too</i>!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>But Hodge is passing away. The old agricultural
+population (farmer and labourer) is changing under
+the pressure of modern life; and soon—for good
+or evil—will be a thing of the past. The motor-car
+and the cycle, the telephone and the daily paper,
+are ploughing up the country districts, torrents of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>townsfolk pour over the land on holidays, and the
+seeds of new ideas are being sown. Already I can
+see, even in this little corner of the land, a new
+type of native arising.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The great drawback of the country folk in England
+(worse here no doubt than in Ireland) is their want
+of initiative. Centuries of smothered life under the
+incubus of the Landlord and the Parson have had
+their inevitable effect. They never <i>will</i> speak their
+minds, or commit themselves to any action which
+is not entirely customary and approved by the powers
+that be. It may be different in other parts of the
+country, but here the one answer to any question
+of importance (especially if put by a stranger) is
+“I don’t know—I don’t know.” So fearful have
+they been for generations lest their words should
+be by chance reported in ruling quarters that the
+habit of concealment has at last got into their blood.
+One sees from this how paralysing our land system
+is towards all manhood and resourceful initiative in
+the country.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Nor is the matter much different in many other
+lands. When in Sicily (in 1909) we found that
+among the peasants the children were systematically
+taught to <i>lie</i>, and punished by their parents for
+truth-speaking. And for a very simple reason. For
+if a stranger came along and asked questions of a
+child—“How much land has your father?”—“How
+many goats does he keep?”—ten to one that stranger
+was an emissary of the Church (the chief landlord
+of the old days), or a taxgatherer, and so an
+emissary of the State; and the truth would mean
+more rent or more taxes. Thus deceit was the
+only salvation, and lying the chief foundation of
+“Morality.” Here in England the parson and the
+landlord have a similar paralysing influence; and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>whether they actively and consciously are conspiring
+against the people, or whether their questionings (as
+sometimes may happen) are inspired by pure kindness,
+the result is the same—namely the corruption
+of the people; and perhaps a worse corruption in
+the second case than in the first.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Still the new life must come, and has to come,
+and is coming. Small Holdings—either freehold or
+with a secure tenancy under a public body—give
+perhaps the best chance of breeding a spirit of
+independence in the people. Co-operation trains them
+in adaptability and resource.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At one time—seeing the waste of energy resulting
+from the twenty or so small farmers in our valley
+each making their separate few pats of butter weekly
+(and bad butter at that!) I got a dozen or more of
+them together and put the case for co-operative milk-selling
+before them. They all agreed that it was
+the right thing to do, that milk-selling paid much
+better than butter-making and that the cost of
+transit to town (by motor-car or country cart) could
+be recouped with profit. We went into the figures
+and were satisfied. But when it came to actual
+operations the paralysis of lack of initiative was on
+them, and no one would stir a finger! If <i>I</i> had
+arranged a whole scheme and set it in operation I
+have no doubt they would have fallen in with it.
+But, as I said, I had my own work to do, and had
+no intention of giving up a large part of the day
+to their affairs. The only one who volunteered to
+do anything practically—and this illustrates the
+difference between the agricultural and the other
+workers—was curiously enough a <i>navvy</i>. He had
+only a very small farm which he carried on side
+by side with his navvy work, but he immediately
+took practical steps and would I believe have carried
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>a scheme through but for an illness which just then
+overtook him.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>A supply of Small Holdings (holdings say up
+to thirty acres in size<a id='r33'></a><a href='#f33' class='c012'><sup>[33]</sup></a>) on a really secure basis
+would do an immense work in liberating the social
+life of the rural workers. For the first time in his
+history one of the most important types of man in
+the country would be able to hold up his head,
+face his ‘superiors,’ and give some kind of utterance
+and expression to his own ideals. At present
+agricultural life is hugely dull from its mere
+uniformity and want of variety under the all-pervading
+foot-rule of the landowner and his faithful
+servant the parson. A greater supply of small
+holdings would also, I need hardly say, be valuable
+from the economic point of view, and the greater
+variety it would encourage in the culture of the soil.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Of course what we now especially want, and what
+happily people are beginning to <i>feel</i> the want of,
+is the establishment of large co-operative farms over
+the face of the land—somewhat on the model of the
+Danish farms. When it is remembered what the
+Danes have done, with an originally quite poor soil,
+by their organized co-operative methods—how they
+have renewed the prosperity of their own country
+and created a new invasion of Britain by their agricultural
+products—it seems astonishing that we over
+here still remain in the muddy ruts of our old ways.
+Supposing for example that by co-operative or
+governmental purchase, or even (if it can be
+imagined) by gift from a large landowner, an extensive
+farm of some two thousand acres were
+acquired; supposing that suitable portions of the
+farm were broken up into twenty small holdings
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>of ten or twenty acres each; and that the remaining
+body of the land were farmed in thorough style
+under a skilled manager—the workers on the central
+farm being the small holders themselves, who would
+thus work partly for themselves on an individualistic
+basis and partly collectively for wages; supposing
+that the manager was given by the co-operators a
+certain amount of authority for the purposes of work
+and organization, and that on the other hand he
+was there to <i>advise</i> the small holders to a certain
+extent as to their work and crops; supposing that
+he organized co-operative arrangements for the
+members of the society, both for the purchase of
+necessary materials and the sale of their products;
+suppose that a joint council arranged the matters
+of wages and dividends, and the establishment of
+creameries, cheese and butter-making apparatus, egg-collecting
+systems, and so forth; surely it is not
+very difficult to see that in some such roughly indicated
+way a great new departure might be made
+in the agricultural development of the United
+Kingdom. If a thousandth, if a twenty thousandth
+part of what is spent in the mad destruction of
+a great war were spent on some such constructive
+work, ten times the number of people now employed
+in agriculture might be placed productively on the
+land, and the output of wealth and home-grown
+food (so important to our island) might be
+enormously increased.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>About nine years ago—in 1906—I began to pull
+the farm lads and men together to form a little
+Club at Millthorpe. For some years we had a difficulty
+in finding a place for it, and had to be content
+with a very small room in a cottage. But here
+came in the advantage of the small holder. A
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>silversmith who lives in the locality—the only man
+beside myself who has two or three acres of freehold
+and who is not tied to a landlord—having joined
+the Club, and seeing our difficulty, offered a fine
+and large barn belonging to him for our use. If
+it had not been for him we should have had to go,
+cap in hand, to some local owner or cleric and
+could never have developed freely. As it is, the
+place has been a great success. Managed in an
+easy-going sort of way by the men themselves (and
+I am happy to say that my share now of the management
+is very small) the Club has taken its own lines
+quite naturally. In order to avoid ill-feeling and
+competition with the public-house—which is close at
+hand—we have no drink, except tea and coffee.
+Whist, lectures, readings, whist drives, dances, socials,
+billiards, are the chief amusements, and the place
+serves occasionally for discussion of local affairs.
+Theatricals, in a small way, now and then. And
+the balance of our weekly subscriptions goes in winter
+to a Christmas supper, and in summer to an excursion
+by rail or brake.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>With small people secure in their tenure, such
+Clubs would grow up pretty abundantly and would
+become the start-points of co-operative movements,
+creameries, agricultural Banks, and so forth. The
+great thing is that they should <i>not</i> be managed by
+benevolent superiors, for the management of their
+own concerns is after all the chief and most important
+item of a people’s education. There is however
+a place in our countrysides—and a need—for
+people of a rather wider knowledge and outlook
+than the general rustics to come and live among
+them simply as friends (and not as benefactors).
+People of this kind can certainly contribute <i>something</i>—even
+though their ‘wider knowledge’ be as
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>a rule rather vague and bookish. They have information
+about what is going on elsewhere, and they
+often are good at organizing. A new <i>kind</i> of parson,
+democratic-minded and really in touch with the
+people, and not attached to any ‘church,’ and a
+man with a <i>little</i> leisure at his command, might be
+greatly helpful. Why do not the thousands of young
+men (or women) who are thus qualified rush in to
+fill this void?</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>At one time, as I think I have already mentioned,
+I was a member of the Parish Council, but
+the hopelessness of getting any result therefrom,
+combined with the waste of time connected with
+it, caused me after a few years to abandon the
+position. The four or five farmers, all in terror
+of their landlords, and the parson (bound by golden
+chains to the Lord of the Manor) formed a solid
+phalanx against any progressive proposal. Perhaps
+I ought to have fought things out a little more, but
+wrangling is an occupation which I detest, and to
+fight questions to a practical finish always means
+the expenditure of much time—time which I with
+my agricultural, literary and other labours could ill
+afford. The one prevailing idea with the Council
+was not to spend <i>any</i> money if possible; and even
+the few shillings necessary for the repair of a small
+length of public footpath would be debated over
+with a tenacity and miserliness of outlook which
+made one despair; while the Vicar (not without
+laudable presence of mind) would resign himself to
+slumber in the Chair!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>About the only thing of use I was able to do was
+to save from loss or destruction the Award Book—that
+is the book which records the enclosure, early last
+century, of the Common Lands of Holmesfield Parish,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>and specifies the details of their assignment to the
+various proprietors then holding land in the parish.
+And this I only did with difficulty and after the
+labours of many months. When the Award was
+completed (in 1820) the said Award Book naturally
+and rightly was handed over, not to the Church or
+the Squire, but to one of the Trustees who represented
+the Parish generally—a farmer, who of course
+kept the book at his farm under lock and key, but
+with permission to the parishioners to inspect it at
+convenient seasons. In course of time the farmer
+died, and his son following in the same farm,
+became custodian of the book. Later on and after
+many years, the son died, and the son’s widow became
+custodian. By that time most people in the parish
+had forgotten, or were utterly ignorant of the
+existence of such a book. It might easily have
+happened that the widow or <i>her</i> son, migrating to
+another part of the country, should have taken the
+book with them among their household goods—in
+which case it might have been lost for ever to our
+Parish. Such or something similar <i>has</i> happened
+frequently of course. It happened to the Minute
+Book of the Courts Baron of Holmesfield—a manuscript
+record of the meetings of the said Court all
+the way from 1588 to 1800, and a most valuable
+and interesting document. In some unknown way
+the book disappeared; but by a piece of good luck,
+it has now come into the possession of the Free
+Library at Sheffield, where it can easily be inspected,
+and where it is safer perhaps than it would have
+been in the village to which it refers.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>To return to our Award Book, the Parish Councils
+Acts very wisely gave all such documents into the
+custody of the Parish Council to be kept in a Parish
+room or Chest. But the difficulty was to make
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>our Council take any active interest in the fate of
+the book. Moreover it possessed no Parish Room
+or Parish chest, and when the question came before
+it of having a chest made, even that appeared to
+some of the members a serious and unnecessary
+expense. Questions of the dimensions of the chest,
+the material of which it should be constructed, the
+number of locks it should carry, the selection of
+the joiner who should be entrusted with the precious
+work and so forth, were endlessly debated; the
+Council meetings took place only at long intervals
+and it seemed at last as if the chest never <i>would</i>
+get made. I mention these details merely to show
+the kind of thing that happens in country villages.
+Meanwhile the Vicar went to the said widow and
+(not without remonstrance from her) succeeded in
+obtaining the Award Book; and placed it in the
+<i>Vestry</i>. A faction then arose in the Council who
+maintained that the book was quite secure in the
+Vestry safe; and that no Parish Chest was needed!
+It had then to be pointed out that the Act did not
+<i>allow</i> such books to be kept in the Vestry, and
+that the Council would be responsible if it did not
+keep the thing in its own custody. And so the
+game went on. Ultimately after a full year of
+similar imbecility, the chest really got itself made;
+the Award Book and some other documents were
+placed within, and now repose there in waiting for
+the Day of Judgment. Exhausted by the labours
+connected with the affair, and hopeless of ever
+getting any useful activity out of the P.C., I shortly
+afterwards retired from it.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Of course these conditions are not the same in
+all parishes. Where there are mining or artisan
+populations there is often a good deal of briskness
+and movement; but in the agricultural regions and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>the South of England affairs are somewhat as I
+have described. The District Councils are a shade
+better than the Parish Councils; but the membership
+of them falls largely into the hands of small
+shopkeepers and a middling class of folk who are
+very philistine and wanting in æsthetic perception,
+and as a rule rather ignorant except in matters of
+business. They make hard and fast rules and regulations—often
+suggested by the conditions existing
+in the jerry-built slum-areas of the smaller towns—and
+by enforcing these regulations in country districts
+where they are not needed do seriously hamper
+the expansion of rural life. Such are some of the
+regulations about the height and cubic space of
+rooms, which desirable though they be in slum-tenements
+are quite out of place and the cause of
+needlessly high rents in country cottages; such also
+the barring of wooden dwellings, on account of fire,
+in many rural and even isolated regions where there
+is no public danger from this cause; and again the
+vexatious restrictions set upon the use of vans and
+tents. In these respects the work of the District
+Councils is really helping towards the increase of
+an existing evil, the depopulation of the countrysides.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On the other hand the composition of these
+Councils makes them absurdly deferent to big commercial
+and aristocratic interests, and the money of
+the ratepayers gets poured out like water on schemes
+in which under cover of public works private interests
+are largely concerned. As I have had occasion to
+explain in the Fabian Tract above-mentioned—<cite>The
+Village and the Landlord</cite>—our local District Council,
+having decided that a reservoir was needed, applied
+to the then Duke of Rutland for the purchase of
+a suitable area on the moors above us. The land
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>in question had before 1820 been part of the
+Common Lands of the parish, and was now, as the
+ducal private property, paying rates on an <i>estimated
+rental</i> of less than 2s. 6d. per acre. It could not
+therefore be supposed to be worth much more than
+£3 per acre, capital value; and it might <i>almost</i>
+have been expected that in consideration of the
+history of the Enclosure transactions, and of the
+additional fact that the land was wanted for an
+important public purpose (water supply), the area
+necessary for the reservoir would have been granted
+free. Far from that happening, as a matter of fact the
+amount actually charged was at a rate of about £150
+per acre! The sad thing about such a levy on the
+public purse is not only that the ducal people should
+have charged it, but that the District Council should
+have paid it! If the latter had had the gumption
+to offer a bold resistance, to decide for themselves
+what was a reasonable payment, and to bring the
+whole matter before the public, the case for the
+former would probably have collapsed. But there’s
+the rub—the want of spirit and pluck in these public
+bodies; and considering these and similar things
+one seems to see very plainly that what really matters
+in the life of a nation is not so much the exact form
+of its institutions as the general level of education,
+alertness, and public spirit among its people. With
+these latter advantages defective institutions may still
+be made to serve; without them the best will soon
+become corrupt. It may however be said that some
+institutions are naturally more favorable than others
+to the growth of public spirit, and that is a
+consideration worth remembering.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One of the few native institutions of long standing
+in this locality is the Well-dressing—which takes place
+in some of the neighboring villages once a year,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>during the feast-week of the village, and is accompanied
+with dancing and other festivities. The village
+fountain or spring is decorated with flowers—sometimes
+in quite elaborate and ornamental designs—and
+the festival evidently dates from very early or
+pre-Christian times when the divinities of the streams
+and water-sources were recognized and worshipped.
+When I first came, in 1883, into these parts, there
+were along all the lane sides numbers of the most
+charming stone cisterns and water-troughs bubbling
+with clean water and overhung with maiden-hair
+ferns; and it was part of the habits of the country-folk
+to keep these places in order—a joy to human
+beings and to animals. Now we have a reservoir
+as above-mentioned. The Well-dressings truly
+remain as a yearly function; but the divinities
+whom they used to celebrate have fled. The cisterns
+and troughs all over the country are neglected. They
+are cracked and dried up and full of potsherds and
+salmon-tins; wayfaring men and animals go thirsty;
+and the public spirit and service of the water-gods
+has vanished. We are told that water conducted
+through miles of iron tubes and lengths of lead
+piping is much more ‘sanitary’ than the water from
+field springs and wells. It may be. But I prefer
+the latter. At one time there were so many cases
+of lead-poisoning in the Sheffield district, traceable
+to lead connections, that the matter excited serious
+attention. It was decided that the trouble was due
+to a certain acid in the moor water, which dissolved
+the lead, and consequently large filter-beds charged
+with chalk and lime were made in connection with
+the reservoirs, which neutralized the acid. The
+water was freed from this danger, but it became
+saturated with lime; and the people died from stone
+in the bladder instead of lead-poisoning! Personally
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>I would prefer to take my risk of a microbe in a
+flowing cistern. And with an alert country-population,
+assisted by an occasional inspector, such a risk
+would certainly be small.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But we are told that public spirit ought to make
+us join these reservoir schemes; and pressure is
+put on us by the ‘authorities’ to do so. I do not
+by any means agree. Though no doubt there are
+cases in which local storage is advisable or necessary,
+the unbridled transfer of water over immense
+distances is attended by serious evils. The beautiful
+Thirlmere is turned into a mere water-tank in order
+to supply Manchester; the lovely dales of Derbyshire
+are disfigured beyond recognition so that they
+may quench the thirst of Birmingham. In other
+words, in order to encourage the growth of a hideous
+and dirty city with an unclean and poverty-stricken
+population a tract of clean and gracious land a
+hundred miles off is cleared of <i>its</i> population and
+also rendered hideous! And all this at a huge and
+incalculable expense. We do not want these great
+congested and unhealthy centres, and we do want
+our streams and springs and the gods who dwell
+among them. Let the people come out for the water
+if they want it; but let them come with forethought
+and reverence.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Another native institution managed, like the well-dressing,
+by the people themselves is the Ploughing
+Match. There <i>is</i> a Farmers’ Association which of
+course ought to be a kind of Trade-union for the
+promotion and protection of farming interests.
+Perhaps once it was alive; but now and ever since
+I have known anything about the matter it has
+become hopelessly futile and decadent. It has a
+dinner at some public-house once a year and gets
+thoroughly drunk—and that is about all it does!
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>But the Ploughing-Match Association, which was
+originally I suppose an offshoot of the Farmers’
+Association, <i>is</i> alive—possibly because it has nothing
+whatever to do with politics. The farmers and their
+sons and the small holders (such as there are) join
+in and organize the affair; and it is a pretty sight
+to see in two adjacent fields perhaps twenty teams
+of men or boys with their shining ploughs and their
+beribboned horses going to and fro each on their
+appointed strip of land; the turning of the animals
+at the extremities; the clicks and calls; the marvellous
+accuracy of the furrows; the groups of
+critics and the judges. Going among them all one
+perceives what splendid material there is here among
+the English countrysides; and also one grieves to
+think how it is paralysed from development and
+expansion by our absurd land-system and generally
+apathetic way of conducting ourselves towards the
+most important of all industries. We have at
+Holmesfield the champion ploughman of the neighborhood,
+who takes the prizes at the village matches
+for many miles round. He is a great friend of
+mine. And I am also proud to say that at our
+Association Committee meetings my professional
+opinion is sometimes consulted, and I may occasionally
+be seen amid the fumes of smoke and beer
+occupying the Chair and keeping a dozen or twenty
+farmers in order, or bringing them back to the
+practical point of discussion when (as they generally
+do) they wander afar from it—a sufficiently humorous
+situation for a so-called “poet and prophet”!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>But the most important village institution after
+all—and more important perhaps than the Church—is
+the Public-house. Here is the natural centre of
+the Village life, and here the village Opinion—if
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>there is any—is collected and consolidated. It is a
+great pleasure to me to sit occasionally in our “Royal
+Oak” among the rustics whom I know so well.
+Their quaint humour, their shrewd judgments, their
+shy silences, their naughty stories, are a continual
+recreation. Unfortunately, like so much else in rural
+life, the Pub. has in general been allowed to go to
+decay; and instead of being the village meeting-place
+and centre of sociability it has too often become
+a mere resort of drink and imbecility. “Tied” to
+a Brewery, and at an exorbitant rent, the Publican
+has no alternative but to sell as much as he can
+of the vile decoction supplied to him. He encourages
+booze but does not encourage sociable converse. The
+Brewer rises to wealth and obtains a seat in the
+House of Lords; the villager sinks slowly but
+surely poisoned in body and atrophied in mind, and
+dies in a ditch.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>One of the very first things to be done for the
+restoration of the rural life is the reorganization of
+the Public-house—or rather its liberation. The
+clutch of the Brewers upon the drink trade should
+be cut off decisively and finally. The manufacture
+of beer ought either to be a State monopoly or it
+ought to be absolutely free, without licence, and
+subject only to a severe inspection. There has been
+a great deal of talk lately about the intemperance
+of the workers, and the abolition or serious restriction
+of the drink traffic; but the real root of the
+evil (certainly as regards beer) is the badness and
+poisonous character of the liquor supplied. See to
+it that that is clean and wholesome—that the lager-beers,
+small beers, teas and temperance drinks are
+not sophisticated with harmful chemicals—and for
+the rest leave the houses free. Leave the publican
+to use his good sense and authority, and make him
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>responsible for not keeping order. If that policy
+is carried out there will not be much to complain
+of. The sale of actual <i>spirits</i> in drinking shops is
+another question, and that might well be restricted
+or abolished.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>The village pub. ought to be a place where pleasant
+and decent refreshment of various kinds is provided—especially
+of drink which is a first necessity for
+tired workers. It ought to be clean and fairly comfortable
+and provided with games, papers, and
+similar means of recreation. On the other hand it
+should have no suspicion of genteel or missionary
+purpose about it. If the manual worker cannot talk
+freely and feel himself at home in the place he
+decidedly will not come to it; and it is certainly
+better that he should be a bit rough and rowdy than
+that he should feel that he is being ‘improved.’
+What the rural worker wants above all—and what
+it is very necessary that he should have—is a place
+where he can be at ease, converse freely, exchange
+ideas, and <i>develop out of his own roots</i>. The town
+worker has now, in his trade unions, his various clubs
+and societies, got something of the kind. The rural
+worker is a poor lost thing; he has no centre of
+growth. The Church is absolutely of no use to
+him in that respect; for the Parson practically
+paralyses his flock. The Chapel is better, for there
+the Chapel-folk organize themselves and carry out
+in an authentic way many a little scheme for their
+own satisfaction or entertainment. The Village
+Club and the Village Co-operative society are just
+beginning in many places to show an independent
+and progressive life; but after all the Village Pub.
+strikes its roots deepest and widest, and if on a
+healthy basis is the natural meeting-place where all
+these other movements germinate and from whence
+they spring.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>XVII<br> HOW THE WORLD LOOKS AT SEVENTY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>I remember having often wondered, in earlier days,
+what would be the answer to this question. And
+now I have the privilege of myself standing on the
+pinnacle of age—and of being in the position where
+some kind of verdict may be given.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>There are two verses about David and Solomon—whose
+origin I have not been able to trace, but
+which run as follows:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c013'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>King David and King Solomon</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Led very merry lives</div>
+      <div class='line'>With many many concubines</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And many many wives.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>But when old age came on them</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>With many many qualms,</div>
+      <div class='line'>King Solomon wrote the Proverbs</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And David wrote the Psalms.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>Perhaps this gives the most general and accepted
+view on the subject—a view of old age as something
+a little dull, a little ineffectual, consoling itself
+with verses and good advice and other second-hand
+joys. On the whole perhaps a fairly correct view; and
+yet I cannot but think that it misses something very
+important, something which in earlier days one does
+not associate with old age—the sense of adventure.
+Youth is full of acknowledged adventure; the campaigns
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>of Love and of War are thrilling and absorbing;
+but youth does not know—or at any rate only
+faintly surmises—how absorbing may be the great
+adventure of Death.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>On the whole I am struck by the singularly <i>little</i>
+difference I feel in myself, as I realize it now, from
+what I was when a boy—say of eighteen or twenty.
+In the deeps of course. Superficially there are
+plenty of differences, but they relate mostly to superficial
+things like success in games, examinations and
+so forth. I used to go and sit on the beach at
+Brighton and dream, and now I sit on the shore of
+human life and dream practically the same dreams.
+I remember about the time that I mention—or it
+may have been a trifle later—coming to the distinct
+conclusion that there were only two things really
+worth living for—the glory and beauty of Nature,
+and the glory and beauty of human love and friendship.
+And to-day I still feel the same. What else
+indeed <i>is</i> there? All the nonsense about riches,
+fame, distinction, ease, luxury and so forth—how little
+does it amount to! It really is not worth wasting
+time over. These things are so obviously second-hand
+affairs, useful only and in so far as they may
+lead to the first two, and short of their doing that
+liable to become odious and harmful. To become
+united and in line with the beauty and vitality of
+Nature (but, Lord help us! we are far enough off
+from that at present), and to become united with
+those we love—what other ultimate object in life <i>is</i>
+there? Surely all these other things—these games
+and examinations, these churches and chapels, these
+district councils and money markets, these top-hats
+and telephones and even the general necessity of
+earning one’s living—if they are not ultimately for
+that, <i>what are they for</i>?</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>At any rate that is how I feel about it now. I
+feel that the object of life at seventy is practically
+the same as it was at twenty. Only one thing has
+been added. One thing. Beneath the surface waves
+and storms of youth, beneath the backward and
+forward fluctuations, deep down, there has been
+added the calm of inner realization and union. I
+know now that these two primordial and foundational
+things (or perhaps they are one) <i>are</i> there. Our
+union with Nature and humanity is a <i>fact</i>, which—whether
+we recognize it or not—is at the base of
+our lives; slumbering, yet ready to wake in our
+consciousness when the due time arrives.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>With this assurance one certainly discovers that
+life—even in old age—may be delightful. What one
+loses in the keenness and passion of sensual and
+external things one gains in the inward world—in
+calm and strength and the deep certainties of life.
+One can hardly expect to have it both ways. We
+may concentrate mainly (though not exclusively) on
+the outer life, or we may concentrate mainly on
+the inner life, but hardly on both at the same time.
+And the latter alternative has its advantages.
+Socrates, in reply to a friend who condoled with him
+on the waning of his sexual passion, asked whether
+he would not consider a man happy who had escaped
+from the clutches of a fierce tiger. “Certainly I
+should,” answered the friend. “Then why,” retorted
+Socrates, “do you not congratulate instead
+of commiserating <i>me</i>?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>I find there are compensations and consolations
+in old age. People feel kindly towards you—partly
+because they consider you harmless and not likely
+to injure them, partly because they are not envious
+of your condition. They pity you a little in fact—which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>pleases them and does no harm to you. I
+find I am a little hard of hearing, and people are
+good enough—in fact they are compelled—to speak
+up and speak distinctly. They have the pleasure
+of helping me over my deafness, and I have the
+satisfaction of getting them out of their mumbling
+habits of conversation—a satisfaction so great that
+were I really not a bit deaf I feel that I should
+have to pretend to be! As I think I have said
+before<a id='r34'></a><a href='#f34' class='c012'><sup>[34]</sup></a> old people and infirm folk and chronic
+invalids and the like often get needlessly depressed
+over the impression that they are a burden and an
+affliction to their friends, whereas in very truth by
+calling out the sympathies, the energy, the resource
+and the consideration of those around them they are
+really conferring the greatest of benefits; and many
+a household is really supported and held together
+by the one who to all outward appearance seems to
+be the most frail and useless member of it. As
+Lâo-tsze says “The thirty spokes of a carriage-wheel
+uniting at the nave are made useful by the
+hole in the centre,<a id='r35'></a><a href='#f35' class='c012'><sup>[35]</sup></a> where nothing exists,” and “To
+teach without words and to be useful without action,
+few among men are capable of this.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>After the fuss and flurry of all the good folk who
+go about “doing good,” to find that you can perhaps
+be most useful by being a “hole in the centre”
+is very refreshing.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Unfortunately the world is very unwilling to allow
+this privilege, and as a rule in a quite automatic
+way accords to the aged a good deal of respect
+and influence, pushing them up into positions of
+power and notoriety. This is all right if you are
+quite worthy of it, but dangerous if you are not.
+And naturally if you <i>desire</i> power (and notoriety)
+you are not likely to be worthy of it.</p>
+
+<div id='i335'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i335.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>E. C. (1910), AGE 66.<br>  <br>  (<cite>Photo: Elliott &#38; Fry.</cite>)</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>On August 29, 1914, being my seventieth birthday,
+some of my friends were good enough to
+present me with a congratulatory Address couched
+in very friendly and affectionate terms. Though I
+cannot say that I desired the thing beforehand—seeing
+that there is always something painful in the
+very idea of being singled out in any such way—yet
+I must confess that, being done, it was a consolation
+and a pleasure to me.<a id='r36'></a><a href='#f36' class='c012'><sup>[36]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c006'>There is one thing however that I think I have
+not sufficiently dwelt on as a valid and permanent
+object of Life—though perhaps in some subtle way
+it may be implied in what I have said before. I
+mean Self-Expression. Constructive expression of
+oneself is one of the greatest joys, and one of the
+greatest <i>needs</i> of life; and as long as one’s Life
+exists—in this or any other sphere—so long I imagine
+will that need be present, and the joy in its fulfilment.
+It is a foundation-urge of all Creation. At
+first sight this seems contrary, and indeed hostile,
+to the hole-in-the-centre theory; but probably it will
+be found not to be so. Probably it is only a
+question of the <i>depth</i> at which the Self is functioning.
+Near the surface the self is very definite and
+constructive in <i>this</i> or <i>that</i> direction; it is limited
+in its aims and operations, and so far its activity
+seems to be at variance with other aims and operations.
+At the centre it is neither this nor that,
+because it is All. It vanishes from sight because
+it has become the Whole.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>Most healthy work is generated from a desire
+for, or an effort towards, self-expression. If one’s
+feet suffer from cold and exposure to injury one
+makes boots to protect and cover them. If boots
+prove painful and confining one designs sandals in
+order to free them. Having made these for oneself
+first, other people desire them and adopt the same
+devices. One’s work, begun for a private purpose
+and to satisfy one’s own wants, is continued for
+public ends and becomes a kind of extended selfishness.
+It is the same with the institutions of society.
+Finding that they maim and confine you personally,
+the best thing you can do is to liberate yourself by
+reshaping them. In reshaping them you liberate
+others, and are accounted a reformer and general
+benefactor. But I imagine that no one is really
+a useful reformer who does not begin the work
+from his own private need, since that is the only
+way in which he can understand the true inwardness
+of the work to be done. And the accusation
+of selfishness, which may be preferred against him,
+saves him from the awful danger of becoming, or
+posing as, a public benefactor.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is truly wonderful to see what activity, what
+enthusiasm, vast numbers of people throw into
+public work of one kind or another. Let us hope
+they all do so from the underlying ground of some
+personal need which makes them unhappy in the
+existing conditions and impels them for their own
+personal satisfaction to alter those conditions. If
+so their work will probably be healthful and successful.
+It will not wait on results but will bring
+its own results with it. Still there is a paradox in
+all such action. I cannot personally be comfortable
+in a society which makes a fetish, say, of what
+H. G. Wells calls The Misery of Boots. Therefore
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>I work for a future society where people shall go
+barefoot or freely wear such footgear as suits them.
+But by the time such state of society arrives, where
+shall “I” be? That is the question. What is
+the good of my working for a state of things which
+will certainly not come in my lifetime? What is
+the impelling force which <i>causes</i> me so to work
+when it would be so much easier not to work, and
+merely to let things slide? If, as one must suppose,
+it is something organic in Nature, it must be that
+I “myself” <i>will</i> be there. I, the superficial one,
+am working now for the other “I,” the deeper one—who
+is also really present even at this moment
+(although he lies low and says nothing about it) and
+who in due time will consume the fruits which he
+is now preparing.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>I find at the age of seventy that I am getting
+nearer to that place in the centre where nothing
+exists and yet all is done—and <i>that</i> I suppose is
+satisfactory. A very simple round of life contents
+me. As long as I can have my friend (or friends)
+and my little corner of Nature, and my little pastime
+of constructive work, I really do not know what to
+wish for more. (And surely every one ought to
+be able to command these.)</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>We are up—my friend and I—at about 7 a.m. in
+summer, about 8.0 in winter. In summer a wash
+and a sunbath on the lawn, for half an hour, are
+very much in the order of the day. Then, for me,
+there is my study to tidy up and dust and (in winter)
+my fire to light; there is the front of the house
+to sweep, wood to chop, and so forth. George has
+his kitchen to attend to, coals to get in, the chickens
+to feed, and preparations to make for the work of
+the day—baking or washing or whatever it may be.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>I remember the time when I used to think that to
+get up early, perhaps by candlelight, go down into
+a dishevelled sitting-room, clean out the grate and
+light up the fire would surely be the most dismal
+of occupations; as a matter of fact I find these
+little preliminary duties quite interesting. They stir
+one’s limbs and one’s interest in the world, and
+help to peel off the thin but clinging veil of sleep.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>By 8.30 I find I can settle down to work, either
+in my study or, if the weather allows, outside in
+my little veranda or porch. I thus get a couple of
+hours fairly undisturbed. At 10.30 we have breakfast—or
+what is called ‘brunch,’ a combination of
+breakfast and lunch—a good meal of coffee and milk,
+oatmeal porridge, an omelet, stewed fruit, or similar
+provender, and which one enjoys all the more for
+its being the first in the day. Brunch and reading
+the daily paper occupy an hour; and at 11.30 I
+am able to start work again and go on to 1.30 or
+2.0. I thus get a good four hours or more in the
+morning for solid literary work, to some extent
+broken into at times by mere business matters and
+correspondence, but generally the most satisfactory
+period of work in the day.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At two or so one goes easy. By the ruse of
+‘brunch’ one has avoided that deadly snare, the
+midday meal. Is it not Thoreau who says that one
+should pass by the one o’clock dinner “tied to the
+mast, like Ulysses, and deaf to the voice of the
+Siren”? Certainly George and I never cease to
+congratulate ourselves on this arrangement by which
+the painful density and lethargy of that period is
+escaped. It seems to place the day in its proper
+order and perspective; and we only regret that
+most people owing to professional hours and public
+duties are not able to conform to it. From 2.0 or
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>2.30 to 5.0 one can make a change. There are oddments
+of work to do in the garden, there are little
+outdoor renewals and repairs round the house, there
+are visitors and casual guests; at 4.0 or so there
+is the sociability of afternoon tea. At 5.0 there
+are letters to get ready for the post, which goes
+at 6.30. At 7.0 there is supper, which is generally
+a rather more substantial meal than brunch. Sometimes
+tea and supper are combined in one intermediate
+meal, which of course goes by the name of
+‘tupper.’ In the evening there are friends to see,
+books to read, notes to make; there is the public-house,
+which is an unfailing joy, and the farm-lads’
+Club, which is always homely and cheering. What
+can one wish for more? It is hard to say.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Yet I ought to say—and it would be less than
+candid not to say—that there have been times all
+through my life when the necessity of escaping into
+an altogether bigger world than that provided by
+my native land has come upon me with a kind of
+Berserker rage. As I think I have said, I come
+of Cornish ancestry—and my private opinion is that
+I was left on the coast of Cornwall some three
+thousand years ago by a Phœnician trader. At any
+rate the leaden skies of England, and something (if I
+may say so) rather grey and leaden about the <i>people</i>,
+have since early days had the effect of making me
+feel not quite at home in my own country. I
+longed for more sunshine, and for something corresponding
+to sunshine in human nature—more gaiety,
+vivacity of heart and openness to ideas. But everything
+has its compensation, and the result of being
+pinned down so much to a limited and local life on
+the land has been that every three or four years I
+have been able to ‘stick it’ no longer, and have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>been compelled in the intervals of my work to make
+a dash for some warmer and brighter climate. In
+this way it has come about that I have seen quite
+a little of other lands—not only of the usual resorts
+in Switzerland and Italy, but of places like Morocco,
+Sicily, Corsica, Spain, besides (as already mentioned)
+the United States and Ceylon and India. Having
+a talent for economical travel I have been able to
+do this at singularly small expense. And my knowledge
+of agriculture and of the working life of the
+people at home has in such cases opened up a world
+of interest in the comparison of these with the corresponding
+things abroad—a world which as a rule
+is a sealed book to the ordinary tourist. In many
+cases my companions have themselves been manual
+workers, and I have found the vivacity of their
+interest in foreign fields and crops or in town-trades
+and workshops both encouraging and amazing.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At the age of seventy one does not bother so
+much about the exceptional feats, about great
+exploits, the climbing of the highest mountains. The
+ordinary levels of life seem sufficient. I confess
+that excessive cleverness and all that sort of thing
+bores me rather than otherwise. I seem to see
+in the general average of human life, in the ordinary
+daily needs, a steady force pushing mankind onwards,
+or rather, gradually unfolding through mankind—the
+liberation of a core of goodness and worth which
+is undeniable, impossible to ignore, and daily coming
+more and more into evidence. I say this deliberately
+and with full recognition all the time of the vast
+masses of cheap and nasty people as well as of cheap
+and nasty things which are washed up in the ordinary
+current of this our modern life, and with recognition
+also of the huge whirlpools of popular madness
+which occasionally arise, and which accompany crises
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>like that from which we are now suffering [1915].
+Perhaps the madness and the blind passion—the
+loosening of the torrents of hate and revenge, and
+of the pent-up waters of prejudice and ignorance—are,
+after all, better than the dreary stagnation of
+the cheap and nasty. The whole commercial period
+through which we, here in the West, have been
+passing for the last hundred years has undoubtedly
+bred, both in men and goods, a lamentable commonplaceness
+and cheapness—a low level and a paltry
+standard of human value. Perhaps even the madness
+of warfare is better than that.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is curious that for the last twenty years or
+more there has been a general feeling—especially
+among the Socialists and Internationalists of the
+various countries—that society was approaching a
+critical period of transformation. It had become
+obvious that the existing order of things—in Government,
+Law, Finance, Industry, Commerce, Morality,
+Religion, the Capitalist Wage system, the Rivalry
+of nation with nation, the administration and cultivation
+of the Land, and so forth—could not continue
+much longer. In each one and all of these matters
+we have been heading towards an <i>impasse</i>, a block,
+a point at which further progress in the old direction
+must cease, and a new departure begin. We have
+seen this; and yet we have been unable to say, for
+the most part, or even surmise, <i>how</i> the change
+would come, what catastrophe would upset the
+balance of our highly artificial Commercial Civilization,
+or in what way a new order of life, and
+a more human and rational order, might begin to
+establish itself. The Catastrophe has come. We
+are already in the welter of a World-war which in
+magnitude exceeds anything that has ever occurred
+in the past, or even been imagined. The nations
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>are in the melting-pot; the institutions of society
+are threatened in every direction. But at present
+we are still unable to see the outcome, or even to
+guess what it will be. The lineaments of the new
+world are hidden from us. That the outcome will
+be far, far greater and grander than we now suppose,
+I do not doubt—also that it will take far longer
+than we generally think to define itself.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Beneath all the madness of the present conflict—the
+raging passions, the insane folly, the frantic
+delusions, the devilish concentration of all the wit
+and ingenuity of man towards purposes of death
+and torture, there is, I firmly believe, a method and
+a meaning. A new life is preparing to show itself—coming
+to the surface of society, as it were, out of
+the deeps, showing indeed the strangest and most
+violent agitation of that surface just before its appearance.
+Having lived so long as I have done among
+the downright manual workers of our towns and
+the agricultural rustics—primitives as they are in
+many ways and belonging to a period “before civilization”—I
+do not feel at all alarmed. I know
+that the lives of these good solid folk, founded as
+they are upon the primal facts of Nature, will not
+in any case suffer a very great change. If the
+whole of our Banking and Financial system collapsed
+and fell in, if world-wide Commerce came
+to a standstill, if the Capital necessary for huge
+armaments and general ironworks was not forthcoming,
+if Law and Government were paralysed, old-age
+insurances ceased to be paid, and Landlords
+were unable to collect their rents—if all this and
+much more happened, my friend who ploughs the
+fields near my cottage would go out next morning
+with his team to his usual work, and scarcely know
+the difference. <cite>If anything he would decidedly feel
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>more cheerful and hopeful.</cite> Some other friend who
+forges and tempers table-knives by the score would
+continue to forge and temper them. The knives
+would still be wanted, the power to make them would
+still be there. And if at any point combined labour
+were needed, as to build a workshop or carry
+through a steel-making process, the men who do
+these things now in forced and servile toil under
+the Capitalist system would do them ten times better
+and more heartily in free co-operation.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>No, if all this jerry-built cheapjack Commercial
+Civilization collapsed it would not much matter. The
+longer I live the more I am convinced of its essential
+pettiness and unimportance. The great foundational
+types, the real workers of the world—whether in
+England or Germany or France, or Turkey or
+Bulgaria or Egypt—will remain, and indeed must
+remain because the primal facts of Nature, the sun
+and the earth and the needs of human life, continually
+generate them. They will remain and, once
+freed (as one may hope) from the burden of the
+futile and idiotic superstructure which they have to
+support, will rise to a far finer standard of being
+than they can now realize. The cheap and aimless
+types belonging to the mercantile and middle classes
+will disappear with the world to which they belong.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Let me say however, for the consolation of some,
+that it is not necessary to suppose that the transformation
+of Civilization of which I speak—and which
+is even now preparing—must necessarily mean that
+all Law and Government, and world-wide Commerce
+and Finance and huge organization of Industry, and
+even present-day Art and Morality and Religion,
+will collapse and become non-existent. In a sense
+they will do so, and in a sense they will not. “In
+the twinkling of an eye they will be changed.” In
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>some sense the outer forms of these things will
+remain; but the Spirit will be changed; and so
+greatly changed that their shapes also will be profoundly
+modified. When Industry exists really for
+the supply of good and useful things and not for
+the manufacture of profit; when High Finance is
+not for gambling, but for the insurance and security
+of everybody; when Courts of Law are for the
+uplifting and not for the downcasting of criminals,
+and so on; then the forms of these institutions will
+be as different from what they are now as the organs
+of a Dragonfly are different from those of the Waterbeetle
+from which it sprang.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>But before this great and wonderful Transformation
+takes place, there must—it is abundantly
+evident—be great sacrifices. No such huge change
+could happen without. Some of the functions and
+activities of the present Society must perish; and
+with them must perish those who are engaged in
+these functions. Thousands and millions of individuals
+must die in the mere effort to create and
+establish a new collective order. Heroisms, exceeding
+those of the past, will be needed and will be
+supplied. We need not fear. We know the great
+heart of humanity.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>It is amazing to see, in the present war, the high
+spirits, the courage, the devotion, the loyalty to each
+other of the combatants in each nation; and these
+things would be utterly unintelligible were it not for
+the fact that each people (and we need make no exception)
+thinks and believes in some obscure way that
+the cause for which it is fighting is a noble and
+an honorable one. Terrible as war is, and terrible
+the apparent folly of mankind which allows it to
+continue, still it is to my mind obvious that those
+engaged in it could not give their lives, as they so
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>constantly do, not only with conscious devotion to
+some high purpose, but even with an instinctive
+exultation and savage joy in the very act of death,
+if they were not impelled to do so by the insurgence
+of a greater life within—a life within each one more
+vivid and even more tremendous than that which he
+throws away. The willing sacrifice of life, and the
+ecstasy of it, would be unintelligible if Death did
+not indeed mean Transformation.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In my little individual way I experience something
+of the same kind. I feel a curious sense of
+joy in observing—as at my age one is sometimes
+compelled to do—the natural and inevitable decadence
+of some portion of the bodily organism, the failures
+of sight and hearing, the weakening of muscles, the
+aberrations even of memory—a curious sense of
+liberation and of obstacles removed. I acknowledge
+that the experience—the satisfaction and the queer
+sense of elation—seems utterly unreasonable, and not
+to be explained by any of the ordinary theories of
+life; but it is there, and it may, after all, have
+some meaning.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>APPENDICES</h2>
+</div>
+<div>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>
+  <h3 class='c016'>CONGRATULATORY LETTER</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div>(<cite>August 29, 1914</cite>).</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>In offering you our congratulations on the completion of your
+seventieth year, we would express to you (and we speak, we are
+sure, the thoughts of a very large number of other readers and
+friends) the feelings of admiration and gratitude with which we
+regard your life-work.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Your books, with no aid but that of their own originality and
+power, have found their way among all classes of people in our
+own and many other lands, and they have everywhere brought with
+them a message of fellowship and gladness. At a time when
+society is confused and overburdened by its own restlessness and
+artificiality, your writings have called us back to the vital facts
+of Nature, to the need of simplicity and calmness; of just dealing
+between man and man; of free and equal citizenship; of love,
+beauty, and humanity in our daily life.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We thank you for the genius with which you have interpreted
+great spiritual truths; for the deep conviction underlying all your
+teaching that wisdom must be sought not only in the study of
+external nature, but also in a fuller knowledge of the human heart;
+for your insistence upon the truth that there can be no real wealth
+or happiness for the individual apart from the welfare of his
+fellows; for your fidelity and countless services to the cause of the
+poor and friendless; for the light you have thrown on so many
+social problems; and for the equal courage, delicacy, and directness
+with which you have discussed various questions of sex, the
+study of which is essential to a right understanding of human
+nature.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>We have spoken of your many readers and friends, but in your
+case, to a degree seldom attained by writers, your readers are your
+friends, for your works have that rare quality which reveals “the
+man behind the book,” and that personal attraction which results
+only from the widest sympathy and fellow-feeling. For this, most
+of all, we thank you—the spirit of comradeship which has endeared
+your name to all who know you, and to many who to yourself
+are unknown.</p>
+
+<div>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>
+  <h3 class='c016'>REPLY</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c004'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Millthorpe, Holmesfield,</span></div>
+      <div class='line in10'><span class='sc'>Derbyshire</span>,</div>
+      <div class='line in16'><i>1st September, 1914</i>.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c011'>In thanking my friends on the occasion of my seventieth birthday
+(29th August) for the many hearty letters of congratulation
+I have received, and in particular for the widely signed and very
+friendly Address which on the same occasion has been presented to
+me, I should like to say a few words.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>At a moment like this when Europe is plunged in a monstrous
+war one naturally does not wish to dwell on one’s own affairs. Yet
+some of us who have worked for thirty years or more in connection
+with the great Labour Movement at home and abroad may perhaps
+be excused if we cannot help looking on the strange events of the
+last few weeks in a somewhat personal light. For those events
+surely connect themselves by a kind of logical fatality with that
+very Labour Movement. They seem to point to the break-up all
+over Europe of the old framework of society, and (like the
+Napoleonic wars of a century ago) to bear within themselves the
+seeds of a new order of things.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Insane commercial and capitalistic rivalry, the piling up of power
+in the hands of mere speculators and financiers, and the actual
+trading for dividends in the engines of death—all these inevitable
+results of our present industrial system—have now for years been
+leading up to this war; and in that sense indeed all the nations
+concerned are responsible for it—England no less than the others.
+But the mad vanity of the Prussian military clique, and its brutal
+eagerness for imperial expansion at all costs, have precipitated the
+fatal move. The German Government is now involved in a conflict
+which the more socialistic section of its population absolutely
+detests, and for which its masses have little desire or enthusiasm;
+it is alienating from itself the loyalty of the warm-hearted and very
+human and brotherly folk whom it professes to represent; and
+is sowing the seed of its own destruction. Curiously enough too,
+by supplying the Russian Autocracy with an excuse for gratifying
+<i>its</i> lust of conquest (an excuse which is welcome no doubt as a
+means of discounting the revolutionary movement at home) this
+action of Germany is destined to lead to a disorganization of Russia
+similar to that which awaits herself.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>On the other hand, the same action has already caused an extraordinary
+and astounding development of solidarity and enthusiasm
+among the more pacific peoples of Western Europe—this partly
+no doubt in sheer self-defence, but even more, I think, as an
+expression of their hatred of militarism and bullying Imperialism.
+The enormous growth during the past few years of democratic and
+communal thought and organization on the Continent generally
+is well known; and the events of which we are speaking have
+suddenly crystallized that into definite consciousness and into a
+fresh resolve for the future—the resolve that never again shall the
+peoples be plunged in the senseless bloodshed of war to suit the
+ambition or the private interests of ruling classes. Furthermore, in
+Britain, where, for so long, the forward movement has seemed to
+hang fire and fail to define itself, we have developed—most swiftly
+and in almost miraculous fashion—a whole programme of socialist
+institutions, and (what is more important) a powerful and democratic
+sentiment of public honour and duty.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>In view of all this it is impossible, as I have said, not to hope for
+a great move forward—when this present nightmare madness is
+over—among the Western States of Europe towards the consolidation
+of their respective democracies and the establishment of a
+great Federation on a Labour basis among them; as well as to
+expect a sturdy reaction, perhaps amounting to revolution, among
+the Central and Eastern peoples against the military despotism and
+bureaucracy from which they have so long suffered. In both these
+directions, in aiding the Federation of the democracies of the West
+and in hastening the disruption of the military bureaucracies of the
+East, England—if she rises to her true genius, and to a far grander
+conception of foreign policy than she has of late years favoured—will
+have a great work to do. Nor is it possible to doubt that the
+new order thus arriving will largely be the outcome of those years
+of work all over Europe in which the ideal of a generous Common
+Life has been preached and propagated as against the sordid and
+self-seeking Commercialism of the era that is passing away.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>If in my small way I have done anything towards the social
+evolution of which I speak, it is I think chiefly due to the fact
+that I was born in the midst of that Commercial Era, and that
+consequently my early days were days of considerable suffering.
+The iron of it, I suppose, entered into my soul. Coming to my first
+consciousness, as it were, of the world at the age of sixteen (at Brighton
+in 1860) I found myself—and without knowing where I was—in the
+middle of that strange period of human evolution the Victorian
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>Age, which in some respects, one now thinks, marked the lowest
+ebb of modern civilized society: a period in which not only
+commercialism in public life, but cant in religion, pure materialism
+in science, futility in social conventions, the worship of stocks and
+shares, the starving of the human heart, the denial of the human
+body and its needs, the huddling concealment of the body in
+clothes, the “impure hush” on matters of sex, class-division,
+contempt of manual labour, and the cruel barring of women from
+every natural and useful expression of their lives, were carried to an
+extremity of folly difficult for us now to realize.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>As I say, I did not know where I was. I had no certain tidings
+of any other feasible state of society than that which loafed along
+the Brighton parade or tittle-tattled in drawing-rooms. I only
+knew I hated my surroundings. I even sometimes, out of the
+midst of that absurd life, looked with envy I remember on the men
+with pick and shovel in the roadway and wished to join in their
+labour; but between of course was a great and impassable gulf
+fixed, and before I could cross that I had to pass through many
+stages. I only remember how the tension and pressure of those
+years grew and increased—as it might do in an old boiler when the
+steamports are closed and the safety-valve shut down; till at last,
+and when the time came that I could bear it no longer, I was
+propelled with a kind of explosive force, and with considerable
+velocity, right out of the middle of the nineteenth century and far
+on into the twentieth!</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>My friends speak of gratitude, and I am touched by these
+expressions, because I do indeed think the genuine feeling of
+gratitude is a very human and lovable thing—blessing in a sense
+both him that gives and him that takes. Yet I confess that somehow,
+when directed towards myself, I find the feeling difficult to
+realize. After all, what a man does he does out of the necessity of
+his nature: one can claim no credit for it, for one could hardly
+do otherwise. I have sometimes, for instance, been accused of
+taking to a rather plain and Bohemian kind of life, of associating with
+manual workers, of speaking at street corners, of growing fruit,
+making sandals, writing verses, or what not, as at great cost to my
+own comfort, and with some ulterior or artificial purpose—as of
+reforming the world. But I can safely say that in any such case
+I have done the thing primarily and simply because of the joy I had
+in doing it, and to please myself. If the world or any part of it
+should in consequence insist on being reformed, that is not my
+fault. And this perhaps after all is a good general rule: namely
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>that people should endeavour (more than they do) to express or
+liberate their <i>own</i> real and deep-rooted needs and feelings. Then
+in doing so they will probably liberate and aid the expression of
+the lives of thousands of others; and so will have the pleasure of
+helping, without the unpleasant sense of laying any one under an
+obligation.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>And here I think I ought to say (lest by concealing the fact
+I should seem to be laying my friends under an obligation and
+obtaining their seventieth-birthday congratulations under false
+pretences) that only two or three years ago a horny-handed son
+of toil—a gold-miner from the wilds of South Nevada—came all the
+way direct to Millthorpe on purpose to tell me that I should yet
+live for four hundred years! He stayed, curiously enough, but a
+very few days in this country, and having delivered his message
+set sail again the next morning but one for his gold-mines and his
+quartz-crushing. The prophecy I confess was one of rather doubtful
+comfort either to myself or my friends, but in order to avoid
+disappointment in case of its fulfilment I think perhaps I ought to
+mention it.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>Anyhow, referring back to those early Victorian days, I now
+seem plainly to see that if what was working then in my little soul
+could have been realized in society at large there would have been
+no need for you to address me the special letter or letters which
+I have just received—pleasant though they are to me—because you
+would have understood that in all reason letters equally grateful
+and full of recognition ought to be addressed to the joiner, the
+farm-labourer, the dairy-maid, and the washerwoman of your village,
+or to the soldier fighting now in the ranks. You would have
+realized that the lives of all of us are so built and founded one
+on the work of another that it is impossible to assign any credit to
+one whose name happens to be known, which is not equally due to
+the thousands or millions of nameless and unknown ones who really
+have contributed to his work. We literary folk, I need hardly say,
+think a great deal too much about ourselves and our importance.</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>This is of course so very obvious that I am persuaded that most
+of the signatories on this occasion will understand the matter so.
+And on that understanding I may say to my friends: I accept
+your expressions with the greatest pleasure. I appreciate the
+extraordinarily tender and gracious wording of the Address, and
+I thank you from my heart.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>EDWARD CARPENTER.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>APPENDIX II</h2>
+</div>
+<h3 class='c017'>BIBLIOGRAPHY</h3>
+
+<p class='c018'><strong>The Religious Influence of Art</strong>: being the Burney Prize Essay for 1869.
+Cambridge, Deighton, Bell &#38; Co., 1870.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>Out of print.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Narcissus and other Poems.</strong> London, Henry S. King &#38; Co., 1873.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Moses: A Drama in Five Acts.</strong> London, E. Moxon, 1875.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Reprinted with alterations and republished as <cite>The Promised
+Land</cite>. Sonnenschein, 1910. George Allen &#38; Unwin, 1916.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Syllabuses of University Extension Lectures.</strong> (Astronomy, Sound, Light,
+Pioneers of Science, Science and History of Music, &#38;c.) 1874–1881.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Towards Democracy</strong> (Part I). First edition. John Heywood, Manchester,
+1883.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same</span> (including Parts I and II). John Heywood, Manchester, 1885.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same</span> (including Parts I, II, and III). Fisher Unwin, London, 1892.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same</span> (with new Title-page). The Labour Press, Manchester, 1896.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same</span> (Part IV only, “Who Shall Command the Heart”). London,
+Swan Sonnenschein; Manchester, S. Clarke, 1902.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same</span> (Four Parts complete in one vol.). London and Manchester,
+Sonnenschein and S. Clarke, 1905.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Complete Library Edition, with two portraits. Same
+publishers, 1908.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same</span>, on India paper (pocket edition), without portraits, but with
+Note at end, 1909.</p>
+
+<p class='c021'>Later issues the same as the last two. Sixteenth Thousand, 1916.</p>
+
+<p class='c021'>American Edition: T.D. complete. New York, Mitchell Kennerley,
+1912.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>England’s Ideal</strong> and other Papers on Social Subjects. London, Swan
+Sonnenschein (Social Science Series). First edition, 1887.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Thirteenth Thousand. Published by George Allen and
+Unwin, London, 1916; New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Civilization: its Cause and Cure.</strong> And other Essays. London, Swan
+Sonnenschein (Social Science Series). First edition, 1889.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Fourteenth Thousand. London, George Allen &#38; Unwin,
+1916; New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Chants of Labour.</strong> Edited by Edward Carpenter. With music; and
+Frontispiece by Walter Crane. First edition. London, Swan Sonnenschein,
+1888.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Seventh Thousand. London, George Allen &#38; Unwin, 1916.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>From Adam’s Peak to Elephanta</strong>: being Sketches in Ceylon and India.
+With illustrations. First edition, London, Sonnenschein, 1892;
+New York, Macmillan Co.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition, enlarged, 1903.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Third edition, revised, 1910.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>A Visit to a Gn̄ani</strong>: being four chapters from the above, in separate
+volume, with two photogravure portraits. George Allen &#38; Co., 1911.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Authorized American edition. Published by A. B. Stockham
+&#38; Co., Chicago, 1900.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Pirated and mutilated. Published by the Yogi Publication
+Society, Masonic Temple, Chicago, 1905.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Love’s Coming-of-Age</strong>: a Series of Papers on the Relations of the Sexes.
+First edition, The Labour Press, Manchester, 1896.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition, 1897.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Third edition. Swan Sonnenschein, London; S. Clarke,
+Manchester, 1902.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Fifth edition, enlarged, 1906.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Fourteenth Thousand. London, George Allen &#38; Unwin,
+ 1916.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Note on Preventive Checks omitted. London, Methuen.
+Shilling edition, 1914.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> American edition. Stockham Publishing Company, Chicago,
+1902.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>Out of print.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Published by Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1911.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Forecasts of the Coming Century</strong>: by Alfred Russel Wallace, Tom Mann,
+H. Russell Smart, William Morris, H. S. Salt, Enid Stacy, Margaret
+McMillan, Grant Allen, Bernard Shaw and Edward Carpenter.
+Edited by E. C., and published by the Labour Press, Manchester, 1897.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Story of Eros and Psyche from Apuleius</strong>, and the first book of the
+Iliad of Homer, done into English by Edward Carpenter. London,
+Sonnenschein, 1900.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>Out of print.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Angels’ Wings</strong>: Essays on Art and its Relation to Life. With nine full-page
+Plates and Appendix. First edition. London, Sonnenschein, 1898;
+New York, Macmillan Co.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition, 1899.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Third edition, 1908.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Ioläus</strong>: an Anthology of Friendship, in old Caslon type, with red initials and
+side-notes. First edition. London, Sonnenschein, 1902; Boston,
+U.S.A., Ch. A. Goodspeed.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Author’s edition, 1902, bound in white and blue calf; 150
+copies only.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>Out of print.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition, enlarged. Forty pages added; black initials
+and notes. Sonnenschein, 1906.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Third edition. Title changed to <strong>Anthology of Friendship
+(Ioläus)</strong>. Published by George Allen &#38; Unwin, 1915.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span><strong>The Art of Creation</strong>: Essays on the Self and its Powers. First edition.
+London, George Allen, 1904.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition, enlarged, 1907.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Third edition. George Allen &#38; Unwin, 1916.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Prisons, Police, and Punishment</strong>: an Inquiry into the Causes and Treatment
+of Crime and Criminals. London, Fifield, 1905.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>Out of print.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Simplification of Life</strong>: being selections from the writings of E. C.
+by Harry Roberts. Published by Anthony Treherne, London, 1905.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'>Second edition. George Allen &#38; Unwin, January 1915.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Days with Walt Whitman</strong>: with some Notes on his Life and Work, and
+three Portraits. London, George Allen, 1906.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition, 1906.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Sketches from Life in Town and Country</strong>: Some Verses, and a Portrait of
+the Author. London, George Allen, 1908.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>Out of print.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Intermediate Sex</strong>: a Study of some Transitional Types of Men and
+Women. First edition. London, Sonnenschein; Manchester, Clarke,
+1908.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition, 1909.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Third edition. George Allen &#38; Co., 1912.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Fourth edition. London, George Allen &#38; Unwin, 1916.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> American edition. Published by Mitchell Kennerley, New
+York, 1912.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Drama of Love and Death</strong>: a Study of Human Evolution and Transfiguration.
+London, George Allen &#38; Co., April 1912.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition, August 1912.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> American edition. New York, Mitchell Kennerley, 1912.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk</strong>: a Study in Social Evolution.
+London, George Allen, 1914.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> American edition. New York, Mitchell Kennerley, 1914.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Healing of Nations</strong>: and the Hidden Sources of their Strife. First
+edition. London, George Allen &#38; Unwin, March 1915. Reprinted
+April and October 1915.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Story of My Books.</strong> London, George Allen &#38; Unwin, March 1916.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>My Days and Dreams</strong>: being Autobiographical Notes by Edward Carpenter.
+With Seventeen Portraits and Illustrations. George Allen &#38; Unwin,
+May 1916.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div>PAMPHLETS.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Modern Science</strong>: a Criticism. Pp. 75. John Heywood, Manchester and
+London, 1885.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Co-operative Production</strong>: with reference to the experiment of Leclaire. A
+lecture given at the Hall of Science, Sheffield, 1883. Published by
+John Heywood, Manchester, 1883. Pp. 16.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition. The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row,
+London, 1886.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>England’s Ideal.</strong> A Tract reprinted from <cite>To-day</cite>, May 1884. Pp. 22. John
+Heywood, Manchester and London, 1885.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Modern Moneylending</strong>, and the Meaning of Dividends. John Heywood,
+1883.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition, 1885. Pp. 28.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Desirable Mansions.</strong> A Tract reprinted from <cite>Progress</cite>, June 1883. Pp. 16,
+John Heywood, 1883.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition. The Modern Press, London, 1886.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'>Third edition, 1887.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Social Progress and Individual Effort.</strong> Reprinted from <cite>To-day</cite>, February
+1885. Pp. 13. The Modern Press, London, 1886.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Enchanted Thicket</strong>: an Appeal to the “Well-to-do,” by Edward
+Carpenter, late Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge: being a reprint by
+permission from the book <cite>England’s Ideal</cite>. For private circulation,
+1889. Pp. 12.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Civilization, Exfoliation, and Custom.</strong> Published by Humboldt Library of
+Science, New York, 1891. Pirated from <cite>Civilization: its Cause and
+Cure</cite>. Pp. 65.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Modern Science and Defence of Criminals.</strong> Humboldt Library, 1891. Also
+pirated from <cite>Civilization: its Cause and Cure</cite>. Pp. 53.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Our Parish and our Duke</strong>: a Letter to the Parishioners of Holmesfield, in
+Derbyshire. Four-page leaflet, published by the author, 1889. (Two
+editions about 10,000 each.) Also printed in full in the London <cite>Star</cite>,
+July 8, 1889.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Village and the Landlord.</strong> An adaptation of the foregoing. Published
+by the Fabian Society (Tract No. 136). London, 1907.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>A Letter Relating to the Case of the Walsall Anarchists.</strong> Four-page leaflet.
+Reprinted from <cite>Freedom</cite>, December 1892.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Intorno alla Protezione degli animali</strong> (four-page leaflet). Reprinted from
+<cite>Il Lavoro</cite> (Genoa) of May 18, 1906.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Empire: in India and Elsewhere.</strong> Pp. 20. London, A. C. Fifield, 1900.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> New edition, 1906. Published by Fifield, for the Humanitarian
+League.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>A Letter to the Employees of the Midland and other Railway Companies.</strong>
+Four-page leaflet. Fillingham, Sheffield. Signed “E. C., on behalf
+of the Sheffield Socialist Society, Commonwealth Café,” November
+1886.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Boer and Briton.</strong> Four-page leaflet. Labour Press, Manchester, January 7,
+1900. (? Two editions 5,000 each.)&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span><strong>Proof of Taylor’s Theorem in the Differential Calculus.</strong> By Edward Carpenter
+and R. F. Muirhead. Four-page pamphlet, with orange cover.
+Extracted from the Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical
+Society, vol. xii. Session 1893–4.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Sex-love: and its Place in a Free Society.</strong> Pp. 24. Labour Press,
+Manchester, 1894. Second edition, 1894.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Woman: and her Place in a Free Society.</strong> Pp. 40. Labour Press,
+Manchester, 1894.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Marriage in Free Society.</strong> Pp. 48 (5,000 copies). Labour Press, Manchester,
+1894.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Homogenic Love: and its Place in a Free Society.</strong> (Printed for private
+circulation only.) Pp. 52. Manchester, 1894.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>An Unknown People.</strong> Reprinted from the <cite>Reformer</cite>. Pp. 37. London,
+A. and H. B. Bonner, 1897. (Brown and gold cover.)</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Second edition, 1905. (Plain brown cover.)&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<i>o. p.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Fly, Messenger! Fly</strong>: being a reprint (8 pages) from <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>,
+by permission. For private circulation only. Tring, 1894.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Wreck of Modern Industry: and its Reorganization.</strong> Pamphlet, pp. 16.
+National Labour Press, Manchester, 1909.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Non-Governmental Society.</strong> Originally a chapter in <cite>Forecasts of the Coming
+Century</cite>, 1897; afterwards in <cite>Prisons, Police, and Punishment</cite>.
+Pp. 32. Reprinted separately, and published by A. C. Fifield, London,
+1911.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Vivisection.</strong> By Edward Carpenter and Edward Maitland. Two Addresses
+given before the Humanitarian League. Fifty-four page pamphlet.
+London, W. Reeves, 1893.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Vivisection.</strong> By Edward Carpenter. Pp. 12. Another Address given before
+the Humanitarian League. Published at 53, Chancery Lane, London,
+1904.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Vivisection.</strong> Two Addresses by Edward Carpenter (being the above two
+Addresses). Revised edition. London, Fifield, 1905.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Art of Creation.</strong> Being the second Anniversary Lecture of the Larmer
+Sugden Memorial, delivered at the William Morris Labour Church,
+at Leek, by Edward Carpenter, and printed at Hanley, in Staffordshire,
+1903.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Inner Self.</strong> Report of a lecture given at King’s Weigh House Church,
+London, November 7, 1912, and published (pp. 8) by the Christian
+Commonwealth Company, 1912.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>St. George and the Dragon</strong>: a Play in Three Acts for children and young
+folk. Dedicated to the I.L.P. clubs. Labour Press, Manchester, 1895.
+Second edition, 1908.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span><strong>The Need of a Rational and Humane Science</strong>: a lecture given before the
+Humanitarian League. Published at 53, Chancery Lane, London,
+1896. Pp. 33.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Reprinted as a chapter in <cite>Humane Science Lectures</cite> by
+various authors. London, George Bell, 1897, and incorporated in
+<cite>Civilisation: its Cause and Cure</cite>, edition 1906.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>British Aristocracy and the House of Lords.</strong> Pp. 36. Reprinted from
+the <cite>Albany Review</cite> of April, 1908. London, Fifield, 1908.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Smoke-Nuisance and Smoke-Preventing Appliances.</strong> Pp. 8. Being
+report of a lecture given at the Firth College, Sheffield, October 27,
+1889. Publishers, Leader &#38; Sons, Sheffield.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div>SOME MAGAZINE ARTICLES.</div>
+    <div class='c004'>(<i>Not</i> including those already [1916] republished in book form.)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Value of the Value-Theory.</strong> <cite>To-day</cite>, June 1889.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>On High Street, Kensington</strong>, in the <cite>Commonweal</cite>, April 26, 1890.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Lawrence Oliphant</strong>, critique in the <cite>Scottish Art Review</cite>, February 1889.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>November Boughs</strong>, critique in same Review, April 1889.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Smoke-Plague and its Remedy.</strong> <cite>Macmillan’s Magazine</cite>, July 1890.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Love’s Coming-of-Age</strong>: a Reply to Mr. Rockell. The <cite>Free Review</cite> (Sonnenschein),
+October 1896.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Two Gifts</strong>: a Poem. The <cite>Adult</cite>, February 1898.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>On English Hexameter Verse.</strong> Two articles in the <cite>Cambridge Review</cite>,
+February 22 and March 1, 1900.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>An Open-Air Gymnasium</strong>, <cite>Sandow’s Magazine</cite>, January 1900.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Awakening of China.</strong> In the <cite>Co-operative Wholesale Society’s Annual</cite>,
+Manchester, 1907.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Morality under Socialism.</strong> The <cite>Albany Review</cite>, September 1907.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'>Four Articles, <strong>Sketches in Morocco</strong>. The <cite>New Age</cite>, November 1906, and
+May, June, and July 1907.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Taboos of the British Museum.</strong> By E. S. P. Haynes (and E. C.) in
+<cite>English Review</cite>, December 1913.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Meaning of Pain.</strong> <cite>English Review</cite>, July 1914.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Does Pain on one Plane mean Pleasure on another?</strong> The <cite>Epoch</cite>, July 1914.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Great Kinship.</strong> Translated from the French of Elisée Reclus (“La
+Grande Famille”) by E. C. The <cite>Humane Review</cite>, January 1906.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Sport and Agriculture.</strong> In the <cite>Humanitarian</cite>, November 1913.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Conscription and National Service.</strong> Letter to the <cite>Daily Chronicle</cite>, London,
+August 12, 1915.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>Two articles on <strong>The Music Drama of the Future</strong>. The <cite>New Age</cite>, August 15
+and 22, 1908.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'>Two articles on <strong>The New South African Union</strong>. The <cite>New Age</cite>, August 27
+and September 3, 1909.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'>Two articles on <strong>The Minimum Wage</strong>. The <cite>New Age</cite>, December 21 and 23,
+1907.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Drawing-room Table Literature.</strong> Article in the <cite>New Age</cite>, March 17, 1910.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Le Philosophe Meh-ti.</strong> Book-review in the <cite>New Age</cite>, February 1, 1908.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Beauty in Civic Life</strong>: report of a lecture. The <cite>Humanitarian</cite>, January 1912.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div>TRANSLATIONS.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>German.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="de">Wenn die Menschen reif zur Liebe Werden</span></strong> (<cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>). Translated
+by Karl Federn; published by Hermann Seemann, Leipzig,
+1902.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="de">Die Civilisation</span>: ihre Ursachen und ihre Heilung.</strong> Translated by K.
+Federn; published by H. Seemann, Leipzig, 1903.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Towards Democracy.</strong> Translated by Lilly Nadler-Nuellens and Ervin
+Batthyány.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'>(Part I), “<span lang="de">Demokratie</span>,” published by H. Seemann, Leipzig, 1903; Berlin,
+1906.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'>(Part II), “<span lang="de">Freiheit</span>,” same publishers, 1907.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'>(Part III), “<span lang="de">Der Freiheit Entgegen</span>,” published by Freier Literarischer
+Verlag, Berlin, Tempelhof, 1908.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'>(Part IV), same title and publishers, 1909.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="de">Die Schöpfung als Kunstwerk</span></strong> (<cite>The Art of Creation</cite>). Translated by K.
+Federn, published by Eugen Diederichs, Jena, 1905.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="de">Das Mittelgeschlecht</span></strong> (<cite>The Intermediate Sex</cite>). Translated by L. Bergfeld,
+published by Seitz und Schauer, München, 1907; afterwards, Reinhard,
+München.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>England’s Ideal.</strong> Translated by Sophie von Harbon; published by Wilhelm
+Borngräber, Berlin, 1912.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div><cite>Articles and Pamphlets.</cite></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="de">Die Homogene Liebe.</span></strong> Pamphlet. Translated by H. B. Fischer, published
+by Max Spohr, Leipzig, 1894.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'>Three separate pamphlets, <span lang="de">“Die Geschlechstliebe,” “Das Weib,”</span> and “<span lang="de">Die
+Ehe</span>,” all published in 1895. Same translator and publisher as above.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'>Article “<span lang="de">Ueber die Beziehungen zwischen Homosexualität und Prophetentum</span>”
+in the <cite><span lang="de">Vierteljahrs-berichts des Wissenschaftlich-humanitären
+Komitees</span></cite>, July 1911, published by Hirschfeld, Berlin.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'>Pamphlet <strong><span lang="de">Die Gesellschaft ohne Regierung</span></strong> (<cite>Non-governmental Society</cite>).
+Translated by Pierre Ramus, published by W. Schouteten, Brüssel,
+1910.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span><span class='sc'>Italian.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="it">L’amore diventa maggiorenne</span></strong> (<cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>). Translated by
+Guido Ferrando; published by frat. Bocca, Torino, Roma, etc., 1909.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="it">L’Arte della Creazione.</span></strong> Translated by G. Ferrando; published by Enrico
+Voghera, Roma, 1909.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="it">Verso la Democrazia</span></strong> (Part I). With biographical notice and note from
+<cite>Labour Prophet</cite>. Translated by Teresina Campani-Bagnoli; published
+by R. Carabba, Lanciano, 1912.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>French.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><span lang="fr"><strong>Prisons, Police, et Châtiments.</strong> Traduit et annoté par Paul Le Rouge et
+Alain Garnier, avocats à la Cour d’Appel de Paris.</span> Published by
+Schleicher Frères, Paris, 1907.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><span lang="fr"><strong>Vivisection.</strong> Par E. C. Traduit de l’anglais par E. F. Satchell</span>; published
+by St. Catherine’s Press, Bruges, 1910.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="fr">L’Amour Homogénique et sa Place dans une Société libre.</span></strong> Published
+in <cite>La Société Nouvelle</cite>, Brussels and Paris, September 1896.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="fr">Vers l’Affranchissement</span></strong> (being Parts III and IV of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>).
+Translated by Marcelle Senard. Published by the <span lang="fr">Librairie de l’Art
+Indépendant, 81 rue Dareau, Paris, 1914.</span></p>
+
+<p class='c019'><i>Also</i> <span lang="fr"><strong>E. C. et sa Philosophie</strong>. Par M. Senard.</span> Published same year and
+place.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="fr">La Régénération des Peuples</span></strong> (<cite>The Healing of Nations</cite>). Translated by
+M. Senard; published by....</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>Dutch.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="nl">Liefde’s Meerderjarigheid</span></strong> (<cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>). Translated by Meezenbrock;
+published by Holkema, Amsterdam, 1904.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="nl">Die Beschaving: hare Oorzaak en hare Genezing</span></strong> (<cite>Civilization: its Cause
+and Cure</cite>). Translated by P. H.; published by Elsevier, Amsterdam,
+1899.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>Russian.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Civilization: its Cause and Cure.</strong> Translated by Ivan Najívin, with
+biographical Note, and Portrait, Moscow, 1906.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Modern Science: a Criticism.</strong> With Introductory Note by Leo Tolstoy, 1904.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Prisons, Police, and Punishment.</strong> Translated by A. M. (without Appendix).
+Large 8vo, light green cover. Moscow, 1907.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>A Visit to a Gn̄ani</strong> (four chapters) entitled <cite>I Am</cite>. Translated by Ivan Najívin,
+Moscow, 1907.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Towards Democracy</strong> (<cite>I arise out of the Night</cite>). Being selections from T. D.,
+with Note on E. C. by Sergius Orlovski. Moscow.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span><strong>Love and Death.</strong> Translated by P. D. Ouspenski. With Introduction.
+Petrograd, 1915.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Intermediate Sex.</strong> Translated by P. D. Ouspenski. Petrograd, 1915.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><i>See also</i> article on E. C. by S. E. Rapoport in <cite>Russian Thought</cite> for January
+or February 1914. Petrograd.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>Bulgarian.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Modern Science: a Criticism.</strong> With Introduction by Leo Tolstoy. Translated
+from the Russian by D. Jethkoff and Chr. Dossieff. Burgas, 1908.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><i>Also</i> <strong>Civilization</strong> and <strong>England’s Ideal</strong>. Translated by D. Vaptzaroff, Burgas,
+1908.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'>Articles in <cite>Renaissans</cite> (Burgas):—</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>On Rational and Humane Science.</strong> 1909.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>England’s Ideal.</strong> 1910.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Defence of Criminals.</strong> (2 numbers.) 1914.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>Spanish.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><span lang="es"><strong>Defensa de los Criminales.</strong> Critica de la Moralidad.</span> Translated by Julio
+Molina y Vedia; published by P. Tonini, Buenos Aires, 1901.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong><span lang="es">El Matorral Encantado</span></strong> (<cite>The Enchanted Thicket</cite>). Translated by <span lang="es">Peter
+Godoi Perez, por el Grupo “Los Precursores.</span>” Santiago, 1911.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>Japanese.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'>Sections I to XIX of <strong>Towards Democracy</strong> by Saikwa Tomita in <cite>Tokyo
+Magazine</cite> of July 1915.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><i>Also</i> <strong>After Long Ages</strong> and many shorter poems.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><i>See also</i> <strong>E. C.: Poet and Prophet</strong>. By Ishikawa Sanshiro: being a series
+of chapters on E. C. with long quotations from his works, also portrait
+and letter from E. C. Yokohama, 1912.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div>MUSIC.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><i>See</i> <strong>Chants of Labour</strong>. Edited by E. C. First edition 1888.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><i>Also</i> <strong>Three Songs</strong> (“Men of England,” by Shelley, “The People to their
+Land,” and “England, Arise”). Set to music by E. C. Published
+by the Labour Press, Manchester, 1896.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>England, Arise.</strong> Arranged by John Curwen as four-part song for male voices.
+Staff and sol-fa notation. Published by J. Curwen and Sons, Berners St.
+London, W., 1906.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The City of the Sun.</strong> Words and music by E. C. Published by the Labour
+Press, Manchester, (?) 1908.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Die Stadt der Sonne.</strong> Worte und Musik von E. C., “dem Kämpfenden
+Proletariat gewidmet.” Verlag “Wohlstand für Alle.” Vienna XII.
+Herthorgasse, 12, (?) 1909.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c022'>
+    <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>SOME BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ARTICLES, <span class='fss'>ETC.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>E. C.: The Man and his Message.</strong> Pp. 40. With two portraits. By Tom
+Swan. Manchester, 1901. Second edition, 1902.</p>
+
+<p class='c020'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> Third Edition. London, Fifield, 1905. Fourth edition,
+1910.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>E. C.: Poet and Prophet.</strong> By Ernest Crosby. 50 pp. Second edition,
+Fifield, 1905.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>The Gospel according to E. C.</strong> By G. H. Perris. In two chapters. Article
+in the <cite>New Age</cite>, April 23 and 30, 1896.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Three Modern Seers</strong> (Hinton, Nietzsche, and E. C.). With Portraits.
+Pp. 228. By Mrs. Havelock Ellis. London, Stanley Paul, 1910.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>E. C.: Poet and Prophet.</strong> Expositions of and quotations from his works.
+Pp. 300. In Japanese script. By Ishikawa Sanshiro. Yokohama,
+1912.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>E. C.: an Exposition and an Appreciation.</strong> By Edward Lewis. Pp. 310.
+With Portrait. London, Methuen, 1915.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>Modern Science.</strong> A reprint in English of Leo Tolstoy’s Introduction to
+that Essay. Published by Wm. Reeves, Charing Cross Road, London.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>E. C. and his Message.</strong> By Leonard D. Abbott in the <cite>International Socialist
+Review</cite>, Chicago, November 1, 1900.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>E. C. ein Sänger der Freiheit und des Volkes.</strong> Von Pierre Ramus, verlag
+Schouteten. Brussels, 1910.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'><strong>E. C. et sa Philosophie.</strong> Par M. Senard. Libr. de l’Art Indépendant, Paris,
+1914.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'>Chapter on E. C. in <cite>All Manner of Folk</cite>. By Holbrook Jackson. London,
+Grant Richards, 1912.</p>
+
+<p class='c019'>And various articles:—</p>
+
+<p class='c023'>See the <cite>Dublin University Review</cite>, April, 1886; <cite>Seed-time</cite>, London,
+April, 1893; the <cite>Friend</cite>, January 4, 1895; the <cite>Twentieth Century</cite>, New
+York, June 25, 1898; the <cite>Inquirer</cite>, London, May 13, 1899; the <cite>Westminster
+Review</cite>, December, 1901; the <cite>Pioneer</cite>, London, January, 1901;
+the <cite>Humane Review</cite>, July, 1903; the <cite>Literary Digest</cite>, New York,
+February 25, 1905; the <cite>Craftsman</cite>, New York, October, 1906; the
+<cite>Millgate Monthly</cite>, Manchester, April 1907; the <cite>Forum</cite>, New York,
+August 1910; the <cite>Christian Commonwealth</cite>, London, December 11,
+1912; <cite>Bibby’s Annual</cite>, 1913; the <cite>Bystander</cite>, March 18, 1914; the
+<cite>Epoch</cite>, November 1915; the <cite>Herald of the Star</cite>, August 11, 1915; etc.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>
+  <h2 class='c005'>INDEX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<ul class='index c002'>
+  <li class='c024'>Adams, George, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>story of his life, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a> ff.;</li>
+      <li>at Millthorpe, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>–159</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Adam’s Peak to Elephanta</cite>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Africa, South, fascination of, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>African Farm, Story of</cite>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>After Civilization, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Age, its compensations, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Alfred, my brother, at school and in the Navy, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>his son, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a> (note)</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Anarchism, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ancestry, my, Cornish, Scotch (? and Phœnician), <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Anecdotes of Millthorpe, ch. x.</li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Angels’ Wings</cite>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Anthology of Friendship</cite>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Anti-vivisection, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Art of Creation, The</cite>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>translations of, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Arunáchalam, P., of Colombo, Ceylon, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>his career, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>–253</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ashton, Margaret, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Assagioli, Roberto, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Astronomy</cite>, lectures, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Audiences, indoors and open-air, etc., <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Auteri, Count, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Bagnoli, Teresina, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Bantock, Granville, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Barker, Granville, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>Barnes, George N., of the A.S.E., <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Batthyány, Ervin, at Millthorpe, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>life at Buda-Pesth, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a> ff.</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Beck, E, A., of Trinity Hall, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Benson, F. R., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Berkeleyan view of Matter, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Besant, Annie, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>–222, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Bhagavat Gita</cite>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Bingham, brothers, of Sheffield, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Birrell, Augustine, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Blavatsky, Mme., <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Bloody Sunday” in Trafalgar Square, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Boating life at Cambridge, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Boer and Briton</cite>, a leaflet, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Boer War, the, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Bolton, Whitman Club at, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Boughton, Rutland, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Boyhood and Age, little difference, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Bradway, life at, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a> ff., <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Brighton, futile life of, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>work at, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>;</li>
+      <li>the family leaves, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Brighton College, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a> ff.</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Brown, J. M., <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Bruno,” the story of, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>–155</li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Bryan,” story of, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>–172</li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>Bryant, W., the poet, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Bucke, Dr. Richard, of Canada, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Bulgarian translations, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Burney Prize, the, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Burns, John, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Burroughs, John, the friend of Whitman, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Burrows, Herbert, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Byron, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Cambridge, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a> ff.</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Campbell, R. J., <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ceylon, visit to, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Champion, H. H., early member of the S.D.F., <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Channing, Rev. W. H., <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Chants of Labour</cite>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Charles, my brother, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Charles, Fredk., anarchist, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Cheap and nasty” things and people, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Chemistry, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Chesterfield, life at, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Christian legend, the, allegorical, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Civilization, modern, its meaning and future, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>–315;
+    <ul>
+      <li>escape from, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>;</li>
+      <li>its paltriness, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>;</li>
+      <li>and unimportance, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>, <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>;</li>
+      <li>after-stage to follow, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Civilization: its Cause and Cure</cite>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>translations of, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>, etc.;</li>
+      <li>subject never seriously tackled by critics, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Clifford, W. K., <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>College Feasts at Cambridge, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Commercial crises, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Commonweal, The</cite>, organ of the Socialist League, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>“Commonwealth” Café opened in Sheffield, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Commons Award Book of Holmesfield, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>–293</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Compensations in Age and Infirmity, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Consciousness, three stages of, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Co-operation, lectures on, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>agricultural, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>–289</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Cosmic Consciousness, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>–145, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Cotterill, Henry B., his work in S. Africa, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>his translation of Homer’s <cite>Odyssey</cite>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Court Baron of Holmesfield, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Cox, Harold, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Cramp, C. T., of the A.S.R.S., <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Crane, Walter, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><i>Crib</i>, use of, at school, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Cronwright-Schreiner, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Curate, life as, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a> ff.</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Curran, Pete, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Danish agriculture, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Darwin, George, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>David and Solomon, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Death, the adventure of, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Defence of Criminals</cite>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Desirable Mansions</cite>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Despard, Mrs., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Devon, James, Prisons Commissioner, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Dickens, H. F., <a href='#Page_74'>74</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Dickinson, Lowes, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>his books, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Dilke, Charles Wentworth, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>District Councils, their character, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Downs, the Sussex, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span><cite>Drama of Love and Death, The</cite>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Duncan, Isadora, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Early days, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>–16</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Early verses, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ellis, Edith (<i>née</i> Lees), <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ellis, Havelock, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>his great work on <cite>Psychology of Sex</cite>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>;</li>
+      <li>his personality, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Emerson, R. W., <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Enclosure of Commons, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>England’s Ideal</cite>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ethical Societies, the, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>lectures for, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Executor, work as, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Expression, one of the great objects of Life, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>–307;
+    <ul>
+      <li>ever-unfolding, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c002'>Fabian Societies, lectures for, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Faddists invade Millthorpe, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a> ff.</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Father, my, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a> ff.;
+    <ul>
+      <li>his death, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Fawcett, Henry, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>story of his blindness, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>–215</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Fearnehough, Albert, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>–104, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a> ff.</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Federn, Karl, translates <cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>, etc., <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Fellowship, elected to, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>relinquished, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Feminist Movement, The, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ferrando, Guido, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Finance, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Florence, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>Italian literary circle at, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ford, the sisters, of Leeds, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Foreign travel, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Fox, Charles, of Bradway, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Foxwell, H. S., of St. John’s, Cambridge, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>Friendships, early, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Fry, Roger, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Furniss, John, quarryman and Socialist, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Geldart, Dr., Master of Trin. Hall, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>George, Henry, Land Tax campaign, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Glasier, Bruce and Katharine, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Gn̄aniani, or Wise Man of the East, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>visit to, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Gold-miner from Nevada, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>his visions, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>–187;</li>
+      <li>and intuitions, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>–189</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Gooch, G. P., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Goring, Sir Charles, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Graham, Cunninghame, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Grant, Albert, financier, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>made Baron, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Gray, Ernest A., <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Grayson, Victor, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Greek sculpture, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Greenock, shipping strike at, in 1910, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Greig, Mrs. Billington, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Griffith, Dr., Headmaster of Brighton College, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Gröndahl, Illit, translations into Norwegian, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Hardie, Keir, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Hardy, Mrs., visit to, near Pittsburg, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Hawkins, E. C., Form Master at Brighton College, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Health, my, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Heidelberg, life at, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Hole in the Centre,” the, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>Holmes, Oliver Wendell, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Hopkins, F. L., Dean of Trin. Hall, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Housman, Laurence, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Hukin, G. E., <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Humanitarian League, the, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>lectures for, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Hut, or garden-shelter, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Hyacinth, vision of, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Hyett, F. A., <a href='#Page_46'>46</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Hyndman, his <cite>England for All</cite>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>chairman of S.D.F., <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>;</li>
+      <li>his career, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>–249, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c002'><i>Impasse</i> of the old order of Society, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Imperialism, shopkeeping, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Indulgences” at French school, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Intermediate Sex, The</cite>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Invalid woman, the, of the Victorian drawing-rooms, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Ioläus</cite>, Anthology of Friendship, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ishikawa, Sanshiro, Japanese friend, calls our houses “prisons,” <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>himself imprisoned in Japan, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>;</li>
+      <li>comes to England, Belgium, France, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c002'>Japan, Labour troubles in, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>translations of <cite>Civilization</cite>, <cite>Toward Democracy</cite>, etc., <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>–278</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Japanese verdicts on the War, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Johnston, Councillor James, of Manchester, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Johnston, Dr. J., of Bolton, his <cite>Visit to Walt Whitman</cite>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Joynes, James L., <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>Judges, High Court and others, their fitness for the post, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Justice</cite>, organ of the S.D.F., <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Kaffirs, the, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Key, Ellen, her works, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Kingsford, Anna, and the Hermetic Society, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>–245</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Kropotkin, Peter, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>–220</li>
+  <li class='c002'><cite>Labour, Chants of</cite>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Labour Press, Manchester, publishes my books, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>goes bankrupt, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Labour Prophet, The</cite>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Landladies, joys of, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Latham, Henry, Tutor of Trin. Hall, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Laws of Morality,” <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Laws of Nature,” <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Leaves of Grass</cite>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Lectures, University Extension, Leeds, Halifax, Skipton, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a> ff.;
+    <ul>
+      <li>Nottingham, York, Hull, Barnsley, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a> ff.;</li>
+      <li>Sheffield and Chesterfield, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a> ff.;</li>
+      <li>on Astronomy, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>;</li>
+      <li>on Light and Sound, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>;</li>
+      <li>on Pioneers of Science, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>;</li>
+      <li>on Music, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>;</li>
+      <li>on Socialism, etc., <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a> ff.;</li>
+      <li>at Greenock, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a>;</li>
+      <li>in London and elsewhere, ch. xiv.</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Le Rouge, Paul, translation of <cite>Prisons</cite> book, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Lewis, Edward, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Life, uses of, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>–307;
+    <ul>
+      <li>daily life at seventy, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>–309</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Light and Sound</cite>, lectures on, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Limerick, Mona, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>Literary beginnings, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Lock, Fossett, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Lodge, Oliver, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Love’s Coming-of-Age</cite>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a> ff., <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>translations of, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Lowell, Russell, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Lytton, Constance, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Macdonald, Ramsay, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Macmillan, Margaret, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Maguire, Tom, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Maitland, Edward, and the Hermetic Society, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>–245</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Manual work, need of, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>manual workers, solidity of their lives, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a>;</li>
+      <li>friends among, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>March-Phillipps, Lisle, and the Boer War, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li><cite>With Rimington</cite>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Margesson, Lady Isabel, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Market-gardening, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Marriage, decline of, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Marx, his theory of <cite>Surplus-value</cite>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Mathematics, reading for Tripos, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>proof of <cite>Taylor’s Theorem</cite>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>;</li>
+      <li>place in Tripos, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Maurice, Fredk. D., <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>incumbent of St. Edward’s, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>–58</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Max Flint, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>story of his life, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>–182;</li>
+      <li>at Millthorpe, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>;</li>
+      <li>Christian or Jew? 182</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Merrill, George, arrival at Millthorpe, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a> ff.;
+    <ul>
+      <li>early life, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>;</li>
+      <li>talent for housework, etc., <a href='#Page_162'>162</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Millthorpe, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>migration to, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>;</li>
+      <li>life at, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>;</li>
+      <li><i>rendezvous</i> of all classes, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Morris, William, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>his temperament, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>;</li>
+      <li><span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span>visit to Millthorpe, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Moses: a drama</cite>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Mother, my, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a> ff.;
+    <ul>
+      <li>death of, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Moulton, Fletcher, Senior Wrangler, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Muirhead, Robert F., <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Music, piano and composition, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>Beethoven, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>;</li>
+      <li>lectures on, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c002'>Nadler-Nuellens, Lilly, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>–272;
+    <ul>
+      <li>translates <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>;</li>
+      <li>comes to England, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Najívin, Ivan, novelist and mystic; translations into Russian, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Narcissus and other Poems</cite>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Neo-Paganism, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>lectures on, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Nevinson, H. W., <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“New Fellowship, The,” <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>its early members, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>New Movements in 1881, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Newton, “Sir Isaac,” <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Niagara, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Nietzsche, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Nobili, Riccardo, art-critic, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Non-governmental Society</cite>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Northern Towns, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, ch. iv.</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Norton, Charles, of Harvard, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Oates, C. G., of Leeds, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Olivia,” <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Olivier, Sydney, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Open-air life, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ordination, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>difficulties with the Bishop, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>–55;</li>
+      <li>abandonment of Orders, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a> ff., <a href='#Page_72'>72</a> ff.</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c002'>Pamphlets on Sex and Marriage, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>Parish Council, contest, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>work on, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>–293</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Parson, a new kind of, wanted, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Payne, Iden, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Perfect Way, The</cite>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Personal reform first, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Peterson, Captain R. E., Tolstoyan, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>Utopian, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a> ff.;</li>
+      <li>his colour-sergeant’s wife, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>–176</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Pierce, Prof. Benjamin, of Harvard, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Pioneers of Science</cite>, lectures, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Ploughing matches, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Prize-poems, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Promised Land, The</cite>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Psychical Research Society, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Public-house, the, natural centre of village life, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>necessity of reorganization, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Publishers, timidity of, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Rambelli, Giuseppe, artist, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Reclus, Elie, Elisée, and Paul, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Reddie, Cecil, of Abbotsholme School, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Reservoir schemes, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Reynolds, Stephen, of the Fisheries, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Rileys, the, in Massachusetts, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Robertson, F. W., of Brighton, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Rome, liberating influence of stay in, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Romer, Robert, Senior Wrangler, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Rossetti, William, his edition of <cite>Leaves of Grass</cite>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Rothenstein, William, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Rustics, their character, and anecdotes, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>–287</li>
+  <li class='c002'><span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span>St. Lawrence, the river, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Salt, Catherine L., <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Salt, Henry, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>–238;
+    <ul>
+      <li>work in Humanitarian and Nature movements, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>;</li>
+      <li>writings, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Sandals, making of, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>wearing of, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Sanitary” pipes <i>versus</i> natural water-courses and springs, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>School-life, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a> ff.</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Schreiner, Olive, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>–231</li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Science, Modern</cite>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li><cite>Criticism</cite> of, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>;</li>
+      <li>never seriously tackled, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>;</li>
+      <li>Tolstoy on, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Seed-time</cite>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a> (note)</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Senard, Marcelle, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>–276;
+    <ul>
+      <li>translation of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>;</li>
+      <li>brochure on E. C., <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>;</li>
+      <li>hospital work, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Senior Wranglers, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Sex-troubles at schools, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Shaw, Bernard, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Sheffield, beauties of, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>the people, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Sheffield Socialist Society, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a> ff.</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Shelley, Mary, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Shelley, Percy, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Shortland, J. W., <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Sicily, lying encouraged among the peasant children, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Simplification of Life, story of, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>lecture on, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Sisters, my, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Sixsmith, Charles F., <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Sloane Kennedy, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Small Holdings, lectures on, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>visit to Maylands, Essex, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>;</li>
+      <li>need of, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a>–289</li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Smith, George Moore-, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>Social Democratic Federation, the, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Socialism, its value, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>its inner meaning, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>–130;</li>
+      <li>propaganda of, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>;</li>
+      <li>humours of, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Society” not worth while, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Socrates and the tiger, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Solidarity of human life, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Spedding, Harry, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Spiritualists, forty! 169</li>
+  <li class='c024'>Steerage passenger, experiences as, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Stuart, James, of Trinity College, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Sun-worship and Christianity</cite>, lectures on, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Surplus-value</cite>, theory of, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Taylor, Jonathan, of Sheffield, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Theosophical Societies, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>lectures for, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Thompson, E. S., of Christ’s College, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Thoreau, H. D., <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>his <cite>Walden</cite>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>;</li>
+      <li>his ideal, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Tolstoy on my <cite>Civilization</cite> and <cite>Modern Science</cite>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Tomita, Saikwa, translates portions of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite> and <cite>The Art of Creation</cite> into Japanese, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Towards Democracy</cite>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>its inception, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, and birth, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>;</li>
+      <li>continuation, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>;</li>
+      <li>publication, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a> ff.;</li>
+      <li>early criticisms of, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>;</li>
+      <li>early editions, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a> ff.;</li>
+      <li>wanders from publisher to publisher, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>–200;</li>
+      <li>pocket edition, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>;</li>
+      <li>ignored by the Press, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>;</li>
+      <li>its meanings, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>;</li>
+      <li>relation to the other books, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>;</li>
+      <li><span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>translations of, into German, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>;</li>
+      <li>Italian, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>;</li>
+      <li>French, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>;</li>
+      <li>Japanese, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>;</li>
+      <li>Russian, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Transformation, of “Civilization,” impending, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>–314;
+    <ul>
+      <li>of the Individual, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Trelawny, Edward J., his life, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>–121;
+    <ul>
+      <li>visit to, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>–123;</li>
+      <li>his four wives, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Trevelyan, G. M., <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Trinity Hall, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>United States, first visit to, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a> ff.;
+    <ul>
+      <li>second visit, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Universal Self, the, key to all morality and science, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Unwin, Raymond, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Upanishads, The</cite>, lectures on, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Uranian temperament, the, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Usher, Mrs., of the “Sheffield Socialists,” <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Vacation, the Long, at Cambridge, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Vegetarian habits, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>Society, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>;</li>
+      <li>Congress at Manchester, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>;</li>
+      <li>at Mansion House dinner, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Versailles, life at, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Verses, early, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Victorian Age, the, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Village and Landlord, The</cite>, a Fabian Tract, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Village clubs, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>Chapel and Co-operative Society, <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'><cite>Visit to a Gñani</cite>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Wallace, Alfred Russel, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Wallace, J. W., of Bolton, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>War, the Great, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Warr, H. D., Fellow of Trinity Hall, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Well-dressing,” a village institution, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a>, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Wells, H. G., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Westermarck, Prof. Edward, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Whitman, Walt, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>first introduction to, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>;</li>
+      <li>visit to, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>;</li>
+      <li>Emerson’s opinion of, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>;</li>
+      <li>second visit to, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>;</li>
+      <li>contrast to Eastern Sage, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>;</li>
+      <li>Whitman Club at Bolton, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'><span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span><cite>Who shall command the Heart</cite>, Part IV of <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Wilde, Oscar, troubles, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Wilson, Charlotte, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Wilson, Dr. Helen, of Sheffield, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Wilson, Miss Lucy, of Leeds, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>Women’s Movement, its beginning, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a>;
+    <ul>
+      <li>Suffrage Demonstration, Manchester, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </li>
+  <li class='c024'>Wordsworth, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li>
+  <li class='c002'>Yate, C. F., of Trinity Hall, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li>
+  <li class='c024'>“Young Ladies,” the, of 1860, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c002'>
+    <div><span class='small'><cite>Printed in Great Britain by</cite></span></div>
+    <div><span class='small'>UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED THE GRESHAM PRESS WOKING AND LONDON</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='c025'>
+<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. In India he rose rapidly through the early grades of the Service.
+The Mutiny of 1857 was just over, and administration was being
+reorganized in various directions. He was stationed at Futtehpore,
+Saharanpore and various places in the N.W. Provinces; and then
+at Allahabad, where he became Settlement Officer and something
+of an authority on Land and Irrigation questions. Afterwards he
+was transferred to the Central Provinces and made full Commissioner
+first at Jubbulpore and then at Nagpore. It was at the
+last-named place that a fatal accident overtook him while riding in
+a steeple-chase; and a career of great promise was cut short. This
+was in March 1876. The <cite>Pioneer</cite> of the 7th of March said: “His
+public career, though now but commencing, was full of the highest
+promise. Sound, cool, and cautious in deliberation, he carried into
+action the promptness and decision which are born of self-reliance
+and of a healthy vigorous <i>physique</i>. His was emphatically <i>mens
+sana in corpore sano</i>; and he himself an officer of rare judgment
+and of most sterling merit.”</p>
+
+<p class='c011'>See <cite>A Memoir of C. W. C.</cite>: a little brochure (privately printed)
+written by my eldest sister after his death.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f2'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. His son, Francis, followed my brother into the Navy, thus
+representing a fourth generation of Carpenters in a direct line in
+the same profession, He is now [1915], though still young, occupying
+a high position in the North Sea Fleet, and has distinguished
+himself not only like his father by saving life, but also by bringing
+out important inventions which have been taken up by the Admiralty.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f3'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. It is curious how æsthetic in style this Preface is, though written
+in 1855, rather before the English æsthetic movement, and how,
+perhaps on account of its slight affectation of manner, it was
+abandoned by Whitman afterwards.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f4'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. “Francesca,” in <cite>Sketches from Life</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f5'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. The drama is now [1911] republished under the title <cite>The
+Promised Land</cite>, and the soliloquy in question is given in the first
+part of Act II. Sc. 1. As a reflection of the thoughts which were,
+I suppose, occupying my mind at that time, it may have some slight
+interest.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f6'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. This of course would all be very different now [1915].</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f7'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. <cite>Days with Walt Whitman</cite> (George Allen and Unwin, 1906).</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f8'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. See <cite>Days with Walt Whitman</cite>, by E. Carpenter, p. 30.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f9'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. This is a subject which through the Freudian psycho-analysis
+has come now [1915] to be much better understood.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f10'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. Many examples of this kind of temperament are given in
+Vol. II of Dr. Havelock Ellis’ classical work <cite>Studies in the
+Psychology of Sex</cite>—Philadelphia, 1901 and 1915. (See history VII,
+beginning “My parentage is very sound”, history XVII, etc.) And
+I will say that in my case the temperament has always been
+quite natural and associated with perfect healthiness of habit
+and general freedom from morbidity; and that it has been absolutely
+inborn, and not induced by any outside example or teaching.
+It is therefore a part of my nature, and a most intimate and
+organic part. And I have to thank Mr. Edward Lewis that in his
+<cite>Exposition and Appreciation of E. C.</cite> (Methuen, 1915, pp. 200, 299, etc.)
+he has so clearly and firmly indicated this.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f11'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. See <cite>Sketches from Life in Town and Country</cite> (George Allen and
+Unwin), by E. Carpenter.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f12'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. However, I happily managed in the next few years to get rid of
+a good portion of this!</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f13'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. See <cite>Days with Walt Whitman</cite> (George Allen and Unwin, 1906),
+by E. Carpenter.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f14'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. Perhaps the portrait by Edward Williams, but I cannot say.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f15'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. See “The Value of the Value-theory,” an article by myself in
+the little magazine <cite>To-day</cite> for June 1889 (published by W. Reeves).</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f16'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. See the last poem but one in <cite>Towards Democracy</cite>, p. 502.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f17'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. Shown in the illustration facing page <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f18'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. At Kovno or Slobodka, now alas! ravaged by the German
+invasion [1915].</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f19'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. I may say here that I never happened to meet Oscar Wilde
+personally.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f20'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. One of the chapters in <cite>Civilization: its Cause and Cure</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f21'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. A chapter in <cite>Prisons, Police, and Punishment</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f22'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. In <cite>Adam’s Peak to Elephanta</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f23'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. See p. 125, <i>supra</i> (Ch. VII).</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f24'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. They are published now in Philadelphia by the F. A. Davis
+Company there.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f25'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. See <cite>Seed-time</cite>, a quarterly journal issued by the Fellowship;
+which however was not started till 1890 and ceased publication in
+1898. Editor, Maurice Adams, one of the earliest members.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f26'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. Published by George Harrap, 1912.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f27'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. <cite>With Rimington</cite>, by L. March-Phillipps (Arnold, 1901).</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f28'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. Entitled <cite>I Cavalli pensanti di Elberfeldt</cite> (Florence, 1912).</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f29'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. Part I only, published by Lanciani, 1912.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f30'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. Published by the <cite>Libr. de l’Art indépendant</cite>, 81 rue Dareau,
+Paris.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f31'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. But not of course to <cite>Civilization</cite> itself. M. Najívin, writing to
+me, says: “<span lang="fr">A propos de la ‘Civilization’ Tolstoy n’a pas écrit un
+préface—seulement il a beaucoup loué ce livre dans deux lettres à
+moi, et j’ai fait des extraits de ces lettres et je les ai publiés maintes
+fois.... L’exemplaire de la ‘Civilization’ <i>avec des notes de Tolstoy</i>
+est envoyé au Musée de Tolstoy à St. Petersbourg.</span>”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f32'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. There is also a little book called <cite>Some Forgotten Facts in the
+History of Sheffield</cite> (Independent Press, Sheffield, 2s. 6d.) which
+gives valuable information about the enclosures in that district.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f33'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. The Small Holdings Act of 1907 defines anything up to fifty
+acres as a small holding.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f34'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. Chap. X, p. 180.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f35'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. By means of which, of course, the wheel turns on its axle.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f36'>
+<p class='c011'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. The Address together with my Reply is printed in an Appendix
+at the end of this book.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c004'>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>Edward Carpenter’s Works</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c026'>TOWARDS DEMOCRACY. Library Edition.
+<i>4s. 6d. net.</i> Pocket Edition, <i>3s. 6d. net</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c027'>ENGLAND’S IDEAL. 12th Thousand. <i>2s. 6d.
+and 1s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c027'>CIVILIZATION: ITS CAUSE AND CURE.
+Essays on Modern Science. 13th Thousand. <i>2s. 6d.
+and 1s. net.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c027'>LOVE’S COMING OF AGE: On the Relations
+of the Sexes. 12th Thousand. <i>3s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c027'>ANGELS’ WINGS. Essays on Art and Life.
+Illustrated. <i>4s. 6d. net.</i> Third Edition.</p>
+
+<p class='c027'>ADAM’S PEAK TO ELEPHANTA: Sketches
+in Ceylon and India. New Edition. <i>4s. 6d.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c027'>A VISIT TO A GÑANI. Four Chapters
+reprinted from <cite>Adam’s Peak to Elephanta</cite>. With New
+Preface, and 2 Photogravures, La. Cr. 8vo, ½clo., <i>1s. 6d. net</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c027'>IOLÄUS: An Anthology of Friendship. <i>2s. 6d.
+net.</i> New and Enlarged Edition.</p>
+
+<p class='c027'>CHANTS OF LABOUR: A Songbook for the
+People, with frontispiece and cover by <span class='sc'>Walter Crane</span>, <i>1s.</i>
+7th Thousand.</p>
+
+<p class='c027'>THE ART OF CREATION: Essays on the
+Self and its Powers. <i>3s. 6d. net.</i> Second Edition.</p>
+
+<p class='c027'>DAYS WITH WALT WHITMAN. <i>3s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c027'>THE INTERMEDIATE SEX: A Study of
+some Transitional Types of Men and Women. <i>3s. 6d.
+net.</i> Third Edition.</p>
+
+<p class='c027'>THE DRAMA OF LOVE AND DEATH:
+A Story of Human Evolution and Transfiguration. <i>5s. net.</i>
+Second Edition.</p>
+
+<p class='c027'>INTERMEDIATE TYPES AMONG PRIMITIVE
+FOLK: A Study in Social Evolution. <i>4s. 6d. net.</i></p>
+
+<p class='c027'>THE HEALING OF NATIONS. Crown
+8vo. Cloth, <i>2s. 6d. net</i>. Paper, <i>2s. net</i>. Third Edition.</p>
+
+<p class='c027'>THE SIMPLIFICATION OF LIFE. From
+the Writings of <span class='sc'>Edward Carpenter</span>. Crown 8vo.
+New Edition. <i>2s. net.</i></p>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>Social Science Series</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c009'>Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Double Volumes 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*</td>
+    <td class='c009'>Also in Limp Cloth</td>
+    <td class='c028'>1<i>s.</i> <i>net</i>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>**</td>
+    <td class='c009'>Paper Covers</td>
+    <td class='c028'>1<i>s.</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*2.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>CIVILISATION: ITS CAUSE AND CURE.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Edward Carpenter.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*3.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIALISM.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Dr. <span class='sc'>Schäffle</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>4.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>DARWINISM AND POLITICS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>D. G. Ritchie</span>, M.A. (Oxon.).</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td class='c029' colspan='3'>New Edition, with two additional Essays on <span class='sc'>Human Evolution</span>.</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*5.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>RELIGION OF SOCIALISM.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>E. Belfort Bax.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*6.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>ETHICS OF SOCIALISM.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>E. Belfort Bax.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>7.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE DRINK QUESTION.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Dr. <span class='sc'>Kate Mitchell</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>8.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>PROMOTION OF GENERAL HAPPINESS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Prof. <span class='sc'>M. Macmillan</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*9.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>ENGLAND’S IDEAL, &#38;c.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Edward Carpenter.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>10.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Sidney Webb</span>, LL.B.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>11.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>12.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>**13.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE STORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>E. Belfort Bax.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>14.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Laurence Gronlund.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>15.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Bernard Bosanquet</span>, M.A. (Oxon.).</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>16.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>CHARITY ORGANISATION.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>C. S. Loch</span>, Secretary to Charity Organisation Society.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>17.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THOREAU’S ANTI-SLAVERY AND REFORM PAPERS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Edited by <span class='sc'>H. S. Salt</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>18.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>G. J. Holyoake.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>19, 20.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>21.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE UNEARNED INCREMENT.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>W. H. Dawson.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>22, 23.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*24.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>LUXURY.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Emile de Laveleye.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>**25.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE LAND AND THE LABOURERS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Dean <span class='sc'>Stubbs</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>26.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Paul Lafargue.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>27.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>CRIME AND ITS CAUSES.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>W. Douglas Morrison.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*28.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>PRINCIPLES OF STATE INTERFERENCE.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>D. G. Ritchie</span>, M.A.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>29, 30.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>31.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>ORIGIN OF PROPERTY IN LAND.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Fustel de Coulanges.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td class='c029' colspan='3'>Edited, with an Introductory Chapter on the English Manor, by Prof. <span class='sc'>W. J. Ashley</span>, M.A.</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>32.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>33.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Beatrice Potter.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>34.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>35.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>MODERN HUMANISTS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>J. M. Robertson.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>**36.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>OUTLOOKS FROM THE NEW STANDPOINT.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>E. Belfort Bax.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>37.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>DISTRIBUTING CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Dr. <span class='sc'>Luigi Pizzamiglio</span>. Edited by <span class='sc'>F. J. Snell</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>38.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>39.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE LONDON PROGRAMME.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Sidney Webb</span>, LL.B.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>40.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>42.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*43.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE STUDENT’S MARX.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Edward Aveling</span>, D.Sc.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>44.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>45.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>POVERTY: ITS GENESIS AND EXODUS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>J. G. Godard.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>46.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>47.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE DAWN OF RADICALISM.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>J. B. Daly</span>, LL.D.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>48.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE DESTITUTE ALIEN IN GREAT BRITAIN.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Arnold White</span>; <span class='sc'>Montague Crackanthorpe</span>, Q.C.; <span class='sc'>W. A. M‘Arthur</span>, M.P., &#38;c.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>49.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>ILLEGITIMACY AND THE INFLUENCE OF SEASONS ON CONDUCT.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Albert Leffingwell</span>, M.D.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>50.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>COMMERCIAL CRISES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>H. M. Hyndman.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>51.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE STATE AND PENSIONS IN OLD AGE.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>J. A. Spender</span> and <span class='sc'>Arthur Acland</span>, M.P.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>52.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE FALLACY OF SAVING.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>John M. Robertson.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>53.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE IRISH PEASANT.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Anon.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*54.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE EFFECTS OF MACHINERY ON WAGES.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Prof. <span class='sc'>J. S. Nicholson</span>, D.Sc.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>**55.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE SOCIAL HORIZON.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Anon.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>56.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>SOCIALISM, UTOPIAN AND SCIENTIFIC.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Frederick Engels.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>**57.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>LAND NATIONALISATION.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>A. R. Wallace.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>58.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE ETHIC OF USURY AND INTEREST.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Rev. <span class='sc'>W. Blissard</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*59.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Adele Crepaz.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>60.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE EIGHT HOURS’ QUESTION.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>John M. Robertson.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>61.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>DRUNKENNESS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>George R. Wilson</span>, M.B.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>62.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE NEW REFORMATION.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Ramsden Balmforth.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*63.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>T. E. Kebbel.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>64.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>65.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>ENGLAND’S FOREIGN TRADE IN XIXTH CENTURY.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>A. L. Bowley.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>66.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THEORY AND POLICY OF LABOUR PROTECTION.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Dr. Schäffle.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>67.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>HISTORY OF ROCHDALE PIONEERS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>G. J. Holyoake.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>68.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>RIGHTS OF WOMEN.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>M. Ostragorski.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>69.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>DWELLINGS OF THE PEOPLE.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Locke Worthington.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>70–75.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>76.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>BRITISH FREEWOMEN.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>C. M. Stopes.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>77, 78.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>79.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THREE MONTHS IN A WORKSHOP.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>P. Göhre</span>, with Preface by Prof. <span class='sc'>Ely</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>80.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Prof. <span class='sc'>J. B. Haycraft</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>81.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>LOCAL TAXATION AND FINANCE.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>G. H. Blunden.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>82.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>PERILS TO BRITISH TRADE.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>E. Burgis.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>83.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE SOCIAL CONTRACT.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>J. J. Rousseau.</span> Edited by <span class='sc'>H. J. Tozer</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>84.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>LABOUR UPON THE LAND.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Edited by <span class='sc'>J. A. Hobson</span>, M.A.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>85.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>MORAL PATHOLOGY.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Arthur E. Giles</span>, M.D., B.Sc.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>86.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>PARASITISM, ORGANIC AND SOCIAL.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Massart</span> and <span class='sc'>Vandervelde</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*87.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>J. L. Green.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*88.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>MONEY AND ITS RELATIONS TO PRICES.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>L. L. Price.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>89.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>SOBER BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>F. A. Mackenzie.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>90.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>WORKERS ON THEIR INDUSTRIES.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>F. W. Galton.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>91.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Karl Marx.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>92.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>OVER-PRODUCTION AND CRISES.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>K. Rodbertus.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>93.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND STATE AID.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>S. J. Chapman.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>94.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>VILLAGE COMMUNITIES IN INDIA.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>B. H. Baden-Powell</span>, M.A., C.I.E.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>95.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>ANGLO-AMERICAN TRADE.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>S. J. Chapman.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>96.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>97.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>COMMERCIAL FEDERATION &#38; COLONIAL TRADE POLICY.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>J. Davidson</span>, M.A., Phil.D.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>98.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>SELECTIONS FROM FOURIER.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>C. Gide</span> and <span class='sc'>J. Franklin</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>99.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>PUBLIC-HOUSE REFORM.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>A. N. Cumming.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>100.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE VILLAGE PROBLEM.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>G. F. Millin.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>101.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>TOWARD THE LIGHT.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>L. H. Berens.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>102.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>A. V. Woodworth.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>103.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><i>Out of print.</i></td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>104.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Prof. <span class='sc'>J. S. Nicholson</span>, M.A.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>105.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE BIOLOGY OF BRITISH POLITICS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Charles H. Harvey.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*106.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>RATES AND TAXES AS AFFECTING AGRICULTURE.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Prof. <span class='sc'>J. S. Nicholson</span>, M.A.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>107.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>A PRACTICAL PROGRAMME FOR WORKING MEN.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Anon.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>108.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>JOHN THELWALL.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Chas. Cestre</span>, Litt.D.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*109.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>RENT, WAGES AND PROFITS IN AGRICULTURE.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'>Prof. <span class='sc'>J. S. Nicholson</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>110.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>ECONOMIC PREJUDICES.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Yves Guyot.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>111.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL PROBLEMS.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Achille Loria.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>*112.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>WHO PAYS? THE REAL INCIDENCE OF TAXATION.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Robert Henry.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c009'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c009'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td class='c029' colspan='3'>DOUBLE VOLUMES, 3s. 6d.</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c009'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c028'>&#160;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>1.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>LIFE OF ROBERT OWEN.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Lloyd Jones.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>2.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY</strong>: a Second Part      of “The Quintessence of Socialism.”</td>
+    <td class='c028'>Dr. <span class='sc'>A. Schäffle</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>3.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS IN ENGLAND IN 1844.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Frederick Engels.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>4.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL ECONOMY.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>Yves Guyot.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>5.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>SOCIAL PEACE.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>G. von Schultze-Garvernitz.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>6.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>A HANDBOOK OF SOCIALISM.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>W. D. P. Bliss.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>7.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>SOCIALISM: ITS GROWTH AND OUTCOME.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>W. Morris</span> and <span class='sc'>E. B. Bax</span>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c008'>8.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><strong>ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY.</strong></td>
+    <td class='c028'><span class='sc'>A. Loria.</span></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c004'>
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+ <ul class='ul_1 c002'>
+    <li>Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Renumbered footnotes and moved them all to the end of the final chapter.
+    </li>
+  </ul>
+
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78612 ***</div>
+</body>
+<!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i (with regex) on 2026-05-05 21:23:53 GMT -->
+</html>
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diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
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+This book, 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
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78612
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78612)